Under-Appreciated Gems & Guilty Pleasures (Archie).

[ToaArcan]

[The Red Stranger: This can include concepts you enjoy that others do not commonly do as well.]

 

Buckle up, I'm about to say somewhat nice things about Ken Penders.

 

Let's talk about one of the comic's best villains, and a rather unsung one at that. This guy:

 

 

 

This pirate-looking guy, for those not in-the-know, is Patch D'Coolette, Antoine's counterpart from the Anti-dimension, and his contributions to the series are often ignored, because the Archie fandom has a bad habit of revisionism. Since his plans were put into motion primarily during what is now regarded as the comic's dork age, the whole story tends to be regarded as "rubbish" because it was written by Ken Penders. And while its execution was flawed, it wasn't awful, and the plan itself was gloriously devious.

 

Patch started out as Antoine's exact opposite, a fearless, merciless warrior, always scheming to get himself on top. His rivalry with Scourge was also a mirror of Antoine's rivalry with Sonic. Whereas the latter was generally rather pathetic and Sonic always came out on top, Patch was always one step ahead of Scourge as far as schemes went- In fact, Scourge got so mad that Patch beat him to the idea of  "Wear a fake eyepatch to look rugged" that he actually put Patch's eye out, which just highlighted things- Scourge was impulsive, violent, and brutal, while Patch was precise, skilled, and a schemer.

 

But what makes him a good villain was not that, it was his master plan, which ran from somewhere between Issue 125 and issue 130 all the way to issue 156. For a little backstory, at the time, the comic had a bit of a writer edit war going on- Karl Bollers was the head writer on Sonic at the time, while Penders was working on his infamous Knuckles comic. Well, the latter got cancelled, and Penders was brought back to the Sonic title, and, being the senior writer, kinda took the rug out from under Bollers' feet and started imposing his own plans for the Sonic comic, incompatible with Bollers', onto the stories. In particular, they clashed over Antoine.

After Sonic's return from space, Antoine had apparently turned into a colossal jerk and broken up with Bunnie for no real reason, something that Penders did not like, and to be fair to him, not a lot of people did. Bollers' plan was for Antoine to keep getting worse and eventually become a villain, while Penders decided to not do that and have Antoine actually be Patch. To his credit, he didn't immediately show Patch gloating about impersonating Antoine in private, and he didn't show off Patch's scheme until after Bollers was gone. If Penders deserves crap from fans for this, then Flynn deserves it for doing the same to Bollers and Penders' plans for characters like Fiona. Either way, we got the story with Patch, which worked a lot better.

 

Here's his plan, and how it worked:

 

He began by switching places with Antoine, and working to ingratiate himself with Max, while breaking things off with Bunnie because being in a relationship with her would hinder his plans. People would be suspicious if he broke up with her just when the issue of Sally's marriage came up, so he had to do that early. See, like Robotnik, Patch intended to take over the kingdom by abusing its own hierarchies. Unlike Robotnik, he was not going to get himself into a position of power and then stage a coup, he would instead get himself married to Sally, and then bump off Max to take the throne legitimately. Whether it was due to an actual law of the kingdom, or one of those unpleasant things about Max's own attitude toward his daughter, it was often made clear that Sally could not be queen unless she had a king, so Patch decided to use that to get himself made an actual king.

While his plan was briefly put on hold by Sonic's return, Sally's frayed mental state soon saw to it that her relationship with Sonic ended explosively, putting him back on track. It's also possible that Patch actually "helped" the relationship collapse, abusing Sally's trust and her fear of losing Sonic again to "advise" her to demand his retirement, and insinuating that not doing so would be "selfish", that he would be doing it for his own enjoyment rather than the good of the people, but that's just theory talk.

His plan with Max worked pretty well- "Antoine" got promoted to Commander, and was appointed to be Max's bodyguard during the world tour, during which he started poisoning the king, causing a decline in his health. After several failed negotiations, he upped the dosage, forcing Max to abandon the tour and return home. Being the monarch's new right-hand-man, he was now a shoe-in for the soon-to-be-vacant throne, and the marriage was demanded by Max right before he lapsed into a coma. And it worked. Sonic's attempts to talk to Sally are foiled by Patch blocking him from seeing her, and he was able to manipulate her into agreeing to her father's wish, the wedding going off without a hitch, and Sally, for her part in this, appeared broken, allowing Patch to have Sonic carted off by guards when he attempted to put a stop to things at the reception.

Patch was seconds away from finally killing Max when things came crashing down. While it seemed that Sonic had just protested about Sally's agreement while at the same time macking on Fiona, he had in fact gone off and found Elias, and tried to convince him to come back and put a stop to proceedings, so that Sally would not be forced to marry Patch. While initially reluctant, he soon changed his mind at the prodding of Megan, his wife. He returned, and announced his intention to take the throne, and, being the legitimate heir, bypassed Patch's claim via Sally, testing the waters to see if Patch would react. 

Patch faked acceptance, deciding to kill Elias' wife and child as well as him, but was ultimately foiled when Sonic spotted the needle of poison that he intended to use to kill Elias, revealed his true identity, and kicked him back to Moebius, bringing Antoine back at the same time.

Oh, and during all of this, he also fatally poisoned Antoine's father, just because he could.

 

With all this in mind, I do think that, honestly, Patch was one of the best villains the comic had. He didn't have fancy powers, he didn't have an army or a superweapon, and he didn't beat the tar out of anyone to show off how dangerous he was. But with a few bottles of poison, knowledge of the Kingdom of Acorn's antiquated succession rules, and Max's prejudices, he was inches away from being the legitimate, crowned ruler of the Kingdom. His machinations, once laid bare, were equal parts monstrous and horrifying, some of the most evil things displayed in the whole run, his manipulation of Max and Sally, his casual disregard for Bunnie and the rest of the people he pretended to be friend of, the murder of Armand, all while posing as a face that all of them loved and trusted, along with his casual use of poison to get his own ends brought a level of evil far more visceral and real than any of Eggman's more fantastical plots, or Scourge's posturing and bluster. And I think i even works on a level that affects the reader too. If nothing else, Sally finally caving and hopelessly going along with "what's expected of her by her father and her husband", just like Max always wanted, opens up a bit of a pit in my stomach, just because of how wrong it feels.

Villains these days aren't on the same level as Patch. Flynn spends too much time trying to make them wacky or cool or sympathetic. Patch wasn't that. He was pure, unadulterated evil, and it was awesome.

[Wulfsbane]

Arcan, this is by far one of the best character analysis I have read for an Archie Sonic character. I think you dug up something a lot of fans would have considered trash and found the lone bright spot and show just how good a villain Patch was. His plan was extremely good and it nearly worked too. I think Patch could have been one of the better villains of the series if things didnt turn out the way they did

[Mike Arcade]

*Claps*

I gotta say, I never thought of it that way before, great job man.

I'm probably saying this because I've been watching The Dark Knight Movies lately, but that reminds me of how The Joker of that series turned Gotham upside down with just "a couple of drums of gasoline and a few bullets". I mean you don't get that kind of villain anymore in the comic, nowadays the so-called villains of the series Post-Reboot seem to be more like the actual protagonists of the comic rather then villains, at least regarding a majority of The Egg Bosses anyway. You don't get any villains anymore with a hint of espionage to them, or just being complete monsters other then Eggman.

[ToaArcan]

Once Flynn took over, general quality of the villains nosedived. Patch here was brought down to just being one of Scourge's lackeys, Eggman was truly monstrous but Ian wrote it in such a way that it felt like we were supposed to like him, Scourge himself was every variety of awful, Mogul basically retired, Naugus spent most of the run without a brain and then managed to pull off a much dumber version of this plot basically because Ian said so, and about the only good one was Finitevus.

 

THey really shouldn't have done SU arcs that focused on the villains, because then Ian turned them into protagonists rather than letting them be vile in the limelight. Eggman was at his most evil in the Mecha Sally plot tumour, but then he gets his own SU arc where, while gleefully sending the mutilated shell of his former enemy into combat, he rips you right out of the experience with a homage to Empire Strikes Back and sings his own damn theme song. 

 

When writing a villain, you should never reach the point where people ask "Why is he still alive?", and the only answers you can give are "Because the plot", "Because I say so" or "Because my bosses say so." Eggman reached that a long time ago, as did Scourge.

Edited June 6, 2016 by ToaArcan

[Mike Arcade]

Yeah that's the thing when it comes to villains, unless a limelight episode shows you just how ruthless and/or evil they are, they shouldn't have a limelight episode. If that's the case when you start liking them you gotta be really careful with that, you can lead them on a bit and once they drop their guard you punch em in the crotch! At least when it comes to main antagonists, or just show how truly *bleep*ed up they are, not to mention that using comedy for him should have been handled much differently.

Scourge was always meant to be a mad dog, though honestly he was kind of a little b*bleep*, though having him be pathetic might have been intentional, like a pathetic Tony Montana or PG Simon Phoenix, actually no not even that. Could have been done a lot better really, I mean I can see why he was made but he wasn't as brutal he made himself out to be, a poser, a tracer!
Though I would have liked to see him go out violently in order to "prove" himself just as big as he made himself out to be, but make that what you will.

Finitevus...yeah no real complaints, he was a legit psychopath, thumbs up.

Mogul pretty much did the smartest thing he could do and wait it out, yeah it's a boring conclusion but it's logical, he should have been brought out for some reason to mix things up a bit but how he could have, well I'm not too sure. Even then, technically he's a villain but considering how I view the comic I'd say he was more along the lines of an Anti Villain in some regards, I can explain that later if you want.

Naugus though, not much information on why he wanted to rule the kingdom, that's more of the problem I have with his plot more so then anything else. Just because? Well considering in one SU issue Silver's Future mentioned something about an Ixis Resurgence so this is speculation here, but did he want to make a world ruled by Ixis Magic, with him as the supreme Grand Master Mage-King? Would he get other apprentices? I don't know, that's just what I think his thing was building up to maybe. At least that would be a good reason, or a reason why at least. Even then I'd honestly say The Council of Acorns would the True Secondary Antagonists of that time in the comic, especially Rosemary Prower.

I do think that you can have other villains besides Robotnik, or Eggman in a Sonic Story. It just depends on how it goes, but they better be impressive that's all I'm gonna say on the matter. Heck, some villains might even be right under their noses...hehehe... XP

[ToaArcan]

One of my biggest complaints with the current comic is that nearly every newly-introduced villain is tied to Eggman for no reason, without giving a good reason for them to follow him, or why they should respect him.

 

Quote

The Council of Acorns would the True Secondary Antagonists of that time in the comic, especially Rosemary Prower.

Oh, most definitely, they were pretty terrible.

[Wulfsbane]

Rosemary just seemed to be in the council for herself and to have power. After House of Cards it just felt like she did not care about Tails at all and I think Tails said something to her about and Rosemary essentially says "whatever" and tried to undermine the Freedom Fighters quite a bit

[ToaArcan]

I always thought that she resented the FF for seemingly taking over the role of Tails' family, and Sally in particular for her role as his mother figure.

[F07E]

1 minute ago, ToaArcan said:

One of my biggest complaints with the current comic is that nearly every newly-introduced villain is tied to Eggman for no reason, without giving a good reason for them to follow him, or why they should respect him.

I agree with this sentiment, especially with two of the worst offenders being the battle bird armada and witchcart. having an established rogues gallery of different individuals working for their own ends allows for the comic to remain fresh, rather than the stale of affairs the comic finds itself in now.

[Mike Arcade]

Glad to see where all on the same page here, good to know I'm not the only one with a burning contempt for Rosemary, Amadeus less so, at least he talked to his kid.

Wendy being Naugus' Sister was very off putting to me, never made that connection at all and could have been just a separate character on her own, speaking of which the whole Troll race thing is really, really dumb, like the dumbest thing Flynn has ever made, I couldn't even believe it when I read about it.
The Armada really should have been their own thing too, or at least show how that crap happened, I could believe it if it was developed and not dumped on us.

Other then Cassia, who because of Clove is why she joined Eggman, no one else makes any sense, granted you have some characters from Pre-Reboot who worked with him previously, but most of the new characters are doing it out of Fear, no apparent reason, or actually believe in Eggman somehow. You can only use that excuse of fear for so few, and the latter about believing in Eggman is rather hilarious to me...and that's actually pretty interesting, though why they believe in him, Thunderbolt and Maw, I have no idea but it would be cool to know.
It seems to me that they are stealing the spotlight and character development that the Freedom Fighters aren't getting, Cassia, Clove, and Nephthys somehow ended up more developed then any of the Freedom Fighters combined, and while I do like those 3 and what they could represent, still doesn't change the fact that compared to the villains or morally conflicted characters, the heroes are 2 dimensional! THAT's my main problem with Post-Reboot, I'm rooting for the wrong guys here because due to mandates you can only develop anyone that aren't the main characters.

On that note, the Reboot should have just reset everything to the very first game, Sonic 1 and go from there if since the comic is more closely tied to the games anyway, you know what I mean, at least then we would possibly see the changes and development of these new versions of The Freedom Fighters, but I can't get invested in them anymore because they don't learn anything or don't change from what they are shown.

WOW I went in a huge tangent, get used to that new folks.

[ToaArcan]

Funny thing is, when it came time to write Rosemary, I decided to just write her as she was when Bollers had the pen- Actually a loving mother. I do, however, have ideas involving her as a villain.

 

SEGA have tight limits on what their characters can be shown doing. Ian's probably exploiting the freedom he has with the Egg Bosses for all it's worth. 

[TheRedStranger]

Broadened this one. 

[ByTor, Prince of Ro’den]

About sums up Archie's Echidnas.