#so i'm gonna keep tagging as anti just to keep em company hehe

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

Woah I never knew you felt neutral towards IDW! We have opposite opinions on the comics… I felt Archie was rather boring and bland (when too many things go on at once I just no longer care about the story) and none of the characters clicked with me for that reason. It’s also so long, with so many side comics. I do love the Shadow stories in Sonic Universe though!

IDW is just lots of fun! Characters are introduced well I feel and none of them were put in just to be love fodder. Also no romance. That’s a huge selling point for me. I thought Eggman was quite competent, but he always has to be foiled because he is the bad guy. Starline I bet was introduced to mix things up and also a nod to Eggman fuckers, really.

No argument here! I completely respect your opinion. I like conversing with others.

i mean i think eggman is brilliant when you look at stuff like the adventure games or some of the darker lore like underground, but the whole "eggman incompetent" thing is just a blindsight that sonic fans are bound to have because of our bias (history is told by the victors, we play as sonic etc... which is why sa2 was as groundbreaking as it was for its time because we got to play an eggman campaign opposite of but complimentary to the hero story. had we not played the dark story a crucial half of sa2 would be missing, therefore representing the impact eggman and his actions/intelligence have on the sonic canon and why he's such a significant and admirable foe). when you compare archie's depth to the cowering and frequent missteps of eggman just so starline can take over,,, eh. i don't agree with you on the whole "idw characters are introduced well" thing they're quite forced imo and rely on a hyperactive positive fanbase who will take any concept of a character and run with it, so the value of the character is primarily generated by fan hype and content.

i think another problem with comics is that the hype around them... is relevant to their release. if you weren't there for archie, you probably won't care as much. idw is also as successful as it is because it's current, but if it were to end and be looked at in bulk by a future fan they'd also write it off as bland or unnecessarily complicated regardless of quality because let's face it, the sum of a comic is always going to feel confusing since it was meant to be read upon release!!! imagine if you weren't there for metal virus arc and were only now getting into idw, you'd probably feel similar to how newer fans feel about archie (but obviously not to that degree since archie is the longest running video game comic lmao)

i used to like idw a lot more but my hope for the series died out when it peaked with metal virus arc where i was willing to ignore most of its flaws. for the record though, i'm 100% happy with shadow being nerfed out of the comics during that arc because it's all people would have focused on, so with shadow disposed and sonic compromised you had room for silver, espio, amy, whisper, the babylon rogues, cream, etc... to be the heroes

as you know though bestie, no hard feelings! you raise some fair points for your opinion i just think the size and controversies of archie discourage newer fans from diving in, but they'd be surprised by how much fantastic stuff there is.

i'd recommend for people who are intimidated by archie to look up characters instead of going right for the comics. the fanon wikis are a GREAT start to introducing the lore to people, and if you fall in love with a character based on the wiki content, you can easily track which spin-offs or issues to read from there. normally this is seen as a bad thing when consuming media for a sole character or arc but with archie there's basically no other way to do it unless you're insane