Archie's Blaze the Cat demotivational by Mixedfan8643

Yeah, it's been a while since I've done one of these hasn't it? Well there's something that's been eating at my brain so furiously that it's pretty much ravenous and has already eaten about 50% of my braincells. And what is it you may ask? This underlying fact about one of my favourite Sonic characters of all time and also one of my favourite FEMALE characters in all of media...in Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog Blaze the Cat is two things: A damsel in distress or a punching bag for Archie. 

What do I mean by this? Well just look.

Issues 160-161: She appears in the Sonic Rush adaptation and while a reasonably good intro for her this happens. She is knocked out and kidnapped...BY A BLOODY SWATBOT!!! And that fight doesn't even last more than a couple of panels! Literally two panels of fighting then POW, Blaze gets knocked out and taken away by a SWAT-bot no less! Can you say "ouch"?! Way to humiliate Blaze from the starting gate guys! A SWAT-bot should not EVER be able to get the drop on Blaze! Good god, they couldn't even knock SALLY out and she's no where near as strong as Blaze! HOWEVER, that's the only thing they did wrong. Blaze makes up for that by being badass every other panel and the way she's defeated by Sonic makes sense and doesn't humiliate her in anyway. So take out that humiliating knock out and the intro would have been perfect.

Sonic Universe Issue 1: Blaze's third appearance and the ONLY time where she isn't knocked out OR kidnapped and even then that's not saying much. Why? She gets curb stomped by Metal Sonic. Now to Archie's defence, yes, Metal Sonic IS powerful and I can totally agree with him curb-stomping Blaze. BUT it still brings up the point that this poster is making. If she doesn't get knocked out OR kidnapped in a story then she's a punching bag. Wow, what a lovely way to portray a badass female character you sexist bastards...

Treasure Team Tango: This is ironically the story where Blaze is treated the best, BECAUSE SHE ISN'T A PUNCHING BAG AND SHE DOESN'T GET KIDNAPPED IN IT! Yes she gets knocked out by Rouge, who shouldn't be able to get the drop on Blaze like that given Blaze is not easy to get a hold of in battle and Rouge's upper body strength isn't great enough for a knock out, but she doesn't get knocked out and THEN taken prisoner. Heck, she doesn't even stay knocked out for long! She's more momentarily distorted then knocked out really. And you know what, that's the ONLY blow Blaze receives in the story! The rest of the story she's as she should be: badass, capable and not needing somebody to save her ass. Guys, can we have more of THIS please minus the knock out?

The Generations tie-in doesn't count since it's just advertising Sonic Generations so I won't moan about that. 

Issue 242: Blaze gets kidnapped in that story but since she's not the main character, I'll let it slide. I do have to ask WHY do SEGA love to over-glorify Sonic by having ALL his friends get kidnapped and then he has to save them all? Can't somebody save Sonic for once? 

Worlds Collide: She gets kidnapped and turned into a robot but I presume she wasn't knocked out at least. And to Archie's credit, Blaze is the coolest looking Roboticized Master so at least this isn't humiliating for her. Alas though, hasn't she been kidnapped enough already? Last time I looked, Blaze never got kidnapped this much.

And now finally the biggest offender of them all...Pirate Plunder Panic. Oh boy where do I begin with this? First off, she's made to be an idiot just so she can get knocked out and kidnapped. THEN she spends the entire second part of the story in a cage. Come on guys, this isn't very flattering for Blaze and I'm sure she wouldn't be an idiot and just sit there. If I were Blaze, I'd set myself on fire until the cage melts. I don't care if it's tungsten carbide, if Blaze keeps going for long enough she'll melt the damn cage and if she keeps firing then the robots can't touch her for she'll be too hot and thus she can keep going. Oh and this is only done to humiliate her further by having her get saved by the one person who she should NEVER have to be rescued by...Amy Fucking Rose. Amy, you are the LAST person who should be saving Blaze's ass! Blaze can save her own ass, she doesn't need you! Oh and it gets worse too. In Part 4 she is knocked out and kidnapped AGAIN!!! Wow Archie, how much further can you possibly humiliate Blaze?! Getting knocked out and kidnapped is one thing but TWICE IN THE SAME FUCKING STORY?!?! Are you humiliating her on purpose now?!?! And granted while Captain Metal at least knocks her out in a different way for once (electrocution instead of just banging her on the head) but Captain Metal shouldn't have the ability to electrocute anybody anyway. There's nothing in his design indicating he can do that and a crab claw is a grappling weapon, NOT a shocking weapon. So this is done just to make Captain Metal look better. I will say though at least Blaze is in a situation where she actually WOULD need someone to save her. I mean YOU try and get out of that clamp, it looks impossible! But the fact is she already got knocked out and kidnapped in the story so why does it need to happen AGAIN?!?! She only gets saved like a couple of pages later anyway so this is just...pointless! It doesn't add more drama or anything, it just humiliates Blaze for the sake of humiliating her. 

So after all that, I SERIOUSLY believe that Archie Comics must have this seething hatred of Blaze the Cat and seek to humiliate her in every possible away they can. When I was introduced to Blaze the Cat, I saw a badass, independent, capable woman who didn't need some guy to save her life or somebody to fawn over. She was a perfect example of how women SHOULD be portrayed in the media and is instantly one of the best Sonic characters ever. So why oh why oh why can't Archie get that right?! Yes she's still badass and independent but given how many times she's getting knocked out OR kidnapped in this comic...makes me wonder how she hasn't got permanent brain damage yet and makes me wonder how she's getting around so well if she can't stay out of trouble? I SHOULDN'T be thinking that about Blaze! So thank you Archie, you're making me think something I shouldn't about a character that I love with all my heart! Archie Comics have single-handedly wrecked Blaze beyond belief by giving her the role of damsel in distress OR a punching bag for them. Not even Sally Acorn has been treated this badly in the comic...

Whiny kid: "But Mixedfan, I thought you love it when characters get captured! Especially women!"

Yes I do love it when a character gets captured...what I DON'T like is when it happens on a regular basis. There should be breaks in-between getting captured, it shouldn't happen all the fucking time! And even when it DOESN'T happen Blaze is just used for stress relief so it's not much to go by. And like I said, Blaze isn't a damsel in distress and isn't one to get captured so easily so it's a very sexist portrayal of her character and I bet many femenist groups out there will call Archie out on this bullcrap. 

Whiny kid: "But what about when you told SonicSatAMX93 off for acting like a Sally fanbrat when criticizing the comic? You're acting exactly the same way you fucking hypocrite!"

No I'm NOT. You see SonicSatAMX93 really WAS acting like a Sally fanboy when moaning about how she's portrayed in the comic. I mean he even says she should have been able to dodge the gun turret in 225, which was impossible. My rant on Blaze however, I'm not speaking this as a Blaze fanboy. I'm speaking this as a CRITIC. I am a critic who expects characters to be treated how they should be. Blaze should be treated as a powerful, badass, independent woman who doesn't take crap from anybody, NOT as a punching bag or some helpless damsel who needs Amy Rose to save her...twice. Even if I WASN'T a Blaze fan I'd still be moaning about this because it's a horrible mistreating of a character. Accepting this crap requires me to accept mishandling of a well constructed character who has a great personality and I REFUSE to do that. Crap should be called out for, not ignored. Why do you think I hate Penders's writing so much...?

So bottom line, Archie should do one tiny little thing...STOP WRITING BLAZE THE CAT!!! Seriously, I DON'T want Blaze to appear in this comic EVER AGAIN!!! That way Archie can stop treating her like crap and she's spared further humiliation! Only in the games or fanfiction will she get the respect she deserves. If Archie HAS to write a Blaze story then they should do this simple thing:

1: No knocking her out!

2: Don't use her as a punching bag

and 3: Don't have her get kidnapped. 

If they can prove to me that they can do at least ONE STORY without those three things then I will be happy. As is though, I don't want them to ever write another story about Blaze the Cat. If they do, I won't read it because I'm sick of her being humiliated like this. However, if you guys read Blaze's next story and tell me she doesn't get knocked out OR kidnapped OR used as a punching bag...then I will read it HAPPILY. Archie have a lot of redeeming to do before I can trust them to handle Blaze the Cat again. 

Well that's it for this one. I hope you enjoyed this rant and please people, pray for poor Blaze. She deserves our sympathy for this garbage...