like ok where do i even begin with how funny this is
it takes chris exactly 0.5 seconds to come up with “we can power the ship with the master emerald” which isn’t funny per se he’s nearing regular robotnik-level genius in this season but it is funny because the master emerald is the fuckdamn reason he’s in this dimension it like summoned him or someshit so you know he was like “alright bitch if we’re going on an adventure ur gonna do ur fucking part”
he is SO happy to say they can use the master emerald despite knowing WAY TOO MUCH HOW FUCKING INSANE KNUCKLES IS ABOUT HIS FUCKING EMERALD
NOT A SINGLE CHARACTER APPEARS TO QUESTION USING THE MASTER EMERALD DESPITE ALSO KNOWING KNUCKLES AND KNOWING HE WILL GO APESHIT
Also. They still use his 12yo model due to plot contrivance but Chris is 18 years old in this season. HE is the adult supervision. HE is older than KNUCKLES. And this is his genius plan
They don’t even ASK Knuckles they just swing by and GRAB IT
Knuckles is just taking a fucking walk trying to find where Rouge ran off to so he can make sure she doesn’t steal his fucking emerald and then someone ELSE steals his fucking emerald while he’s out
he yells “WHAT????” and then “EVEN MORE ‘WHAT’????”
Everyone is so smiley and happy as they lower the Master Emerald into the fucking (untested?) rocketship
Sonic is holding the emerald in place but he’s so tiny and happy it looks like he’s giving it a hug or someshit
Chris on the fuckin chairlift oh my god
Knuckles just RUNNING IN yelling “HEY BITCHES?????” because like. this had to have only been like an hour tops from getting the emerald to getting back and putting it in. maybe two hours if we’re generous. which means Knuckles IMMEDIATELY figured out that they were the ones who took his fucking emerald and just went to beat their asses
He comes in screaming at them and literally NOBODY even flinches. not even Cosmo who does not know this fucker and is scared of her own shadow
Sonic’s line is literally just “Hi, Knuckles! We’re borrowing the Master Emerald for a while.” like anyone with a cursory knowledge of Knuckles the Fucking Echidna and his Fucking Emerald would know that is like the funniest possible thing Sonic could just say to him offhandedly and with little context
Speaking of little context. Knuckles knows about the Metarex attacking the planet, he did not know that Tails had a giant fuck-off spaceship already prepared so did he think Tails just built that or did he think they stole it or
Knuckles also knows that Sonic lost the chaos emeralds less than 24 hours ago so there’s absolutely no McFucking way he’s going to trust Sonic with his Fucking Emerald
And that is even if he trusted Sonic beforehand. Which let’s be real. He does not
Knuckles is just like “YOU NEVER ASKED ME TO BORROW IT???” like he’s their fucking. parent who’s like “if you wanted candy you should have asked but now we’re not going to get any” also the girls are still just staring at him blank-faced and unresponsive
Amy decides to assuage his fears by telling him they are taking his Fucking Emerald to OUTER FUCKING SPACE and gives no context after that
Cosmo attempts to give context. Cream then interrupts and tries to talk to Knuckles about the power of friendship
Knuckles is like “FFS GIMME BACK MY EMERALD BEFORE I BEAT YOUR ASS”
CREAM LITERALLY JUST SAYS “I’M REALLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU KNUCKLES”?????? LIKE OH MY GOD
KNUCKLES LOOKS LEGITIMATELY UPSET AND SHOCKED THAT HE DISAPPOINTED THIS GIRL TEN YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM WHO STILL RELIGIOUSLY WATCHES BARNEY ON TV
KNUCKLES FREAKING THE FUCK OUT AS SOON AS HE SEES AMY’S HAMMER HE KNOWS WHAT SHE CAN DO WITH THAT
AMY DOESN’T EVEN LOOK ANGRY OR UPSET OR ANYTHING SHE’S JUST EXCITED TO GET TO BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA KNUCKLES SHE LOVES VIOLENCE
The three preteen girls just PILE on him
Knuckles is gettin the shit beaten out of him by 1) a 6yo who, again, still watches Barney and cries whenever people swat at bugs, 2) a traumatized girl made out of leaves who I don’t think has ever been in a fight before and honestly is just doing whatever Cream and Amy are doing, 3) a 12yo with a goddamn hammer
Cheese doesn’t even join the fight they just hang back and watch I think they’re still trying to process, just like me
NOBODY tries to help calm the situation Sonic’s just like “shouldn’t have been rude to Cream dumbass”
Chris and Tails are silent so I’m just assuming they’re not even paying attention anymore
They all know that Knuckles will join up anyway because that’s how their lives fucking go
“Had your dad even seen a hedgehog before making you?”
“Black Doom had no regard for living creatures, and Gerald rarely talked about the Mobians he encountered in his time on the planet… I’m not sure he got to experience this world for all it has to offer. So, no. I doubt he had.”
“…Geez, man. Now I feel bad for asking.”
Shadow HC that he has wack hands by Mobian-Hedgehog standards. It’s a weird mix of Mobian hands and normal, Earth Hedgehog hands, but it doesn’t hit the mark quite right in either regard.
Ok for newer people or people who only know Modern Sonic, Tails eating a large amount of food in a short amount of time has been a joke since "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993)"
Although mostly in that, it's come up once in both Sonic X and Sonic Boom:
Hi everyone. I'd like to apologize again for spreading that rumor about the fake Scourge licensing deal and its alleged cancelation that I initially thought had something to do with Scourge the Speed Demon. However, the person I'd been in contact with has publicly come forward about everything that happened, so to clear things up I now feel comfortable giving y'all the "short" version of that story, which is much more complicated than just "someone lied about Ken Penders on the internet again"
Yes, this is the ride that never ends
The important part is that the person who contacted me (we'll call them Party B) genuinely did believe that they were working on an "official" Scourge comic. The story starts when their acquaintance (we'll call them Party A) realized that they already had Ken's contact info from doing some sort of interview with him and went "what if I asked him for Scourge," then supposedly got in contact with Penders over Skype and did just that. Party A came back with details about a Scourge deal that did not exist, claiming to not just be the licensee of Scourge (and "connected characters") but the new owner of Scourge
Through a series of faked documents including a completely fabricated contract and eventually a fake receipt for wiring the money to Penders, Party A convinced Party B and a group of other young creatives that they would be working on an official Scourge the Hedgehog comic - or as official as one with permission from Penders but not from Sega can be, at least. A Twitter account was made for the project, plans started to be formulated, and the possibility of licensing out Scourge to Sonic fangame creators was even floated. Again - Party A did not actually have the rights to Scourge, but this group believed that they did due to an elaborate string of lies that Party A kept up for weeks. It seems that they had every intention to release something eventually, and this could have gotten Very Bad if Penders caught wind of it
Party B didn't really know much about the Archie Sonic comics, so to clear some things up regarding the legal battle and who owns what characters they got in touch with me via Twitter DMs. (Party A also claimed they would be able to use Fiona Fox and the Fearsome Foursome, who were created by Mike Gallagher and Scott Fulop respectively, not Penders.) This is where I first learned about this deal that, as I would be informed weeks later, did not actually exist. Party B said that Party A "owned" Scourge now, which should have been a red flag since I knew Penders was only licensing his characters, not selling them, but as Party B didn't even know who Penders was before all this I just assumed they were getting that detail mixed up
I never learned the identity of Party A until later, so when Scourge the Speed Demon was announced, I assumed that this was the thing I'd heard about. It seems that the announcement of Scourge the Speed Demon was the point where things started to fall apart for Party A, however, and they tried to cover their tracks by making up ANOTHER story about Penders suddenly revoking their contract and keeping the money, then giving the rights to this other team. Party B would report this to me at the time, and they also got in touch with members of the Speed Demon team to be like "hey, what the hell happened, I thought we had the license." But a few days later they poked enough holes in Party A's stories to realize that it was all fake, as were the alleged legal documents presented as "proof" of the deal
They decided to cut out the middle man and ask Penders directly if Party A had ever made a deal, and no. Penders had spoken to Party A previously, but they never had a serious discussion about licensing or selling Scourge. The team behind Scourge the Speed Demon was the only group he had ever licensed Scourge to, as he's stated this whole time. (And, in fact, that team probably still has the license for the duration of their contract, even with that comic being canceled due to the backlash, as Penders says he's still honoring the deal.)
And so here we are
I know this doesn't exactly help my case here, but I'm not going to link directly to the receipts Party B has now released, or name any names. And that's because, as I only learned after being told that it was all a lie... Party A is 17 years old. (Trust me when I say I never would have believed any of this had I known this earlier than this week.) And on principle I, an adult, am not going to use my Sonic comic blog to boost a lengthy Google Docs callout post for a 17-year-old
Christmas has come early for the Sonic Fandom it seems, because that Penders-sponsored Scourge comic has been canceled!
And not only that, but it's even come with a Phil Fish-tier "explanation" too!
You can just feel the salt oozing from every single word.
Now normally I'd feel bad for a creative team shuttering a project like this, but considering everything that's come out about the people running the project, as well as the fact they gave Ken Penders money for something he shouldn't own to begin with, I'm instead filled with exuberant joy at this piece of news.
Because this has all been crazy, here's a timeline of this whole situation with Penders licensing out Scourge. This has been a huge mess and the fandom has turned it into a big game of telephone, so for posterity I just wanna have one complete post about what happened.
Pre-announcement
August 18th, 2021: Penders announces that he intends to license out his Acorn Kingdom-based Archie Sonic characters. (Licensing them, not selling them. People keep saying he's selling them. He's not.) Specifically named are supporting characters like Prince Elias, Geoffrey St. John, and Queen Alicia, but most notably, Evil Sonic AKA Anti-Sonic AKA Scourge is on the list. This offer is aimed at fans and third parties, but also Sega and IDW, as Ken believes that them licensing his characters would be mutually beneficial. Fans mostly continue to be bewildered and outraged by the fact that Ken owns a character who originated as Sonic but with a leather jacket and sunglasses, although some who still like the guy instead optimistically respond with "Yay, the Archie characters are coming back!" (They're not.)
(I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of the copyright situation because I Am Not A Lawyer and we'd be here all day, but yes, Penders does own Scourge. He just can't say he's Sonic the Hedgehog anymore. No, it isn't fair, but he does. Archie losing the contracts made everything more complicated. This was all settled in court years ago.)
August 23rd: During a BumbleKast Q&A, Ian Flynn is asked about the licensing offer and the prospect of Sega striking a deal with Ken to use those characters in the IDW comics. Listen to the linked podcast clip if you want Ian's full explanation, but a partial summary:
Ian states up front very clearly that he's just a freelancer and that he doesn't represent Sega or IDW. But in his opinion, they probably wouldn't think it was worth the trouble to license old supporting characters from a third party, especially when Sega currently doesn't want the comics to reference SatAM at all. Characters like Elias and Alicia would need to be radically altered to separate them from Sally, and at that point they might as well just make new characters. Keep that last comment in mind, as it'll become relevant very soon... (Ian does, however, add that he loves writing Elias, and reminds listeners that getting to work on the original Archie Sonic universe was a dream come true for him. He just doesn't think Sega would go for it.)
But, again, Ian says that this is just his personal guess, and that if a deal was made he would happily admit he was wrong
Later that night: Outraged by an inaccurate secondhand account of Ian's podcast answer, Ken releases an outline of his proposed licensing deal in an attempt to explain why Ian's reasoning is, in his words, "absolute bullshit." He argues that he "really is easy to deal with," and that Ian simply doesn't want to work with non-game characters, which is absolutely not what he said at all. When confronted about what Ian actually said, Ken tells people to Google it because he "doesn't spend his time searching this stuff out."
Said licensing deal is widely derided by Sonic fans, mostly because of the relatively steep asking price of $10,000 up front against royalties for a two year license, but also in part because he pads out the list of characters on the table with uber-obscure extras like Lt. Smiley and Dynamac-3000. Fans generally do not agree with Ken's assertion that "IDW and Sega would only benefit from the inclusion of his material."
August 26th: Following the initial solicits of IDW's Sonic: Imposter Syndrome miniseries from August 20th, we get the proper unveiling of Surge the Tenrec, a new evil green and black doppelganger of Sonic who's immediately compared to Scourge by fans for obvious reasons. While the influence is undeniable, writer Ian Flynn had wanted to include Surge and her companion Kit the Fennec in the IDW series since day one to form a villainous glitch character trio with Dr. Starline, with Surge being a tribute to the ever-popular "Ashura" glitch. Surge and Kit are immediately greeted with a massive wave of hype and fanart
August 30th: Nobody seems to bite with the $10k bulk licensing deal, but Ken says that several parties are interested in licensing individual characters or groups of characters from him for a lower amount
[Edit 11/21: This post originally contained a section detailing a rumor about an alleged Scourge licensing deal that I had been privately contacted about in October, and how said deal later supposedly fell apart. This information has since been proven to be an elaborate lie. The Scourge comic that we're about to talk about is the only one ever licensed by Penders. I apologize sincerely for adding to the confusion here. [Edit 11/26: If you want more info on the fake deal, here's a separate post.]]
Post-announcement
November 15th: "Scourge the Speed Demon" is announced
RUSH! Comics in association with @KenPenders is proud to announce production on a 4-issue mini-series, Scourge The Speed Demon!
🔥The Official Revival Of The King🔥
#ScourgeComic #Scourge
Follow Scourge & his Hellfire Gang as they conquer The Wasteland.
Yes. He has a cigar now. I wonder whether or not he's still supposed to be 17 here
The Patreon-funded Scourge the Speed Demon (which, yes, was going to be a commercial product, not a free fancomic) is immediately hit with a massive wave of criticism via hundreds of replies and quote tweets. Fans are upset that Penders is not only licensing out the evil AU version of Sonic, but his Scourge persona in particular, which Ken had no involvement with. The makeover and name change were conceived by editor Mike Pellerito and artist Patrick Spaziante, and he was developed into a fan favorite character in stories by Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley. (Contrary to popular belief, no, Ian is not solely responsible for Scourge's creation.) Plus, fans continue to blame Penders for Scourge's removal from the comics, although this is an oversimplification of what happened there. Ken did want Archie to license the characters back from him - they just didn't. But fans still blame him regardless. And, of course, many question the entire premise of giving Scourge his own series that has nothing to do with Sonic
Fans also look into the creative team behind Scourge the Speed Demon (which does not include Penders, who was merely giving them the license), and a number of red flags come up. For one, folks find out about a skeevy sexual harassment scene in Rush!, the team's previous comic for which their company is named, where the hero strips a pair of female villains nude in public because he thinks they're hot. More concerningly, it's discovered that the lead artist on the project is following a number of extreme right wing accounts like Breitbart, PragerU, Steven Crowder, the Trumps, and more, and she had liked some pretty heinous posts from them. (In particular, an Islamophobic tweet from alt right conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson is singled out, but there are some general MAGA tweets as well.) "The artist is a white supremacist" quickly becomes pretty much the only thing people are talking about regarding the comic aside from "fuck Penders." When Ken is asked about it, he says this:
November 16th: The Scourge the Speed Demon team releases the following statement in an attempt to clarify several points of controversy:
This statement does not help
November 17th: In the middle of all this, IDW's Sonic: Imposter Syndrome #1 comes out. The fandom continues to love Surge and Kit. A common refrain among fans is that nobody needs to license Scourge from Ken now that Surge exists. I wish the only Sonic thing I had to talk about this week was how cool Surge and Kit are
November 17th - 18th: At some point, people notice that the replies listing who was working on the comic under the announcement tweet have been deleted. Some assume that this is an attempt to hide their affiliation with the controversial artist, but I would guess it was due to how much hate the project was getting in general
The lead artist would also eventually unfollow the far right accounts that had gotten her called out. Maybe she really had changed and had just forgotten to unfollow those accounts since she's so inactive on Twitter. Maybe not. (A later comment from the writer described the exclusively far right political accounts the artist was following as "mainstream political commentators," and he also added "I'm Aussie I don't know nor give a fuck about American politics." This does not inspire confidence.) The artist has yet to say anything about any of this, and she probably never will because of what happened next
November 19th: After three days of radio silence, the Scourge the Speed Demon Twitter vanishes, the Patreon (which had accrued $29 in pledges) is taken down, and all mentions of the series are scrubbed from the Rush! Comics website. The writer releases this statement explaining that the project has been canceled a mere four days after its announcement due to the backlash:
I'll state clearly that I absolutely do not support targeted harassment (which is one reason why I'm not naming or linking members of the creative team on this post), especially as an artist who's been on the receiving end of it myself, and I tried very hard to set aside my opinions on Penders and just wish the Scourge team the best from the start. But it's unclear how much of this "abuse" was genuine harassment, and how much was people criticizing the core concept of a non-Sonic Scourge comic, the sexual harassment scene in Rush!, and the political views of the lead artist. It should also not be surprising to anyone that a new Sonic-adjacent project with Ken's name attached was received poorly by Sonic fans. Even if he was never going to have any creative input, I genuinely do not know what they thought would happen when they uttered the phrase "in association with Ken Penders" in the year of our lord 2021
But let's look at it another way: maybe the team dodged a bullet! The getting yelled at by the entire Sonic fandom part, not so much, but the project being canceled means they can't possibly get in trouble with Sega for copyright infringement. I have no idea what would've happened (again - not a lawyer), but while Ken does own Scourge, he's explicitly forbidden from making his new stuff look too much like Sonic to avoid brand confusion, which is why The Lara-Su Chronicles looks like that. But that Scourge design still looks A LOT like Sonic. The updates just make him look like Movie Sonic. Who knows how Sega would have responded had this thing actually made it to market
At the time of posting this over a full day after the cancelation, Penders has yet to make any sort of comment. He's just continued his Sisyphean task of arguing with people on Twitter about how he can claim ownership of Scourge
It's unclear what will happen next, but as Penders has apparently been in contact with multiple potential licensees, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw another announcement involving a Penders-owned Archie Sonic character before long. You know, provided the interested parties haven't been scared off after all this. I just pray that there's no news for at least a couple weeks so I can have a fucking break
That weird Scourge comic getting announced and promptly cancelled after 4 days in the same week Surge was introduced is the funniest fucking turn of events that could possibly happen
IDW Sonic the Hedgehog: Imposter Syndrome #1 aka honestly I am just here for Surge
This has been one of the best issues narratively in awhile. I admit, I took a hiatus away from the book because I couldn’t deal with Belle. She is such a drag in not so much that she is bad character, but she is forcibly written in a way that continues an unpopular interpretation of a certain character and is written in a drawn out and obvious conclusion. I needed a break from Belle the Tinkerer and I hope people won’t hold that against me because this is a kid’s book. Regardless, this is a great start to a new arc.
I love Surge and Kit. They do so many things for Starline that distinguishes him from Eggman. First, Surge and Kit aren’t just a clone of Sonic and Tails. They are what Starline thinks of Sonic and Tails. Everything from Sonic and Tails’ personalities and relationship is spun on in the head of someone who doesn’t understand empathy or altruism and that’s reflected in Surge and Kit.
Starline is shown for once to be wrong in a comic that used to take his interpretations of situations as gospel. Surge disregards Kit and seeks acknowledgment because he interprets that’s what Sonic does to Tails and that’s what Sonic values. Kit is shown to only feel that his purpose is to support Surge no matter what because Starline sees Tails how fans think Sega sees Tails. It’s very clever writing because of all the evil Sonic clones that we’ve seen, this one actually reflects well on the creator of the creation.
Then we get to how Starline compares to Eggman.
Starline does not value them. He manipulates them, gaslights them, and reboots them the moment they act out.
He doesn’t bother to explain their purpose. He built them with a single directive: destroy Sonic and Tails.
Let’s compare that to Eggman.
Eggman actually gives a shit about Metal Sonic even after he betrays and overthrows Eggman. He does limit his personality but he doesn’t resort to gaslighting and lying. Metal is evil by choice because he believes he is the true Sonic. Surge is evil because she is told that she is superior to Sonic and isn’t given a clear purpose or personality outside of that.
Honestly, Surge and Kit are great. And I can’t wait until the next issue.
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