That legacy it has as the longest-running monthly comic for a licensed property isn’t just for show. The difference you’ll find between all of these, is that most of them were short-lived. Amongst drastically different interpretations such as Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog or the Sonic OVA is where Archie Sonic first finds itself, in fact it was originally framed as a sequel to the SatAM cartoon. It debuted in a time that we refer to as “Early Sonic Canon” where the series had not yet been given any consistent direction. To really put that into perspective: this comic first released the day after Sonic 2 did and very nearly missed out on making it all the way to Sonic Forces. The Archie-published Sonic comics began all the way back in 1992, only a year after the initial game. But it takes the long way in order to arrive there. The comparatively absurd length of this thing turns it into the weightiest depiction of Sonic and co ever. ![]() But it is by far the most fleshed out you will ever see its world. The only all-encompassing descriptor one dare apply to it is problematic. It’s absolutely not perfect, not even in Flynn’s run. ![]() But if you’re a serious fan of the franchise or particularly experimental media it’s very good. Right from the decision to read it you have to wrestle with this comic and that bout will last for a long time before you start to see it give way, because everything about the early comic will be punching right back at you. Heck even just reading it is an ordeal in and of itself since it’s something you need an actual supplementary guide to navigate it’s scattered storyline, and those 480 or so issues of the comic are long-since out of print. It’s not like the IDW comic where you can pick it up, immediately understand the context and have a good time with its bubbly characters and great art – Archie Sonic is a challenge. Would I recommend reading Archie Sonic? Yes, but it’s not an easy sell. The leap in quality at #160 when Flynn and Yardley are swapped in is radical and immediate. The writing can be pretty atrocious in the early half and a lot of the art is straight up gross to look at, making the promise of eventual gold seem so distant. ![]() Because for a huge chunk of its run the comic is an absolute slog. Rewarding – but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a good time. As a lifelong franchise fan and someone who had been curious about these in some form or another all that time, it’s rewarding to go back to it. It’s an extremely fascinating universe of excessive character definition. Its cast is convoluted and with the whole series in view the only consistency to be found is in how inconsistent it all is. This story and setting are so captivating. But it’s certainly been a worthwhile read to get here. That’s a long time to be putting up with something where my primary reaction was “in 200 chapters this plot thread is going to be so awesome”. #80 is actually around 150 issues into the reading order. The Sonic comics are densely packed and constantly weaving in and out of various subseries. That’s at issue 80, and you might be thinking “dang man 80 issues is a long time to be forcing yourself to read something”. It was a downright struggle to get through its early years and despite finding the lore intriguing I don’t think I had ever actually thought to myself that it was enjoyable as anything more than an observational experiment until the tail-end of the Adventure adaptation. ![]() After orbiting the series with random issues and osmotic knowledge for all my life, and after several attempts to tackle it that never made it beyond the initial slapstick era, the 30th anniversary celebrations kind of, I dunno, put me in a Sonic mood and I figured it was finally time to sit down and do a full, comprehensive read of the Archie-published Sonic the Hedgehog comic series. But it was only in the debut of the episodic Sonic Universe series that I would say I hopped on, though again without a way to access any of the backlog. I would often go to comic shops with my brother but had no luck, and so would mostly watch a few scattered stories here and there in the videos that people upload to Youtube, and was enamoured by mr recolour man Scourge and his evil super form. Admittedly it took a long time before I would actually read them, since for a long time I had no way to find it. Given that Sonic has been my favourite media franchise for literally as far as my memory stretches, this has always kept the comics at the edge of my mind. It’s a common story but my initial encounter with these comics comes from a lot of time spent looking at the covers in Mega Collection+’s extra menu, dreaming of what madness could possibly be behind those crazy artworks. Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) – where does one even begin in discussing this behemoth.
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