Got to go Fast...

     Where do I even start with this one? Do I apologize for not writing for a year? Do I explain my history with the subject? Or do I dive headfirst into the topic that has filled my head ever since I finished watching the movie?  Let's start from the beginning I think all the way back in 1992.

Back in 1992, I was a wee lad who just getting into video games and comic books. One of the ones that influenced me the most was a little blue hedgehog named Sonic. I instantly click with his character, not going into why that is way too personal. This led to me finning the Sonic the Hedgehog comic published by Archie. Weirdly enough most of my comic reading around this time would come from Archie. So fast forward to 2022 and This same character has a hit movie franchise.  With this hit movie franchise comes the potential shadow, no not that one, from his past.

I'm talking about the infamous former Sonic comic writer Ken Penders. Who is Ken Penders you ask? Um well, that's a very long story and I don't have the time or the energy to write a doctorate-level distortion about the man.  The TLDR is a former Sonic writer for Archie publishing who when he left said no one touches my toys. His toys were touched he got butthurt. This led to him copywriting over 240 characters from his time in comic books. This led to two lawsuits the first by Archie comics against Penders over the ownership of the characters, the second by Penders himself against EA and Sega over plagiarism of "his character" The first lawsuit was settled after Archie's lawyers bumble the case. The 2nd one was dismissed then appealed and the original ruling was upheld. For more information, you can read here and here. This has led Pender to threaten more legal actions and promise to publish a new story with "his character" neither of which he has followed through on yet. Now in more recent news this

This didn't surprise me as when I finished watching the movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2 my thought was Pender is probably going to sue. Behold after a quick google and I found that link. Needless to say, I started laughing my ass off. Why well let's just say I have no respect for Ken Penders. I understand as someone who has dabbled in creating his own works the want of ownership. Many of my heroes in the comic industry went through similar issues, however, they were not complete assholes about it.  Now as to why I lost is laughing because if he goes through with this lawsuit it is very unlikely he can win it. I can see two outcomes for this suit. The first is Paramount can lock this case up making it run for months or years eating at Penders's legal fees until he can no longer afford to pursue the case anymore and offering to settle and pay his legal fees in exchange for the ownership of those characters. The second is the case is thrown out, appealed and the original ruling is upheld then Penders is sued for defamation and through that suit, he loses his character in a settlement or it's dragged out like option one. 

So why do I believe he will not win this case if he pursues it. Well, it's because most of "his characters" are a classification of character type known as derivative. A derivative character is a character who is another character but one aspect is changed about them. An example is Ben Reilly is Spider-Man but a clone. Basically, it comes down to how much a character can be defined without mentioning another character.  Another thing that going to get him in trouble is you can't own concepts. For example, fatherhood can not be owned. If your character is defined as X character's father and there is another different father for X character in another work then you do not own that character just because he is X character's father. Let's just say that is where any Copywrite lawyer worth his salt is going to lock up any case. 

To sum this up I love Sonic the Hedgehog in all forms. I don't want Pender to sue. I'd prefer if he just stayed away from Sonic. I enjoyed his time on the old comic but I'm sad that I can never share those books easily with future generations. If you enjoy Sonic the Movies are good, the new IDW comics are good and the games are well a mixed bag of nuts.  Sorry for the year away from writing and I'll try to get back to it. thanks for reading sorry for this long subject matter.