Following the recent announcement of Sonic & Mega Man: When Worlds Collide, Kotaku caught up with Archie Comics scribe Ian Flynn to talk about the upcoming crossover. There, Ian speaks a little about how the whole thing got started and his aspirations for the project, among other topics.
Below, a couple select segment from the interview:
Kotaku: Sonic and Mega Man represent different approaches to video game play mechanics, and those approaches shape their characters. How will you show off their personalities during this crossover?
Flynn:We've pretty solidly established who the characters are in their respective comic series. All that's left is to transplant them into the event and see how they react. The action will be intense, the stakes will be high, but all that razzle-dazzle wouldn't mean much if we didn't have endearing characters to cheer for. We've got them interacting with each other and their supporting casts from start to finish. The lasers and explosions are icing on the (blue) cake.
Kotaku: Will there be any animal/human kissing in the crossover?
Flynn: Yes. Hot Amy-on-Wily action. Haha – no, no, none of that.
For the uninitiated, that last tidbit is a reference to this. I thank my lucky stars Archie is *not* going down that route!
Head on over to Kotaku for the full interview.
lol, who the hell was asking these question? Bass confirmed, comic just got 20% cooler!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the info, but the link doesn't seem to be correct ^^;
ReplyDeleteAnyways, this does sound very cool so far.
Not a fan of the Sonic universe (I love the games, but I wouldn't read a comic about it), so I'm not terribly excited over this, but I LOVE that Bass art.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Isn´t enough with one bro-cheek (brofist between mega & sonic but with their buttcheeks)??
ReplyDeleteNow they´ll be able to summon the "fantastic triad", besides obliterating any enemy on screen with a huge energy wave from their shocked "cheeks", it can freeze time as well as replenish the weapon bars.
Bass and Shadow facing off, that would be one hell of a matchup. Of course, Bass actually HASN'T been established in the Mega Man comic yet. Does that mean we'll be seeing him appear sooner rather than later? Here's hoping!
ReplyDeleteIt's a crossover featuring ARCHIE Sonic that is an important distinction as the series has historical been horrible.
ReplyDeleteDon't give me that oh it got better at 160 though! When a series is terrible for over ten years straight people aren't going to be fond of it no matter how much it improves.
This is not rocket science.
@ above anon
ReplyDeleteToo bad, their loss, the comic is still currently good. :p
@July 10, 2012 4:56 PM Anonymous: I am truly sorry that you are so simple minded and can't let go of the past :)
ReplyDeleteTell you what, I'm excited for this.
ReplyDeleteNow I just have to actually start buying the Mega Man comics. I've been slacking horribly on that...
Man, this crossover is awesome for me.
ReplyDeleteSonic and Mega Man are my two favorite video game franchises ever, so this is a HUGE thing for me. I hope Archie can deliver an awesome story, like they're currently doing.
Arrggh... so it was confirmed to be true. :( Oh well, I will still be getting this issue. Flynn is a good enough writer so he will probably make this into something that fans from both spectrums can enjoy. I'll try to be open-minded to what he has to offer.
ReplyDeleteBTW, that last comment by Flynn really made me cringe. Even though he said it won't be happening, thanks for the mental pictures.
I can already see how this plays out,
ReplyDeleteRobotnik (Shut up, he's always been Robotnik to me, not Eggman), discovers Mega Man and realizing that he's the most powerful robot in existence, decides to kidnap him and force/brainwash him to kill Sonic because Robotnik loves them robots. Whereas Wily sees the powerful potential in Sonic's Badniks-busting-abilities, and hires him to kill Mega Man, and since Mega cannot kill a living being, Wily is sure Sonic will beat him no sweat.
And then everyone dies in the end. Or not. :P
Ugh, seeing Shadow the Hedgehog in this makes me feel physically ill. He's easily one of the all time worst characters to come from either franchise.
ReplyDeleteEspecially with him having an awful character design that makes him look like some 12-year-old's crappy fan character.
The only question I would have asked in this interview is: "why?"
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'd noticed the similarities between Sonic and Mega Man characters a while ago.
ReplyDeleteMain character is an honest and nice blue guy. Red guy initially challenged main character but has proven to be a good guy. Black character is introduced later as a rival who is never truly allied with the main character, but has teamed up to help him here and there.
@"Why" Anon: There's plenty of reasons why. They're both very iconic video game franchises, and as has been pointed out a lot, there's plenty of parallels between the two. Not to mention that there's been quite a bit of demand for a crossover between the two ever since Archie first got hold of the Mega Man license.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'm consistently surprised to see people that are against this, so now that I've stated the reasons for "why", I must ask in return "why not"?
@Dr. Jerk: Deny all you want, his name is Eggman :P. Just be glad Sega of Japan even acknowleged the name Robotnik at all
ReplyDeleteUgh, seeing Bass in this makes me feel physically ill. He's easily one of the all time worst characters to come from either franchise.
ReplyDelete@SuperMarioMan89
"Shadow was ranked as the second most popular Sonic character—only beaten by Sonic the Hedgehog himself in an official Japanese Sonic character poll."
Don't talk like your opinion is fact.
I don't now why but that pic of Bass with the wrong coloring of his chrystals/light on the chest and hemet always makes me a litle angry..
ReplyDelete[Copy-paste from my Tumblr]
ReplyDeleteWait, what?
No, let me start again.
Wait, what the (#*@? Bass?!
Well, that settles it. This story is going to @#*&^#$ blow. But on the plus side, it’s apparently completely non-canon to either series, so it won’t interfere with and &@(* up either canon.
Though it’s a little late for that, as far as Sonic the Hedgehog goes… X3
He's still Robotnik to me. =P I know his name has always been Eggman, but I've always liked Robotnik more.
ReplyDeleteFurther interviews seem to point out that it may indeed be the typical, cheesy, lame plot of Mega Man and Sonic banding up to fight Wily's and Robotnik's joined alliance, or so I am led to believe. Bah. I would have preferred my idea over that.
And oh whoop, Bass and most likely Shadow, two characters whose combination is enough to ruin anything. All it needs now is FF7's mama's boy Sephiroth. <_<
@ Dr. Jerk
ReplyDeleteActually since this is ARCHIE Sonic he is just Eggman.
You see Robotnik died and a Robotnik from a parallel universe that turned himself into a robot and basically won got bored so he went to Sonic's dimension to replace dead-Robotnik and renamed Eggman to avoid confusion. Then aliens turned him back into a human.
No I did not make this up, it's things like that which are making people wary of this crossover.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one here who prefers "Dr. Robotnik" over "Dr. Eggman". I'm far from being a classic fanboy, but I still have a passionate hatred for the latter name, because I consider it to be one of the worst names ever thought of for a villain (even if he is egg-shaped). Don't even get me started on that piece of crap copout line in Generations. I'm sure that anyone who's seen the Time Eater cutscene towards the end of the game will know what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as for this crossover, I think it may turn out to be pretty good. Both the Sonic and Mega Man series are similar enough to one another for a crossover to work out perfectly.
@Joseph Collins: So because a character that has yet to debut in the actual series is going to be in the crossover, you're already proclaiming it's going to suck just because you don't like them?
ReplyDeleteNobody knows how Bass shall be in the comics. Granted he's probably still in his anti-hero role due to his pairing with Shadow, but we don't know if his personality will be intact or not. That is the joy of Archie having more free reign with the series in the comics.
And say what you will, it indicates Archie is planning on getting Bass in the comics at some point. So you better get used to it. Every Sonic game character has made a debut at some point in that series, including one shotters from the Sonic Rush series. The only exceptions so far are the Wisps, Emerl and all the other Sonic 2006 bs. If Sonic is anything to follow by, King and Duo are eventually going to show up as well. And I hate Duo's guts.
@July 11, 2012 1:30 PM Anonymous: ....That seriously happened in the Archie comic adaption? Jesus, no wonder people dislike their adaption. But frankly, when I was talking about Robotnik/Eggman, I was talking about him with Non-Comic Eggman in mind. I still call him Robotnik out of personal preference.
ReplyDeleteBut.... lord, that sounds seriously messed up. What were they thinking. Yes I can definitely see why people would be wary of this crossover, and now I am too.
@ Dr. Jerk
ReplyDeleteYes it seriously happened. There was a later issue where Eggman even revived Robotnik but it ended up being a pointless waste of an idea.
Then Robotnik died. Again.
Other highlights of Archie Sonic include:
A token mirror universe.
Knuckle's extended family and entire tribes of ancient Echidna's that were in general better than everyone.
An Immortal Mammoth Vandal Savage rip off.
A series of story arcs with Sonic and company is high school (shortly after Robotnik died, before Eggman took over).
Station Square being a subterranean city of humans that had survived for eons without outside contact for you see Mobius is really Earth in the future after another set of aliens killed everyone because Robotnik's ancestor disected their ambassador.
Recently Solenna from Sonic 06 was announced to be another such city.
So yeah Archie Sonic, 12 different kinds of messed up.
@Dr. Jerk: I just looked up the whole thing, and I think I understand why the hell they did what they did.
ReplyDeleteThe 'original' Robotnik wasn't the one we know nor see in the games, and is a detail people LOVE to leave out(besides the fact this event happened in 1997 and only 50 issues into the series).
It was the one from the old cartoons that fell into disuse. Ol' metal arms was what I called him Eggmans. Was never a fan of his appearance nor design in general.
It is completely understandable from a certain angle why they would do that. In order to be friendly to new readers(which is often the case), and to be able to change his appearance to match what Sega was using.
People also forget all those terrible plots were not done by Ian Flynn, who only joined the comic relatively recently (around issue 160 I believe)
ReplyDelete@Krazy Monkey: That line is not present in the japanese version, so it doesn't matter anyway :P
ReplyDeleteA lot of people seem to hate the name Eggman because they can't take it seriouly, but Eggman's not really a villain supposed to be taken seriously in the first place, no matter how much you may love SatAM :P
@July 11, 2012 8:05 PM Anonymous: He could have just changed his clothes and restyled his mustache. You don't need to die and then be replaced by an alternate universe version of yourself to change appearances. By that logic, Sonic-clone Amy Rose should have also died, and been replaced by Amy-Rose-with-Knuckles-hair-aka-modern Amy.
ReplyDelete...Granted though, I'm thinking Genesis Eggman in comparison to Adventure/modern Eggman. Cartoon/meme and Underground Eggman aren't even in my mind.
Why they have to complicate themselves with the whole Robotnik/Eggman issue?
ReplyDeleteCan't they just call him "Robotnik" and have "Eggman" as his nickname or something?
@Dancingmad
ReplyDeleteActually, in the games universe that's what it is, even in Japan (Post-Adventure 2 in this case).
Dr. Eggman is his vilanous alias, Ivo Robotnik is his real name.
While most of the time he is refered as Eggman (as it is his original JP name) Robotnik is used several times, while refering to his family, one of his companies and even himself in some ocasions.
Also Eggman it's not only a reference to his body shape, but how he looks like an walrus too (I am the Walrus, a Beatles song), his classic design (not-SatAM) have to yellow triangles that look like walrus teeth, in an image that have his mouth hidden by his mustache it's very easy to see this, this goes in like to other music references in the series, Sonic's shoes are inspired by MJ's boots for example.
And speaking of the Comic universe this Dr. Eggman is also named Robotnik anyway, so i don't see any issue to have an preference here, well just the endless whining...
@Dr. Jerk: Ol' Metal Arms is too different in appearance to look anywhere close to modern Eggman or even Genesis Eggman, even after potential make overs.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, look him up and you'll see the difference.
@Dr. Jerk: They didn't kill her, but made a magical thingie that comes out of nowhere turn her older :P
ReplyDeleteObvious Wonderswan Bass is obvious. There's even a cute little F :3
ReplyDelete@Anon saying "old metal arms" Robotnik is too radical of a change to Eggman
ReplyDeleteWhen Eggman first showed up after Robotnik died he used that same metal arm design before uploading his memories to a robot that looked like Eggman. So your point is moot because they made that change themselves anyways.
July 12, 2012 12:32 PM Anonymous:
ReplyDelete... You're only supporting his point, that the only way it could change was with something drastic like that.
July 12, 2012 4:25 AM Anonymous:
No, his name is still Eggman. Robotnik is his family name.
I wonder if a certain Gizoid will appear and fight against Mega Man!
ReplyDelete