Ken Penders hasn't been involved in a long time. Ian Flynn has been in charge for several years now, and has knocked it out of the park.
Eh there are some issues, besides glaring worlds unite level failures. You then have to deal with Ian trying to establish a world which equals " i hope you dont like video game characters" when shadow and knuckles two of the most popular characters in your series stiill used to this day, are deemed of less import than characters spun off from an irrelevant cartoon sega themselves dont aknowledge, maybe thats weird. I feel like thats a genuine thing i have warn people about when recommending many just enjoying sonic and game stuff having to be thrown into characters they dont care about that are for whatever reason valued more than the ones they do. I end up just recommending, sonic universe. They i describe the main book and they kind of dont care about a lot of the characters happening, and there were hog. That thing that lasted way too long.
I wouldnt say Ian has knocked it out of the park, but hes doing better than ken penders,especially in one major area characterization. I think ian does it better than sega, i think there are restrictions put on the comic that suggest that sega might not understand characterization in general. I think a lot of people in this thread and on the net in general might get characterization more than sonic team. Back on track, that is Ian's strongest trait, character moments.
That isn't to say his characters are perfect, he has to work with in some very idiotic demands by sega that restrict stories and characters in weird ways. Like rouge becoming nothing, because team dark or teams in general probably shouldn't have existed longer than heroes, her character and omega have become characters strictly to serve shadow. But shadow doesnt need it, so it largely results in them fighting putties or jobbing while shadow does the actual work. This is just one example there are plenty of others Ian's rules have just destroyed, or made absent like blaze.
What he isn't good at is world construction, after Ken Penders's tantrum he was tasked to rebuild. And his solution was was prop up characters everwhere, because thats what hes good at. Build the world on something. Bad news is, you also have to dedicate time and effort to these characters, and they cant really. So they come off as nothing,and for many some mess they have weave through to get to the character they care about. The world isn't lived in, and there is very little time dedicated to these folks, and to actual game characters too.
Because some of the games guy's due to having to have a world created around them get a very short straw.
Tails had something going on, but that hasn't been addressed in years and doesn't seem like it is
Amy and blaze in the same camp and blaze is just absent. Same with chaotix.
Silver just ended some stuff that feels like it was set up so it can be addressed years later.
And eggman and his who crew, eggy is a bad guy so he'll do better than others by way of being necessary for story telling.
Shadow and knuckles's have opposite problem, theirs are the most interesting stories, and tbqh way more interesting than the were hog now troll filled mess that is the main book. But it shouldn't take them actually years to address two super popular charcters ( because shadow and knuckles comes back this summer), because i kind of dont care about nagus and...eggbosses and whoever. I wanna see the cool characters i like from the games go on their own adventures and do cool shit, but thats largey not the comic right now. Its, not to be too disrespectful, someone trying to reestablish a fanfiction because the original writer left. When the fanfiction may have not been worth trying to salvage in the first place? I feel like the strait up new dudes in many situation are way better than the salvage characters and themes.
And when a comic pushes so much of the reason it exists, the games, into the background. Unless the writer decides to roman reigns you like the were hog. Or are so popular, like shadow and knuckles, cant be contained,but delayed for years. And when you do get some focus while some new characters are excellent, there are just as many usless ones now interwoven within the games.
Its hard to recommend. He isnt knocking it out of the park by any means, hes doing pretty good with what he has though.
