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Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)/YMMV

< Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)
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  • 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: Tommy Turtle.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Complete Monster: Finitevus wants to wipe out the majority of the world's population and start over (he's a psychotic mix of Mr Sinister and Apocalypse in a creepy albino package). General Kage, leader of a fascist regime that sought to wipe out all echidnas and sported torture chambers and what were fairly obviously concentration camps. And the first Robotnik, who gets pleasure out of the suffering of innocents, merrily plots genocide in his free time and has more issues than Time Magazine.
  • 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, the idea that a woman who's robotic from the waist down could conceive and give birth to children is pretty ridiculous, as is the fact that despite her cybernetics being acquired and not genetic traits, her children also are cyborgs. And yet these two facts actually could suffice to explain away each other, since apparently her reproductive structures are functioning, but only can create cyborgs. Still, poor, poor Antoine.
    • Fridge Horror: Of course, that also means her womb has effectively become a roboticizer, and this could've likely been the case for all females who were roboticized.
    • In-Universe: Eggman realized that the reason he could never beat Sonic was that he absorbed so much Chaos Energy, from the billion plus rings he's collected and the various transformations, that he's become an embodiment of chaos, and was always able to thwart his plans.
  • Furry Fandom: Go to Deviant ART, type in echidnas, and see how many people represent themselves as echidnas. We'll wait.
  • 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.
  • 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 Dr. Eggman could have "reasoned [himself] back from the brink" than there's some hope that Naugus could do it too, which he did at issue 220. Now that Eggman's in hiding and Naugus has been restored to sanity, he seems to be attempting to reverse his decay and make a stab at the Big Bad position. Time will tell if he can pull this off, but so far, his plans seem to be working.
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