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The Sonic ask box!
- The Sonic ask box!
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The Sonic ask box!
Josiahblaze > 01-24-2024, 10:33 PM
I've been thinking about trying something like this for a while now.
So, the idea of this this thread is pretty simple. You send in any questions you have about the Sonic franchise, and I will try to answer them for you. It can be a question about the games, the comics, the TV series', you name it. Anything Sonic-related.
This isn't meant to be a quiz game or anything (so if you know the answer to a question, you probably shouldn't bother asking it here), but if there's something you've been wondering about, I'll provide an answer if can. And if I can't, anyone in the comments is welcome to answer if they know it.
So, with that said, fire away!
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RE: The Sonic ask box!
Josiahblaze > 01-25-2024, 08:57 AM
(01-25-2024, 08:03 AM)NeoMetallix Wrote: Great idea @undefinedJosiahblazeundefined!
This is a tough one to answer, because of how broad Archie is.
Do you know if the Archie characters are able to be used in IDW or are they owned by Archie themselves?
I'm sure you know that the Archie series was rebooted due to Ken Penders creating a lawsuit. He thought that all the characters he created for the comic were his property (including one character he creatively titled "Green Knuckles") and he wasn't happy when several of the characters in Sonic Chronicles were inspired by his. The lawsuit kind of ended in a stalemate because some important documents had gotten burned in a fire, but the comic still got rebooted to remove all his stuff from it.
So, all of Ken Penders' Archie characters are certainly never coming back. That includes almost every Echidna from the series, and some other characters like Elias Acorn. On top of that, the lawsuit means that any Penders-inspired characters from Sonic Chronicles probably aren't coming back either. So Shade and the Nocturnus Clan are probably gone for good.
The lawsuit made Sega nervous, to say the least. When the comic was rebooted, they also chose to remove the characters created by other writers out of fear they might sue. Which is unfortunate, because two of the other prominent writers, Karl Bollers (creator of Mina Mongoose and Hope Kintobor) and Michael Gallagher, seemed to be completely fine with their characters being used. The Pre-reboot characters created by Flynn were allowed to stay, though.
So, pretty much all non-Flynn characters created prior to the reboot probably aren't coming back, since Sega might not own them. But what about the characters in the reboot?
The good news is, Sega does own them. After the Penders lawsuit, they really wanted to get their legal stuff straight. The bad news is, Sega just doesn't want to use them. Like the Freedom Fighters, and the characters from Sonic X, Sega 100% owns the reboot Archie cast, but don't want them in the comics. At least not now.
So, if Sega changes their minds, the reboot Archie cast could appear in the IDW comics. -
RE: The Sonic ask box!
Josiahblaze > 01-25-2024, 10:28 AM
Sure, you can sticky it.
And, yes. Sally, Nicole, Bunnie, Rotor, and Antoine are currently considered off-limits by Sega. I'm not actually sure where the rest of the SatAM characters (like Snively) fall when it comes to legality, so it's possible DiC owns them. I know Archie had a deal with DiC where they could use all the characters from their Sonic cartoons, which is why characters from SatAM and AoStH kept appearing in the comics up until Archie got cancelled. -
RE: The Sonic ask box!
NeoMetallix > 01-25-2024, 04:41 PM
Well that is interesting. Maybe someday we will see the freedom fighters return. -
RE: The Sonic ask box!
BDBGaming > 01-26-2024, 09:06 AM
Lets hope! -
RE: The Sonic ask box!
Josiahblaze > 01-26-2024, 08:00 PM
Yeah, the idea was that Flying Battery was going to take place after Carnival Night, and before Ice Cap. You might have noticed that when Sonic breaks out of Flying Battery in the final game, he knocks the door off. Originally, Sonic was going to land on that door and ride it like a snowboard during the start of Ice Cap. But when the decision to split the game was made, Sega realized the Sonic & Knuckles part needed more levels, so they moved Flying Battery over to that.
Now, if you want to go back even further, according to the concept artwork, Knuckles was planned to skip over Flying Battery and Lava Reef entirely, and would instead visit two unique Zones absent from Sonic's story. Unfortunately, we don't know what these Zones were meant to be, since the art just calls them "Rival Zone 5" and "Rival Zone 10". Nothing from them seems to have been programmed in, either, so it seems Sega canned the idea pretty early.
