Geoffrey St. John guy, who the writers have just come up with, in #31 is directly tampering with an established character withour rhyme or reason, I mean what's up with that?!
You mean Sally romancing Sonic wasn't? Didn't the writer of SatAM just pull Sally herself out of nowhere? And nowhere did the Comics claim to be a continuation of the show so they don't have to follow the show's canon.
Also there was a Princess Sally Mini-Series where Sally met Geoffrey. Like all comics, reading the main line only doesn't give the full story.
Yes, Sally and the whole FF/Knothole story was created from scratch specifically for Satam. Yes, Archie comics are a mish-mash of AoStH, Satam, various Sega games and their own original ideas, so they can basically do whatever they please as long as Sega approves. But that's kind of my point. I'm not arguing they have no right to do the things I don't want them to. I'm trying to grasp whether I myself can accept their direction and thus asking what that direction is. Archie comics are the closest official medium to have a connection with Satam, and the farther apart it goes from it, the less I'm interested. That's why I'm asking whether I should set my expectations higher or lower. Because I know I would hate the guts of it if all they do is butcher the characters and setting I've set myself to read about. The latest redesign may actually be better in that regard as a different take might make me appeciate it for what it is. However there's some uncanny valley-like effect of seing a character you're fond of, but with a couple of crucial tweaks here and there. It's like some questionable fan-fiction, which changes just a couple of things about the source material, that in the end repulses you. E.g., everything's the same, but character X is also really fat and character Y is also a prostitute. Ok, author, that's your "vision" or fetish or whatever, I'm not interested. That's the way I see that kiss - a precedent of sudden character shift, which has no purpose and no explanation. It would have never happened in Satam under any circumstances. Not without additional explanation or motivation (maybe not even then as it's pretty graphic). It's just not Sally's character trait. She is used to kissing her saviours and those who make her really emotional. On the cheek, like a friend or even a relative. She accepts flirting because she's flattered, because Sonic often lacks in that department and is actually asking for it with his behaviour. Yet that is always portrayed elegantly, you as an audience are always assured that she's not serious and the sole purpose is to keep Sonic on his toes. The Archie version in #31 is anything but elegant and it is only exacerbated by the editor's remark asking the readers to write whether they want her to stay with that character or the other. So they (Penders?) are serious about the whole thing.
About Geoffrey, I didn't mean that they have literally came up with him on the spot in this very issue, but rather that he's a very recent character, has little to no development and significance to the story. He has appeared only once prior to the episode with both kisses, in an aforementioned short story. Neither of which imply any attraction between them. Geoffrey's behavior and mannerisms are part of his suggested character, not a sign of any real feelings towards Sally. He hasn't done anything to really impress her (he mistrusted her, put her in danger of explosion and treated her like a stupid bimbo) and there currently wasn't any score to settle with Sonic for her to purposefully make him jealous, so there's no motivation on Sally's part either. And if all this is simply implied and you have to use your imagination to fill in the gaps - yet even then it's hardly appropriate for just about anyone with dignity to kiss on the goddamn mouth! It's wrong on so many levels. It has been established time and time again (in Archie comics too) that Sonic and Sally are a couple, so being into making out with random guys, liking crude mannerisms and enjoying being grabbed and suddenly kissed by strangers comes out of nowhere. That's the thing I really dislike - making someone act out of character to fit the author's agenda. That's why I, for example, strongly disagree with very common oversexualing - artists often make female characters overly eroticized in order to gain cheap attention and praise.
If the writers wanted to make a romance story arc, they should've provided the context and the motivation for it. Like Sonic and Sally breaking up. But still, characters don't change overnight without major shocking experiences, so it either has to be done in spite of something, while in emotional flux and then end with restored status quo, apologies and more bonding. Or it has to be a major decision for the characters, made overtime, while analyzing the reasons and weighing the pros and cons, so that you feel its significance for them and feel their struggle of change. Otherwise it looks shallow and stupid.
