Janus

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Penders wrote the Knuckles comic which was widely popular at the time. He essentially created the comic's echidna lore. Unfortunately as the games evolved his lore was slowly being rebooted. After leaving the comic he wanted to still control the characters he created. When he couldn't he demanded the rights back. As a result he co-owns them with Archie who aren't using his characters so he can't make money.
Penders now is attempting to redo the knuckles comic starring his daughter, only cutting all ties with Sonic, resulting in the Laura-Su Chronicles

 

As far as I know his hands are tied as a result of his lawsuit - he can't use his old characters, he can't use characters of similar design and he can't tie in his Lara-Su Chronicles project to Sonic universe from his own end. Thus he attempted to force Archie to make his desired continuity (and Lara-Su as a result) canon from their end and give up the laurels of defeating Robotnik (Eggman? I'm still not sure what they did with those two) to echidnas (Knuckles I guess). Basically to write the ending of the comic how he wants it and be limited by it for the rest of comics' lifespan. I'm not sure if that was really his vision all along, hidden due to Archie/Sega not approving of giving Sonic the back seat. It looks more like he's occupied with his new project and seeks to promote it by any means. 

 

From where I stand it looks pretty cheap, but what do I know, maybe Archie executives were also being DICs to him. Actually, why was he fired?

 

He wasn't.  He left because he didn't like where the comics were going and decided to focus on his own works.  When that failed, he tried to get the characters he designed for Archie Sonic back. 

 

His decision is understandable then. Too bad he ended up spitting in the general direction of fans. He must've been desperate, or maybe just too prideful.

 

What was Penders' vision for the comics, especially regarding Sally? Or was he mainly concerned about the echidnas?

 

Penders intended for Sally to die off so Elias or King Max could replace her.  

 

Later on though, he eventually planned to get Sonic and Sally back together after Karl Bollers ended their relationship with "the slap."  However, he wanted Sonic to play the field for a while, which I didn't care much for.  In my case, I started reading the series at issue 10 and on and off read it for years.  I really got into the comic back at issue 132 I believe and continued for several years.  While some of the stories were good, the comic got overly focused on romance at times.  As many of you have already said, I will admit that I would like some of my favorite characters to come back such as Elias, Hope, Sonic's parents, Mammoth Mogul, etc. since they made the comic stand out for me against other Sonic adaptations.  But that's just wishful thinking.

I honestly wish that Archie would just refer to Naugus as simply Naugus and nothing else if they can't keep any of the backstory on the Order of Ixis and Mammoth Mogul.  And while I haven't been following the comic's retcon too closely, I actually like the new backstory for Nicole as opposed to the original where she was sent back in time.  Snively with a beard is honestly even funnier than the scouter like device he has now.