Finished all of Archie Sonic. I have some feelings, so I’ll split my thoughts into three eras:
The original era, between #1-159: There were a few decent stories here, but so much of it was such a mess. You had goofy nonsensical Gallagher stories, Penders’ ill advised attempts at serious drama, with people like Bollers and others often scrambling and butting heads with weird ideas that often didn’t gel together. Quite a lot of it was boring, getting caught up in convoluted plots and insane melodrama that made reading it exhausting.
The Ian Flynn era, #160-247: The comic only started to get consistently great here. A few duds like House of Cards aside, Ian did a lot of work to fix the issues with the comics before that point; he jettisoned much of the love triangle nonsense, made Sally Acorn more proactive, reinvented villains like Scourge and Mogul to be more threatening, a greater balance of action and character stuff, plus tying a lot of threads and ideas to make a more cohesive setting. By the end of this run there was a real sense of momentum that was ultimately cut short by the lawsuit. Leading into...
The reboot era, #252-290: It reminds me a lot of the IDW comics, primarily in that the tone was far lighter and softer, basing itself more on the games than the previous Archie stories beforehand. There was plenty of promise shown in these issues, with several characters and ideas from multiple Sonic adaptations repurposed in cool new ways (especially with Breezie and Honey in the Champions Arc). The major failing of this era was that it started with a big world ending crisis so soon after it started, using Sonic Unleashed as an excuse to travel around the world. Ian tried to squeeze a lot of worldbuilding in almost a single year, instead of slowing down and letting the setting lay out more naturally. Still a shame to see it go ‘cause I was interested in the places it could have gone.
My final thoughts: Archie Sonic was a deeply flawed series. For a majority of it’s lifespan it was this weird mess of a comic that often sucked, getting life injected back in twice before circumstances beyond the creators control pulled a plug on the whole thing. Having seen the series in it’s totality, I’m a little less precious about Archie Sonic as I used to be. I’ll miss some of the ideas and concepts behind this continuity, but I’m not as sad over it’s death so much as pity the fact that neither version (pre and post reboot) didn’t get a proper resolution.
