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mobius-prime · 4 years

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137. Knuckles the Echidna #29

My Special Friend

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Frank Gagliardo

We have another standalone issue this time! Sally is pissed, as apparently she's just found out that Antoine was a part of the mission to retrieve her mother and brother from the Floating Island a while back, and is yelling at him for never having told her. He guiltily responds that it wasn't his place to tell her, and so she stalks off to see her father. He tries to speak first, but she, to her credit, cuts him off and insists that he listen to her first before he says anything.

I don't know how much the "I was only trying to protect you" excuse flies when she's literally talking about his previous orders to murder all Robians and force her into an arranged marriage. However, for whatever reason she listens to him, and he orders her to the Floating Island to hopefully negotiate some help in the renewed war against Robotnik. Meanwhile on said island, Knuckles is chatting with Catweazle, a face we haven't seen in a very long time, but in case you don't know him he's a cockatoo with a stupid name and a stupid appearance who first appeared very briefly in the Triple Trouble special. He's mostly come here to cheekily complain at Knuckles, first about him spending so much time in the city as of late, then about his own family, the possibility of Lara-Le and Wynmacher producing a new child of their own (which is a subject Knuckles carefully avoids), and finally, about recent sightings of Overlander craft flying around the island.

Gee, I wonder who those could belong to? They spot one flying towards the island at this very moment, and inside is Sally, presumably having "borrowed" it from Robotnik to take it out here. She's apparently feeling very guilty now about questioning her father, which is really something she has absolutely no reason to feel considering the BS he's pulled ever since coming out of the Zone of Silence. Nicole points out that his sickness and trauma from said zone has probably contributed to his irrational behavior, but then Sally says something I find to be extremely out of character, namely that her father's suggestion to dismantle the Robians was an "arguably pragmatic solution," that he must have done it in case of a situation like this where Robotnik was able to turn around and use them against the citizens of the kingdom once more, and that if she'd been through what he had, she might have done the same. Just, what? This is not like Sally at all - sure, she's an intelligent leader who knows how to make the hard decisions when she must, but that has never included literally murdering over four million unfortunate people just because they had the bad luck to be captured in the war. All I can chalk this up to is either her father's frankly quite emotionally abusive demeanor getting to her head, or - more likely - Penders doing a terrible job at writing Sally. This is just not the Sally we've known for over a hundred issues, this is not how she thinks or acts, and it's honestly a really messed up thing to try to write her as endorsing.

But anyway, Nicole advises her to activate a beacon in the ship, which the Brotherhood, still watching from inside Haven, recognizes as broadcasting the king's digital signature. They allow the ship to land, and she plops it down on the grass at the edge of the island right next to Knuckles, who she immediately marches up on and begins yelling at as well. Man, Sally just loves yelling at people this issue, huh?

Okay, that is a genuinely hilarious excuse to give for her coloring changes in the beginning of the comic. I'll accept it because that is amazing. Anyway, she confronts Knuckles about the existence of her mother and brother on the island, prompting him to retort that even he didn't have any idea they were here, and that if he'd known he would have gone straight to her about it. She just responds that she's here to see the Brotherhood, heading off any ideas he then has about her keeping that secret from him by saying she only learned of their existence today through her father. As if on cue, Spectre poofs in with the help of Deo Volente, and in comparison to his edgelord attitude in past issues he's very warm and welcoming to Sally, escorting her to Haven along with Knuckles to introduce her to the family.

I have to point out that the family line given here is in dispute - for whatever reason, several different issues disagree with each other on the placement of Sojourner and Thunderhawk, with some saying Thunderhawk is the father of Sojourner and others having it the other way around. I think the final order decided upon was the one depicted here, with Sojourner being the son of Spectre and the father of Thunderhawk, but even that isn't fully clear. Boy, it sure is fun keeping all these names straight, isn't it?

As Spectre ushers everyone into a meeting room, Knuckles quietly confronts his father off to the side about how his secret-keeping has now led to his friends, as well, being affected. Locke simply retorts that Sally and he shouldn't have been friends to begin with, and when Knuckles irritably challenges the idea that Locke should be able to decide who he can and can't be friends with Locke dismissively states that Sally's "people" try too hard to coexist peacefully with the Overlanders, which has only led to them being constantly embroiled in war. Geez, Locke, any sympathy? Any at all? Neither the Great War nor the previous Robotnik War were the fault of Sally's people - in fact, they were both almost entirely the fault of Robotnik, with the Great War having Kodos share some of that blame - and this current war is hardly their fault either. His assessment of the situation is downright cold. But it turns out, in a sense, he's just following tradition, as evidenced by the response of the other members of the Brotherhood to Sally's petition for aid.

Because she refuses to agree to the use of literally all kinds of technology, which knowing these guys probably includes nuclear weapons, they decide to give her precisely no help at all, and she leaves Haven in an understandable state of anger and disappointment. It's like these assholes don't even consider the fact that Robotnik will hardly be content to stop at the surface world - we already have evidence from more than one incident where the original Robotnik was planning to extend his rule out into space once he was finished with the planet, and considering the new Robotnik literally dimension-hopped to find even more places to conquer once he bombed his home zone into oblivion, I highly doubt he's just going to leave the island alone if you guys try to remain neutral.

Ugh, this whole issue is just a mess. Knuckles visits the Colonel's compound, asking about Sally, and soon finds her sitting at the edge of the island alone. He tries to talk to her, but when she brushes him off again he points out that just as her own father hid a lot of secrets from her in the past, so has his own. He reminds her of their friendship, how they spent many days together as kids and were able to relate to each other over their duties under their respective fathers. Sally is still upset, and asks him why he didn't support her when the rest of the Brotherhood was shooting her down back there, and he points out that he can't buck tradition any more than she can, given their positions.

The Colonel and his wife (still creepily referring to each other as "mother" and "father") watch the two of them argue through the window of the compound, lamenting that they're so young and should be able to play and enjoy life, not have to fight wars and carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. I've already gone over this, but that's kind of the point - that these wars have left the world so messed up that child soldiers are the norm now, not even because a regime forced them to fight against their will, but because they had no other choice - that if they didn't fight, the world would have fallen.

As Sally leaves, Knuckles watches her go, sadly thinking to himself about how the commonalities that once brought them together and made them able to relate to one another were now tearing their friendship apart. He ends up feeling torn between his childhood friend and his duty to his family and people. Honestly, it's a hard choice to make - after all, as much as Sally would like it, he can't just leave the island and come help her out in the war. Even if he did want to ditch tradition and reject his place as part of the Brotherhood, at this point, given everything that's happened in his comic so far, there's so much keeping him tethered to this place, so many ties he'd have to cut if he wanted to go help in the war. It's a rough position to be in, for sure.

Coming up after a few more issues, we actually have the final arc of this series - the Knuckles the Echidna comic was cancelled not long after this, meaning there's only room for one more three-issue arc. To be honest, I'm a little sad to see it go - I know I've been over this many times, but despite the many problems with how he writes, I am genuinely fond of a lot of the characters, plots, and worldbuilding that are in Kenders' works, and it was interesting to see those things shone in their own dedicated comic. We've still got several more issues before it ends, though, so time to move forward!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #kte 29 #writer: ken penders #pencils: art mawhinney #colors: frank gagliardo

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