#sonicwindattack

A Sonic Battle commission, one out of five I should be finishing on deviantArt besides working on the SwapOut comic ;w;

been trying to stay up and do stuff so I can get stuff done but its hard stuff yo

Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve done one of these hasn’t it?  Now that 249 has been out for a while, I feel that it’s a good time to share some behind-the-scenes knowledge of this issue’s production.  And as the writer of this story, hopefully I can do a good job of that!

First off, the cover.  This was the first thing that was done for the issue, completed even before 248′s cover.  The idea came to my head one day, and it was so fresh in my mind that I asked @drawloverlala to draw it out earlier than I probably should’ve.  Below you can see some rough drafts she made before the final version.

As for the art in the actual story, Tim was adamant about penciling the latter half of the story from the start, so that part went relatively smoothly.  The first half, however, was a nightmare to find someone to pencil for.  There were several volunteers who came and went, including @rikdraws as you can see below, before we were finally able to get a firm position with CrimDa.

This was actually a last-minute addition, but the screen in front of Eggman shows that Metal Sonic has the same Power Gem core from the now-retconned Sonic Universe #50 (which is also why Shard shows up unharmed later on).  However, unlike in that issue we intentionally made it not visible, since it’s installed in his head rather than his torso.

Since 248 established that Emerl says the names of the abilities he copies, I needed Amy to say the name of her weapon before attacking him with it.  It’s a HUGE stretch, but oh well.

Fun fact: Emerl copying Amy’s hammer was not in the original story outline written by head writer @digimonkaiser411.  I added it in myself because I thought it would spice things up a bit.

There’s no denying that Amy is tough, but taking on Metal Sonic and Emerl by herself is kind of a tall order.  That’s why I figured Sonic would at least TRY to go back and help her, even if it didn’t work.

Since Sonic had his hands tied with Mecha Sally, I wrote her using her force field during their skirmish.  We only ever saw this ability on the cover for Sonic Universe #38, so I wanted a chance to show it off in an actual story.

Another one of my additions was Mecha Sally trying to shoot Cream.  Since the battle took place in a populated city, I thought that the possibility of innocent people getting caught in the crossfire added to the sense of scale.

This may seem minor, but I’m proud of this little detail.  Even though he was later able to reverse it (out of sheer happenstance, I might add) and it was quickly overshadowed by her roboticization, Sonic’s irresponsibility literally got Sally killed, and I don’t think that’s something that should be so easily overlooked.  Also, if you’re wondering if Sally should even remember that, 230 confirmed that she does.

I had originally written much more dialogue between the Secret Freedom Fighters, but most of it had to be either cut or compressed.  In hindsight, I probably should’ve devoted more than just one page to them, but it was important to at least reintroduce them given the roles they will play later on.

Although Geoffrey-Naugus was always supposed to overwhelm Metal Sonic with Ixis Magicks, I didn’t originally intend for him to have the Purple Chaos Emerald staff as well.  In fact, I wish I had answered Amy’s question on why he has it.  I guess we’ll just have to assume he got the Council’s permission to use it off-panel.  On an unrelated note, I made sure to showcase Metal Sonic’s torso laser in this issue given how rarely he used it in the official comic.  Looking back, I probably made him use it too many times.

Sound familiar?  I threw in a line of Naugus wanting to crystallize and control Metal Sonic as a reference to the reboot’s Eggman’s Dozen arc, where Naugus did exactly that.

Honestly, I didn’t have anything in particular in mind when I wrote this line.  I guess I just figured that since Metal Sonic has that Power Gem now, he should use it.  Will it come into play later?  Maybe, maybe not, we’ll have to see.  Also yay, Maximum Overdrive, another one of Metal’s overlooked abilities!

In the original outline, Silver joined Amy in the fight against Emerl, but later left to chase down Metal Sonic, with Amy eventually knocking out Emerl on her own.  Since Emerl was already defeated at that point in my version, it was difficult to justify Amy not going with Silver after Metal Sonic.  In the end, the best I could come up with was, “Just keep an eye on the dead robot”.

Originally this was just a bunch of Evangelion technobabble, but I was eventually able to turn it into a somewhat coherent conversation.  Looking back I’m not really sure why Jules needed to be there, but the outline said that he was, so eh.

Metal Sonic’s original reaction to being hit by Silver’s Psychic Knife, which was changed due to looking too goofy.

Heavily influenced by Spaz’s work during the Mecha Madness arc, Tim originally drew Mecha Sally with many details on her metallic body.  But since she had a much more sleek and streamlined design than Mecha Sonic, this was toned down in the final version, though still slightly more detailed than most artists would draw her.

I needed some help for this one, since apparently you can’t count on Wikipedia to give an accurate representation of the Greek alphabet.  But if you translate the names of the letters into their English counterparts, Metal Sonic’s vocal override becomes an acronym for “Sonic the Hedgehog Online 249″, with “MakeSonicSuffer” thrown in the middle for good measure.

One thing you may have noticed was that when Mecha Sally initiated her self-destruct sequence, the red light on her stomach started blaring.  This was because my editor at the time, The Shadow Imperator, wanted to give it a purpose that had not been seen previously.

I hadn’t originally planned for the final struggle to take place high in the sky, but after discussing it with Tim, it did make the most sense.

This is one of my favorite lines in the script, and one I was absolutely insistent on keeping no matter what.  With access to Sally’s memories, using her near-death in the Endgame saga and her actual-but-reversed death in 225 to mock Sonic was deliciously cold and cunning.

Mecha Sally trying to shoot Sonic before exploding was also not in the outline, but I thought it would help give Sonic that one final push to send him completely over the edge.

The headbutt scene was quite difficult.  Since Sonic had to be positioned just right to smash the cannon, it took quite a few redraws.  Eventually the panel became so dirty from multiple erases that Tim had to tape a piece of paper over the panel with the version we ended up using.

If you thought Sonic went overboard against Sally in the final story, originally it was even worse.  Tim initially drew her losing some fingers and getting her eye smashed, but we felt that was a bit much.

Sonic defeating Mecha Sally was incredibly cathartic for me, as we never saw that happen in the official comic.  Imagine spending years being invested in a story where the hero is pitted against the love of his life, slowly coming to terms with the fact that hesitance isn’t an option, building up to the dramatic final showdown... and then having the whole thing swept under the rug and never brought up again.  I never thought that I would have the honor of being the one to write the story we were so cruelly denied, but I did my best to make it worth the wait.  I was actually a bit nervous about the reception this severe beating would get, but I’m glad it doesn’t seem to have raised any real controversy.

And now, we’ve finally reached the last 3 pages.  These weren’t a problem in terms of art as much as writing, as we didn’t even attempt to draw it out until we knew we were happy with the script.  Since this scene was completely silent, body language was key, as well as giving the characters proper time to act and react to Sally’s reveal.  3 pages may seem like a bit much, but we felt it was just the right amount of time to sell the bittersweet ending without dragging for too long.

Who was Richard Burton Jr., you may ask?  Well... he was my father.  I lost him in March of 2016 to a heart attack, right around the time I started writing this story.  He loved Sonic as much as I do, and I knew I had to give this story my all, for his sake.  I wish you could’ve been there to see it, but this one goes out to you, Dad.  I love you always.

We had a hard time coming up with an Off-Panel for this issue, until one day I had an epiphany.  I remembered the Off-Panel for issue 230, when Metal Sonic and Mecha Sally got married.  And since that was the first issue of the Mecha Sally arc and this was the last, we decided to cap things off by having them get a divorce.  Too bad Sonic still doesn’t get a happy ending XD

And finally, there’s the mural for Emerl’s data file.  Riggo had originally drawn this for use in the Endangered Species remake, but it didn’t fit the story.  Instead it was repurposed to show the Gizoid’s origins as a weapon of the Nocturnus Clan.  In the finished version, two of the generic Gizoids were even replaced by Scylla and Charyb from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

Bonus: Tails originally wearing goggles while piloting the Tornado.