Here on the Ken Penders Storytime, we believe in starting every thread on something amazing.
Last time we opened with Ken's very first Sonic the Hedgehog comic book story. This thread, we'll be peering into one of his greatest contributions to comic books: Sonic Live.
Part One:
IT BURNS! IT BURRRRRRNS!!!
And the worst part is, we could very well get a sequel with the recent announcement of a Sonic movie being made (we know how much studios love "put animated characters in the real world" plots).
But first, we have to finish the previous storytime!
Knuckles is alone and frightened!
His friends are menaced by silly looking robots!
Everything seems hopeless!
Let's see what Sonic's up to.
Immediately you'll notice that this story is really damn weird.
Sonic the Hedgehog is FUCKING DEA-okay hold up
It's time for a spiritual journey.
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>Sonic is transported from his world to New York City
That hypno helmet is some grade A deviantart kinda sfw-looking-but-you-know-its-not fetish shit.
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I too enjoy playing Sonic the Hedgehog with a TV remote and without a game console.
>but-you-know-its-not fetish shit.
You don't know that. Penders drew foot fetish art and posted it on twitter (tried to say it a was a political cartoon).
I don't like what you're implying, user.
Ken has a history of strong, empowered female characters.
And this is where the entire sub-plot involving the Freedom Fighters ends. They have to add a back-up story featuring Sally's factory-second Freedom Fighters breaking them out just to explain what happened.
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He once literally wrote 3 pages exclusively dedicated to having Bunnie and Sally beating up Robotnik and explaining how great girls are. And they weren't even well-writen either. The dialogue was horrible, and the action was mediocre at best.
I already storytimed that in the last thread.
It's called a joke, user.
I know it was a joke. I'd also forgotten when the issue took place, so I didn't know it was storytime'd.
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The fact that Ken tried to make this important later is astounding to me.
Mostly because all this shit contradicts his own lore.
Look kids!
It's Sonic's creators, [MORI] and [JERRY]!
I love that they look like they came out of an episode of Speed Racer.
>last panel
This is more stupid than his movie pitch.
They sure did work for free.
They sure did.
Because nobody knows who Naka, Yasuhara, and Ohshima are yet beyond random names on credit screens.
Literally stated three pages ago (though with a lawyer-friendly name-change).
It's really not. I wish it was but at least it's just a dumb "kids get sucked into Sonic's world" story instead of the asinine bullshit he wanted for the movie.
That really doesn't excuse giving them random names. Trying to depict the creators at all was kind of stupid. This whole issue was stupid. This whole concept was stupid.
Speaking of stupid.
With the grace of a bellyflop, Sally is on the scene.
I'm surprised Penders wasn't writing the ongoing Knuckles plot at the time.
Everyone loves a good gagging from behind.
When Live came out he was. It's just a "this doesn't really fit anywhere" story, so I used it for the start of the thread.
Hey look, it's Jeffrey St Molest Teenage Girls!
By the way this story is about a Transformer.
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I swear either Penders used a reference or someone else subbed in for the Sally in the bottom left corner.
But seriously, this entire issue is probably Penders' best pencil work in the entire series. It's kinda weird, it wobbles between his usual stiffness and nearly-bad-but-acceptable.
So now Sonic has a good little bit of tension in his love life. That's nice. But what about KNUCKLES?! What's he up to?!
...oh!
He's right where we left him, not doing anything.
I'm gonna be upfront. These three Knuckles stories are basically just ads and bait for letters requesting more Knuckles content.
So I'm just gonna post the covers together so we don't waste images.
Archimedes...has a hat?!?!
!!!
An even more shadowy figure!
I'm on the edge of my seat!
You know what that means.
It's time for a friendly match of hockey.
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Antoine got wrecked.
Well, that's nice.
But screw that, look at this cool stuff.
I like how Locke's first appearance is literally him blowing off helping his son.
While doing a very bad job of sounding intelligent while doing so, yes.
Anyway, it's time for what you're all here for.
That gets me every time. Like you couldn’t ask to borrow a Sega Genesis console for a couple pictures? Hell, they weren’t even that expensive back then either, you could have just bought one.
Copious flashbacks and padding.
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Wow, his dad just killed himself.
What a jerk.
The only way he could be more of a jerk is if he lied about this.
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Sabrina has odd tastes.
So who's ready for some more backstory?
Cuz boy oh boy is there a lot of backstory here.
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I don't think talking about your race's past counts as a solo adventure.
How better would the Archie Sonic canon be if Locke actually died doing this?
>Bryon Beaubien
Didn't think I'd see that name again.
Not much, his dad and granddads would still be around tugging Knuckles' chain.
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This man's powdered wig is silly.
Dimitri's chaos siphon is silly.
This is silly.
Please stop calling this a solo adventure.
We're skipping the cover this time because we'll be back to this issue again soon.
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And we're good for now.
Next up is the Knuckles miniseries, followed by the leadup to Endgame, Knuckles Quest, and the Knuckles solo series.
So if they tore down the city did they like rebuild it right after so they could have the war with the dingoes or what?
So what was on the sign the hedgehogs are pounding in?
But then he wouldn't have died from a carcinogenic pancreas.
Oh fuck you for reminding me of that idiocy.
The real answer is they didn't tear down their city.
They were just forced to stop playing Sega Saturn and a death cult was formed because fuck you mom I want to play Virtua Fighter.
This is canon.
OP's going to get to it eventually.
Sonic, why did you bring two children into a situation you already know might get them super dead?
No seriously, break it down. What made you think of pulling two rugrats through a TV into a contrived extradimentional anomaly you barely understand.
Both those kids probably have super cancer thanks to you.
bump
You wouldn't expect it, but the multiple universe Robotniks actually does subtly come up again later.
Yes, Sonic Live is actually a important piece of this mad man's puzzle.