samobservessonic

[samobservessonic]

No Post-Mortem today, but I thought you all might want to see some of the awesome Sonic (+My Little Pony) fan merch I got from SunnyCon a couple of weeks ago. Many stalls had the game characters, but I was super excited to find this stall with such great merch of the cartoon and game characters. There was actually even more stuff there that I wanted to buy! It doesn't seem that the artist is active on tumblr, but here's their etsy with so much cool stuff Also, here's the rest of my haul under a readmore, in case anyone wants to see the non-Sonic stuff:

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Alternative Amy outfit inspired by some of my own clothing. She looks good in green

💚❤️🖤

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After you finish STC or the post mortems maybe you could make a section where you show the diferences between the Game Cast and the STC Cast (like how stc Amy IS more calm than Game Amy, how stc espio IS more bratty than Game espió and so on)

Or the stuff stc did predict

That's a good idea! I do already have a few ideas of what I want to cover on the blog when I've completely finished going through StC, so I'll add that to the list Definitely "Things that StC accidentally predicted" could be a lot of fun

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Tbf, I feel like you could include game characters in the other media category still. Because what if espio was this bratty in Archie, what if vector hated charmy in idw, what if Amy was always gay (wait a minute)

Yeah, that's a good point! I definitely could include it for the characters who have a difference in personality, that'd be a fun take on it

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Art Fight Attack on @bunnymajo - Twist and Knots!

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StC Post-Mortems: Espio the Chameleon

The blog is at the stage now where even the game canon characters are starting to have their last appearances in StC, with the Chaotix bowing out after many years of being somewhat frequent supporting characters. I’ve decided to look at each of them individually (even if there will be admittedly some crossover in these posts, since they’re a group) and a poll voted that Espio would be the first character to be covered

Now, this was interesting to me and I assume partly due to Espio being such a beloved character in the games, because out of all of the Chaotix Crew in StC, Espio probably has the least amount of unique lore attached to him. He doesn’t have any of the additional family members that Mighty & Charmy do or the accidentally predicting future canon stuff that Vector & Charmy do. But there’s still a lot to say about Espio and he’s probably a good springboard to cover the StC Chaotix in general

How it started

(I’m going to end up using this one image a lot, huh?)

The Chaotix made their first appearance at the very end of issue 53, with a splash page of them jumping out of the Omni-Viewer. Yes, Nack the Weasel is there, but it isn’t his Post-Mortem, so ignore him for now

They would appear during a Knuckles story, as StC would at least sometimes nod to their friendship with Knuckles, before moving them away from Knuckles to do other things. They also appeared in the midst of the Brotherhood of Metallix arc, with Kitching figuring that he might as well work them into his existing story plans, I suppose? After a brief misunderstanding with Knuckles, the group all end up working together on the same page to fight back against the Metallixes. What did Espio bring to this? Well, there’s a funny shot of him strangling Knuckles during the fight:

Don’t worry, they’ll be friends soon

Speaking of “friends”, we’re also introduced to the Espio vs Mighty dynamic that would run throughout their appearances in the comic. The two are short-tempered and don’t get along with each other, leading to many arguments and even the occasional fight. It’s all very yaoi rivalry, which I feel the need to mention every time it crops up. And out of everything, this dynamic is probably one of the most stand-out aspects of StC Espio in comparison to Espio in other media

How it went

After helping Knuckles deal with the Brotherhood of Metallix, the group part ways with him, but would later appear in the main story of issue 67, where they’d meet Sonic and help him deal with the Metallixes, which have become an even bigger problem at this point. The Chaotix are in this plot for the long haul, even if at times they’re more just observers to the stuff that’s happening to Sonic. And trust me, there’s a lot happening to Sonic in this arc

But it’s perhaps more important that they met Sonic at all, since he’ll be a lot more involved in their stories from then on out

The Chaotix would have one more adventure with Knuckles in his special, before returning to the main comic for an adventure all on their own in issue 80. There’s more to say about Charmy in the above story than about Espio, but it does show that the series felt confident enough in the Chaotix to keep using them, even outside of the main cast

Soon after this, in issue 84, Sonic, having recently been separated from the evil Super Sonic, would come to the Special Zone to try to track down Super Sonic. The Chaotix initially don’t believe Sonic that there’s a threat, but it’s hard to argue with Super Sonic blowing up a mansion while standing still, so they quickly come around on that matter

During this storyline, Super Sonic gets temporarily trapped frozen in Sonic’s portal home. Meaning that Sonic himself has no way to get home for a while and is stuck in the Special Zone (which is where the Chaotix are from in StC) for what feels like a really long time. The Chaotix alternate between being helpful to Sonic and annoying him so much that it drives him up the wall. And while the Marvel parodies that dominate this era of the comic aren’t my thing at all, it was nice to get to see a lot more of the Chaotix in the limelight

We also get a dynamic that I would’ve liked to have seen expanded upon more between Espio and Lightmare. Up until this point, Lightmare had been merely another member of a team belonging to Lord Sidewinder, who can basically be seen as the main villain for the Chaotix specifically. Albeit, Lightmare had always been the one in the team with the coolest powers. But in the run-up to the big issue 100, Lightmare reveals that she also wants to see Lord Sidewinder stopped, but can’t go against him because he’s her father. Meaning that she has to secretly ask the Chaotix to stop him

I don’t think the comic meant anything by having her address Espio specifically, but I still would’ve liked to have seen a connection between the two characters explored, if only to give Espio something in StC that’s uniquely his in the same way the other three Chaotix members have

Not long after this, Sonic makes his way home and we don’t see the Chaotix again until a Knuckles story in issue 121, when Knuckles & Porker accidentally find themselves transported to the Special Zone and Porker’s past comes back to haunt him. I’ll be covering this story more in Porker’s Post-Mortem, but there is a good amount of that Mighty & Espio bickering in it that I love so much

They even work together without fighting for part of the story. Good for them!

After this, the group’s penultimate story would be Roots, where Mighty’s dad and his dinosaur boyfriend appear to cause problems for the Chaotix that happens to coincide with Sonic’s visit to the Special Zone for separate reasons. Espio appears here along with the rest of the Chaotix. They manage to stop Bill from his rampage, but then Bill gets kidnapped by a plant monster and they need to go rescue him, during which time all of the Chaotix have their actions controlled by the plant monster and they need to be saved by Sonic

How it ended

Charmy has a couple of appearances separate from the rest of the Chaotix, but as for the four of them as a group and indeed for Espio as a character, they get one final story all to themselves to show off all the chaos that they bring. A villain called the Crimson Cobra, who’s been mentioned before but not seen, appears so sow the seeds that he hopes will be the downfall of the Chaotix, starting by turning Vector into Godzilla and then shooting Mighty & Espio with a brain-scrambler that makes them give into their urge to fight each other

I mean, it really doesn’t take much with these two anyway

I’d also be remiss not to mention that Mighty throws Espio at a giant dartboard, because that’s really funny

You’re also probably going to be seeing this image a lot on these posts, because the very last appearance of the Chaotix is of them as a group. Charmy having solved the problem on his own, the other three are released from prison and reflect on how stupid this all is. Espio and Vector don’t get any final lines, but here they are

All of the Chaotix would go on to appear on the new cover art that Elson made during the reprint-only era of the comic, but as for being used as characters, this was it

Were there any unused future plans from the StC writers?

I always sigh with relief when I actually find something for this section! It might not be about Espio specifically, but it does say on the wiki that the Chaotix were intended to appear again in an arc that started in issue 171, which would’ve had them appear right before the Sonic Adventure arc that finishes the series. It’s a shame that this didn’t end up happening, but I’m glad to hear that they were still on the writers’ minds to be used as characters right up until almost the end

What would I personally have liked to see next for him if StC continued?

What more can I say? I’d want to see how StC would’ve handled the team going into Sonic Heroes and beyond. While StC got lucky that they’d basically predicted Charmy’s personality and some details about Vector correctly going into the modern era, their version of the Chaotix is still ways off the version that we’re introduced to in Sonic Heroes and I’d like to see how the comic might’ve adapted to that. It wouldn’t be too difficult for them to say that the Chaotix have started functioning as a detective agency now and I joked a little in the Omni-Viewer’s Post-Mortem about how they could come to stop relying on Charmy’s mum’s money to magically get them out of situations, but what about everything else? Would StC keep them in the Special Zone or bring them to Mobius for good? What would happen to Mighty?

Espio is probably the most interesting character to think about here, because he’s the one who ends up the most as a completely different character to what he was in StC. He wasn’t a ninja in the comic, that’s for sure. But I do feel like a lot of stuff about Espio in the games is presented in quite a light-hearted way, so it might not to too much of a stretch for the comic to say that he’s decided to become a ninja or a poet now, just because. That sounds like the kind of wacky Chaotix antics than StC went in for to me

As for his dynamic with Mighty, would this change if Mighty stopped being part of the group for some reason? How would Espio feel about that? Would he be bitter? Or would it be more that something bad might’ve happened to Mighty and maybe Espio feels guilty that he wasn’t able to stop it? A lot of shippy possibilities there. I don’t have one specific way that I’d like to see it handled, because there’s tons of options that I think could work. I’d just love to peek into the reality where we got to see what became of them if the comic had continued. But then I could say that about everyone

What if he was in other Sonic media?

…I really just need to omit this section for the game characters, huh?

[samobservessonic]

I will also join

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hot summer day

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not tagging this one i just kinda slapped this one down because a concept was in my head and i didn't think too hard about it

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face off

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Why did they give him the wettest dewiest eyes known to man

(Ref n shit under the cut)

Early archie shadow is an abomination and I fell in love the second i saw him

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Damn, poor Vector! Okay, so Espio will come first, then I'll do another poll between Charmy and Mighty to see who comes next and then Vector will come last

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Max Gamble might be squeezing two more issues out of his StC appearances, but this is it for the Chaotix. We open with this bleak shot of Charmy being chased down by the military, with the rest of the team out of action

I feel like I need to defend Charmy by saying that he has managed to save the Chaotix on his own at least once in the past, poor guy

The Crimson Cobbler!

I’m sure that if the rest of the Chaotix were here, they’d have some choice words to say about Charmy being “driven insane”

Cue the “you live like this?” meme. I definitely have at least one friend who’d want the number of that lady in the picture on the wall, too

Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking this TV presenter lady is adorable! So cute!

…Oh yeah, I guess Charmy bought out the Crimson Cobra’s company lol

Anyone who’s been following the Chaotix stories in StC for a long time would be able to tell you that. But I guess the Crimson Cobra didn’t know

Looks like Cribbins has got a call

I think this final “Absolutely, Mr. Cobra!” is the best joke in this whole story. Good for you, Cribbins

And there we have it! A silly story about silly characters ending in a silly way. I love it! It’s a huge shame that this is the final Chaotix story, because I feel like the comic had finally landed on exactly how they wanted to handle them at this point. All of those tired Marvel parodies did nothing for me, but in this kind of story, you can have a similar sort of vibe without leaning so heavily on references (in before it turns out all of this was a reference to something I’m not familiar with) and still have it be fun. Yes okay, Vector was King Kong, but I still felt they handled it in a much more entertaining way than a lot of the stories from when Sonic was stuck in New Tek City

Having said that, it is kind of a shame for Vector that this second last panel is the only time you see him in the final Chaotix story as his regular self

But the biggest shame is that warning of “classic Tails” coming next issue. Because yes, this means we’re losing yet another new story to the reprint mines. The comic is just going to get shorter and shorter from here on out���

But before that comes the Chaotix Post-Mortems. I’ve opted to do one for all four of them individually, since I feel like there’s enough to say about each of them as characters on their own. After this issue goes up, I’ll post a poll asking what order you all think I should write them in, so you get to decide what happens first

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Amy & Tekno have managed to bag themselves another two-parter, as the Ring of Eternity drops them off in what appears to be a monochrome gangster world

Amy angrily yelling “Maniacs!” at a drive-by shooter amuses me. She is too powerful to be fazed

But something’s seriously off here. If this planet’s apparently unpopulated, then who are all these people?

Could this be another Oscar the Pig situation? I mean, probably not. So let’s see where today’s case of mistaken identity gets us

The comic really isn’t going to let me forget that Tekno can fly anymore, because she does it all the time lately

They quickly move on to help some rando, but this guy seems to know them as well. What’s going on here?

Ah yes, men melting out from the walls and floors, a staple of any gangster flick

It really has been a while! Max Gamble is that lesser villain they have appear sometimes when they need a kingpin-like character. He’s mostly been in Tails stories, but I feel like most of the cast have had to tackle him at some point

We’re gearing up for what’ll be his last appearance in a couple of issue’s time. So next time we’ll see how the girls beat him and try to get him back where he should be