Well, you asked for comments, and here you go:

I honestly believe if every item that made Sonic "cool" in his Genesis days (foot tapping, SatAM immature attitude, etc) were copied into the Dreamcast game, it would make Sonic very annoying nowadays, where those kinds of actions are more "uncool" and, unfortunately, the "in" thing is mature behavior. Not mature as in grown-up and experienced, mind you, but mature as in mature content. Mature as in sex and violence. No longer is it "cool" just to use hiphop lingo and act defiant in today's society. It's sad(?), but true. So, I think it was better that Sonic sort of grew up mentally for SA, or else he would be, as the phrase goes, "so ten minutes ago"

As for the comics, it appears to me (without including the recent SA crossover) like SatAM on steroids. You have all the familiar SatAM characters, and a whole bunch of new ones. The SA crossover is a bit of fresh air for someone like me, who was tired of all the non-SegaSonic characters except for Princess Sally. I don't like Sally as Sonic's girlfriend, as I don't like anyone with that title. Sonic is real choosy about his friends, and doesn't let anyone get TOO cozy with him. I like him that way. Besides, I've been influenced lately by an anime fangirl who likes yaoi couples, and so a general "ho-hum" attitude of male/female couples has rubbed off on me (I'm straight, thank you). So no, I don't like Sally for the romantic role. I like Sally because she's a bit of a tomboy character compared to other game women in this genre, actually helping out in the job instead of being captured all the time. And think about it, Sally's been running Freedom Fighter missions for years before Laura Croft and company appeared and made girls in games popular! I do feel that Ms. Croft has two other big reasons for her success, but I digress... ^_^

Where were we? Oh yes, Sonic's popularity. You can't say that Sonic is really lacking fandom anymore. Why, look at this

http://www.sega.co.jp/sonicteam/info/ev0823/event.html

Look at that page and tell me in the eye that Sonic is hardly popular anymore. The people to blame for a lack of Sonic happenings anymore is Sega of America. After being burnt again and again with their 32 bit systems, Sonic has been reduced to appearing in games as a system savior, as Sega hopes that a Sonic game (by Sonic Team or not) will make the system hot. SoA doesn't make this any better by turning off the Sonic Marketing Machine, meaning those Oreo/LifeSaver tie-ins, TV shows, etc hardly appear anymore.

I understand I may have made some irate with my statements, such as my beliefs of the comic, SatAM, Sally, SoA, etc. Please don't flame me with hate mail. If you MUST mail me to support a particular point of view, please give me more information than "because I like it that way" ^_^

MikeC
Sonic City - http://www.sonic.net/~michaelc/sonic/