Going from hidden city in a forest that Robotnik could easily attack to a supertech fortress does that. Not that I liked the hidden village concept. It's dramatic but Sonic is not about drama to me.

Going from hidden city in a forest that Robotnik could easily attack to a supertech fortress does that. Not that I liked the hidden village concept.

I definitely see your point. Personally, I loved the concept of a hidden village. It made the story as a whole seem a bit more plausible, plus it had the suspense factor (residents would have to take measures to protect the city, etc.). I just think the writers didn't give themselves enough room to work with here, so we're stuck with stories about conflict within the city (i.e. House of Cards pts. 1 & 2). That's fine for a while, but it gets really old really fast.

That's like saying with Knothole we were stuck with inner-village conflicts like Sonic's court martial. I don't see how being in a city that can occasionally be breached is any more limiting than being in a village that could occasionally be found. If it were all "out of home" conflict you'd probably complain that there wasn't any inner conflict (which we did have with Knothole - all the talk of successors, Sonic messing with St. John, the FFs being disbanded and going to school, Mina's growth in general, etc.) .

I mean, was the whole Enerjak thing, the trip to Moebius, and all the fighting in New Megaopolis slow, inner conflict? Hardly.

I definitely see what your saying. True, if there were no inner conflict, it wouldn't be as interesting (I like House of Cards, just to clear up any misconception). And true, the Enerjak and Moebus stories were quite enthralling. I just feel like the overall story has, like I said, slowed down. It's still an epic series, but it just seems to be dragging along for the moment.

not really, the storys have always progressed at an average pace, just like any other series, there may not be as much chaos in the sonic U as there once was, but should'nt that be a good thing? I mean would'nt it make more since to ask if things were speeding up since we now have STH & SU to tell stories with. I really don't see why you would say the story is slowing down. But to each his own.

BTW: how did you feel about the House of Cards story(ish.#178&179)? Yeah, I know, I already mentioned it, but I just feel it's such a great story, mainly because of how complex it is. I mean, the seeds for this were planted WAY back when Tails first met Fiona in ish.#28, and was further fueled by events after Sonic got back from his space adventure( ish.#124-#129). It soon became evident that something was gonna go down and I for one was thrilled with the outcome.

House of Cards was a sore spot in the middle of a bunch of epic stories. Having Rosemary Prower come completely out of left field and turn from a sweet and kindly housewife to some kind of tyrannical politician just didn't set right for me. On top of that we now have the Acorn Council which has and probably will continue to keep telling the Freedom Fighters they can't do this or that by majority vote. That was essentially what King Max did for the majority of the comic's run. It makes no difference to me whether he or or this variety pack of forgotten or redundant characters does. /opinion

And what about the other half of this ... the Sonic and Tails thing. It would've made a lot more sense if that went down before Fiona proved to be a treacherous, dispicable, double crossing individual who didn't care about either party. Tails had other reasons to be upset (remember the fight during the Eggman Empire arch?) but to really push the Fiona thing felt like he was just beating a dead horse. To top it off we haven't really seen much of a change between Sonic and Tails' relationship since then despite all that was said and done. Tails took a backseat in the Angel Island and the majority of the Moebius arch in favor of Amy. He had a decent showing at the beginning of the lead up to 200 but he still seems to be playing second fiddle even for a SEGA character to more popular characters (Shadow, Knuckles, and even Amy).

To answer the original question the current writer's been spending the majority of his run so far fixing the mess left behind by previous writers.

Just to recap ...

The original Robotnik was defeated in Sonic 50.
The new Robotnik, Dr. Eggman came in Sonic 75.
Robotropolis pretty much finished by Sonic 100.
Knothole Village began becoming Knothole City after Sonic 125.
Max and Alicia crowned Elias somewhere in the 150s.
Knothole was destroyed in Sonic 175.
The Council of Acorn was founded in the late 170s.
The beginning of Eggman's fall started in the 180s thanks to Enerjak.
Eggman's forces were furthered weakened by the Chaotix during the early 190s.
Eggman was defeated in Sonic 200.
The Iron Dominion took over in Sonic 201.

In addition to that many, many, subplots have been addressed and either resolved or held over to be resolved at a later date. The only thing that strikes me as different between then and now is that it's no longer just about the Freedom Fighters VS Robotnik. Now we have the Chaotix VS whoever's willing to fight them this week. Then there's Master Mongoul and his group of second rate villains biding their time. Then we have small recurring players like Fiona and the other Treasure Hunters. GUN seems to be setting themselves up to be an imposing (or is it opposing) force for whoever wants to challenge them by starting to collect Chaos Emeralds, too. Newly introduced is the Iron Dominion who will be the main villains for the foreseeable future. Since they eventually have to check in on all of them as well it may seem like the ongoing story with Eggman is going a lot slower then before but it can't be helped ...

... unless there's another round of House Cleaning.

Actually, I would think part of the supposed difference in pacing comes from the way previews are handled now.

Think about it. Back in the day, all you had to go off was the next cover and a teeny tiny blurb in the end of the very issue you were reading. You only knew of the immediate next issue. Now we've got covers, blurbs and even pages, the former two several months in advance. People end up glancing at these and having a vague notion of events without knowing the whole deal or even when it happens. I've seen people look at events of a recent issue and go "Wait, didn't that already happen?" because they saw speculation for it months prior. I think that throws things off track somewhat.

Fics seems to be a dying genre.

Actually, I would think part of the supposed difference in pacing comes from the way previews are handled now.

You know, I never thought about it that way, but now that you mention it, I see exactly what you're saying.

Boy, I disagree with a lot of things here.

I don't think New Mobotropolis is any less open to new story ideas than Acorn Castle or Knothole Village. The thing is that it's a change of pace -- something new. It's also basically what Mobians had been fighting for since restoring Robotropolis stopped being an option. Also, remember that this city might not still be here in 25 to 50 issues; every now and then something happens to really shake things up.

I don't think that the previews slow down the story-telling much, if at all. Also, I remember being able to see the covers for the next two or three issues way back when Sonic Adventure 2 came out for the Dreamcast -- if it is a problem it certainly isn't a new one. The covers are more like a teaser. It's usually a toss up about how much the cover has to do with the story -- is it literal, or metaphorical? Then the writing itself isn't really written for the fans but rather retailers. The Sonic X comic preview text would sometimes mention Sonic and friends living in Knothole city despite that being a universe away.

I liked the "House of Cards" story a lot. It could have used some better set up and could have had a better execution but the basics of it were great. This is a comic book based on the cartoon from the early nineties that was based on a video game series -- and we watched as a fictional civilization went from a monarchy to a democracy with King Acorn basically signing the Mobian Magna Carta. I think that's pretty cool and is a sign of how this comic is a lot more than just a media tie-in.

I do agree, however, about the pace of the storylines slowing down. I think it has a different origin, though -- padding. I think the Iron Dominion storyline is one of the coolest we've had in years but the Moebius storyline and the Enerjak storyline became pretty meandering. I think the Enerjak storyline would have worked better as a three parter -- A set up story; Robotnik captures and loses Enerjak; the fifth part. The first story in that series basically did nothing but made the characters run around and shout "Enerjak is coming!". It could have been a four parter, at least. The Moebius storyline...Is it that big of a deal if your Evil Twins capture your old Headquarters? I agree with the council on that one. Then we basically had a two issue brawl between Sonic, Scourge, Metal Sonic, and Metal Scourge. Then we got to something that was actually interesting -- the trip to Moebuis. The final battle with Scourge was pretty epic, too. But how many times did Sonic and Scourge make a comment about reaching each other's potential? You could have trimmed at least two full issues out of that arc. Nothing happened in issue 199# that couldn't have been set up in the first few pages of #200 with losing a page or two of the Egg Spider fight.

I know that its alot easier to say than it is to do and I'm still very much pro-Ian but the last year and half has been a little meandering. In the paragraph before this one I trimmed out five issues. Five issues! There are thirteen in a year. We could have have had another two-parter and a three parter with all of those over-stretched storylines. I do think, however, that Ian has improved a lot in his long story arc telling. The Iron Dominion has been using it's time and space quite efficiently so far. But yeah. That's what I think about the story-slowdown is coming from.

I don't think that the previews slow down the story-telling much, if at all. Also, I remember being able to see the covers for the next two or three issues way back when Sonic Adventure 2 came out for the Dreamcast -- if it is a problem it certainly isn't a new one.

We weren't getting the first six pages of the issue early back then, though. When there are only twenty-one pages in the book, that's a fair chunk of the story.

I've seen a lot of people post stuff along the lines of "Didn't that already happen?" because they think the issue had already been out a while. I just think knowing so many aspects of future story aspects (like having summaries in early June of issues that won't be released at the very end of September) kinda blurs events.