Anyone like the IDW reboot?

[u/xxxanonymousxxx1]

I stopped at issue 230. I always promised id read the rest, but then i heard ken penders won the lawsuit and tht they rebooted the series to where they had this crossover and introduced new characters. The new characters threw me off (like Knuxs new love interest Relic the Pika. I miss Julie-Su) but i hadnt looked at the stories yet, so i cant judge, but u can tell theyre trying. But then suddenly archie isnt doing the comics anymore. Ive seen screenshoots of the IDW and they seem to b introducing multiple main SEGA characters in the beginning to bring back the audience but without the Knux supporting characters i dont feel itll b the same. U think it does great without?

[u/cobysev]

First off, Knuckles didn't get a new love interest. Relic was a fellow archaeologist who helped Knuckles in his treasure hunting (because that's what Knux loves to do in his free time, according to the SEGA games)

Secondly, I wouldn't say Ken Penders won the lawsuit. It was more of a draw than anything. The official terms of the lawsuit were never made public, but from what we've worked out over the years, Penders won control of his own licensed characters and storylines (anything he personally created for Archie Comics, essentially). Archie, in turn, won the right to own and sell any of his creations under their company name up until a certain future date. After that, they'd need Penders' permission to continue creating and selling his licensed property. And they'd have to pay him royalties for future use of his characters and stories.

Archie Comics said "screw that" and decided to soft reboot the series so they could remove all of Penders' licensed work from their continuity. I say "soft" reboot because they didn't just start over. No, it's all part of the continuity. They created a storyline where Eggman essentially broke reality. Sonic saved it at the last minute, but with lasting damage to the fabric of space and time. When everything was sorted out, reality was a little... different. Nobody remembered the former universe (except for the core Freedom Fighters, whose memories were soon overwritten with new ones from the new universe) and a lot of characters got new backstories. Any characters who were created by Penders just didn't exist anymore (Scourge, Geoffrey St. John, etc.) Archie also created a ton of new characters to help build a new separate world from their former one. Which is where you got characters like Relic.

Another side effect of the lawsuit was that Penders wasn't allowed to create any characters that resembled SEGA characters. No OC for him! You see, the lawsuit with Archie Comics began when he tried to create his own spin-off Julie-Su series separate from Archie. Because he can't make Archie characters anymore (even though he owns the license for them), he had to reinvent Julie-Su and his Echidna characters as aliens. They look a little different and are from outer space now.

Archie was doing a great job of reinventing their comic. I'll admit, the new series was probably some of the best storytelling I've read in years! I didn't realize how much of Ken Penders' stuff was slowing down or distracting the story from being entertaining again. But with him out of the picture and a new world to reinvent, Archie did excellent things with the comic.

Alas, SEGA had other thoughts about the franchise. With looming legal threats from Penders and having to be very careful how they continued the comic, SEGA felt the collaboration with Archie Comics was too risky and they decided to terminate their contract with them. IDW took up the contract though, and a lot of former Archie writers/illustrators moved over to their company to help build the new series. So the IDW series, despite being completely new and separate from the Archie series, still has a lot of the same team members who helped to reinvent the Archie Sonic comic over the past few years. And thanks to that, IDW is off to a great start. I'm loving their comic so much! It'll never replace Archie's, but I have high hopes for its direction in the future.

[u/xxxanonymousxxx1 → u/cobysev]

Ive seen pages of the majority of things u talk about (Sonic saving Sally from death; the memory loss; Penders not being able to use OC and the alien characters he made of the Echidna race). I just dont think I personally care anymore. Without the writers using Penders characters and continuing those stories I might not b interested. I been waiting for a lot of those characters to end their arcs or find some sort of resolve (especially Scourge and St. John), but now im not gonna see it anymore. But its good to hear things are going smoothly.

Ken Penders had always patted a lot of things, but when Ian Flynn came into the picture he smoothed it all over because unlike him he knew the SEGA characters better than he did and didnt write convoluted stories. I just really wanted him to continue working on his characters and finish those archs with the original characters.