I haven't kept up with the comics, but I've heard Penders talked about a lot -shittily- and I'm curious; what the hell happened? Was the Genesis Wave a retcon, or some other bit of devilry?

Penders won a lawsuit getting the rights to any and all characters he created while he worked at Archie. This would have forced Archie to pay him royalties for the use of them and as the picture shows, its a big list. So instead Archie decided to do a storyline "reset" and remove all of Penders characters from the comic/storyline/history. The Genesis Wave was a 10 part crossover arc with Sonic and MegaMan comic where both the doctors tried to create a reality where they ruled. When they failed, the world they landed in was similar, but different. Places and people had changed and in the case of Penders characters, they never existed.

Jesus. The retcon truly is the cruelest killer, isn't it? This, the whole Superboy fiasco... Editors can be right pricks, huh

Not sure about the details of the DC reset, but in terms of Archie they kinda had no choice. It was either reset or royalties, and given that a lot of the characters where tied into several on going stories, that would have gotten extremely pricey. IMO, Archie did the right thing, even though it sucks.

I know, I meant Penders. He was an editor, right? From what I've heard, he's some sort of combination of Snively and Satan.

No, he was a writer and artist. You're right on the second part though.

Wait a minute...

DID THEY GET SNIVELY?!

FUCK!

Hope still remains. Maybe we'll all get lucky and he'll choke to death on his own semen.

Whew. He's an oily snake, but for some reason I like him.

Though Penders did have editorial duties on the "Sonic" comic for a couple years. He was the editor like for the couple years after the "Sonic Adventure 2" arc and all those weird crazy storylines he did afterwards were directed by him (though he really didn't write them). He was the one who "forced" the artists to adapt an "anime-style" too, because he thought it would sell better if it were "anime". I thought that decision of his almost helped destroy the comic, the art was simply awful for a long time on it.

Wait, the current status of the comics will never end?! I've prepared myself to wait another year for things to be fixed.

Sorry, its not temporary.

I may not be into Sonic much, that's just painful in a... depressing way.

I'm going to have to clap.
It's painful and depressing as hell.. but it's tasteful given the theme.
Mainly as we can't see this in the comics ever. And on that list is Sonic's parents..

So this was mainly due in part to the fact that Archie lost the paperwork they needed that would have shown that Penders had no legal ground to stand on. Sadly when he joined there were no backups of everything and Archie's management was a mess, that's how he won his lawsuit because of bad record keeping.

Personally I'm both upset and happy at the same time. The removal of all these characters and the reset basically ruined the massive continuous story line we have had since the comics where around issue 25. You knew what was going on and who the character was and their role in the overall universe. On the flip side though, the reset does remove a lot of the complications that I've seen in the comics lately too. There were just too many characters, too many fragmented story lines and just a general disarray of focus on where the character's development was going. Now with a smaller cast of characters you get to see some more development with characters that should have had more spotlight, but where always regulated to background characters or special appearances.

and with smaller casts means a bigger void to fill.

But you! You get a +1 internet.

I don't mind the fact they are reboot the series, I just hate every facet on how it was handled. They should have reboot the series hard and re-brand it at #1 to distinguish the difference.

I still believe the reset should've happened with "Genesis"...I think it would have felt a lot better to everyone emotionally--and gone back to the roots where the comic started (basically coming out of SatAM). But Archie Comics kept muddling along through the lawsuit and thought they could win it at the time and get back to their ongoing stories. I would've been happier if the reboot began with "Genesis"

never thought he had any real case

If Archie had the proper paperwork, then he wouldn't have.

http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/tss.....midi/0079p.mid

To express our sorrow over all of the original characters of the Archie Sonic series who'd been lost in the lawsuit. All hands, salute!

Don't see shard in there.

I'm not sure the status of Shard. He was not on the list I used/referenced for the picture, but other characters were removed from the Sega demands as well.

Honestly, I hope they don't do the same for megaman. The time travel thing screwed up the whole comic continuity for sonic and they are trying to do that for the blue bomber.

I doubt it. The deal with Archie and Capcom is still new and I don't think they are as demanding as Sega has become.

Now that is just sad!

Again I barely knew what was happening and that Chaos-croc and neo robia ruined it for me but makes me wonder what "REALLY" transpired.... Other than that I don't make groups called Pender's logic.

But I feel for folks.

Thats too bad they delete them from the comic because i like few of characters on this list.

I still have hope that they'll find them again and that they're not truly gone…

There were a lot of characters riding on this lawsuit and with Penders winning pretty much put all of them to death. It's a shame to see them all go like this.

Fortunately like Superman coming back from his fight with Doomsday, I'm pretty sure we might get them back somehow, even if it means a color swap or a name change. Time will only tell.

Agreed, that things can change with time. But I feel that given the level of greed Penders has and how far he went to gain those characters (or get more since he is still fighting EA/Bioware for Shade the last time I heard), that this will not be resolved any time soon.

See, I thought this a little over a year ago when the transition was occurring, but I highly doubt it now as it seems Archie wants to completely steer clear of any sort of "Penders" style characters.

His greed is strong with this one.

I haven't red the comics in like 12 years and just recently learned of the continuity reboot from another website laughing at circumstances surrounding it. Gotta say, though, I'm bummed that Mammoth Mogul was probably wiped out. Always kinda liked a transparent knockoff of Vandal Savage running around with ridiculous overpowered abilities in a comic book about goddamn Sonic the Hedgehog.

On the bright side, though, reboots are a good opportunity for people like me who quit paying attention to take a second look. Even if it'd be a guilty pleasure.

Very interesting piece compiling all the lost characters.
Personally, my greatest losses were Julie-Su and Dr. Finitevus. Julie-su was HOT and such a badass character. She and Knuckles made a great pair. Dr. Finitevus was the most twisted villain in the series, IMO. I loved his dialogue.

I know! And it sucks that we'll never see either of them anymore. Damn you Ken Penders.

I'm still trying to deal with the reboot myself. =/. I hate Penders but he had some charachters I did like and it was like getting hit with a tone of bricks when it finally dawned on me they were gone. When people ask me why I hate him I usually say this. "He's like a Dungeon Master who could build a Campaign world that may not be original, but entertaining. But he can't tell stories in it." My Losses were Jullie Su, Lara Lee, the evil Sonic Cast, Fiona, Enerjak, The Brotherhood, Finitivus. I know there are a lot gone that i'm glad are gone though. I"m just adjusting to were the comic is going now and trying to just deal with it. It's my comic and I love it even when it wounds me. =/

Ralph Baer…

I've seen the pic before on dA and never got to leave a comment on it. Kudos to theartist behind it, this is great. Hard to even get the thought of losing Julie Su, Fiona, Scourge, Elias, and Geoffrey to sink in.

Good news to come out of all this is that Ken is still being ridiculed for his LSC stuff.

in addition to the killed off characters, the ones who are gone til proven otherwise like Monkey Khan, Shard, Matilda, etc.

Yeah, he does great work. The part that really gets me upset is Ken still believes people like the path he plans to take his characters.

Definitely deluded dude. He thinks the heat he gets for his work are all from the hurt Sonic fans, and that his artworks for LSC are top notch quality. >_>

I've seen those and shown them to my old college instructors and they all agree, they are the worst designs they've every seen.

ENERJAK NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

wow thats dark

but it needed to be made. So many fans don't know the full extent that the reboot was forced to make.

what the hay happened?

One of the artists filed for copyright ownership of all the characters and story that he created while he worked there, and won. So the comic decided rather then put up with the royalties, which as you can see was a big list, they just did a story reboot/adjustment and wiped everything that artist ever worked on from the universe. That's what the whole "Genesis Wave" arc was about.

ooooh

And now, here in 2017, it's ALL gone.

Yeah, I heard. Ken Penders caused a slow bleed, and the comic just couldn't recover.

Really, the biggest loss was Sally. She might have even fit in in this new...what is it, "Sonic Boom"?

I don't know. I mean legal rights aside, Sally always seemed to be the serious one of the team. Since Boom is comedy based, it would force some major changes to the character and I don't think fans would be very happy with that.

Damn, It been a while a go and it still hurts. This really captures the feels

Especially now since the comic is cancelled. That whole event just started a slow bleed they couldn't recover from.

They didn't have the heart to tell Knuckles.

the loss of Elias breaks my heart. Poor Eli, damn sega and archie and lawyer crap. I understand both sides' motives and reasoning, just can't accept it

It's quite sad to see a comic going down like this, to the point I even dropped the comic after this.

Pender's Lawsuit + The Genesis Wave stuff left a sour taste in my mouth, specially because the comic was improving a lot since the #200 edition, with more complex and intricated stories. It feels like Infinity War's ending even BEFORE said movie came to happen, you know.
The story was really engaging and I wondered what would happen to my favorite character Geoffrey St. John, who got possessed by Naugus even before he ever could seek redemption, which IMHO was pretty much a dick move from the writers to do such things to this character, wasting the chance to develop such interesting Mobian and introduce some shades of grey in the story.
But as to quote someone in Youtube: "When you push sides with the snakes they'll eventually bite you back", so I think this does make some sense. But still it's other thing which I didn't like from.

All in all, this ride was good until it lasted.

Reminds me of the memorials for the "disappearred" after the Thanos Snap....

Huh, you know, I never made that comparison until now.

Sad