Hah. I never cared for archie due to characters like them... and Sonic became a patsey XD

And now they're either dead or evil. XD

Life is full of comedy, you only need know where to look ^0^

And when you find it, it's a dead character from a comic book. :P

Splendid is it not ^o^?

Now the best time to take full advantage of Hershey, for those that do like her then! :p

Well that won't stop rule34

Nothing stops rule 34...NOTHING!

Muhaha

A 1000 deaths will come to him.

so i guess the fans will have to imagine how she died.10ft dildo of death anyone?

I'm really a dirty bastard because those thoughts started going through my head. XD

Reboot? the Genesis thing is only going to last 4 issues. Aslo Ian said on his forum that this was all planned out before the stuff with K.P.

Uh huh. He said that the things from Genesis would carry over into the main series too.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Damn me not getting my subscription in in time and missing a issue.... Huh, ah well, it was filler anyways...

Hershey's dead? *cries* she was one of my favorite archie characters.

Hopefully there will be some kind of elaborate explanation next issue. Because he was just like, "..Oh yeah, she's dead.." XD

Goodbye Hershey. You will be missed. Truth be told I never did like Geoffrey St.John.

No one like's the douchebags. He also appears to be the greatest fighter ever, mopping up the floor with the main freedom fighters.

No offense to Hershey fans but what has she done to be consider important to the cast anyway. When was her last major appearance
in the comic. And besides you really think Archie and Ian are going to undue the last five years of work and progress over a former writer. Yes reboots and retcons are common in the industry but rarely is it done in response to a copyright dispute.

She accidentally almost killed Sally. That count? :o

I know about that I mean what has she done since?

From what I read recently, yeah I think they are. LOL XD

Come on has it ever occur to you this is all a coincidence. I mean you do realize that in comic books story lines and written six months to a year before being publish.

This whole legal thing started around spring 2010 though didn't it. But, yeah it could also be a coincidence. It's just that Hershey and Geoffrey were the ones he seemed to champion the most about. Now Geoffrey's a traitor and Hershey's dead.

Yeah I can see how it looks like there just getting back at Ken. But remember Hershey didn't have any real impact or made an appearance on the comic for a while now and this is not the first time Geoffrey turned traitor. Although I think this time is for real.

um...this what happens when characters fullfilled their role, and/or is owned by another person this is even prevalent in anime. "you either kill off, or magically said person goes elsewhere to never be seen or talked about again"

LOL Yeah, that does happen from time to time.

...meh, she's not a big loss. Yes yes, she gave us a cat character in the Sonic-verse to draw for porns, but ever since the debut of Blaze in the games her popularity plummeted. She just wasn't that interesting a character.

As for St. John....yeah, he's not a big loss either. These are the characters that Penders WANTS? What is he going to do with them? No one is gonna want a series of comics based on these two. >_>

Yeah I never really understood the point of the whole copyright thing or what Ken hopes to accomplice.

Oh no, I never thought she was important at all. But I thought it was kinda convenient for things to end up this way all of a sudden. XD

It's not known how she died. He just said "..She's been dead for some time now.." He looked awkward when he said it, not particularly sad or angry. Maybe I'll find out how she died next issue.

This is a most unexpected turn of events. An' by that, I mean "WTF ARCHIE". Even stranger, a friend'a mine says that in a roleplay he was involved in, THIS EXACT THING HAPPENED. St. John turns up later and, after a bit of stuff, turns traitor. And Hershey is dead. An' this was like long before it happened in Archie's universe. O.o

That's cause NOBODY likes St. John. LOL Hershey's death doesn't shock me, but I know she has a bit of a cult following similar to Sally. Those fans are probably heartbroken right now. XD

this is comics.If theres no body theres no permanent death and even then its always still up to the new writer.Those pesky laws of time and space dont have any sway in comics.I mean name 5 characters who have permanently died in mainstream American comic books

agreed -points to my post below-

Two flashes and a gazillion Green Lanterns. XD

Whereas I did like Hershey I've never been too fond of Geoffery, the guy was always a dick with no real provocation and never really struck me as being a good guy. He's one of those characters like Fiona (who I DO like) that will probably be more interesting as a straight villian then a half ass freedom fighter, hell I'll even admit to liking the new powers he's come into since popping up in this arc. As for Hershey, I hope they elaborate a little more on what happened to her but in my experience if you don't see a character get killed on screen in a way that's a 100% final like decapitation or their body completely vaporized in such a way that it's no longer existant or the corpse is too badly damaged to be of any use then chances are the character isn't dead or at least has the chance to come back.

Even that doesn't stop them from coming back. Some mumbo jumbo, and their soul is summoned into a cloned body or android duplicate...

my point exactly though I wouldn't count an android duplicate the same as coming back.

Nah. After all this legal crap they got going on with the guy who says he owns the characters, I don't think these guys are coming back.

we'll see, there's always the possibility he'll sell the rights for the characters.

Now that would be a dick move after all the fighting he's been doing over them.

Penders owns jack shit fuck.Its called work for hire end of discussion.

It's still ongoing. So someone in court still thinks he has a case I guess.

Actually it has not gone to trial yet. Just and lot of back and forth between Ken and Archie. I hear a date has been set in New York for June.

Ah, I see.

I like what they are doing with St.John, but killing Hershey? That sucks, Penders is a douche of the highest order, but I did like her character, she had a lot of potential, even if they never did much with her.

But just saying "Oh her, uh.. yeah, I guess she's dead and stuff.. kthnxbye" is worse then having her killed off in a story in full view.

The how's and why's will probably be fleshed out next issue.

What do you think it will be? murder, STD? Spontaneous combustion?

I have my money on rabies.

I guessing she found out about his traitorous ways and some kind of incident happened, like collateral damage or something...Or maybe she's been dead since way before any of this happened! O_O

well I guess that is a more cannon way for it to be... :p

killing off characters due to lawsuits is pretty much standard... I mean, look what happened with Chef on South Park

Yeah, but that was hilarious! XD

true... but still, it's gonna be quite funn reading that chump skunk fall to his death

Same thing really, she got sick of being roughly an 8th string freedom fighter, so she joined the super adventure club. After approving. Cream, Vanilla went feral on her ass.

Now I may be the odd person out, but I figure this may be the best place to ask. I see a lot of hate for Ken Penders, but I can only assume that's because of a lawsuit he filed or some such? As far as I can remember he used to be the golden child of the sonic comic, and I barely understand why he got replaced by Ian Flynn. Can someone please educate me on the matter? XD

Go here: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=54263

Thanks! that explains quite a bit actually. Followed up with the link provided in the journal. I suppose it makes sense. Though from his POV on the link you gave me it sounds more like they asked him to leave than he just decided to up and quit. I guess people started to hate him because he went from an awesome writer and character developer to a bitter selfish egotistical jerk? I'm actually kinda surprised that he left right around the time I decided to stop reading because I was dramatically losing interest in the direction the comic was going.

Though from what I've seen and heard about Ian Flynn, I still can't grasp why they like his stories better. The guy seems just as bad if not worse than Penders has become.

Oh, I don't hate Ken Penders. I loved his writings on the Knuckles Comic series (That was unfortunately canned). I do think this lawsuit bit is kinda silly. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe the contract left ownership of all characters (I'm not sure how it goes between the DiC animated series and Archie. I believe Archie maintains exclusive rights over those characters) created under the Archie Sonic The Hedgehog Series as a whole exclusively to Archie Comic Publications.

However, I do recall the character Ninjara from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics, also produced by Archie, being used in other projects by her creators Chriss Allen and Dean Clarrain. But this was after Turtles Adventures finished it's run. And I have know idea if they now retain the rights for that character.

I really liked Ken's work on the comic right up until around issue 100. I unfortunately never got to read his Knuckles comics, though I've been trying to find a way to do just such a thing. I just noticed a lot of people seem to be slinging some hate his direction, and I guess his lawsuit is the reason why huh?

Though I have also noticed that a lot of people tend to like Ian Flynn for some reason, though I've heard some weird circulating rumors the guy is a huge jerk too.

I'm not too fond of his writings myself. Ken Penders stories seem to have more heart behind them.

Heh. I've only caught a little hersay about the stories Ian's been writing from other sonic fans, and I'm certainly not impressed, but now I hear they are considering a reboot for the series, which may be caused by this Penders Lawsuit, right? Would this kinda be like a Crisis of the infinite zones ala Marvel or something?

I have to ask do you really think Archie is going to throw away the last five years of Ian's work just to avoid trouble from a former writer. The "reboot" is suppose to last four issues and is really just a way to celebrate 20 years of sonic games. I think the word you are looking for is retcon.

I am not honestly sure. Legal issues and matters are always messy one way or another. And other comics have certainly thrown away more than five years worth of another writer's work for even less reasons. I don't follow the comic anymore so I certainly can't assume what Archie wants to do with it's own comic, I was just speculating because people are tossing around words like retcon and reboot.

personally, if the comic was started completely over, I may give it another shot just to see what Ian could do with a clean slate and not in the shadow of someone who I once thought wrote some amazing stories.

Well in other comics reboots and retcons are usally done because A) To shake things up and try something new B) Grab new readers or C)Clean up a messy plot point or story line the last writer did. Again rarely is it over copyright disputes.

As for Ian, whatever you may think of him he has been able to keep the book going for another five years after Ken left that has to say something of his writing skill and he's writing a spinoff book called Sonic Universe. Again does that not say something.

Well at least I wasn't the only one that thought something like this would happen XD

Unfortunately, it looks like Penders may win the lawsuit.

What makes you say that.

The most recent developments. Archie provided a copy of the contract Penders signed to work for them. However, it's a copy, not the original, and the copy does not have the effective dates listed but rather blank spaces where the dates should be written. Unless they can procure the original, they may not have a chance.

Also, neither Sega nor Archie contested Penders' copyright.

If its a copy that means the original is somewhere in the offices of Archie.

I refuse to believe that SEGA would do nothing if they receive a note or email saying that someone copyrighted their stories or characters. I mean you really believe that is possible?

That's part of the problem. Penders is only securing characters he designed for the comics, not the stories or any other characters or developments. Whether he has any merit all comes down what dates the contract was in effect. I fear Archie may have lost the original (Sega themselves supposedly lost the source code to the first House of the Dead game, which is why it was never re-released). All this started because Penders felt Shade was a repackage of Lara-Su and Lien-Da, two characters he's trying to claim.

Sega might not do anything because of Archie being the one primarily attacked, but I'm sketchy on the details of their contract with Sega.

That's part of the problem. Penders is only securing characters he designed for the comics, not the stories or any other characters or developments.
Have you been to Penders site recently, he does seem to claim characters and ideas and concepts.(Like all the alt. versions of sonic and the freedom fighters and the alt future story lines.)

Whether he has any merit all comes down what dates the contract was in effect. I fear Archie may have lost the original

What are you basing this guess on???

All this started because Penders felt Shade was a repackage of Lara-Su and Lien-Da, two characters he's trying to claim.
While I will agree that the Dark Brotherhood is based on the Dark Legion. To me there is enough difference in the details, origin, and basic look of the characters that they could still be consider original. Inspired by, yes. Ripped-off, no. Plus if it was Shade and the Brotherhood that started this why is he not also going after Sega and Bioware, there the ones who made the game not Archie.

"Have you been to Penders site recently, he does seem to claim characters and ideas and concepts.(Like all the alt. versions of sonic and the freedom fighters and the alt future story lines.)"
So it is more broad than I thought. But still, he appears to be going after the use of them after he left.

"What are you basing this guess on???"

It's not a guess, it's basic law. If the dates of effect entirely cover his employment with Archie, then all the work he did including characters, writing, drawing, concepts, everything, is directly copyrighted to Archie and not him.

"While I will agree that the Dark Brotherhood is based on the Dark Legion. To me there is enough difference in the details, origin, and basic look of the characters that they could still be consider original. Inspired by, yes. Ripped-off, no. Plus if it was Shade and the Brotherhood that started this why is he not also going after Sega and Bioware, there the ones who made the game not Archie."

This is America, land of the frivolous lawsuit.
I'm going by a series of articles on this site:
http://www.tssznews.com/2011/03/03/.....comics-tenure/

There are more articles, but this is one of the more telling ones. Looking at all of them, either Penders is lying about having never signed signed the contract, or Archie is falsifying documents.

So it is more broad than I thought. But still, he appears to be going after the use of them after he left.
So you have been to the board right?

It's not a guess, it's basic law. If the dates of effect entirely cover his employment with Archie, then all the work he did including characters, writing, drawing, concepts, everything, is directly copyrighted to Archie and not him.
Ok I understand now, but if Archie filled in the blank before they executed it they are still safe.

Tssznews, Yes I have been to that site reguerly and they have done a good job of keeping up to date on the case, but I would also advise you keep track of Penders forum, cause he has a tendency to do 180's on what he would do on the comic or what is or is not canon.

There are more articles, but this is one of the more telling ones. Looking at all of them, either Penders is lying about having never signed signed the contract, or Archie is falsifying documents.


I am going to take a guess and say he is lying reread that article, mainly the part about living off unemployment checks, if Penders is so broke how can he afford to work on two projects and hire a lawyer to go after Archie. And while I know Archie does not have a good history when it comes to treating there artist and writers, I have never know them to falsify documents.

"keep track of Penders forum, cause he has a tendency to do 180's on what he would do on the comic or what is or is not canon."

I'm already leery of anything he says, mainly because he, as a party in the case, should not talk about the case outside the courtroom (at least that's how it is with certain cases, I'm not sure if copyright disputes are subject to that restriction).

"I am going to take a guess and say he is lying reread that article, mainly the part about living off unemployment checks, if Penders is so broke how can he afford to work on two projects and hire a lawyer to go after Archie. And while I know Archie does not have a good history when it comes to treating there artist and writers, I have never know them to falsify documents. "

Archie's also filed cease and desist orders against fanfiction.net for unauthorized use of their stories and characters. In a legal case about copyrights, Penders should not be talking about his personal life, that part stood out to me as being hugely irrelevant. But he did try to dismiss the suit, first saying it wasn't in the right jurisdiction, then claiming he couldn't afford making the trip for the reason you just listed.

I have been to Pender's forum a few times, but now I'm going to go through in greater depth. I want to see this flip-flopping.

Ken and Copyright is a good place to start. Plus you might want to going and check out other topics, cause sometimes the case is brought up in those threads.

but hershey was so cute! :( mostly cuz she was a cat :P
well, it's a god damn comic book, it's not like she's really dead

And they also just killed Sally...*World Implosion happens* Or did they? Seriously, that happened. So after the restart maybe no one dies after all.

too many fake-outs in this universe to actually take anything too seriously, imo.