I don’t believe any writer is flawless, but I do think people are really desperate to pin blame on any scapegoat.

Hold on, he said Sonic and Amy had a will they won't they relationship? No they don't. It was always one sided. Look I like the shipping as much as the next guy, but it was never will sonic date her or not

This aged like milk. Hop off blud.

Ok i thought this video was about him how he actually fell off but no it's just some dudes talking about why they don't like ian Flynn's writing...wow what a Click bait! This whole title and thumbnail is a click bait just because you don't like his writing which...that's fine and all everyone are entitled to their own opinions but that doesn't mean he actually fell off like what exactly do you mean by fell off did he do something truly terrible and bad to become someone like butch Hartman and their reputation actually go to shit or something? but no it's just some dude complaining about his writing and because they didn't liked his writing say he fell off :/ This whole video is a click bait just to get more views and likes that's the way i see it! Hypocrites.

He's a writer for the sonic franchise he's gonna from rise to fall in the matter of seconds to the fans

Who else thought Erika Alexander’s name was Frika Alexander when they showed her name? Or if That was Erika Alexander dancing while the intro was going on? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Watching this again and again and I keep thinking the same thing. Ian Flynn is basically the Don Bluth of Sonic. When given direction and material to work with, he does great. When he's left alone to do his own thing however, it's a mess. But people like it anyways xD

Nah it's solid for the most part (except shadow)

Had to stop watching because your recap of the Archie comics is wrong. For starters, the E.V.E. story takes place way before the Egg Grapes and Evil Sonic stuff. Second, that page you were showing of Evil Sonic, Bunnie, the aliens, etc., is not even from a comic; it's just a collage of panels from various issues, some of which don't even occur near each other. Third, no, Evil Sonic does not "bang" Bunnie. In fact, she gets weirded out when he tries to kiss her. If you're going to criticize something, at least get your info straight.

To put it simply: I understand where Ian's coming from but having Amy not giggity for Sonic (or at least have that crazy edge to her personality she lacks now) is like having Pepe Le Pew go to therapy, its just not right.

For reference next time you talk about a show like this: stop interrupting/taking so much spotlight from your co hosts. You cut in a lot or bombard the topics with your own opinions instead of letting them share their own, especially Derp, probably because he has more negative to say about the show than you. I was interested in what he really had to say too since his opinion was more different from you and Waffles... but he barely got to talk. You're allowed to like something about the show that's fine, but I found it disrespectful when you cut him off and say "No, I like that actually..." Well he said he doesn't and that's valid. Calling him a "hater" for not liking it too also seems strange. Just try and be a bit more quiet and open to giving him a chance to speak his true mind. Instead it felt like you were sneakily trying to coax him into liking it and/or he was afraid to say how he truly felt.

In my opinion get a life

I believe deep in my bones that they should have just gone full action slapstick with this. It could have worked so well, especially sonce the Looney tunes already have such defined, ego driven personalities that would make fantastic little stories. And the fun they could have had referencing classic characters and shorts and gags. It could have been great.

No "OCs" gemerl

What's the point of Knuckles or Blaze if you remove those aspect of their character and the world? The fact they bring em to the table? For theit design? To me, it comes off as jangling keys. I don't know how we insist on this, but go on about adding charaters that dont add anything other than them being there.

I have a pitch for Surge and Kit, actually, which I think would help flesh out the world overall. For Surge, I started by giving her an actual name instead of a codename(I went with Verity, but that's just what came to mind. I ended up liking it.) and an actual backstory with relationships to people outside the circle of characters we've seen in the comic. I was gonna give her a dad and a best friend who the dad doesn't like. Then eventually(after we've already met her), we'd meet the dad, who I ended up calling Victor, tearing through an eggman base by himself, ripping robots apart with his bare hands while looking for his daughter. Like, he doesn't even have any special powers, he's just really pissed off, kind of like Knuckleduster from MHA Vigilantes. Her best friend was gonna be this kleptomaniac raccoon boy named Delta. As for Kit, I changed him from a Fennec to a Kit Fox, which is the smallest Fox in North America. He was gonna be so small he could fit into a backpack, which I thought was pretty cute, but the twist is that Kit is actually a Kitsune. Instead of the water powers thing, I was gonna make it where Kit has a regenerative healing factor and his senses are so heightened, he can picture almost perfectly what's going on on the other side of a wall. Later on he was gonna develop extra powers. Of course, neither of them remember their old lives, which makes it a complete mystery for Kit's side of things, because Starline only left vague notes about him on his computers.

Archie Sonic is peak IDW Sonic is mid

Interestingly, sonics morality is very similar to that of Goku's during the Moro arc. Goku has a conversation with Merus that has a similar tune to Sonics convo with Surge where he is asked why he lets his enemies live and why doesn't kill them. Similar to sonic his reasoning is pretty selfish in that he keeps enemies around because he's confident if they get stronger and stay evil he will just get stronger then them and stop them, and after this has happened enough times they will hopefully turn good. The manga tries to justify Goku's decision by showing how only through the help of people that Goku has spared and let change (the androids, Vegeta, Majin Buu, and Uub) does he beat Moro, but this ignores the fact that he lets someone like Frieza roam free where in instances like the end of the Broly movie we know that Frieza just casually destroys planets (killing millions if not billions) just for fun, so people do suffer from Goku's decisions. Thankfully the manga doesn't repeatedly ask this question to Goku, or even really try to justify it explicitly, but the criticism is still there. For Sonic you can point to something like how him not having Metal Sonic decommissioned before the metal virus outbreak is what eventually lead to them saving the day because he was there to help take down Zavok in the end, but the issues with keeping around someone like Eggman or Zavok still exists.

What I want to believe Clutch is representing them as heroes as a distraction and for P.R. Clean Sweeps other "activities" Sonic is most likely an ESTP an extravert and thrill seeker, Surge is an unhealthy ESTP attention and thrill seeking are taken to the extreme forever chasing the high. Planning and self reflection generally go against that personalities nature when it's inexperienced. Kit is her yang to her yin, but he's won't have that conversation. As submissive and obsessed as he is of Surge, would he let her change? He doesn't take change or being away from her well, would he fail to let her change thinking in his mind he knows whats best for both of them. Kit doesn't handle being alone well, would he manipulate her into Goin bad again, get insecure and jealous of the attention she's getting. Keep in mind she may be a rewritten Scourge from Archie on some level.

Seeing all these characters (and Gemrl) lined up really highlights that these character designers really like their whites, blacks, greens and yellows.

I think the reasons Scrapnik Island works so well and why the rest of the comic doesn’t is that: 1. It doesn’t feel like an apology for Forces and the characterizations in that game. 2. Sonic isn’t quick to just trust Mecha Sonic right off the bat, he’s given time to trust Mecha. 3. It isn’t trying to be a meta commentary on anything involving the state of the franchise. It’s tries to be an actual story. 4. Mecha’s entire story and motive is developed upon. It’s shown, not told, and he gets a satisfying ending to his arc. I’m going to die on this hill, Scrapnik Mecha Sonic is the best character to come from IDW.

I don't think this should be the downfall of ian...he just needs to take the criticism and change up his writing a bit and with his skills I'm sure he can do something that benefits himself, company and dans

Quality podcast right here. I couldn't keep reading IDW and you succinctly summarized the reasons why. This comic is like being in limbo. I didn't read the latest chapters so maybe Evan can make it better?? Also am I the only one who hates how tacked-on the Zeti are? They are still one-note bad guys from Lost World, but this time they KILL people FOR REAL, so DARK and MATURE! These guys are a load of bull.

It's really nice to see, that both have some good points. In the previous video I agreed with Lavi, in this one with Mayday. I think the general issue that falls upon the topics in this video, is what the comics are about. Are the comics about Sonic and the Restoration, or about the characters and stories in the series in general, with different arcs or issues having different main characters. Another thought about the whole Surge discussion (and let me state here, that I do not like Surge all too much), is that a character can change their core traits through character development, which seems to fall under what Lavi calls "rewriting" (at least from what I understood in this context). Yes, there would be an eventual point where Surge would have to come to a decision and such, but that doesn't mean the issues detailing that path to there are a complete waste, cause that time could have been used on other characters. Like it or not, there really isn't too much flexibility for the game cast, so for any larger growth you just have to use these... well... OCs. Also to bear in mind, is that my perspective is from what's given, trying to steer away from the "it should have been done differently" or "it would be much better if the comics were their own thing" and all that. I hope that I at least managed to somewhat convey my thoughts 😅

Surge is the best new addition to the cast. This just feels like another "idw sonic is bad" video. Aks judging from your other idw videos I'm correct to think that. There's always a few haters

I used to read the Archie Sonic comics when I was younger and I always loved them to bits. It’s what got me into comics in general, and I remember loving the Mecha-Sally arc that Ian wrote. When I found out that Archie had a reboot, I didn’t think much of it and read it anyway, coz it was Sonic. But now I’m a bit older and can actually identify what good writing is… yeah, reboot Archie isn’t all that great. It’s not bad from what I read, but Preboot will always be better. And now, IDW. I remember reading it the first time, and just… that feeling of.. I don’t know, emptiness? It just felt so bland to me, even back then. And while recently I decided to try to get through IDW with a pinch of salt, I just always thought to myself “this is no way as good as what Ian wrote for Archie.” And I think I’m right about that.

Not trying to be an asshole here but the guy that keeps stuttering, starting sentences over and going uh uh uh really needs to work on talking if he wants to be in arguments and podcasts. Really irritating.

IDW, and specifically the Metal Virus arc really got me into the comics, but then I read Flynn Era PreBoot, and it makes me wonder what made Ian fall off so hard. PreBoot was amazing, and makes IDW look like a joke.

Best thing they can do with Surge after her story is resolved is go from chaotic evil to chaotic neutral, and have her leave the story and come back every now and then when they’re needed. She could be those hype characters that when you see them you actually get excited but she better be strong enough to to not get washed up, and actually do cool sh*t to generate a stronger aura. Surge is the only reason I got into idw so if there’s something way better than this then I prefer that outcome instead. I want this character to be treated with respect!

We need an IDW equivalent to Archie Sonic Universe

Characters can have there own plot lines that don't need to connect into other peoples, thats not an issue, it's actually a good thing because it allows writers to focus on something other than the main plot and eventually write in that connection at a later date, like two separate streams eventually connecting.

The problem is Surge and Kit were supposed to be the characters that directly challenge Sonic's philosophy of giving everyone complete freedom no matter how bad the consequences. They were supposed to be living representations of how his beliefs perpetuate this cycle of pain and misery for everyone else. Giving villains their freedom takes away everyone else's freedom. That's supposed to be the main, overarching storyline of the comics if I'm not mistaken, especially with issue 50 being this "main event" kind of issue. The problem is they're no longer ACTUALLY addressing this issue. They're no longer addressing what made Surge and Kit villains in the first place. At least it doesn't seem like it. That's why everything doesn't make sense. The characters' stories aren't tying together because there's nothing to tie into anymore. Now it seems like they're just reducing it to everyone has freedom of choice. Well yes, but not when your "freedom of choice" is quite literally taken away from you all because a certain "hero" refuses to permanently stop the people doing that. The comics are supposed to circle back to this conflict they started in issue 50 and ultimately resolve it. But it doesn't look like they're doing that as of right now. So while the story might eventually turn out ok with Surge and Kit becoming good, the way they're doing that is bad. The comics should resolve the main issue by allowing Sonic to realize that true justice cannot exist with his idea of "freedom." That's how Surge, Kit, and everyone else's stories would tie into Sonic's story. But they're not doing that. They made a big deal out of this "freedom" vs. "justice" debate, and now they refuse to resolve it.

Whisper and tangle are probably my favorite characters, that being said I do kind of feel like their team up is getting a bit stale. Kind of hoping it’s some point they split the two off for a bit. More for whispers sake, so she can start teaming up with other people.

WE NEED MORE MEN!

To sort of directly compare with Archie, typically the mainline Archie comics for Sonic had a plethora of secondary characters that populated different regions of the world that made the story and general world building a lot more lively, and we'll realized. They were never uber intrusive (barring the Echidnas I suppose), and the focus was almost always on the main cast of characters, being Sonic primarily, and the Freedom Fighters second. With IDW, Sonic and Co. are secondary, and while the OC characters are primary it feels like.

0:00:55 I disagree with this one. The franchise I think has the most in common with Sonic, both in terms of the titular character sharing the same character archetype as well following a similar story formula (at least with the games), would be Lupin III, which is twice as old as Sonic is but has really only been using the same 5 main characters the whole time. 1:21:49 I've been saying this for the longest time. For as weird and stupid as the mandates may seem, they're ultimately rather innocuous when it comes to just writing a simple fun adventure story, which they've shown to be perfectly capable of doing when it comes to the Annuals/Specials/On-shot comics. The problem is that they're only now finding out that the stories they really want to write just don't work with the versions of the characters they now have, and it's leading to a lot of "square peg -> round hole" scenarios. 1:31:00 Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a great example and is honestly what the comics should've been at the very least.

Thought we'd get more on Belle or any of the other characters this dialogue.

This is one of few videos I've seen that critics Flynn pretty fairly. They aren't disrespectful towards him and his accomplishments, and have fair points to problems that have been in most of his works. I think Flynn is a good idea man, he does some real great pulls from the Sonic franchise that are very appreciated and he's always been clearly a fan first. However, he often fails to conclude story arcs in IDW in a satisfying or meaningful matter. Metal Virus had a really neat Super Sonic and Super Silver fight with a powered up Zavok, but what happened afterwards was really messy.

Honestly when I saw this video in my recommendations, I thought it was gonna be way worse

Tbh, although I don't really read much about this guy's comics (and I... really DON'T care, i consider him just another writer anyway), one thing that did annoy me was that he basically implies that sonic first met eggman DURING sonic 1, even tho it's basically obvious that it is not their first time meeting (like how eggman is always prepared to attack sonic and how the December 2020 sonic channel page of Dr eggman is still saying that they met before sonic 1, not during it.), heck not even S1's opening cutscene in the game implies it's their first time meeting, unlike sonic 2's cutscene where it is obvious that tails first met sonic there. This isn't even the first time he wrote it like this, in the sonic genesis comics (aka the time eggman just reset the universe the first time), which adapts sonic 1 and 2, eggman and sonic first met there. Ian Flynn just... really has a habit of just making eggman and sonic first meet in the 1st game instead of before. Lol

I think this just wouldn't be a problem if it were more like the games in the first place. Eggman in the games is depicted as a bad guy sure, but he's not outright, explicitly shown to be like, evil incarnate. He's just an egotistical jerk placing his mark everywhere, like a vain politician. Yes, realistically that kind of person would likely be a dictator and responsible for killing a lot of people... buuuuut this isn't the real world. it's a funny talking cartoon animal one, and I think this whole aspect of his character in the comic is an outdated carryover from the SatAM variation which, itself, was just a black-and-white "cute critters protect the environment" narrative. At worst his schemes get out of hand when he summons some of godlike entity that threatens a city, the planet, existence. I know there's edge cases where he sets up a bomb in station square or threatens to fire the ARK cannon on earth, but my point is the games never let him cross that line explicitly, he's always stopped or undercut by something else. This allows the character to still be endearing. I don't really think about Sonic needing to do more than take Eggman down a peg in the games, and by extension the games never dwell further on it. And rightly so, since there's no way they could adequately address that without killing a character, metaphorically or literally. It'd be stupid to even bring up.

Yes, end of discussion. Just actually have her move on ONSCREEN rather than the weird retconning of her obsessive phase the games have been on. If there's going to be romance in the series, save it for people that AREN'T Sonic, the guy meant to be the Anti-Mario that doesn't go chasing the ladies and a free spirit that doesn't jive with being tied down by a committed relationship.

Ian Flynn is pretty bad at fixing plot holes too when it comes to game writing

Meanwhile Feetway Sonic: not interested in relationships. Also this the idea of Amy not having crush on sonic has been done in sonic the comic and it works for multiple reasons: 1 Sonic is different character thanks of him been a jerk and lacks to express his feelings 2 Amy likes to troll around the idea of been Sonic's GF 3 she has a life outside of sonic 4 she can go on her adventures without him or having it with a another characters like Tekno the canary for example

I'm not as much of a dedicated fan when it comes to Sonic comics (both Archie and IDW), but I do spend some time watching videos and essays related to them. and while I do hear some issue with the latter by some folks recently, and I have some gripes with IDW too. this video really strike the nail on the internal problem from the comic. While I like the characters of IDW, I would lie to myself that I wish that there's more to them than just leaving them without developing any further. it's all ideas (good ideas actually) but with no form of execution or how any of the characters to grow from. especially the comic feature characters despite being more lenient from the SEGA regulations that he keep bringing up. But I guess that you can only blame SEGA far too many times until it becomes more evident that you're also part of the problem with the writing Ian Flynn. I don't know too much about your thoughts on Scrapnik Island, Lavi. to me it's probably the most completed story arc outside of the anniversary classic Sonic comics. it's a generally great comic in it's premise, artwork, and characters. But the fact that the only time Sonic actually connected with the villain with his morals and ended on a good note is written by Daniel Barnes who has little to no input by Ian speak volumes.

I’ve been reading the comments of this vid how in frontiers amy realizes she’s been chasing sonic all her life and wants to move on and better herself , like no that just tells me what you think Amy is and in frontiers nothing about Amy’s history is acknowledge once 😂 not even her love of sonic that shit is gone , at least in the games , in comics and muder it’s still there

Haven’t watched the vid yet but from the title , lol amy has moved on from sonic since lost world it’s funny how 90% of the sonic fanbase acts like frontiers changed Amy it’s been like this for years 😂

I truly hate the SonAmy ship and I truly hate Ian Flynn pushing more for it. Genuinely makes me upset. Sonic X Sally for the comics and Sonic X Blaze were both always better anyways.

I don't think Sega is going to go all the way with the "everything is canon" route. IDW doesn't have much time before they go out of business. Sega may even regret making the comics canon longterm.

Sega trying to make everything cannon isn't necessarily a bad thing, yes they need to be careful when saying something is cannon to the main timeline (sonic prime) but them wanting a comic book and previous games in the same universe isn't actually an issue, if there's a conflicting element in those stories then that just mean there's a story to be made to fix that contradiction, meaning more content, and fans love when the little things get explanations. What it seems like you actually want is for sega to allow there to be off shoot universes that allow the creators to be more experimental, kinda like what marvel and DC do, or how Mario functions after galaxy ( galaxy kinda made it so every mario game is cannon but the timeline is just resetting abunch). On the topic of Amy, I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about, Amy still likes sonic and still has a crush on him, she just isn't chasing after him anymore. You say frontiers either didn't advance Amy's character or that the choice they did for her just doesn't make sense, I disagree, it does make sense and it does advance her character, she's moving on from chasing sonic and at the same time reaffirming her main morals and what she has always wanted to do, it really shows the current climate of the world when people don't understand what "spreading love to the world means" it's very simple, do we not remember hippies?. Sonic frontiers isn't really about pushing forward with these characters as much as it's more about looking backwards to then (if the future) move forward, tails especially emphasizes this with him reflecting on his previous inconsistent characterization, amy is much the same, the story is re-centering all of there characters, kind of like what superhero books do at the end and start of every writers run, or at least it was trying to, the game play and not rso animated animated cut scenes don't help showcase that but it is what they were trying to do. Amy through seeing all the destruction and rebirth of the land as well as seeing the coco that was so dedicated to its partner that even in death it found its way back to them made her realize 1. The world is a big place but is also so fragile and everything on it only has a limited time to be around, and 2. That even if sonic doesn't love her the way she loves him she knows in the end she will always find her way back to him, so she doesn't have to chase him or try to force him to be with her, she can take it slow, appreciate the places she goes and spread love where she can. You not seeing a way for the new comic characters can fit into the games isn't actually an issue that the games might have, all that means is that YOU can't come up with something, doesn't mean the writers can't, now it would be a different conversation if you were to say that you don't think they can, personally I do and I think they have found a place for them you just don't seem to like what that placement is, which is fine but it doesn't mean they don't have one. Here's an idea for whisper to be introduced, tye her into a return of a modern fang story, they kinda feel like they would be great mirrors of each other, or have the Dimond cutters take the place of the chaotic in knuckles chaotic, as a secondary team that handles other issues that the main cast aren't. To summarize it's an issue in your limited way of thinking not the games beings incapable of adding them in. Why do those characters only seem to function for themselves? well because if they did make them more tied into the games cast then that alienates the games audience, similar as to why shadow hasn't been allowed to be shadow, because they want to touch up his character in a game, any formative connection should (and probably will) happen in the games, that way game only fans aren't forced to read the comics, does this thought process mean that there comic growth is stunted until they do appear in the games? Yes and that's an issue, but it's an issue with an easy solution, sega/the writers needs to perl clutch less as well as trust there audience, and if they do appear in the games the games need to come up with a creative way to re-illustrate the history these characters have with each other thats not intrusive or distracting, which can be done. "Sonic should abandon trying to be serious" no, it shouldn't, sonic can flow between the two types of narratives when ever it want, it can be comedic at times and it can be story focused and serious at times, it also can be both at the same time depending on the story. I personally view the idw comics as a slice of life esc form of story telling that sometimes dives into serialization and the games are the main events that push the story and characters forward, if you're not into that then that isn't the comics issue it's yours, maybe it would be more productive to try and push for sega to do like marvel and DC in allowing else worlds and a multiverse, Ian Flynn has mentioned wanting to do a lost hedgehog tales book that is able to revisit the Archie run. This way you can have your more freedom allowed serialized sonic stories (kinda like the ultimate universe both old and new) while the main book, games, and potential shows can continues to progress in the main timeline the way they want it to, just hope it doesn't go the direction of Spider-Man books where the character isn't allowed to grow at all becausedifferent generations grew up with different versions of the character so when they become writers they try to push it back to where they liked it instead of progressing in a logical direction. At the end of the day these issues aren't actual issues, just things that YOU want and feel like you aren't getting, doesn't mean it's bad to want those things, it's just something that should be acknowledged when you're have a discussion of this sort, I hope all of this makes sense and do note I'm not say there aren't any issues with the comics just that the ones I've seen you bring up aren't actually the issues, there more like seven inches to the left of what the actual problem is.