The Ol' Noggin Is In A Sudden Rough And Tumble Kick, And In Doing So It Made Me Realize How Much Of A

The ol' noggin is in a sudden Rough and Tumble kick, and in doing so it made me realize how much of a breath of fresh air they are compared to all the other Sonic villains.

To explain what I mean, let's first take a look at what are some of the most deplorable actions by all the other major villains present in the IDW comics: (also this is kinda long, so bear with me)

Dr. Eggman

Started a plague that turned people in mindless, shuffling zombies and completely coated the planet in metal gunk just because he was petty about being good for a few weeks.

Dr. Starline

On top of helping the previous doctor in his disease spreading efforts, he (presumably) kidnapped two people and forcibly implanted cybernetics while also brainwashing them and irreversibly ruined their lives, just because he wanted to prove a point he was wrong about.

Zavok (and the Deadly Six)

Say what you will about these guys in the games, but they not only made Eggman's Metal Virus plague WORSE and more infectious, but once the Faceship was destroyed Zavok went on a mad rampage to try and finish what he started and turned into a freaking kaiju in the process. That's also not to mention that one time he found a doctor to heal him after the events of Bad Guys and flat out killed him.

Clutch

Held several Chao in a small cage just for the sake of racing them, has been confirmed to have caused damage to the environment, forced a ship to crash land either in a city or on top of the heavily populated Restoration HQ, and has literally shot at children.

Mimic

Has betrayed every single team and/or person he has ever worked with simply to save his own skin. Worst case is obviously the Diamond Cutters where he sent them to their deaths directly. Then after all of that he still wants to go after Whisper and kill her even when it's easier for him to just lay low and forget the whole thing.

Rough and Tumble

Stepped on a roast.

Rough and Tumble are a different breed to every other villain in Sonic. Whereas everyone else is a monstrously evil psychopath or a sadly accurate depiction of some real people in power, they're just dunderheads. And that's what makes them so great!

Of course, those more serious and crafty kind of villains are what make Sonic stories so good. They are genuinely competent threats for the heroes to overcome and drive more than their fair share of conflicts. Plus, the likes of Eggman and Clutch are kinda key in Sonic's messaging of environmentalism and standing up to authority. But if every villain was like that, it'd get dull quickly.

So, it's nice, every once in a while, to see these bumbling idiot skunk brothers make a fool of themselves and just be there mostly for laughs. Even better though is that they're not some pushover, throwaway dorks. They can hold their own in a fight, even taking over a town for a short while after the war.

Still, they're the epidemy of the Wario and Waluigi of Sonic. Just these two jerks who could never come up with a competent plan to save their lives, but you enjoy following them anyway to see what hijinks they get up to. It's great, and really ought to make them stand out amongst Sonic's rogue's gallery for their uniqueness.

Also, just a quick little aside, this is one of my favorite bits in the entirety of IDW:

Tumble's fucking silent lean upwards. You can hear the inhale he does there. It's fucking amazing. I love these skunk dweebs.

Sorry if this was a big long post where I just ramble incoherently about two Sonic characters no one gives a shit about lol. I just wanted to get this off of my chest. I bet I'm not even the first one to say any of this stuff.