Except there was a problem: Sega wanted more.Īrchie’s various writers were left scrambling for new ideas. Robotnik was killed and the planet was freed.

In 1997, writer Ken Penders attempted to send the series off with its 50th issue in the “Endgame” arc, a climactic finale in which Dr. Robotnik became a techno-fascist dictator, while Sonic belonged to a team of anthropomorphic freedom fighters creatively named “the Freedom Fighters.” But when SatAM was canceled after two seasons, Archie’s team thought the comic’s days were numbered. How did it get to this point? The upheaval all comes back to one influential contributor by the name of Ken Penders.Īrchie Comics’ Sonic the Hedgehog was a spinoff of a spinoff, its premise taken loosely from the 1993 Saturday morning cartoon of the same name (unofficially dubbed “ SatAM” by series fans), which itself is based on the video games. And the comics were weird: in an issue of Knuckles the Echidna from the era, an armadillo quotes Bugs Bunny and hoists a hospital bed over his head as he trips on acid.īy the late 2000s this series and its hundreds of characters would be at the center of a grueling legal battle, one that has sparked outrage in the Sonic fandom and forever changed the course of the long-running franchise. To many American children, Sonic and his friends now existed primarily as comic-book characters. Sega’s follow-up to its Genesis home console, the Sega Saturn, was a total bust, and both Sonic cartoons had been canceled several years prior. Not only does Sonic receive no payment for the order, but he soon finds that Uncle Chuck and Muttski were roboticized during his delivery and is unable to snap them out of it.Sonic the Hedgehog reads a comic book that wasn’t the center of a perilous intellectual-property dispute.īy 1998, just a few years after Sonic the Hedgehog’s debut, the blue blur was in trouble. Before Robotnik performs the horrific procedure on his family, the evil scientist lures the Blue Blur away by ordering 200 chili dogs from Charles' chili dog stand, and Sonic graciously helps his uncle by delivering them himself. Robotnik, when his beloved Uncle Chuck and dog Muttski were roboticized.

The story that reveals Sonic's true name is actually a flashback that covers the first time he met Dr.

That was certainly the case in the now discontinued Archie Comics series, with lead writer Ken Penders taking the opportunity of the pilot issue of the original miniseries to reveal at least part of Sonic's civilian name.Īrchie Sonic Miniseries #0 contains two separate stories introducing the Sega character for the first time in comics. While fans know the Blue Blur by the name Sonic the Hedgehog, several incarnations of the character have revealed this is actually a superhero-style codename based on Sonic's powers.

Sonic the Hedgehog by Ken Penders