Newbie's Perspective IDW Sonic Reviews Fang the Hunter 4 & Issue 69
Category
😹
AmusantTranscription
00:00Fang the Hunter, Issue 4.
00:02Fang and Bean have time to talk surrounded by robots, but it makes sense here because Heavy King hasn't given the order for them to attack them yet, I assume from him telling them to return the gem.
00:14I still don't know why he didn't give the order earlier, because he had no reason to think that talking to them and waiting would cause them to return the gem on their own.
00:25It tends comedy again by having him refer to running away as a foolproof plan.
00:30Also, you could have assumed that they were surrounded, but I assume this makes sense because there was one area where there wasn't a robot.
00:40What really doesn't make sense is him not telling Bean to throw bombs at them.
00:45Fang whistles, but the vehicle is going to take a long time to get back to him, and Bean sprints to mock it unfairly when he was just told it's a big ship.
00:54What a jerk.
00:56So eventually, Bark grabs the chain and makes the robot get humiliated.
01:00It took way too long for this to happen.
01:03This should be happening for most of the scene, not just boring dialogue.
01:08Instead, the comics based on anything I'm not discussing here is wasted.
01:12I can't understand why Bean's not throwing bombs the whole time.
01:16We all know he can generate bombs out of nowhere, there's no excuse for making him a coward.
01:21You dealt with these things in Sonic Mania easily.
01:24It's not like they've fought these guys before, so they don't know that they're not a threat.
01:29Eventually, Fang gets frozen.
01:32Sonic congratulates Tails and gets thanked.
01:35A panel is wasted before he complains about the lack of robots to fight.
01:39The page didn't need that many boring panels.
01:43The SQ of Fang's name gets sent into the wall, so Fang gets hurt with the impact shown.
01:49His vehicle hits the robot.
01:52It'd take longer if I said the names of these robots.
01:55Fang uses a sword to freeze the green robot with his own sword.
01:59That's cool.
02:01I hope when he inevitably stops using the sword because of stupid meta logic, we'll know why.
02:06Because he has no excuse to stop using such an overpowered instant-I-win weapon.
02:11Other than, he'll miss.
02:13Which is the excuse for why he uses his gun so much.
02:16It could be explained that it got broken.
02:19Him just not picking it up again would be sloppy writing.
02:23Eventually, he plans to put the gem in his vehicle after picking it up off-screen.
02:28One of the robots talks in a stupid way, which makes no sense for a robot who should only have free will in the sense that he could think up attack strategies.
02:37There's no reason Eggman would program him to talk like that.
02:42If Bing can remember to summon a bomb, and he can still summon as big bombs as he wants, why was he ever not summoning bombs?
02:50He never hesitates to summon bombs because he could be hurt by it.
02:54Why do we see the impact when the explosion hits his enemy?
02:58What kind of fights he's enjoying is this? Where's the satisfaction?
03:01We're not supposed to like and feel sorry for the robots, so why the censorship?
03:06It's not like every time you attack a robot in the games, the impact gets censored.
03:12Why does it make a fool out of a character with a menacing name who's had menacing moments by having to get scared because his vehicle warped?
03:19Imagine if Shadow looked scared after warping.
03:23Why does he even try implying he won't say bark?
03:26Bing threatened to ditch him before.
03:29It's like he wants to write every character as an idiot because it makes drama and comedy easier,
03:34and only writes a character as smart when it's plot convenient, or Sega forces him to write the plot around it.
03:41Earlier he said nobody takes anything from me.
03:45And now he doesn't want Bark back, when Bark did nothing since he reunited with him to justify him not wanting him back anymore.
03:54It's just a continuity error.
03:56It only makes him look bad to lie about not wanting him back, because he's a tsundere.
04:03Eventually the robot smacks Bark to the floor, but for no reason we can't see when he impacted him.
04:09Only Sam impacts the floor.
04:11Eventually Fang's vehicle saves the day, with a flash of light to apparently censor the vehicle crashing into the robot.
04:18Except in a panel later, he's standing anyways.
04:22Wasn't it obvious you should make him get sent flying by the vehicle?
04:26Instead I don't know what's going on.
04:29It's convenient that Bing even can care about Bark when he's happy to be a criminal.
04:34Why is he a bad guy then?
04:36He has no logical reason to care about Bark.
04:38He never talks to him or shows affection for him.
04:41The fact that Fang talks so much makes me wonder why Heavy King doesn't attack him to stop him from warping away.
04:48It's a good thing Fang and his friends didn't need to be rescued by Sonic in their personal miniseries.
04:54Sonic acts melodramatic about how bored he is.
04:57Doesn't this break the Sega rule, don't get Sonic overly emotional?
05:02It's point is for exaggerating him for comedy, but exaggerating isn't in character.
05:08Tails says if he set the reactor to overload, they'd only have a few minutes to escape it before it blows up the whole warship.
05:16How does he plan to do that when there's no buttons on it to press though?
05:20He doesn't have any gadgets to do that.
05:23Just have him have a ray gun.
05:25Sonic sweetly compliments him.
05:27It would've been better if he weren't only complimenting him for serving his own self interest.
05:33Why did the explosion happen off screen?
05:35Even in Sonic 2 we saw the death egg explode from the inside.
05:40Then all Sonic and Tails do is escape.
05:44I was looking forward to them beating up Heavy King.
05:47He's a robot, of course they'd be allowed to do that.
05:50He could've been in the same room as them.
05:52Tails was smart to make the reactor start a destruction sequence right away of course.
05:57Maybe if they actually had to fight the robots, they wouldn't have survived to be yelled at by Eggman.
06:02Who says he won't recover them.
06:04It only makes sense in that he's saying this to spite them.
06:08It'd be smart of him to recover the materials of the warship and robots to reuse them for free.
06:14After blowing the robots up.
06:16The vehicle's teleportation somehow causes motion sickness in Bean and Bark.
06:21But not Bang.
06:23There's no way one time would be enough to get used to it.
06:27And Bang can only have a few moments to celebrate before Bean goes out of character and yells at him for all he was put through.
06:34When I expect him to be a thrill seeker, he was grateful the whole time for the adventure.
06:38Because he smiled when he was blown up.
06:41Did he look like he was a scaredy cat in any of his fights in Sonic the Fighters?
06:46No, he can summon bombs, why would he have been scared?
06:50He and Bark ditch him in the flying side cars that never existed in the games.
06:55I'm just wondering if the writer will have the guts to have this stick for a long period of time.
06:59If he even does let his stick considering how in love he is with the idea of Team Hooligan that he used for a needlessly long time.
07:06Why did it take him this long to make Bang solo again when that's how he always was in the games?
07:12While I'm all for not having an adaptation be like the games.
07:16Let's just have it be creative and you wouldn't make it through 90% of the Sonic series otherwise.
07:21But Team Hooligan ripped off Archie.
07:24So it wasn't creative.
07:27Also, the name of their team was too stupid to take seriously, so I never wanted to use it.
07:32Being called Bark Buddy again.
07:35I didn't feel like Bark ever appreciated that though, he's too stoic.
07:39Thanks Minot to see the appeal in this because this means he doesn't have to split up his bounties.
07:45So it only makes sense that he got mad because they were stealing side cars.
07:49He has a boring Skype call with Eggman.
07:52He should know better than to smile while saying he was chasing a fairy tale because of course it makes Eggman know he's lying.
07:58If he doesn't believe him, why is he dropping it?
08:01Well it is smart of him to hire him again.
08:03So he isn't pressing the issue so that it can hire him for investigating a new island.
08:09I have to assume he means a new island and that he wants to conquer another island to get new territory.
08:14Because it'd be rare for there to literally be new islands.
08:18Eggman says he'll pay him again.
08:20The story ends with Fang getting a happy ending and expecting me to be glad he's calling himself The Hunter when he doesn't literally go hunting.
08:28Flynn mocked fans that didn't like that he stopped using Starline by saying that they want him to ride off into the sunset.
08:35So why is he happy with giving Fang a happy ending?
08:39It's even the sunset, so he might as well be riding off into the sunset.
08:44Fang tried to kill Sonic 8 times, he's functionally worse than Starline.
08:49But just because he's not in love with Eggman, he doesn't get any karma.
08:54Game characters have plot armor, but he should have had Knuckles imprison him again for relic theft and have the comic explain that he has robots that can automatically break him out after he's imprisoned long enough.
09:05And that could have happened the very next issue he wanted to use him.
09:09So he doesn't have to have him have a happy ending to use him again.
09:13Issue 69
09:16While I like seeing Sonic Rider's imagery again, I'm still baffled that they refused to do an original story arc again.
09:23When I go to a new story for a new story.
09:27And this is by Evan Stanley, so after Wonder she was forced to do this.
09:31It immediately gets me less interested because I've already seen some of this and I'm thinking of all the games to do a big reference to, why would it be this one?
09:42Flynn said the comic was for 8 year olds.
09:44None of them would have been alive when Riders came out.
09:48They would only know about it by YouTubers who say it's a bad game.
09:53At least the Extreme Gear competition's a charity event.
09:57Even if the writing didn't feel like telling us what exact help the charity was going to provide to make me care more.
10:04I have to imagine Knight is a really common lazy name for owls.
10:08It must have been pretty forgettable because I forget it every time I'm told it.
10:13He arrogantly calls himself Sunset City's favorite DJ.
10:17And it turns out the Tails and other characters we know are already ready for the competition without an issue before this about them getting ready.
10:25So it's a bit confusing at first.
10:28But I'll gladly take fast pacing over the usual alternative.
10:32We're supposed to just assume he's right about his speculating on why each group is here instead of being told why.
10:39When normally we'd be shown why they joined an issue before they did.
10:44It'd be pretty likely that the parents of Surgeon Kit would see them on TV here.
10:49But it'd make sense if they didn't go here because they could've not been watching.
10:54It could've had Omelchild say 3, 2, 1 in the first panel we saw him in.
10:59But instead it feels like panels are wasted as I'm wondering why on earth this was considered appealing to the fans.
11:06Sonic Riders was demonized because Sonic was on a hoverboard.
11:10And people who missed the appeal of Sonic thought trying to be cool was bad as a result.
11:16And because the games were too hard.
11:19Why did the writers think a Riders arc was a great idea?
11:23I assume the reputation of the Riders games has turned around just because there's been enough time for nostalgia to set in.
11:30But the same can be said about even worse games in the series.
11:34Riders is such a random choice when it hasn't been relevant in a decade.
11:39And is a spinoff.
11:41Surge looks horrible wearing those goggles.
11:44I guess Tango peer pressured Whisper into this.
11:48I sure hope Sonic loses.
11:50Because him winning would be too predictable.
11:53I assume it's about the journey.
11:55So this better become interesting and exciting from a lot of things happening.
12:00And actually surprise me.
12:02But so far there's two things I'm predicting.
12:05Either he wins or the airboards get damaged.
12:08What's a clean race?
12:11You don't have to have dialogue all the time.
12:14I wish this was by the writer of that Metal Sonic story where he touches the Metal Virus.
12:19Instead of characters talking just for the sake of it and boring them.
12:23Tails geeks out showing off his character.
12:27The next page is a giant waste of time focusing on an OC of the writer.
12:32He already said who the event was made possible from.
12:35So why does he say it again?
12:38He says the charity is about raising money for the repair and recycling efforts of the restoration.
12:44I always assumed the restoration wasn't the only organization doing repairing.
12:48Since it'd be impossible for a world this advanced to have it like that.
12:52But some people think otherwise.
12:54Which goes to show you the shoddy world building.
12:56As we could've seen people fix the damage alongside them.
13:00For comedy's sake there's a TV show displayed of a parody of Eggman.
13:04Who has a boring bragging speech and finally gets interrupted by crab meat pinching him.
13:09I know why he looks like this but it would've been more satisfying if he looked like Eggman.
13:13And this didn't take so long to happen that I was too bored to appreciate anything.
13:18This story's got me desperate for it to end from the start from the lack of creativity and stakes.
13:23The only stakes are the worry that Surge is gonna sneak in bombs and throw them at Sonic.
13:29Why should I care about this stolen plot?
13:32I wanted to see Mimic get exposed for who he really is.
13:36Clean up your old toys before you play with your new ones.
13:39This is like when they had the Mega Sally arc when already in the middle of the arc started by Jeffrey betraying Sonic.
13:45It's good that it builds character in Jewel by establishing that she hates overly sweet tasting things.
13:51It barely does anything and I'll probably forget it.
13:55Why is there a scene like this?
13:57Some people get really bored at seeing a scene with no game characters and skip it.
14:02Jewel doesn't lampshade the name Chaos Cola and wishes she was at the tournament representing the restoration.
14:10And Clutch tries to convince her otherwise for a selfish reason.
14:14I guess he wants her here so she'll get killed.
14:17Otherwise, why would he even bother having her here?
14:22It's not like she'd be able to stop his plan if she was at the tournament.
14:28Because she doesn't have an airboard.
14:31He finally explains why she even partnered up with him.
14:34Because he promised to take the restoration global.
14:37And she was as stupidly naive as King Acorn for trusting an obviously evil character with black eyes.
14:44To be fair, the fact that nobody questions Mimic and Hem's eyes implies that there are entire races of people who look like this.
14:50And it'd be unrealistic for all of them to be evil so she just didn't want to be bigoted.
14:55So if we're going with logic here, she doesn't fully trust him but is acting like she does to feel good about herself.
15:02She says she has to go back to work so the writer didn't forget who she is.
15:07I wish there was a narration from the Omochao announcer.
15:11It's just more boring dialogue to read to drag things out when nobody cares about what Omochao has to say.
15:17I have to wonder why Omochao got fired from his last position.
15:22How did Jet get ahead of Sonic?
15:24I had to take a few seconds to just assume Wave made his airboard faster than the average board.
15:29Because normally I'd assume that their boards would be the same speed.
15:33Normally I'd find Jet's way of talking annoying.
15:36But the way Sonic was in previous issues makes me appreciate it.
15:40He says they've been at work.
15:42Why does he expect them to care?
15:44That has nothing to do with Sonic.
15:46Who never had a chance at stopping him from taking from Angel Island anyways.
15:51So it's not a blow to his ego.
15:53You've never faced a Babylon rogues like this.
15:57Okay, I have to assume Sega told the writers to have him say this to establish that Sonic Riders as a series is in fact another universe.
16:05Which makes sense since Knuckles is a treasure hunter who floats and hangs out with Sonic all day.
16:10And Sonic and his friends were dressed differently even before they knew there was going to be an airboarding race to dress up for.
16:16I'm just so confused that they had him say this when the whole point of the arc is to pander to fans of Riders.
16:22Or if it's not, then it's even more baffling that the writer wrote this to have an excuse not to try to be creative if she knew no one asked for this.
16:30Now I want to see how Jet met him in this comic.
16:33That'd be a better story.
16:35This is nothing we haven't seen before from the first time they met.
16:39Wave accuses Jet of wasting his time.
16:42But he's not because he's still airboarding ahead.
16:45She sarcastically calls Tails' airboard creative for no logical reason.
16:49So I have to just assume she's lying to mess with him.
16:53But this time I get to see someone stand up to her for insulting Tails.
16:58Which anybody would think to make as an improvement.
17:01One person standing up to her isn't enough though.
17:04And I have to wonder why Sonic doesn't do any.
17:07When you'd expect him to be the one saying this since he's supposed to be Tails' best friend.
17:12Not someone who doesn't care if he's being insulted.
17:15Or in this case, stops caring the second he's stood up for it.
17:18He's smiling here.
17:20Storm is now so pathetic that he's afraid of Amy the second she looks at him.
17:25This would only make sense if he was continuing off Rider's zero gravity where she threw something metal at him scaring him.
17:31But no.
17:32People could accuse this of favoritizing Amy.
17:35Forgetting that the same writer had her runaway scared from a badnik.
17:39She's made her tough since then though.
17:42But she shouldn't be trying this hard when Amy doesn't have her hammer or anything hard to throw at him.
17:47He has nothing to be scared of when he should assume he's stronger than her.
17:51Jen asks Sonic to say something and he doesn't.
17:55I like this.
17:56It's always good to see a character not talk more than they have to.
17:59When 99% of the time Sonic characters have nothing so interesting to converse about that it justified talking more than necessary.
18:08Instead, Evan unintentionally gets right that Sonic is supposed to be a so-called man of few words.
18:14In the games, all they told Shadow to explain that he used Chaos Control with a fake ammo was say,
18:19You actually saved me, you know.
18:21And the whole intended appeal is the comics based on the games.
18:25I have no idea how Sonic's doing whatever it is that's supposed to be shocking Jet.
18:31It makes no effort to explain anything to the people who never played Sonic Riders and haven't listened to a commentary of it in years.
18:38Which is the vast majority of the Sonic fanbase.
18:41I know because the highest sales the Riders series gets is only nearly 1.5 million.
18:48And the best-selling normal Sonic game by initial sales, Generations, sold 4.8 million.
18:54So there should have been a text box at the top of the panel explaining what the hell Sonic's doing.
18:59While normally I'd take niche references any day over the overdone alternative, like to a Game Gear game for example.
19:07Basing an entire plot around a niche reference is mis-aimed to the point of being dumb when they only end up confusing the audience.
19:15How does Sonic making his board go right and back cause it to burst ahead of him?
19:20Why would he make it create fire behind it when that only means he'll have to not do it right behind a person to avoid igniting him?
19:27The fire should be more below the airboard than that so there's no risk of anyone going into it.
19:33Sonic mocks Jet and that annoys him, which is satisfying.
19:37Game Sonic would have never done that.
19:40He never did that after going faster than Jet.
19:43If anything, he just acted nice to him.
19:45This doesn't surprise me in the context of IDW because IDW's Sonic's more of an anti-hero like was intended from the classic days.
19:53Sonic compliments Tails so he thanks him and it's sweet that Amy's smiling with her eyes closed as well as Tails.
20:00I don't know why Tails is laughing though.
20:03Sonic didn't tell a joke or say anything that could even be misinterpreted as funny.
20:08Even if he did, it'd be doing something even sitcoms know not to do because it's like laughing at your own joke.
20:14Cut engine. Since when was it cut?
20:17What does Tails need to tell Sonic this?
20:20If this was Sonic's first ever time airboarding, he'd be doing worse than this and look serious.
20:26At least realistically.
20:27So he must have done practicing before this.
20:30So why wasn't he already told this?
20:32He did that thing that boosted him ahead casually like he's done it before.
20:37Wouldn't you have done it in front of Tails before?
20:40Jet makes Sonic wince when his airboard intentionally is bumped into his.
20:45There's pink gas from Lanolin's wisp on and she whines to him and I had to re-read her text bubble in shock because it looked more like something Tails would say.
20:54She's being needlessly sophisticated and stuck up about phrasing it instead of talking like a normal person would.
21:00And I don't remember this being her character.
21:03Jet has to know she's not literally a cop and is just saying that to insult her.
21:08It's so ironic that Lanolin's being this killjoy referee while riding the most edgy looking black vehicle since Shadow's motorcycle.
21:16This would have made sense if she always dressed in black like Whisper which she doesn't.
21:21So this would have only been a good fit for Whisper.
21:24But instead Whisper somehow is not dressed in black.
21:28Despite liking the color enough to usually use it.
21:31So it's hard to believe she'd pick an outfit looking like this.
21:35I guess Tangle pressured her into it like everything else.
21:39She was cool when she was solo.
21:41She loses her solo anti-hero appeal as part of a team.
21:45Lanolin becomes pathetically ineffectual by saying,
21:49If I'd see you doing that again.
21:51Making me ask, why doesn't she punish him right away?
21:54She doesn't have any emotional attachment to him.
21:57I can't imagine it would be in the rules that if someone breaks the rules you only get punished for it after he does it again.
22:04I doubt that's ever the case in sports.
22:07And if it ever is, it's the sport doing it wrong.
22:10So it makes it lack self-awareness that she says she's here to uphold the rules.
22:15Even though this isn't her career.
22:18How did she get hired as a referee with no experience?
22:22Why did she say we're here to uphold them when she's the only one of her team with a whisp on that even could punish rule breakers?
22:30I would expect Surge to be the first one to break the rule considering that her being here causes tension because she's never done this before and is one of the only ones here who wants to kill Sonic.
22:40And this is the first airboard race in the series where participants want to kill the heroes.
22:45And the first instance of cheating is so tame and uncreative.
22:49I hope we see more interesting, actually exciting forms of cheating.
22:53Because I've been bored silly seeing nothing but characters airboarding ahead with dialogue being the whole thing lengthening the comic.
23:01Meaning that nearly all I have to rant about is dialogue.
23:05At that point you might as well be writing a picture book for all the things actually happening.
23:09Jet says he'll beat Sonic fair and square.
23:12And I'm immediately reminded that in Free Riders he got mad at Wave for sabotaging Tails' airboard because he wanted his team to beat Sonic fairly or prove nothing about his team.
23:23So this is another way IDW Jet has done wrong.
23:27Jet wanting to win against Sonic fairly was interesting because he's evil.
23:31And it emphasizes that he wants to actually prove he's better than Sonic.
23:36Not just being motivated by trying to upset Sonic like most of Sonic's enemies would in a competition with him.
23:41Jet wanting to cheat was what a typical writer who's completely unfamiliar with Sonic would assume from him.
23:47Based on only knowing his character at a superficial level.
23:51Only being told one sentence about him.
23:54So it's how Pontack and Graff would write him.
23:57What was the point of a Sonic fan writing?
24:00I'm all for being more creative with the characters from the games.
24:03But if it's objectively a downgrade, that's unacceptable.
24:06It makes me wonder why Sega only cares enough to give the writers notes on the writing of Shadow.
24:11Amy's airboard malfunctions even though Tails is a genius.
24:15And this isn't Sonic's airboard.
24:17As Zuma was sabotaged by Kitsunami.
24:20Sonic and Tails' airboard somehow messed up too, throwing them off them.
24:24And the next scene flashes back to yesterday evening where Clutch somehow cares enough about Mimic to tell him to enjoy the sunset with him.
24:31At least it deepens his character a little that he can enjoy a sunset.
24:35Mimic shows him the group of participants he thinks he should be worried about.
24:39Why do they think he should be worried about the Babylon Rogues?
24:42How are they a threat to his plan when anyone could potentially do the same things with airboards as them?
24:47And airboards are all they're allowed to have in the tournament.
24:51Why does Clutch think they're morons?
24:53He doesn't know them personally.
24:55Jet's a moron in this iteration, but he doesn't have a way of knowing that.
24:59There's no reason they'd have gotten themselves famous for being morons as a whole when all they do is effortlessly get away with stealing treasure.
25:07The story starts wasting my time after that.
25:10Clutch reveals that he told Mimic to tell the people in the inspection room with the airboards waiting in them to sabotage the airboards.
25:17So that makes sense.
25:19It sure would be confusing if this was contradicted.
25:22Clutch says it's best to be thorough as an excuse for saying, make sure they hit all three of them.
25:28Then for no reason, the story is a flashback to when Mimic first told Surge to use something to sabotage Sonic's airboard.
25:35How is she supposed to do that without being caught?
25:38I hate how her hair looks here.
25:40By waiting until now to have flashbacks, the story is implying that it has no faith in the audience to stay interested in the issue if it told the story in chronological order like it's supposed to.
25:50To actually get invested in the tournament instead of never caring because it happens out of nowhere like whatever and rushes to establish excuses for every group's motivation.
26:00I like that Kid tends to sleep with a bunch of unnecessary pillows around him because it adds to his character from what applies about him.
26:07Then he needs those extra pillows for comfort.
26:10But the only reason Surge would wake up with their blanket barely on is if it was a hot night.
26:16So that makes no sense that he put up with all those pillows overheating him.
26:21The blanket wouldn't just fall off her for no reason.
26:25And Surge is paranoid of Mimic, which is more realistic than her actually trusting him completely.
26:31And it's what I expected.
26:33Though I didn't expect her to be the type to jump to the conclusion that any random guy could be a creep, which is clearly ugly.
26:40So she wouldn't have experience with guys being creeps to her like that.
26:44She also lampshades that sneaking around isn't her style.
26:48Making me again assume that she's only going along with it because her failure to beat Sonic her way ruined her confidence in her way.
26:55Why does Clutch think she and Kid were left nearly dead before he found them?
27:00They clearly weren't.
27:02They can heal really fast and show no sign of starvation.
27:06Which would be impossible anyways if they can heal really fast because they work by making their cells regenerate instantly.
27:13I guess the appeal of Clutch is supposed to be that it's a mystery why he's even doing this plan.
27:18It actually makes sense if his plan was to simply have Surge put a bomb on the board that's more effective so it actually hurts him.
27:25But that would be guaranteed to kill him.
27:27So he can't be ridden with any brain cells at all.
27:30Then the writers roll themselves into a corner where they have to make a character act in an unbelievable way for the plot.
27:36That's lame.
27:38A good writer writes like he's going through a maze the proper way.
27:42There's no point in her not being with Starline when she's with a character who is being a substitute Starline to her anyways without the hypnosis.
27:50For once Amy acts like the fangirl she's meant to be.
27:53And I can't get enough of that.
27:55Sonic grabs her shoe and somehow says she's off the board when technically she's still holding it.
28:01What does Sonic expect to do about the Haywire thing?
28:04He's not good with technology.
28:06A blast of wisp energy I assume hits the board but somehow isn't shown impacting it.
28:12So I just have to assume it did to get Team Sonic standing still.
28:16Tangle's the only one in the referee team caring enough about them to show compassion.
28:21Lanolin naturally points out that they should get off the track because they're risking a pileup.
28:26Tangle somehow doesn't know she's right but at least I get to see someone point out that we're supposed to see her as harsh.
28:32So she's filling the role that Shadow's supposed to fill.
28:36Being the anti-hero who does things in his own pragmatic way.
28:40She's just as rude as Sonic as Shadow is anyways but more subtle and formal about how she talks.
28:46If this is her intended character now, she's redundant and insults Shadow by being in his place.
28:52Even though I do root for her right here.
28:55You'd think the person Tangle would be more interested in calling out would be the one who risks shooting Amy herself.
29:01Or even Sonic and Tails.
29:03Which could've happened if she didn't aim far enough ahead to properly account for the speed they were going ahead.
29:08Whisper nearly killed or injured them.
29:11And I know that's how it is because why would Whisper have ever tried shooting Mimic at all if shooting people would only give them a powerup to use?
29:19Kid calling Surge Big Sis instead would've been good showing that they really did become close but alas.
29:26Instead he might as well be a mindless robot like Metal Sonic all over again.
29:31How pointless.
29:33Barely even any lines which is only good in that she ruins the appeal of his character when she does give him a lot of lines.
29:40He's only here because he has to be.
29:42Other than padding, what is the point of a scene where Mimic's telling Jewel what happened?
29:47The only reason I care about Jewel is because she's a good person and has angst.
29:52And the former would be assumed about any background character.
29:55The only great thing about Jewel is that she's the only IDW character that's original.
30:00I'd like that to explain that Central City is where the heroes are.
30:03I don't get to see the Sonic characters sit in a restaurant nearly often enough.
30:07So seeing them do normal people things humanizes them.
30:10It should happen a lot more often so I feel like they're relatable people and not just characters that exist to deal with the bad guys.
30:17Which barely happens anymore because the Diamond Cutters have all the focus and even they never do any missions against Eggman lately.
30:24Amy and Sonic have the common sense to get suspicious from the malfunctions since Amy's board isn't made by Tails.
30:31Somehow she preferred to buy one for no reason.
30:34I could've assumed they'd get suspicious.
30:37Tails is supposed to be the smart one.
30:39He should've figured out what she did.
30:41Amy wants to investigate and somehow Tails says the Restoration Shuttle leaves tomorrow as an excuse for not examining the shuttle even though that'll be several hours from now.
30:53Why is Tails the stupid one here?
30:56It's like an STC.
30:59You could have another person be the one doing all of the inventing and the plans of IDW would be the same.
31:05Tails has to tell Sonic that trashing the shuttle ruining the sweepstakes would defeat the purpose of investigating.
31:12He never said he'd trash the shuttle entirely.
31:15This dialogue could only be less natural if they were stilted.
31:20So the characters are only made to be stupid to make Eggman look necessary for them to team up with.
31:26It's instantly obvious from the fact that Eggman came here without his robots that he's here to offer truce, not fight them.
31:33Though they could be assuming he has a dangerous machine in his bank.
31:36All of Team Sonic take Eggman very seriously in this situation.
31:40Which is how it's supposed to be.
31:42But it's only this way because he doesn't do this all the time.
31:45While in Sonic Boom they wouldn't react.
31:48And even in Sonic Boom he was used to tracking Sonic down.
31:52What do you mean you're not used to it?
31:54The only way he could track them down would be to send flying cameras or robots with camera footage he can see to scour the area.
32:02And that's not hard work.
32:04Why would a guy who relies on machines track him down purely by walking everywhere until he finds them?
32:10Eggman isn't the type to stop being used to tracking down the guy he fights with regularly just because he took a break to get new ideas.
32:18Eggman's never looked so incompetent.
32:20There should always be some comedy with Eggman, but I'd rather have different comedy.
32:24This is even more insulting to his character than Pontac and Grappler to him.
32:28At least he has a new outfit.
32:30What mandate?
32:32Eggman says he conveniently saw a robot watching the airing of the Riotous Tournament.
32:37I saw it coming a mile away that Eggman would see the thing making fun of him.
32:41This kind of thing was already done in AYCH where it took more effort from the writer because Eggman looked like himself, but it still made an egg pun and referenced a famous commercial.
32:51Eggman got brought his food off screen, which shows what kind of food he likes to eat beyond what he eats in the games already.
32:58It's good that he has a villain moment by sitting on Tails.
33:01And Tails is amazed by seeing that Eggman made his own version of Extreme Gear that has solid hologram camouflage.
33:09But he's amazed before getting told that.
33:12The thing actually impressive about this.
33:15Would he say whoa at a new game console too?
33:19It looks like he's impressed by literally all new technology when it shouldn't be surprising that Eggman would do this.
33:25Eggman must just be saying he'll return the favor to Sonic to make himself look good to him to manipulate him.
33:31Because so would a character otherwise.
33:34His motive for giving them a way to sneak onto the shuttle is that he wants to find out who caused their boards to sabotage.
33:40Curiosity is a believable motive.
33:43But why couldn't he just send robots to do this for him?
33:47Like Metal Sonic?
33:49He already teams up with Sonic too much.
33:52Oh no, there's a Babel in my shoe. Guess I'll have to team up with Sonic to get it out.
33:57We're almost at that level if you think about it.
34:00It would just be as easy as remembering that he said he wouldn't hire the Babylon Rogues because he could just send his robots to do what they do.
34:07This is why Sonic Comics and Cartoons shouldn't be going off the games because it's already hard enough for them to keep track of their own continuity.
34:14Instead they end up with a lot more continuity errors.
34:17Logically, he'd only have them use this thing because he'd have a bomb in it that would blow them up.
34:24Sure he said blowing them up with a bomb would be too easy.
34:28But he only said that to starlight.
34:30And he was perfectly fine with planning on carpet bombing Sonic and bad guys.
34:34So obviously that rule only applies to him.
34:37He's just a complete hypocrite.
34:39The story ends with Sonic somehow smiling while saying he's gonna agree to the deal even though he was believably suspicious and reluctant before.
34:47Shouldn't Eggman be offering this deal to the Babylon Rogues instead of humbling himself working for Sonic again?
34:53In Frontiers he was so embarrassed he had to work with Sonic so much that he refused to.
34:57The heroes would be just as likely to go home with the technology as the Rogues would so they're just as trustworthy.
35:04He should explain that he thinks Jet would demand a cash reward or he did when he approached him.
35:10The story ends with words that seem to be a reference to Ghost Rider for no apparent reason.
35:15I can't imagine they'd be able to find out anything from investigating an empty room that only used to have airboards.
35:22Why would there be any hint of what happened there?
35:25There could conveniently be a camera in that room which would be common sense to catch anyone wanting to steal the airboards.
35:31So I say conveniently because apparently there aren't cameras in the restoration that catch Mimic as if no place has cameras.
35:39But Pludge is the one in charge of the tournament so he'd be able to insist on there not being a camera there.
35:44The lack of a camera would be a dead giveaway that the one in charge wanted the boards to be sabotaged.
35:50So it would be pointless to not have a camera that would record the sabotage.
35:54And either way, he had no way of knowing the heroes would get to that room.
35:58So of course they wouldn't know to delete the camera footage.
36:01That obviously the security guy would have seen.
36:04So he'd have to have been told by Pludge to look the other way on that.
36:08Some people would still warn people anyways because they could get another job and they have actual morality.
36:15So it would be more believable if the security guy was prevented from watching the footage by a shape-shifting Mimic.
36:20I wonder if the next issue will fail to explain this because the comic is so sloppily written that it forgot the security cameras are omnipresent.
36:27So instead either the investigating would be a waste of time or Deus Ex Machina will help the heroes.
36:33If Tails was as competent as he should be, he would have already had a camouflager for his biplane.
36:40And all he'd have to do is tell Sonic to run to it holding him to get to it in seconds and then the plane would get to the shuttle.
36:47The same plane that went to other continents and unleashed without it going from day to night.
36:52We've already sabotaged Tails' board in the same way that the boards were sabotaged.
36:57She did that in Sonic Free Riders.
37:00Something I should have mentioned last issue as soon as Surge and Blaze were in the same room but didn't think about it because I was distracted by all the other problems with the story.
37:09Is how unbelievable is the idea that Sonic didn't think to get Blaze to cure Surge and kits amnesia too.
37:15Because he'd see people with amnesia near the person who cured his amnesia and connect the dots.
37:20I can make sense of this in a minute but it's so dumb because even a random person on Tumblr wondered if Blaze would do this for them.
37:27Even if Sonic's just that slow that it took a while to remember she could because the soul emeralds curing amnesia is unintuitive.
37:34It makes as much sense as the chaos emeralds being able to control time.
37:38When before all someone could do with them was go super but he didn't forget about chaos control.
37:44And it's not just Sonic who's stupid.
37:46It's also every friend around him because all of them are people he could have told about Blaze's amnesia curing to be polite.
37:53Because any normal friend would ask what his experience away from them was like.
37:58So no one ever thinking to cure them gets less likely the more people are involved.
38:02The good faith answer I'm going with is that uncharacteristically well thought out of Sonic.
38:08He did realize he could get Blaze to cure their amnesia ideally before she met Surge.
38:13But realized that curing their amnesia would mostly lead to more suffering for Surge and Kit and their families when they returned to them.
38:19Because the brainwashing would make them not how they want them to be at all.
38:23Leading to their families arguing with them and getting argued with on a daily basis at worst.
38:28Why put them through all that?
38:30Surge and Kit would be relieved to go back to their families at first and their families would be happy to be with them again at first.
38:36But it quickly devolved into them mostly being mad at each other for Surge and Kit refusing to go to school and planning against Sonic.
38:43It only worked out well if getting over amnesia made Surge go back to caring about her parents and how they think of her.
38:49To the point where she'd go back to school and tell Kit to do the same.
38:52Or go back to doing her studies at home if we pretend that everyone's homeschooled in the Sonic universe.
38:57Just because we didn't see schools in the games yet.
39:01By that logic, cabbage doesn't exist in Sonic.
39:04Surge and Kit would find schoolwork too boring when their brain wants to want something else.
39:09And why would they do that when they could spend all day in the restoration watching TV?
39:13They might end up going back to living with Clutch.
39:17The bad faith answer to this is that Sonic's so self-absorbed he doesn't care that they have amnesia because Surge wants to kill him.
39:25Which is the same reason he didn't care about her tragic origin being his fault.
39:29He's focused on his own problems and caring their amnesia wouldn't benefit him when they'd still be brainwashed.
39:35Unless their brainwashing is worn off.
39:38In which case their not knowing about their true identities is the only reason they're still going with what was intended for them.
39:44But Sonic's supposed to be a good person.
39:46He's trying to present himself as one anyways.
39:49So curing their amnesia would be a way to virtue signal and get their trust.
39:53This issue by Ian Flynn was about Fang eventually escaping the warship with a vehicle because apparently it can hear his whistle from really far away.
40:02As if there's no end to the amount of new powers that the plot demands it has.
40:06But I can believe that with technology.
40:08It's a vehicle so there's plenty of room for all sorts of technology we've never seen before in it.
40:15Sonic himself was pointless to the plot.
40:18At least he used an ice sword and got the Warp Toe Pass which he was smart enough to keep.
40:23Does he still have the sword or was he impossibly dumb enough to ditch it?
40:27Because it was never explained why he ditched it.
40:30So there were a few cool moments.
40:34But that doesn't make a constantly padded out boring story good.
40:38By that logic, pre-boot Flynn Archie would be good because cool stuff is all it has to offer normally.
40:44Since Julie Tsu is barely used in it.
40:47But it's not above criticism and neither is this.
40:50Sonic is already supposed to be cool and it usually is.
40:54So it doesn't become great just by being standard.
40:57Doing the bare minimum to be good.
40:59Not when it has an overabundance of major problems.
41:03I didn't hate the Fang miniseries.
41:05I just feel nothing because of it.
41:07When something's only good because it's not bad, then ouch.
41:12The people complaining about Sonic Mania being mostly old levels, myself included,
41:17have every reason to be mad at this for having the only new setting be a warship.
41:23Which doesn't feel emotely unique anyways.
41:26If this was at least mostly new settings, I would've been more impressed by it.
41:32You know, I would've been ten times as impressed by the traps that Knuckles used
41:36if they were traps I'd never seen before.
41:39Because then the writer would've come up with them himself.
41:43And Knuckles would've come up with them.
41:46This boring issue was by Evan Stanley.
41:49And all it was about was Sonic characters airboarding ahead in yet another racing tournament
41:54with dialogue being all that pats out the read time until their boards malfunction.
42:00And they have to accept Eggman's technology to be able to investigate the room where the airboards were.
42:05It's baffling that the creative major writer chose to be uncreative in how she wrote the story
42:10by basing the next little arc on a game that a fourth of the fanbase played.
42:15It also feels low stakes the whole time, so I really have no reason to care about most of it
42:20when almost nothing happens.
42:22It's better to do a reference to something niche, and I like the writer's imagery,
42:26but I'd much rather see Mimic get exposed.
42:29But at least the arc isn't a waste of time,
42:31because it is getting the comic closer to having the heroes discover Clutch's evil plan
42:36so that it won't be partnered with Joule anymore.
42:39But this arc didn't need to exist because it could've easily not been written to have partnered up with her successfully
42:44because it was common sense that she had been warned about one of the heroes' enemies to prevent this kind of thing.
42:49So it's still a filler arc that'll only not be if it leads to Mimic getting exposed,
42:54but Mimic could've been exposed from some other plot in one issue
42:58instead of taking forever to resolve a plot point I want it resolved immediately.