Sonic Comics: Tangle the Lemur Takes Things Over for Sally Acorn.

Sally Acorn (left) and Tangle the Lemur (right)-art by me

Sally Acorn was the co-star of the Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comic series. Now that Sonic's ditched Archie for IDW, a new girl character has been introduced: Tangle.

A ring-tailed lemur, she is somewhat inspired by early Sonic ideas--the stretchy rabbit ears that became Ristar's stretchy arms are now Tangle's stretchy tail, if that makes any sense. Designed to look cool in general and while fighting, she debuted in IDW's fourth issue.

When I first heard about Tangle and her creation, I could only think "why." We had plenty of female characters for Sonic to hang out with/take down Egghead with/casually flirt with. Amy takes the girly side, but if her hedgehog's in trouble she pulls out that hammer and teaches the good doctor a lesson. Rouge is a spy, thief, and treasure hunter--an odd combination of James Bond, Catwoman, and Indiana Jones. And there's the best option, Blaze the Cat, who has an interesting back story and awesome powers. I just figured Flynn (AKA the writer) wanted someone to fill in "the Sally role" of having someone willing to take charge and plan out attacks (and casually flirt with Sonic).

But then I thought about it a bit more. Rouge is too busy with Shadow and Omega to fill in as the "extra" for Sonic. Amy's always there, so it not anything new--plus in most cases Sonic is trying to get away from her. Blaze would defiantly make sense, but she's from another dimension, so she can't be there 24/7 like the rest of the group. And after I forced my self to read (ahem, skim) Flynn's interview on GameInformer*, I began to understand why a new character would be necessary. She can fight with Sonic and join up for few plots now-and-then, but can step aside for more important character when the situation demands it.

An IDW advertisement. 

I also figured that Sega or IDW wanted an original character to be a sort of mascot for the series. Like how Sticks the Badger represents Sonic Boom. Where as Sally represented Archie, Tangle now represents IDW.

Still, I have to wonder what kind of character Tangle will become. When first introduced, I was questioning who she might be like, but so far we've seen that Tangle is closer to Sonic than anybody. She loves to take on a foe, but she can be a bit reckless, too. I think that Tangle's her own character, and though she's sort of filling Sally's role as Sonic's FFF (female fighting friend), she'll prove to be an interesting part of the cast.
...But Blaze is better.

Yes she is.

Sidenote: When I was drawing the picture for this article I thought that Sally and Tangle where drawn kind of similar. So I experimented with photoshop to prove my point, and this is Sally the Lemur. 

SEE IT NOW?

Nothing like a good old re-skin to sharpen my photoshop skills.

*The reason I was hesitant to read up on new info was because GameInformer is on my hate list, along with IGN, Roger Craig Smith, and who ever is currently voicing Jet the Hawk (bring back Jason Griffith!).