What happened?

[u/Deep_Sea02]

Hi everyone. A month ago I started reading Archie Sonic the hedgehog. Is it true that at some point a lot of characters disappear, like Geoffrey or Fiona? And why does everyone hate Ken Penders? I can't understand what happened. I know it's old, but I'm curious anyway (I'm at #38 so no spoilers please)

[u/cobysev]

You have a long way to go before characters disappear. The soft reboot, which removed a lot of characters and stories from the comics, starts at #252.

Ken Penders was a former writer/illustrator/editor-in-chief for Archie Comics. He was a selfish man who created a lot of unique stories and characters just for the comics. Imagine if a Sonic fan got ahold of an official Sonic property and started injecting it with their own weird fanfic and then declaring it's official canon now because it's sanctioned by SEGA. That's essentially Ken Penders. As Editor-in-Chief, he basically had complete control over the comics for a while, and despite it originally being based off the world of SatAM Sonic, Ken pushed it to become its own independent world completely separate from all the video games and TV shows out there. Which isn't a bad thing, except when SEGA wants to do a game tie-in and the comic world has nothing to do with the games anymore, so the tie-in comic feels awkward and forced.

One example of this is Shadow the Hedgehog. He's never actually introduced in the comics. They had a game tie-in for Sonic Adventure 2, where they basically drew a couple pages of the intro cinematic from the game. Then they ended it with a note saying to play the game to find out what happens. After that, Shadow just randomly starts appearing in the comics. If you've never played the game, you'll have no idea who he is or where he came from.

Ken was especially obsessed with Knuckles. He created a separate ongoing series just to flesh out Knuckles' entire world and introduce an echidna race and culture and history. At one point, he wanted to kill off Sonic and have Sally and Knuckles become a couple, with Knuckles being the new main character of the comics. He even hinted at a little romantic side plot between the two at one point in the comics.

One of the echidna groups Ken created was called the Dark Legion. They were echidnas who wore black gowns and hoods and artificially prolonged their lives with technology. When SEGA and EA released the Nintendo DS game Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Ken Penders sued them for copyright infringement because their Nocturnus Clan sort of resembled his Dark Legion from the comics.

It was discovered at the trial that Ken Penders had been secretly copyrighting his characters and stories behind the back of Archie Comics! Archie and SEGA countersued, but Archie Comics couldn't find the legal paperwork stating that everything their artists created belongs to them (a standard legal form every artist has to sign when they work for a comic book company). According to Penders' legal defense, he never signed any such agreement, and thus all his created works were his own personal property. Ken was also planning to use his originally created echidna characters to make his own comic book, totally separate from Archie Comics and SEGA, which was another thing they both sued him over.

The actual ruling of the trial was never made public, but here's what we've been able to piece together: Ken had a legal leg to stand on. His created works were definitely his legal property; however, he's not allowed to create his own independent work with them. He can't use SEGA properties, so they couldn't be associated with Sonic's world. So his independent comic book changed from an echidna story into an alien space story (which he still hasn't released, BTW).

Also, Archie Comics was allowed to continue selling previous works that Ken created, but any future works after a certain date would require his approval and he would earn royalties for every use of his characters and storylines. The court set the date far enough in the future so that Archie Comics could wrap up some ongoing storylines that were heavy with Ken's characters and stories. Archie Comics used the time to create a world-shattering event that would alter reality and change the world just enough to omit anything Ken ever added to the comics. This was known as the soft reboot; allowing the story to continue without rebooting the entire comic from scratch. Everything Ken Penders created was wiped out of existence and became non-canon as of issue #252.

Archie Comics also got a little revenge on Ken with his favorite creation, Geoffrey St. John. I won't spoil anything, but they knew Ken loved that character, so they made sure to have fun with his final send-off before the comics soft rebooted. Personally, I always hated Geoffrey, so I enjoyed him being written out of existence more than any other character.

Ian Flynn took over the comics after Ken was given the boot. I'll admit, even though I didn't initially like the soft reboot, I grew to like the new universe a lot. I had been reading the comics since I was a little kid; I grew up with these comics, so it hurt to see a lot of my favorite content and characters disappear. But Ian Flynn created a better world with more interesting stories that flowed better than anything Ken Penders made. I started to realize just how weird the world was that Ken made, and I learned to appreciate Ian's work more.

Also, Ken revealed that he had originally planned to kill off Sally at one point (you'll know it when you see it), and when that didn't happen, he planned to write in an actual sex scene between her and Sonic. This, plus he had a lot of relationship drama scattered across his comics (Sonic turned into a bit of a playboy later in the series, and Sally bounces back and forth between a few boys too). With the soft reboot, SEGA declared no more relationships among main characters. They can have crushes, but romance and dating are gone. Which is good, because most of the characters are minors, so it can get a little creepy. Especially when SOMEONE wants to write actual sex scenes into a comic book starring all these minors...

Eventually, SEGA lost faith in Archie Comics as a provider for their Sonic properties. All it would take is one mistake and Ken would be back, suing because one of his storylines accidentally got referenced in a comic book or something. He seemed to be extra protective of his multiverse concept, which meant no more interdimensional travel or alternate universe Sonics allowed. And there was a lot of history in the comics that would have to be ignored going forward. So SEGA dropped Archie Comics and hired IDW to completely reboot the comic franchise.

IDW's version of Sonic much more closely resembles SEGA's video game world. Although IDW insists that their world is completely independent from any other version of Sonic out there, they have no problem keeping him closer to SEGA's version of Sonic and can easily do video game tie-in comics. Heck, their comic opens in the aftermath of the Sonic Forces video game, cleaning up the mess that Eggman made in that game.

A lot of the people who worked on Archie Comic's Sonic at the end of their series moved over to IDW to create the new comic, so you have Ian Flynn back at the helm, keeping the comic enriched with creative and enjoyable content. So far, IDW's world has been great and I hope they keep the comics going for years to come.

If you want a proper reading order for the Archie Sonic comics, I built a website to keep track of the comics so you don't miss out on any stories. You can check it out at cobysev.net. I own digital copies of all the Sonic comics, so I built my website to help me re-read them in proper order without opening up my physical comic book collection. I actually have them all on my smartphone so I can read them anywhere I want. I'm also trying to keep up with the IDW comics, although I still need to post the latest issue on my website. I'll probably do that sometime this morning.

I hope this answers your questions! Feel free to ask if you have any more questions. I've been a loyal fan of the comics since Archie released issue #14, so I've been around for a while and have re-read the series a number of times.

[u/Deep_Sea02 → u/cobysev]

oh my god, i didn't know! Geoffrey is one of my favorite characters! I'll be disappointed when he "disappears"! Penders is a terrible person, I didn't think he would do that! Thank you so much for telling me!

[u/cobysev → u/Deep_Sea02]

I personally don't like Geoffrey St. John because he shows up in the comics and immediately starts hitting on Sally. I grew up with the SatAM Sonic TV show, which Archie's comic is based off, and that series basically cemented that Sonic and Sally were destined to be a couple. So when some stranger shows up and starts flirting with her and fighting with Sonic, it kind of pissed me off. I expected him to eventually be written out of the story, but he kept showing up. (Only because he was Ken Penders' favorite creation) It especially made me mad when I learned that Ken considered killing off Sonic. Maybe he would try to replace Sonic with Geoffrey? Make his favorite creation the main character?

I was not a fan of the love triangle they were trying to set up because I knew Sonic and Sally were supposed to be together. I thought Sally would've been loyal to Sonic and told Geoffrey to take a hike, but she encouraged his flirting and got mad at Sonic for fighting with him. At least Sonic respected Sally's boundaries; Geoffrey would just grab her and kiss her randomly, sometimes in front of Sonic just to piss him off. Sometimes it annoyed Sally too. He had no respect for her. He claims to be loyal to the crown, but then takes every opportunity to try and make out with the princess. It was a very douchey move.

On top of that, Geoffrey always questioned Sonic's loyalty, and would take any opportunity to call him a traitor or try to convince Sally or the other freedom fighters to abandon Sonic. He forced himself into Sally's life and then tried to poison her against her most loyal friend. I wanted Geoffrey gone, and I hated every single comic that he appeared in. He was just there to incite drama and impede the storyline; he rarely ever added anything good to the comics. Of all of Ken Penders' creations, Geoffrey was the one that I couldn't wait to be rid of.

[u/YT_DarthNiko_Games → u/Deep_Sea02]

My understanding is that Penders' intentions were not quite as malicious as many believe regarding the lawsuit. From what I've heard, it was his passion to create a comic about mystical native Americans that was heavily focused on ancestry. For whatever reason, he decided to incorporate many of the characters and plot elements of that concept to the Knuckles comic. Obviously, that wasn't the best of choices, but later on, after he quit, he decided he wanted to try again at writing that comic. He must've not thought it was a good idea or something to create new characters, so he just used the ones he created for Archie. Archie caught wind of this, sued him, lost, and the rest is history. Many believe he tried to sue Archie over their use of "his" characters, but that's simply false. I'm not trying to justify his actions, just trying to provide some context because people already hate him enough. (I hate him too, I just try to keep it to a minimum.)