Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog

In the aftermath of Ken Penders' lawsuit against Archie Comics that led to their Sonic the Hedgehog comics getting rebooted, a common misconception among fans is that one of the characters he acquired the rights to as a result was Fiona Fox. This is not actually true: while Penders did help "recreate" the character, the initial character (an Auto-Automaton dubbed "Auto-Fiona"), was created by another former writer, Michael Gallagher. While it's uncertain if that he means he owns the character, Penders has stated that he did not want to claim a character that he did not create.

Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics introduced an original character named Geoffrey St. John, who at one point in the comic was in a romantic relationship with Sally Acorn, a character from the 1993 "Sonic the Hedgehog" animated series. This has been met with controversy from fans, because Sally was, at the earliest, 15 years old at the time of the relationship. While Geoffrey's age was never stated in the comic leading some to argue that a seemingly nonexistent age gap would be irrelevant, his creator Ken Penders claimed in 2015 that the character was 21 years old at the time of Sonic the Hedgehog Issue #46, which released in May 1997. In the Sonic-Grams fan letter section of that same issue, one fan letter asked if Sally is 14 or 15 years old, with the editor Justin Freddy Gabrie confirming she is 15 (it should be noted that while Gabrie incorrectly lists the wrong age for Bunnie Rabbot in this response implying others could be wrong, Sally's age is consistent with her being the same age as Sonic throughout the comic). All of this information is made significantly worse when Geoffrey is shown making out with Sally during the same issue, which they also did in other issues around this time. To complicate this further, in Issue #20 of the spin-off comic Knuckles the Echidna, which released in January 1999, it's shown that Geoffrey is older than Sally's older brother Elias Acorn, who was 21 at the time of the relationship, through two scenes. The first is when Geoffrey calls him a "kid" in the present, and the second is through a flashback showing Geoffrey as a physically older child than Elias, who was 5 years old in this flashback. The two aforementioned issues were co-written and solely written by Penders respectively, meaning that even if his original claim of Geoffrey being 21 was incorrect, it implies that he retconned Geoffrey to be older than that at the time, making the age gap larger.

This controversy worsened even further when Penders revealed in 2019 that he had planned at some point for a story involving Geoffrey taking Sally's virginity. While he acknowledged that this was a story that ultimately couldn't be told in the comic, as content found in the series had to remain within the realm of a G-rating, he attempted to justify the relationship in the context of a historical drama setting by saying:


However, considering the cited source material, this justification is fundamentally wrong as the actual implied age gap would be larger than the 4 years Penders suggested (Sally's 15 to Geoffrey's at least 21), leading fans to accuse Penders of making the character a pedophile, and by extension accusing Penders himself of being a pedophile.

There are two instances in the history of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics where writers had attempted to write a same-sex relationship for characters originally created for the 1993 animated series that the comic was based on.

On October 30, 2009, former writer Ken Penders revealed that he had intended for the character Rotor the Walrus to be gay, stating:


It would later be stated that Rotor's "life partner" was Cobar, an Echidna scientist who only ever appeared during the MOBIUS: 25 YEARS LATER storyline. According to technical advisor Robert Repas (speaking on behalf of Penders), Sega feared backlash over the relationship, and thus ordered him to keep the relationship low-key, only allowing subtle hints, though Penders later clarified that it was likely then-editor Justin Freddy Gabrie that he had spoken with and not Sega. At the same time, this relationship has been critcized by fans for its lack of subtextual evidence, which was not helped by Penders only revealing it years after the fact. According to later writer Ian Flynn as part of a Q&A wrap-up, Rotor and Cobar's relationship is considered a piece of behind-the-scenes trivia and is not canon to the current Sonic timeline as, according to him, there had been no canonical build-up to Rotor's sexual preference regardless of intention.

However, Flynn would be involved in the second instance of trying to write in a same-sex relationship. In the first episode of the BumbleKast from October 5, 2015, he stated:


Shortly after the comic's cancellation, Flynn would confirm that he and his wife/fellow writer Aleah Baker had written subtle details hinting at this romance into the comic. He initially described these details as "blatant", but retracted it for "subtle", implying that there were some internal/editorial considerations at play for how far they could go with the hints. During the same BumbleKast episode, he also revealed that part of the reason why Sally and Nicole's relationship was made subtle was due to potential backlash from the Sonic fandom, as Sally had been commonly depicted as Sonic's girlfriend and love interest up to that point. One of Sega's mandates for the comic near the end of its run was that game characters like Sonic were not allowed to enter serious relationships, meaning Sonic would not be allowed to commit to Sally in the comic's reboot.

On March 17, 2019, in response to a post on the Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account celebrating St. Patrick's Day, YouTuber Jacksepticeye jokingly asked if he could voice "Irish the Hedgehog", to which the Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account responded:


A year later, they made good on this promise, releasing a video titled "Irish the Hedgehog" on the official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel. According to Sega, the character was designed by artist Mark Hughes, and the video included a "folksy" remix of the song "Escape from the City" from Sonic Adventure 2 made by Hyper Potions and Jun Senoue.

A few years afterwards, Jacksepticeye would return to the Sonic franchise to voice another character: the appropriately-named Jack from the "Sonic Prime" episode "It Takes One to No Place".

Quik & Silva features many plagiarized characters as duplicated enemies, including characters from Nebulus, Bubble Bobble, Contra, and The Great Giana Sisters. Among these characters is Sonic the Hedgehog, whose first title had not released at that point, technically making it Sonic's first appearance in a home console video game, even if unauthorized and predated by the arcade game Rad Mobile.

Throughout 2023, Sonic Channel released a monthly series of wallpapers titled "Otherworld Comedy", each one featuring a what-if scenario involving an established character from the Sonic series, alongside another chosen by the community. The stories are comedic in nature, having unlikely scenarios involving the cast of characters.

Notably, the April wallpaper (centered around Silver the Hedgehog), "Story Act 4: In the Veil of Darkness", featured Princess Elise as the chosen character. This not only marks her first appearance in mainstream Sonic media since her cameo in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, but is also the first work she played an active role in since her debut in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). A cutscene in the latter game, called "The Talisman", is referenced in the story when Silver gives Elise the blue Chaos Emerald, calling it a "lucky charm". Additionally, Elise herself received a slight redesign for her appearance here, being depicted in a more cartoon-esque style rather than the realistic design she had in her debut game.

On August 21, 2021, Ken Penders (a former writer for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics) announced plans to license out various characters from the comic that he has claimed ownership of (Prince Elias, Geoffrey St. John, Queen Alicia, etc.). Notably, this list included Scourge the Hedgehog (originally known as "Evil Sonic"), much to the bewilderment of Sonic fans as the character was depicted as an alternate reality version of Sonic (Scourge's original design was, visually speaking, simply Sonic wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses). When asked about this, Ian Flynn stated that (in his opinion) Sega and IDW wouldn't think it was worth the trouble to license side characters from a third party, particularly due to the former's desire to move away from referencing the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog animated series (commonly known as "Sonic SatAM", and a major influence on the Archie Sonic comics), and that it'd be easier to just make new characters. However, due to an inaccurate secondhand account of Flynn's response, Penders released an outline of the licensing deal insisting that he "really is easy to deal with", and accused Flynn of not wanting to work with non-game characters, despite that not being what Flynn said. The deal itself was criticized by fans due to both its steep asking price ($10,000 up front against royalties for a two year license) and for padding out the list of characters with obscure extras (Lt. Smiley, DYNAMAC-3000, etc.). Further complicating matters, the IDW Sonic spinoff miniseries "Imposter Syndrome" was announced, introducing the character of Surge the Tenrec, who many compared to Scourge due to their similar names and designs. Ian Flynn would later reveal that he had always intended for Surge (and her companion Kitsunami the Fenrec) to appear in the comic since the beginning.

On November 15th, RUSH! Comics announced that in association with Ken Penders, Scourge would receive a four-issue miniseries titled "Scourge the Speed Demon". The comic was immediately hit with backlash from fans due to Penders not only licensing out Evil Sonic, but his Scourge persona specifically, as Penders had no involvement with that version of the character (it was conceived by Mike Pellerito and Patrick Spaziante, and developed by Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley), as well as continuing to blame Penders for the character's removal in the first place. The creative team behind the comic (which did not include Penders, as he merely licensed the character) also came under fire from the fandom: their previous comic, Rush! (for which the company was named after), had included a sexual harassment scene where the hero strips a pair of female villains nude in public because he thought they were hot. More concerningly, the lead artist was discovered to be following a large number of far right accounts (such as Breitbart, PragerU, Steven Crowder, and the Trump family) and had liked some controversial tweets from them (i.e. an Islamophobic tweet from far right activist Paul Joseph Watson), leading many to accuse the artist of being a white supremist. When asked about this, Penders responded:


The team would later release a statement in an attempt to clarify the situation, though it did not help. Likewise, "Imposter Syndrome" #1 was released, leading many to believe that Scourge was no longer needed due to Surge existing. On November 19th, it was announced that the comic had been cancelled a mere four days after its announcement due to the backlash from the fanbase. Ironically, it's worth noting that while Ken does own Scourge, he's forbidden from making new stuff that looks too similar to Sonic in order to avoid brand confusion. Scourge's design in the cancelled comic looked noticeably similar to Sonic's design (specifically the design from the Paramount films), meaning that by cancelling the comic, RUSH! Comics may have been able to avoid a potential lawsuit from Sega for copyright infringement.

Upon the release of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Ken Penders, a former writer on the Archie Comics Sonic comics, sued Sega and EA for supposedly using Sonic character concepts he had independently trademarked prior - particularly the Nocturnas Clan, a futuristic echidna tribe which he deemed as too similar to his own Dark Legion, a futuristic echidna technocracy. This lawsuit came months after Archie Comics filed their own suit against Penders due to a breach of contract after the trademarking, causing Archie to allow their contract with Sega to expire so they could negotiate new terms for the rights to create Sonic comics. This legal fiasco ended in Archie settling the case with Penders, losing the exclusivity to produce Sonic comics after negotiations with Sega, and causing them to write the "Super Genesis Wave", a super-charged energy blast utilizing the Chaos Emeralds that acted as a massive continuity rewrite where over 500 original characters and concepts created by Penders and other writers for the Archie Sonic comics were retconned. The Sega case on the other hand ended in a stalemate due to the statute of limitations, and will not be able to continue unless Sega uses characters from The Dark Brotherhood again.

Ian Flynn has stated that the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comics are considered canon to the mainline Sonic games on his Bumblekast podcast. This would be supported by Chris Hernandez, one of the lore managers of the series: in the seventh episode of the seventh season of "Sonic Official", he reiterated that the comics were indeed canon and take place after the events of Sonic Forces. It's also worth noting that, unlike the previous comics by Fleetway and Archie, certain aspects of the IDW comics have been referenced in the Sonic games: original character Tangle the Lemur is briefly mentioned in Sonic Frontiers, and she (as well as other original characters Whisper the Wolf and Surge the Tenrec) has appeared in the mobile games Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle.

While the comics do largely stay in line with the game's canon, there is one notable exception: the events of Team Sonic Racing in regards to the comics. Ian Flynn originally claimed that the events of Team Sonic Racing took place at some point after Issue #32 and before Issue #43, but Sega has since released an official timeline placing Team Sonic Racing between the events of Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces.

Prior to doing official work on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise as one of its writers/artists, Evan Stanley worked on a fan comic called "Ghosts of the Future" based on the series. Set in an alternate reality where Sonic and his friends are defeated by Dr. Eggman with the aid of a mind-controlled Shadow, the comic featured Silver the Hedgehog as the main character, tasked with restoring the seven Chaos Emeralds that were removed from time as a last resort. After being brought on to do official work on the franchise, the fan comic has been referenced on two occasions in official Sonic comics. The first was in issue 257 of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Richard and Deborah Erin (Silver's parents in the comic) during the scene where Rotor is directing rescue operations outside Twinkle Park (note that they are slightly recolored in this scene). The second time was in issue 64 of IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Vanice the Hedgehog and Sicily the Hedgehog (Silver's sisters in the comic) during the scene where Silver and Whisper are trying to confront Duo.

"Sonic.exe" is a creepypasta story originally written by JC-the-Hyena, a user on the Creepypasta Wiki, about a cursed CD-ROM version of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, notable for its malicious depiction of Sonic, giving him black eyeballs with glowing red pupils. The story became popular partly through a genuine appreciation of the story's content and scariness, and from those mocking the extremely poor quality of its writing, which has also been described as amateur and cliched, and later led to it being removed from the Creepypasta Wiki. Sonic.exe received two lesser-known sequels, a rebooted story in 2017, many unofficial games based off of it, as well as other tributes and parodies. JC-the-Hyena would later resign from authoring new Sonic.exe projects after multiple allegations of pedophilic and predatory behavior surfaced in 2021, with the story's fan communities taking control of it since.

The story became so popular and attached to the wider Sonic franchise that the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account has referenced the story on two separate occasions. The first was on January 13, 2017, where they posted a video of Sonic standing in Green Hill Zone as a black recolor of Big the Cat passes him by, changing him and the environment to something more akin to what is depicted in the story. The second was on April 14, 2021, where they posted an image of a pile of Game Gear Sonic titles, with Sonic.EXE being hidden within the pile.

Despite being synonymous with the "edgy" 2000s era of the Sonic franchise that Sonic Frontiers hearkens back to, Shadow the Hedgehog is completely absent from the game. No official comment has been expressed on why Shadow is omitted, however, a month before Frontiers' launch, the game's writer Ian Flynn would quote retweet a screenshot of an interview with writers for the Sonic Boom cartoon claiming that Sega are restrictive on Shadow's portrayal to the point where it's preferable to omit him in spite of his fan-favorite status than work with Sega's restrictions, with the caption "[quote-retweeted] without comment".

Dr. Starline the Platypus from the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic series is inspired by a glitch character from Knuckles' Chaotix - a silver, red and charcoal Knuckles recolor, known by fans as "Wechnia", but by the game itself as "**********", seemingly based on unused data for Tails. Starline's color scheme is taken directly from Wechnia, his name is a literal take on the name "**********", (or "star-line") the black streak in his fur resembles the red streaks all over Wechnia's fur, and the choice of a platypus seems to be inspired by how certain Wechnia sprites would make the bottom of his muzzle yellow and loosely resemble shading for the underside of a flat bill, alongside platypi being Australian like echidnas.

According to former Sega employee Del Walker, from his experience working for the company in Japan, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is not particularly popular to domestic audiences there as the character was designed to appeal to Westerners. He claimed this disconnect is so strong that many Japanese gamers do not understand why Sonic is so popular abroad.

In 2022, Logan McPherson, the director of the animated series "Sonic Prime", stated that the show was canon to the games, drawing upon their existing mythology. This would make Sonic Prime the first television series based on the Sonic franchise to be considered canon to the mainline series. Ian Flynn would further support this claim, revealing that he knew when exactly in the series timeline the show took place in, but would not reveal it until after the show ends, while noting that something happens in the show to make it clear that it is indeed canon to the games. In 2024, after the release of Sonic Prime's third and final season, Ian Flynn finally confirmed the show's status in the overall Sonic timeline: aside from taking place sometime after the events of Sonic Advance 3, the show's placement is considered moot due to the ending Spoiler:having the show wipe itself out. In response to complaints regarding this outcome, Flynn claimed that its placement in the canon was intentionally vague, and the show being canon to the games at all was not his decision due to only being involved in the animated series as a consultant. He later claimed that he and other parties had made efforts to flag the show's inconsistencies early on in production, but that many of these efforts were flat out ignored. He noted that there was not an easy way to brush these issues aside, but also made a point that there was an effort to do so.

In 2017, the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account posted a parody of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's character select screen, with various characters from throughout the Sonic franchise in place of the game's playable roster. This was likely meant to poke fun at Infinite's roster, which many had described as "mediocre".

Tommy Tallarico, credited composer for the "Molten Mine", "The Cauldron", and "Great Megalith" music tracks in Sonic and the Black Knight claimed in 2022 to have been the first American to work on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. Even if one refuses to count external work such as localization, marketing, and multimedia adaptations, this is not true, as Americans have worked on art, programming, and music for Sonic titles as far back as the 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Tallarico having previously shown awareness in 2014 of American pop star Michael Jackson's involvement in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. In 2023, his involvement in writing the three tracks came into question when it was discovered that they contained similarities to several demos originally credited to Todd Dennis, a composer at Tommy Tallerico Studios in the 1990's, and originally written for the games Black Dawn and Adrenix.

In Issue #48 of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, pages four and five depict several Central City citizens with designs that reference characters from other franchises, such as:

• Wally from Where's Wally?
• Reigen from Mob Psycho 100
• Conan and Ran from Case Closed
• Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph
• Crinkly Wrinkly from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes

Incidentally, the Sonic series has crossed over with both Wreck-It Ralph and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes in the past.

In issue 21 of IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, two characters on page 20 resemble Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, the main protagonists of the animated series "Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Car Noir". These characters would later appear again in "Sonic the Hedgehog Annual 2020" on page 7, itself a reference to the events of this issue.

In the 41st issue of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, Sonic taunts Dr. Eggman with the nickname "Baldy McNosehair," to which Eggman responds with "That's not funny! It's never been funny! It's never going to be funny!" This is a reference to the YouTube channel TeamFourStar and their web-series "Dragon Ball Z Abridged". Specifically, it references the video "DragonBall Z KAI Abridged Parody: Episode 2" in which Krillin dubs himself, Gohan, and Vegeta as "Team Three Star", and Vegeta yells the same response.