The IDW Sonic 2022 Annual | A Comic Review by Megabeatman 

What do you mean by "sonic rush ruined?"

Ugh... I REALLY hope they don't go the route of arbitrarily keeping Silver in the past just because he can be. It's an extreme waste of story potential to not simply develop Silver's future world into something more interesting and consistent, and give him his own friend group. Ironically, Evans first time writing Silver in Archie necessitated she did this, and it worked out incredibly. All keeping Silver in the past does is remove that potential, and robs him of the ability to continue developing on his own and not on the back of Sonic and Co (it'd be like keeping Blaze in Sonic's Dimension with the Sol Emeralds indefinitely, or taking Shadow away from G.U.N. and Team Dark). It just feels lazy.

Or a comic universe with a cinematic universe based on it.

Nope. There's very more to explore beyond Sonic's universe. More like the Dangerous Fantasies universe.

SPOILERS (I think…)

He probably wanted her to 'join' long enough to throw her under the bus next time they had a big job to do.

I assume before Clutch hired them.

Also, they partnered in Rivals 2.

While I do like how they explored Silver's anxiety, I still REALLY don't like how Evan characterizes him. Also kind of strange they don't bring up the events of Rivals 2).

Still trapped on the Ifrit dimensión.

He's technically from Silver's future, not Blaze's dimension.

Sega mandates, again. It seems like Sega doesn't want to use Nega, at least in a serious story, outside of games. Flynn has confirmed that he is unusable currently. Although, rumor says that back in Archie days, there was fear that Ken Penders (yes, him again) will complain (as usual) that Nega's whole story was similar to a character of his, Robo-Robotnik, which was the current Eggman of the time. Basically, after "killing" the original Robotnik, this Robo-Robotnik was a Robotnik from another universe, where he won. Seeing as there was no Robotnik in the main universe of the comic he replaced him, making it as if Robotnik never died.

they can't use nega mandates.

Well if we're lucky when Ken Penders finally shuts up or if the writers get stuck writing a story, sega might have to get rid of the rules and let the writers (or you if that's still your dream when that happens) be more creative and make even better stories and characters. But I hope make some fan comics also when you get time to do it.

Honestly, it really wasn't Jewel's to keep and put on display. Seriously! People have got to stop putting these things in museums! They're practically rolling out the red carpet for every villain and anti-hero!

@@videogollumer Agreed. There’s a shrine inside a volcano located on a floating island, with a rock that can circulate the internal energy. Why hasn’t anyone brought them there?

@@hydrocityshark With PEDESTALS for EACH EMERALD!

The Dark Era was seriously not as bad as people say.

@@videogollumer Jokes are fine. But it gets tiring when people believe the joke is the canonical representation. Like when they confuse Knuckles' naivety for stupidity. I feel like I'm talking to brick walls though. Because I'm sure you're going to follow up with telling me I'm wrong for feeling exasperated.

@@BlackFlash09 Um, no, I'm not; when, you put it that way, your statement comes from a completely different context. It sounds like you're more irritated with the fans than you are with the games. I understand completely. The fans with that mentality took it WAY too far. I found Amy mildly irritating at worst; but when I found out people were drawing pictures of Sonic being violently cruel to her or talking as if Sonic hates her, I was appalled. I'm still glad that's only like half of the fanbase at most. As for the whole "Amy trying to clobber Cream" in Rush, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't thing it was explicit that Amy was taking her frustration out on Cream. As for Knuckles, he was more so portrayed as stupid during the Meta Era, but that kinda stemmed from his tendency to get tricked. Again, it was the fans taking it too far in previous eras. Some side notes, I think much of this also stems from the "Sonic's sh**** friends" mentality, and I will admit that Knuckles' presence in Rush seemed a bit pointless. Regardless on what we disagree on, I think we can both agree on that Knuckles and Blaze's interaction in this comic was wholesome. It's as if Knuckles is being an older brother to Blaze. Same goes for Espio to Silver.

​@@videogollumer You're not wrong. Thanks for not taking it personal. I'm just fed up with people seeing characters portrayed at their worst and seeing that misrepresentation as the definition version. Cream's misrepresentation is that she's just a tool to make Amy look bad. In Sonic Rush, she's obsessed with Blaze and throws shade onto both Amy and Knuckles. In the Archie Comics, Cream queries that Sonic and Sally are dating, which upsets Amy. However, in Sonic X, Amy bakes Tails a pie to cheer him up and Cream *knowingly* jokes that Tails will get fat. The last one is where a joke is fine because you know the girls care about Tails. You're right about Knuckles. Especially when his only role in Sonic Rush was to break a boulder on the in-game map. I agree on the last part as well. I'm glad we got the Knuckles and Blaze interaction. I just wish we got this character interaction between them in Sonic Rush.

@@BlackFlash09 You're welcome, and thank you for understanding my end.

If you ask me, Rouge did Tangle and Jewel a favor. What if EGGMAN came for it?! Honestly, people need to stop putting these gems of tremendous power in museums; they aren't really theirs to do so with in the first place!

So I now need something to cool my self off. Thankfully has the Blaze story me covered as. Hallelujah Ian finally figured out how to write Marine. At least I don't get disappointed about cute below 8 girl characters twice this issue. I do see what Megabeatman means when he said that Ian toned Marine down a bit and while its possible that was only done so that Ian him self hates her less do I prefer to think its actually intentionally mend to fallow up on Marine promise from the end of Rush Adventure to actually improve her self which is shown the best by Blaze actually putting now a lot of trust into Marine. The story also addressed one of my other biggest problems with Sonic Rush and that was the more than wasted potential of Knuckles and Blaze as both being sworn guardians to rock(s) of unlimited power to actually have a proper talk about there duties and what it all entails. So Marine good, Blaze good, Knuckles good and hey Cream in the epilogue of that story is also good. (tho is it just me or do a number of artist in the comic in general just love to make Blaze look flirtatious? Like many of the expressions she made in all of IDW seem more like something that should come from Rouge than Blaze) So Next story Weapon. I really don't have a lot to say about it. Like Gemerl talking about constantly evolving but than stating that he sticks with the Rabbits seems kinda contradictory and Omega not even be scratched by Gemerls first attacks seems good given how easily Zombot Shadow ripped him apart.(It also really ones again just like in issue 18 makes me ask how many of his Advance 3 attacks does he even has because if he still as the Missiles than do I have to ask does he also still have Chaos control because boy that would create a lot of problems) But other than that a nice fight with some interesting lines. Future Grow is really weird to me. Not only does it team up Silver and Espio as if that was a weird paring like the others and behaves like they barley know each other despite them being all buddy buddy by the end of Rivals 2. But also is having a good future nothing new to Silver. He had one in Rivals 1 and he came back as Nega tried to undo it, and in Colors DS does he also talk about how his future is a paradise (Rivals 2 is a bit weird as its the same Silver from Rivals 1 and he said that if Eggman Nega isn't stopped will his Future look like Chaotic Inferno but its never directly stated if his future is already like that or if he just like in Rivals 1 comes from a good future and just tried to stop Eggman Nega from turning it terrible again). And finally is there the fact that in Rivals 2 did Silver makes it a pretty big point that he doesn't want to interact with more people than he needs to out of fear that his presents could it self brick the Future so after his last 2 bad futures was it clear that he had to be more involved but this time makes him not trying to not effect the past to much a lot less sense again. Him already being this casual in Colors Ds was already a bit weird and in the 25th anniversary comic was he directly responsible to create the Future he came from (as the thing he knows from his future he ended up creating) So while Espios explanation about him self is nice its all a bit weird. So in other words that stories highlight were the King and Queen of potatoes Charmy and Tangle. Truly the best Royal paring in this franchise if I say so my self. So now for the 1 story that is almost as bad as the Cream one No seriously the Jet Story is also complete crap. Its a comedy story how does one even manage to mess up Jet in a comedy story?! So the obvious first problem is that it had the weakest premise of all of them here. Even with Cream is her wanting to go on a fun camp with other kids kinda understandable but here One of Whispers Wisp randomly goes all the way to jets Air ship to steal his dinner to bring it to Whisper. This is contrived beyond contrivance. But the worst inciting inzident aside does the story not really improve from here. Starting by a strange timeline issue. So going off the Random Eggman Robot and Whisper having like no reaction to Jet at all would you think that this place before Whispers first appearance in the Battle for Angle Island arc. But no that can't be Jet somehow was so annoying to Whisper that it makes her yell something that is so unusual that she than should have had more of an reaction to Jet in the first Annual were they meet in Spiral hill (same in reverse as Whisper Laser Wisp is still owning him a dinner). So yes no matter if it comes before or after Annual 1's story it doesn't really add up. Nether do Jet randomly offering Whisper to join the Rogues given there backstory or Whisper yelling for something this small. It also eerily reminds me of Whisper introduction were Silver was massively played down to make her look good. This really just adds to my growing disliking towards her between these 2 cases of game characters being shown as dumb to make her look better is there also her regression from her character arc in her and Tangles mini series recently and her and Tangles friendship from the very start being rushed. I don't want to dislike this walking Metal Gear reference but the amount of stupid attacked to her character is making that really harder every time she gets a more major role. And finally the Skunk bros again. So as I never found there jokes funny was that kinda a DoA for me anyway. But beside my general disliking of Rough and Tumble are there 2 more really odd things here. 1) They are beaten WAY to easily by Tangle. Like there got super stink gas that unless she uses her tail as a plug they should still totally be able to do, They were also introduced as really strong so Tangle this easily holding both is kind of a stretch as well. And finally Rouge just stealing the Emerald is weird. Not only because she back during the Metal Virus epilogue didn't join the fight against Eggman to save the Mineral Museum from the Babylon Rogues but also because outside of Sonic X was she never shown to be all that obsessed with the Chaos Emeralds. In SA2 was it just a job, she didn't care for them at all in Heroes, Rivals , Colors DS, Generations, Forces or 06 in rivals 2 was it again just a job she was hired to get the Emeralds for someone else (this some one was Eggman Nega pretending to be Eggman pretending to be a gem regular gem hunter contractor) I know Rouge's more moral ambitious stance and at times rather self-centered world view is a core part of her character but in this specific context does it not really make sense for her to just steal the Emerald. Maybe if she had a better personal reason to be after it but as is its a bit out of character for her. So my thought's. 1 Fantastic story 2 okay stories 1 meh story and 2 total dumber fires.

​@@rynobehnke8289 *creme patissiere-bit .* - "Orbot you and Cubot work for the Master of Gluten that is Eggman how do you NOT know what a s'more is?!" silly ryno, eggs are gluten-free, therefore eggman is not the master of gluten, therefore they do not know what s'mores are/s. - "Cream what are you on about them not knowing about makes knots they literally had to to bind you all." she's tapping into her inner internet hater and is now mixing constructive criticism with nit-picky or non-existent "critiques." - "How come only Cream and the Sonic fan club from Spiral hill which according to Cream's map from the Metal Virus arc is far away from Cream's village came here?" the advertisement brochure came with a free taxi ride, courtesy of orbot and cubot. - "Why did Vanilla not question the legitimacy of the camp at all" she had a really busy day and wanted to take a break. do i really need to point out how amy "imma assault the person i'm attracted to, along with assaulting my six year old friend and start hallucinating the person i'm attracted to." rose, might not actually be a good role model for being a hero? sa1 amy sure, but not amy in general. 1) to be fair, i don't think she's just looking for a title, more like "i'm gonna learn new stuff that'll help to help out more!" kinda thing, at least that's how i see it. 2) nothing to say here, totally agreed. "the very fact that she is actually tricked by this poor attempts at a disguise from Orbot and Cubot laughable." my dude, this is the same franchise that confused sonic and shadow (including shadow), what do you expect? "since when is she this violent to just jump the 2 and encourage all the other kids to also attack." simple, this is just what happens when cream spends too much time with amy. *blaze, master of cooling things down.* "i need something to cool myself off, thankfully, blaze is here." HAH! don't really have much to say here, agreed overall. i do like the pirate robot going "you won princess!", like, what a swell, upstanding guy he is. *rock 'em sock 'em egg-bots.* i don't really see gemerl's statement as that contradictory, the whole point is that omega and gemerl were both created to cause destruction, which is what omega is continuing to do (albeit against eggman robots), whereas gemerl evolved passed that and made himself a new directive (okay, well, tails made him a new directive, but still). overall, yea, it was neat. *rivals 2 gang.* i get where you're coming from, but personally, i kinda find this idea interesting for silver, having to constantly go back to the past to make his future a positive one, to the point that he's now scared of leaving the past and just anxiously waiting for the next catastrophe that'll mess up his future, i don't know, it's kinda neat, assuming this is the idea the writer wanted to convey. and the interaction between silver and espio was nice too. *fanfiction.* ah yes, the jet story, people all over twitter complained about it, my stance? i completely agree. i was also reminded of whisper's early appearance with silver going "ah yea! gonna team up with the guardian angel." to hype her up, i really wish they'd stop doing that, i like whisper, but this schit ain't helping her case. can't even muster up energy to make joke arguments, this is just dum. *yuri.* "Like there got super stink gas that unless she uses her tail as a plug" ryno, my dude, what the fucc is this sentence? the last part specifically. well you see ryno, we're operating on anime logic, so rough and tumble softened each other up for tangle to take them out/s. rouge just felt like being a dicc today.

​@@alimowla3204 The Lord of the chao -Sorry man but that joke falls flat as just the other day We got official art of Eggman eating the big of all ice creams during SA1. - Oh great they now even make Cream into a bad content creator. What next? Is she asking for subs and likes on the opening page of the comic?/s - So Orbot had the money for a taxi but not to actually try to invite I don't know Charmy someone that beside Cream would also know a thing or 2 about Restauration HQ. - A break from what? Her daughter to spend some quality time with a certain reptile?/s Hey its not 2010 anymore Amy got better. And in these comic is she even a competent leader, being literally Sally Acorn for 2 story arcs and seemingly finally found a good mixture of taking her medication to stay her self but no longer obsess to much about Sonic. She is these days totally a good role modle for Cream. (beside the worlds greats hero said "Big oof" so clearly the bare for being a world class heroes isn't that high anyway) 1) I think I take the most issue with the wording of "I'm going to learn how to be a REAL hero" that I take the most issue from as it implies that she is specifically her to learnt be a hero rather than for fun, to learn something that could help her friends and family latter or as an push by her mother after her whole "we are no heroes" talk from issue 18. 2)Good Hey listen Not only was Cream actually the one person in Sonic X to realize that Shadow wasn't Sonic but if you put Sonic into a hot topic is there a good thing Shadow walks out. These 2 here are still clearly Robots for bit sake, There disguises make Sonic's from AoStH look like master spaces (even the Crossdressing ones) I don't buy it. Sonic battle is properly the game were Cream spends the most time with Amy and yet its her at her most pacifist in the series, She in Heroes were she was all the way with Amy also still had her "post beating a boss" line be "Eggman please stop being bad" and even Free Riders a cursed game that turned almost everyone into jerks left Cream unscratched. The books clear MVP I think Blaze cooling me off says anything I need to say about how heated that Cream story made me./s As you said its a good story so what is there even to say here? Other than that like Silver (to which I come latter) the writers just gave them self an excuse to put Blaze into the next big stories. E-123 vs E.121ex Well its more so like you said Gemerls programming didn't change because he is evolving or anything but because Tails brute forced him to be this way. A better angle would have been referencing how Gemerl at the start of the Comic was pretty much just a mindless machine fallowing orders and its thanks to Cream's influence that he started to gain a more developed mind. Which also tied far better into him as a Gizoid being made to learn. But hey at least these 2 can't just fight using Spin attacks (also what do you think how many of his Advance 3 skills Gemerl still has?) How are they not teamed up more often I think my biggest problem just is that despite how much of a meme it is in the fan base did Silver at most had 4 ruined future that he should know off 2 of which being caused by a dude from his time and the other 2 happening back to back thanks to Phantom Ruby shenanigans. So Silver really shouldn't have a reason to assume things will be bad again if he isn't in the past at most should he fear interfering with the past now could ruin his future given that the 2 Eggman related ones happen after his 1 just for fun visit in Colors DS. It just feels like a cheap way to keep Silver around despite his entire character logic would necessitate that he wouldn't. And otherwise its a nice enough dialogue even if I would have liked to see some actual acknowledgement of Rivals 2. Whispering-sue You and all of the people are right this story was bad. Like I was hoping for a good Jet story and I got more Whisper promotion LAME. I really don't get why they try so hard to make Whisper look "cool" and "badass" it just distract from her in my opinion. TangRouge shippers brocken heart Oh I know exactly what I wrote thanks for giving me the exact hilarious reaction I was hoping for. Tho beside the intentionally ambiguous wording is my point a serious one. There stink gas has enough power to burst a Robo T-Rex and smells bad enough for the Chaotixs that were willing to go into the sours to give up the chase because of its abysmal smell. This is absolutely something the story should have accounted for. But Rough and Tumble just got there friendship buff back they should be now far stronger than the betraying Rouge and the naive Tangle if we use anime logic./s I guess she just wanted to get out of the book before she ends up like poor Jet Boy this one shrunk fast.

@@rynobehnke8289 *number 1 chao neglecter.* - that still doesn't make him the gluten master, show me one instance of eggman baking his own bread. - no, she'll make an hour long essay about how the writing was so much better in the games she grew up with and conveniently leaving out all instances of bad writing or just justifying them in the most absurd way possible/s. - espio wouldn't let charmy go to camp unless he does his homework. - listen man, what ms. rabbit wants to do with her free time is non of my business/s. "She is these days totally a good role modle for Cream." yea, sure, go tell that to vanilla. "(beside the worlds greats hero said "Big oof" so clearly the bare for being a world class heroes isn't that high anyway)" ah, ah, ah, now hold on, sonic isn't a hero, he's an edge-lord, he said as much/s. 1)..........yea, can't think of a retort, fair enough. ............so that's why cream is randomly amy's friend even though they never interacted in advance 2, amy just wants someone to help her find sonic instead of other hedgehogs. "(even the Crossdressing ones)" i'm not sure what specific scene you're referring (haven't watched the 90s shows), i do gotta say, have you seen most female hedgehog designs? of course cross-dressing sonic would work well/s. listen man, everyone has their eventual braking point, cream is no different. *sonic rush but good.* okay, sounds legit. "the writers just gave them self an excuse to put Blaze into the next big stories." i mean, i can excuse an excuse if it's a good excuse. *gamma on steroids vs emerl recolor OC donut steel.* yea i get ya, still, i kinda get his point, he's a gizoid, he's designed to learn and adapt, and being more of a guardian now instead of a killing machine matches that, even if it wasn't a willing decision. _although_ can you really say gemerl being a killing machine was also a willing decision and not just a by product of his gizoid nature going berserk in response to new power? not sure as i haven't played advance 3, sorry. *in hindsight i should've named this yaoi.* but eggman's still on the loose, so he was still right for coming back regardless. *how not to write an original character 101.* indeed. that's something a lot of writers seem to do for some reason, like with zero from MMX, like "dude, this character is already well-loved and considered cool, why do you have to bring down other characters to make them look good?". a similar instance happens in ratchet and clank 3, where ratchet is kinda the butt of a lot of jokes in comparison to clank, which i find weird, because clank is already lovable, you don't need to make ratchet the butt of the jokes (i should specify that the way i'm describing this makes it sound much worse than it actually is, but still). whisper being an original supplementary character instead of a source material character just rubs salt on the wound. *rouge the heart-breaker.* you monster!/s. rough and tumble forgot to......."refuel." (ew), so that's probably why. yes, but the girls have magic girl power, and that's like friendship+ "I guess she just wanted to get out of the book before she ends up like poor Jet" you know what? fair point, i'm not even gonna hold that against her. oh don't worry, the issue 50 thread is gonna have covered for awhile.

I know this was a month ago but it's been gnawing at me. Dude, I wish I had a nicer way to say this; but you have Cream issues to a ridiculous degree, and it's not even funny! Literally NO ONE ELSE has such complaints, and you act like Cream's story is blasphemy! It's painful to see you needlessly hurt yourself so much! If you bother to reply, don't expect me to look at it; I've tried reasoning with you in the past, and we BOTH know that it won't work. I just needed to get this off my chest, and I don't want to put anything more on it in regard to this.

You want to be the first to get this cactus shoved down your throat? Glad you volunteered! Now hold still.