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Sonic Boom Comic and TV Show Review

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So when Sonic Boom was announced I had some speculation about it. Then the character designs were mostly minor: Sonic now has blue arms, bandages and wears an ascot, tails has bandages and goggles, Amy has better taste in clothing, Knuckles is big and Dr. Robotnik looks like something out of a Hayao Miyazaki film. Then when more info and the teaser for episode 1 of the TV series came out things changed. I didn't really have high hopes for this but after getting more info my expectations where becoming more and more negative. And for a while I wanted nothing to do with Boom when it was coming close to it's release and later finally getting released, but if you really want to hear me opinion on it then here it is. It's funny that it started off by having a stressful day in one of my classes because of a complicated assignment, that after classes I took a 3 hour nap and then I said, "Hey I'm going to torture myself today by watching and reading Sonic Boom" Yeah, torturing myself, that's how I was able to get around to watching the Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Sonic Boom Comic

The Sonic Boom comics made by Archie Comics, the same company for doing the other Sonic Comics and keeping Megaman alive with his comics. So here I was hoping for something decent... turns out I was wrong. The story is that Tail's house gets taken by a giant stone golem and they get it back... that's it. As for character introductions well there isn't any, all you're going to get the characters names in big fancy bold quotes, no backstory, no how they all met, nothing. They even make fun of this by saying this is a first issue gimmick. The characters are not what I expected, Robotnik is a joke, I don't find this guy to be evil or threatening because thanks to the dialogue he spews out he's not even worth it. He's basically a villain that tries hard to be evil, and fails at is miserably. Sonic has a major ego problem, Tails doesn't do much and Knuckles is the worst of all. When I saw his design I feared that he would become the "Big on muscle and small on brain power" stereotype, turns out my fear came true. Most of the comedy is on him and they're not even funny and deliberately forced. You might as well replace all of his dialogue with just him saying, "Duuurrrrrr" There, short sweet and to the point. The only good thing I can think of is Amy and Sticks because in this universe, Amy actually has a brain and does stuff to help out and not constantly chasing after Sonic's penis like here SEGA Sonic counterpart. Then we have Sticks the Badger who looks like an American version of Marine the Raccoon and SHE also happens to have a brain even when she's paranoid. And she's very enjoyable, the part where she's sniffing the ground thinking that she's looking for Tails' house only turns out that she just wanted to know what the grass smelled like. That was the only joke I laughed at, everything else I cringed. And it's almost a bit odd really, the female characters actually know what they're doing while all the male characters act like idiots. Makes me think that this franchise will contain some sexisim here and there. So in conclusion I didn't like the Sonic Boom comic, almost all of the characters are idiots or are a joke, the pacing of the story goes by way too fast, the jokes are unfunny and forced just to get a chuckle and the whole thing was unappealing. Now I think I know why people hate Ian Flynn for writing cause in this issue it looks like he injected himself with ten pounds of sugar and finished writing the storyline in 10 seconds flat. So I read one issue, and I'm defiantly not going to read another one. I've heard the next one is about Knuckles and Robotnik forming an alliance and that can only lead to disaster, or a story that's ripping off the comic, Doom-Mates.

So that's the comic, and now onto the TV show

Sonic Boom TV Show

Episode 1: It starts off with Sonic chasing Robotnik, then he unleashes the robot with a stupid name: Burn Bot, it's almost as pathetic than the Death Egg Robot (or the Egg Destroyer Battlesuit as I like to call it) so after Tails joins the fight the robot hit's Tails' plane the... I don't know, Tornado 3? And crashes. I was predicting that he would've survived cause you know Tails can fly, heh, boy was I wrong. He crashes and is knocked out and I was like, WHAT KIND OF CRAP IS THIS!?!?! Why do you think your name is TAILS you idiot? Did you just think that extra tail was a tumor? Did he forget how to fly? Was he glued to the seat in the plane? NO! There's no god damn explanation about this, I mean it just blows my mind on so many levels. First they dumbed down Knuckles for being an idiot, now they dumbed down Tails for not being able to fly, or have a functioning brain at this point. So after this Sonic fires him and is looking for a new sidekick which leads to tryouts for Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Robotnik and the Fastidious Beaver. I will say that even though Amy is still voice by the same voice actress that makes her sound like Minnie Mouse, she does a MUCH better job in Boom. And Knuckles is, well just the same old sack of useless potatoes that SEGA just loves to flanderize and nothing more. And it ends with a race where Robotnik try's to kill off Sonic and Tails in the competition, Sonic delivering the worst voice acting ever "I can't swim." it's even more worse than, "You're gonna crash! Ah." and Tails does a smart thing, by using his tails to save Sonic from drowning... which is what he should've done to save himself from crashing earlier on in this episode! So in the end the episode is a mess, no proper introduction for anything or for any of the characters, a huge collection of unfunny jokes except for the security camera gag, and it's quickly ignored. Why? Because the series is going for the, World reset's every episode, plan just like AOSTH. So continuity doesn't exist in this world. Oh sure AOSTH was like that but there were exceptions and recalls of previous episodes or episodes that actually had a connection. Don't believe me? Then I guess you've never seen the episodes: Man of the Year, Mama Robotnik Returns, The Magic Hassle, Sonic the Matchmaker, The Robots’ Robot and the 4 Part Chaos Emerald Story arc.

So I figured, well maybe I'll try watching another episode and here it is.

Episode 2: Supposedly Robotnik's fortress has been destroyed by a storm and wants to crash at Sonic's house for a while, and after that the episode goes down hill almost immediately. Robotnik starts off being a nuisance to the gang and I'm just sitting there saying, "He's not an evil genius anymore, he's a grown man going through his second childhood. Sticks makes an appearance in this episode and just like everyone else, she has no backstory and no introduction, she just appears and is still the only likable character in the show next to Amy. On a side note, why are they still calling him Eggman? I know the whole backstory behind but why here? He's not shaped like and egg and none of his robots have the word EGG involved. Oh, is it because he likes eating Eggs? Because that is pathetic, if that's the case then I might as well call one of my friends AppleMan because one of his favorite foods are apples. Again the jokes in this episode are bad, the evil PJ's one was the worst. Only funny gag was when Robotnik sobs about being alone and doesn't count Orbot and Cubot as friends or families. It's funny at first but then it's just contradicting itself, if he doesn't count them as friends or family then why the hell did you bring them to Sonic's house in the first place?!?! Not to mention they are rarely seen in this episode and do absolutely nothing. So after all that it turns out Robotnik's fortress isn't in ruins and just came by to make Sonic and his friends a living hell so that they're too tired to fight against his newest robot. The plan sounds good on paper but there's several problems with this. First off Sonic and Tails are the only ones that are too tired to fight. Amy and the other are all fine and healthy so since it's 3 against 1, he would've lost almost immediately. And second the robot he summons goes after his base instead of Sonic and Orbot claims that there are still some bugs that need to be fixed. And you didn't let him know of this because why? So the episode ends with Sonic and the others help destroy Robotnik's robot before he really doesn't have a base anymore and how do they do this? By having Sonic, Tails and Robotnik do all the work and leave the others with nothing to do. Seriously, they just stand around most of the time and do nothing as if they're trying to imitate their SEGA Sonic counterparts with their cardboard cut out actions. You have one with a hammer, one with brute force, and one with a boomerang and skill, you all have abilities so how about you USE THEM!!!!!!! So in the end, the episode isn't as bad as the first one but it still has some holes here and there.

Thoughts on the other characters

Now this is where I talk about the new characters that were shown a while back that I missed in my first thoughts journal

Perci: First thing that cam to my mind is, "Well she's certianly going to get a lot of fan art... and they're all going to be porn" Also she bears a striking resemblance to Julie-Su, a character that was banned from the Archie Sonic comics due to legal issues from a former writer. So you better watch out SEGA cause there's a good chance that Ken Penders will sue you again.

Salty and Pepper: Relatives of Captain Blubber?

Fastidious Beaver: Only character I know who has the word Fastidious in his name, besides the Fastidious Fish from the Tomfoolery Show. Also has a very generic beaver design.

Mayor Fink: Looks like a Reject from Disney’s The Rescuers.

Cliff: Hey, I didn't know that Billion Bill got a redesign, wonder if Dilbert is next.

Hayward: Dreams about going above and beyond and all that jazz. In other-words he’s the generic Disney character complete with a “I Want” song.

Foreman Fred: Guess that’s what Max Goof will look like when he gets a job.

Conclusion

So with reading an issue and having to sit through 2 episodes, that's as much as I can take for Boom. I haven't played the games on the Wii-U or 3DS and I never will. After seeing a bunch of content for the Wii-U one it's just sad, it's unfinished, the dialogue becomes annoying and it looks like crap. How stupid does SEGA have to be to repeat the same mistake twice by releasing a game that is not finished?!?! Also I don't have a Wii-U, yeah I'm behind on the times with these new generation consoles. But hey I have a 3DS, and I'm defiantly NOT going to get the 3DS version because it has Pontac and Graff involved. And any Sonic media with those two can only mean one thing: Rubbish! And honestly I wanted to give this series a chance but what it all boils down to is just a product that put's little to no effort into making it just so that they can get money. The design of the background and environment look cool but with the kindergardener approved writing it just kills it. It's like if someone was making another Nightmare on Elm Street movie and hired a 5 year old to do the writing for the film. Yeah, relying on a kid who has no experience with writing and knows nothing about the franchise. So in a nutshell, if it wasn't for Amy and Sticks, I would have nothing positive to say about Sonic Boom, it's just not for me. And if you like then good for you, I won't be wasting my time by making your life a living hell because you like something that I don't.
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MysteriousGirl92's avatar
"Did you just think that extra tail was a tumor"? HAHAHAHA!