Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)/YMMV


 * Accidental Innuendo: Almost certainly unintentional, but still: Lupe comes from the word Lupa, which is Latin and means either she-wolf, or, well...
 * Alas, Poor Scrappy:
 * Archive Panic: It can be hard to get into the comic at first because of it's vast, complex backstory developed over 200 issues, any one of which can be referenced at random in a newer issue.
 * Author's Saving Throw: Ian Flynn's fans believe he has managed to pull off a lot of these, especially regarding plots left dangling or satisfied unsatisfactorily by the previous author.
 * Base Breaker: Princess Sally. Oh, Princess Sally.
 * Broken Base: Seasonal Rot is largely the cause of this. Where did the Dork Age start? Where did it end? Did it end? Was Sally's Chickification justified, or was it a hideously huge breach of established character just to sink the fanbase's largest ship? The typical benchmarks are that the series started to decline after Endgame, took a full-on nosedive during the Bem/Xorda arc, and has only started recovering since issue #160 with Ian Flynn being head writer.
 * Arguably applies on a much wider scale. There's the Sonic fans who love the comics and those that despise it.
 * Canon Sue: Though he was accepted by most of the fanbase, Knuckles started turning into this after a while. Being part of a vast lineage wasn't the end of it, he eventually came to have an important prophecy associated with him and took on powers that allowed him to warp reality as he saw fit. At its peak, Knuckles started to eclipse Sonic in importance, and one storyline set in the future revealed that Knuckles destroyed Robotnik, who was Sonic's main villain and rival. Add onto his his previous friendship and relationship with Sally, and you get the distinct impression that Knuckles had pretty much taken over the comic. Recently, however, they've started to balance this, with Sonic taking the reins back as main character, and him, Tails, and Knuckles being defined as Mobius's quintessential Power Trio.
 * Many fans blame former head writer Ken Penders for this, as he's accused of turning Knuckles (and the Echidna race as a whole) into a Spotlight-Stealing Squad, while he was in charge.
 * And, of course, there's Princess Sally...
 * Complete Monster: The original Dr. Ivo Robotnik, formerly Julian Kintobor of House Ivo, delights in causing suffering, is fiercely obsessed with power, despises organic life and wishes to wipe it out so that robotics can take it's place, and is willing to deprive creatures of their free will to make them work in his factories. Don't mistake his occasional brief team-ups with the heroes for acts of redemption; he just cooperates with them when he thinks it will be to his own benefit. And his humorous personality doesn't detract from his atrocities either. During the Great War, he intended to test weapons he'd developed for the government on his own people and fled to the Mobians side when he was to be punished for his actions. While acting as Warlord for King Acorn, he secretly captured a peaceful village of Mobian monkeys and utilized them in an early attempt to create mechanical slaves by surgically implanting cybernetics, and of that entire village only one survived the process. Afterwards, he sabotaged the Roboticizer co-developed by Charles Hedgehog just as it was to be used on his wounded brother Jules, making him think he'd turned his own brother into a mindless drone. When Jules' wife discovered the truth, Julian had Jules toss her into the Roboticizer and transformed into a Robian as well, orphaning Sonic and crushing Charles' spirit to the point of retiring from being a Science Minister to running a chili dog stand. He then did similarly to Tails' father Amadeus on the day of his birth, making it seem as though Amadeus could care less for his newborn son and subsequently shattering his wife's heart, throughout which Julian maintained a straight face. Following his betrayal of King Acorn and the takeover of Mobius, Julian made himself into a cyborg and gave himself the name of Dr. Ivo Robotnik. His rise to power saw much natural wildlife and habitats destroyed in order for his pollution factories to be built, including the city of Mobotropolis getting transformed into Robotropolis, and countless families were broken and millions enslaved, with Charles Hedgehog being one such victim after Robotnik seized him at his chili dog stand. Over the course of a decade, Robotnik would wreak havoc upon planet Mobius, destroying the ecology and even pushing more than a few Mobian breeds to the brink of extinction. And just prior to his death, he displayed a deeply disturbing relish at the thought of murdering one of his own kind and was positively gleeful when he got the chance to use his latest and greatest weapon on a fellow overlander.
 * And then there is his alternate reality counterpart and eventual successor, Robo Robotnik, AKA Dr. Eggman, who hailed from a Mobius where he eventually conquered and destroyed everything, wiped out the Freedom Fighters, roboticized himself and then decided to head to Mobius Prime to replace his deceased doppelganger and re-live the thrill of conquering Mobius out of sheer boredom, and so he's pretty much the reigning king of evil on Mobius. Though he's gone through several bouts of Villain Decay, when he comes back, he comes back BIG! His evil is, if anything, even more faux affable than his predecessor, which, if anyting, makes him even more of a Complete Monster. One of the most unnerving of his many, many atrocious acts is the creation of the Egg Grapes: like his old powering of robots with animals, but on a bigger scale. These things sucked the life force from Mobians to power his city. He basically re-eradicated the Echidna race with these things alone. Ten seconds in the process was enough to render Charmy Bee a semi-coherent loon. One of his (now deceased) minions actually asked Eggman if there wasn't some more efficient energy source he could use. He agreed there probably was, but "Where was the fun in that?" Before that, he pretended to be a savior to a displaced group of his race - including his own brother- when he was letting them get fatally poisoned by radiation with the intent of robotosizing them later. He was especially gleeful about doing this to his aforementioned brother. And all the stuff written about his predecessor above? He did almost all of that, too, in his home dimension, and he only ever goes further and further over the Moral Event Horizon from there.
 * Dr Finitevus was once a fellow scientist of a race of prosperous Echidnas, until a freak accident changed his looks and intelligence. Despite his new-found genius, he was declared mentally unstable and was to be put down. He escaped and later sold out his home to Dr. Robotnik. Everyone who had once lived there died later. Furthermore, this guy manipulated four whole sides in a war (Dingoes, Echidnas, and two Dark Legion factions) into providing the fuel for the fire of his master plan, which is basically him deciding the world is hopelessly corrupt and he wants to purify it...in fire. He, to this end, manipulated Dimitri, a head in a jar, into providing secrets and information, and then manipulated Knux into becoming Knuxerjak and starting a battle with his former friends after the whole corruption from power thing. Finitevus' expression at the scene where Knux becomes Enerjak shows he is not only mad, but completely delighted, even as his betrayed allies watch on and denounce him.
 * Dark Enerjak is the tyrannical ruler of another dimension. He is actually a version of Knuckles the Echidna whose Chaos Powers went out of control, also fueled by a desire to make the world a better place. While he started out noble, he gradually went more and more insane as time went on, before he considered everyone an enemy. Among his atrocities are: the sinking of an entire continent, likely causing countless deaths; the destruction of several enemy cities, such as Station Square, as punishment for their defiance; and the capture of his strongest opponents and ripping their soul out - victims including Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Amy, Sally, and just about all the villains, including the previously-mentioned Eggman and Finitevus. As if to re-affirm his evil, you get a full shot of many of his more prominent victims after he demonstrates the process on his newest captive. He turns the souls into robotic slaves known as "Prelates" with his power. His soulmate was one of his victims, and he made sure not to use her soul to form a Prelate until the final battle...he summoned her to fight their daughter, much to said daughter's disbelief. He also announced how it would be "unfortunate" to suck his daughter's soul out too, showing he's far gone. Upon getting his power taken away, he pretends to be sane again, hoping his daughter will give it back. Fortunately, she's wise to his true nature and promptly shatters the very sword that makes it possible to transfer such great power between individuals.
 * General Kage Von Stryker, the leader of the Eggman-backed Dingo Regime. After ousting his father from power, Kage led his people in conquering Angel Island, imprisoning the Echidnas in what were clearly concentration camps, which led to countless deaths. The one good thing to come of Knuckles becoming Enerjak (not to be confused with Dark Enerjak above) was that he atomized this bastard and wiped his city off the map. And that's not all, as he personally tortured Knuckles's father for the location of the Master Emerald, tried to wipe out the last echidna village on two separate occasions, and during the second attack, he boasted that he had crushed more Echidnas under his boot than he could even remember. While like Helmut, Kage also bore a deep hatred for the echidnas, unlike his father, Kage just wanted to flat out Kill 'Em All.
 * Minor villain Hunter's entire deal was hunting down certain specimens of Mobian, as his name suggests. He debuted trying to do just this to Knuckles. This would make him a standard nasty piece of work, but then Hunter revealed that not only did he hunt down Mobians, but he'd also claim their severed heads as trophies. Working with Eggman, Hunter became a gleeful participant in the genocide of the Echidna and other Angel Island inhabitants, capturing droves of poor souls to be sent to the Egg Grape Chambers to perish in a slow, horrible fashion by having the very life drained from them. This put Hunter beyond the pale, establishing him as truly an honorless, irredeemable scumbag.
 * Continuity Lock Out: The first couple of issues of Sonic Universe have this problem. #1 gave such a quick summary of Sonic Rush Adventure that only people who played the game knew what was going on. Also, #1 continued from Sonic X #40 (a whole different series), which continued from Sonic the Hedgehog #196, which was part of a large story arc from the main series. #2 was an adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 (probably an attempt to explain how it did fit into the continuity, as the original adaptation didn't really tell the reader much of anything about the game's story or how it fit into continuity), but would probably be pretty confusing to anyone who didn't play the original game.
 * This may be why the Sonic the Hedgehog comic offering for the 2009 Free Comic Book Day was more of a lengthy synopsis about the characters and the story than anything else...
 * It should be noted that they can't get too into the Sonic Rush Series side of things, as they're apparently forbidden from using Eggman Nega beyond a few ominous references.
 * Creator's Pet: Tommy Turtle and possibly Sally.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: You'd be surprised just how many pictures there are on Deviant ART of this comic's villains in suggestive situations, but it's perhaps this one takes the cake.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Among the comic-only characters, Scourge has a large following, as do Mina Mongoose and Dr. Finitevus. And the Fandom Rejoiced when Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts were revealed to be returning after more than 100 issues of absence.
 * Nicole, Sally's handheld A.I., had been an ancillary character since almost the beginning of the comic. Then along came Tania Del Rio's "Stargazing", which gave her a Mobian form and sent her popularity right through the roof -- and Nicole subsequently catapulted to Major Character status, overtaking even longstanding characters in the fanart department since her debut and never halting since.
 * Epileptic Trees: There are many fans who believe that Lien-Da and Finitevus were involved at some point during the X Years Later timeline, and that he's the father of her son Rutan (this being mostly due to the fact that the tips of Rutan's dreadlocks are white, like Finitevus' fur.)
 * Evil Is Sexy: Lien-Da. A sexy as hell Echidna girl in skintight leather and a habit of whip wielding? What's not to like here?
 * The Iron Queen has more than a few fans too. As does Finitevus, Scourge, Fiona, and (disturbingly) Snively and Eggman.
 * Nicole's lynx avatar doesn't look half bad. Iron Nicole looks even better.
 * Fandom Rivalry: With Fleetway's Sonic the Comic.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Bunnie is the source of a lot of this. For starters, it's kind of coincidental that a rabbit who only becomes partially robotic as soon as the events of the comic start would have the last name "Rabbot" her whole life. It turns out that it's actually supposed to be pronounced "Rah-boh," but people just assumed it was "Rah-bot," her being a (half) robotic rabbit and all, and she just went along with it. (For a similar name pronunciation scenario, but in reverse, see Stephen Colbert.) In addition,
 * Fridge Horror: Of course, that also means.
 * In-Universe:
 * Furry Fandom: Go to Deviant ART, type in echidnas, and see how many people represent themselves as echidnas. We'll wait.
 * Hedgehogs - particularly ones with pinstripes - and two-tailed foxes are equally common. Most blame the comics and the SatAM cartoon for this most directly.
 * Mary Sue: Super Sonic is noted of this.
 * Jerkass Woobie: Strange as it sounds, you could actually make the case for Fiona. She really does have serious abandonment issues and her self-esteem is such that she'd sooner stick by Scourge, who at least once casually slapped her around, over Sonic when the latter started to question her loyalty to him. Even Word of God has hinted that she's still not all bad.
 * Snively is also a classic example. Nothing goes right for the poor guy in his life, so you pity him...but he brings so much of these problems upon himself due to his treacherous nature, so you also think he's an asshole.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Mammoth Mogul most certainly didn't fit the bill for this early on, even though he was clearly meant to be one. An immortal cavemammoth from earth's second Ice Age (it's complicated), Mogul was always plotting and scheming, with the writers trying their darndest to build him up with unlikely Xanatos Gambit stories. Nothing worked, and his world domination plans failed again and again and again. He spent more time being imprisoned than anything else. Then one day Mogul wised up and essentially said to the heroes "I just remembered that I'm immortal. So here's my new plan: I'll live in this sweet casino I just had built, amuse myself by taking pot shots at you whenever I can, and wait for you all to die of old age. I can beat you by outliving you."
 * Moral Event Horizon: The original Dr. Robotnik famously crossed it in "Endgame", as did Drago.
 * Nightmare Fuel: In-universe. Mina didn't take the Iron Dominion's invasion of New Mobotropolis well. Particularly Nicole being Brainwashed and Crazy.
 * "If you or any of your enchinda-buddies cross me, you're all going up like a fireworks festival." Complete with a Slasher Smile and the green lighting, Eggman just proved he can still scare if he wants to.
 * This panel gives us a very surprising reminder of what the original Dr. Robotnik was like.
 * Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Silver of the much maligned Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. His comic version is liked a lot more because his personality has been changed to a guy who is not very confident in his abilities as a "Set Right What Once Went Wrong" guy.
 * Silver was always like that though.
 * Except Archie!Silver is much less annoying about it, and is (slightly) more easy to reason with.
 * Romantic Plot Tumor: Plagued the comic for quite a long time. Luckily the comic has since moved on.
 * The Scrappy: Tommy Turtle probably got it the worst, but Dulcy and pre-Character Development Antoine had no few detractors. Mind you none of them had anything on Chris Thorndyke.
 * Post-Character Development Antoine gets it bad too. The fanbase seems divided whether he was originally an annoying one-note Jerkass, or if maturing his character robbed him of his defining characteristics and made him bland. The poor guy just can't win.
 * Suetiful All Along: Many are accusing Sally of leaning into this. Attempts have been made to place Sally in a flawed light due to her emotional outbursts, with later strips lampshading her treatment towards Sonic. However, it is only Sally herself that comes to this conclusion, which generally only leads others to sympathise with her Heroic BSODs and comfort and justify her actions. The fact that the current writer released a blog on how wonderful Sally is (notably consisting solely of less than discript positive traits) doesn't help this at all.
 * They Just Didn't Care: Some of the artwork in this series, but issue 15 Sonic Super Specials and issue 113 of the main series are standout cases. Fortunately, the current team seem determined to make the art at least passable. There are also debates as to whether or not some of the writing qualifies or not. Let's leave it at that, shall we?
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Issue 172 probably holds one of the most blatant examples, in fact, a double. First, after Fiona tells Tails that he can't count on anybody before slapping him across the face, she sets Sonic as her prime example due to him leaving her imprisoned back in the mining camp (in the 28th issue of the Knuckles The Echidna comic). Sonic attempts to overrule her point by starting off with "That's no excuse to..." before ending up in another physical spat with Scourge, along with Fiona just tell him to "shut up already". Second, when Sonic and Scourge confront each other about why Fiona chose to be with Scourge, Scourge points out that the only way for Sonic to be like him would be "one bad day", which causes Sonic to counterattack by pointing out that Scourge would be just like him if he showed "a little bit of selflessness" and "a little bit of decency". Scourge is completely at a loss for words at this point... until Fiona abruptly intervenes and kicks Sonic aside, claiming that he "had [his] chance". She even goes on to put him down by claiming that he's a weakling by holding back and that "it's all about survival of the best".
 * Issue #108 would also count, having both the original and the new Dr. Robotnik together in the same reality...only to have them dink around for a third of the issue before the old one disintegrated.
 * This is a big complaint about Ian's post-"cleaning up" works, up to and including the Iron Dominion saga; many plot points he brought up during this time (such as the revolution of the Kingdom of Acorn into a republic and Eggman going insane) had lots of potential for interesting stories of their own, but were notoriously prone to Snap Back fever. In fact, this became one of the biggest reasons, alongside Pacing Problems, for why even die-hard Ian fans like to hate on the Iron Dominion saga.
 * Unfortunate Implications: In retrospect: One of the most controversial topics of the comic is Rotor's Word of Gay reveal. Ken Penders had indicated on his message board that a major character in Mobius: 25 Years Later was gay. It was possible to deduce that said character was Rotor. However, before anything became official, Ian Flynn took over, and in his version of Mobius: 25 Years later Cobar was brutally killed and Rotor subject to Cold-Blooded Torture. Then, the official reveal came out that the gay couple in question was, in fact, Rotor and Cobar. Oops.
 * Years later, Flynn commented that he would have approached things differently had he known they were meant to be a couple.
 * Values Dissonance: Covering everything from the systems of government on Mobius to the clothes the characters don't wear.
 * Villain Decay: Taken to the logical conclusion with Eggman in the 200th issue.
 * Ixis Naugus suffered from this in a very disappointing way. In his first appearance, he was portrayed as a strong force worthy of being feared. He had powers that could control the weather and the movement of the earth, and he forced Sonic and Tails into a wild goose chase around the world before they sent him back to the Void. Several years later, he came back in a rather Badass way, making the Arachne his servants, claiming the Sword of Acorns and trashing both Dr. Eggman's headquarters and his robot bodyguard Mecha pretty badly. However, when he found out that Mammoth Mogul was the founder of the Order of Ixis, he gave him the Sword of Acorns and became his second-in-command, only to be captured by the now pissed off Dr. Eggman and sent to the Egg Grape Chamber. There he became insane and now he's nothing more but a dumb animal, only loyal to Mogul, and without any of the awesome powers he once had. A poor way to end a character slated to become the next main villain of SatAM, but if could have "reasoned [himself] back from the brink" than there's some hope that Naugus could do it too,