#in writing this i realized that merlin prower might be the biggest anomaly in the entire series

[fernsnailz]

when did Tails become a wanted criminal? istg archie's timeline is bananas

you’re right about those bananas because the tails enemy of the state lore is kinda wacky wild!!

in terms of timeline, tails became a criminal in issues 178-179 which is nestled between a BUNCH of other crazy arcs (including my beloved tommy turtle sacrifice arc). however, all of the important context regarding HOW and WHY tails became an enemy of the state is a little all over the place. this is gonna be a long one

TL;DR: tails the fox helps overthrow a monarchy (sorta)

heads up i'm going to be spoiling most of the "tails enemy of the state" arc (aka House of Cards), so read it on your own if you're interested! it's a pretty good read

ok so the main thing we gotta start with are tails’ parents in archie sonic: amadeus and rosemary prower.

tails’ parents met when they both served in the military for the acorn kingdom, which is the furry monarchy that serves as the government for sonic’s home. they get married, rosemary gets pregnant with tails, and everything is going swimmingly for them until eggman (named julian kintober at this time), stages a military coup against the acorn kingdom and starts to take over the world.

eggman’s main resource in taking over the world is an invention called the roboticizer, which can take living creatures and turn them into mindless robots that serve him. unfortunately, tails’ dad gets roboticized at the time of eggman’s coup.

before rosemary is roboticized though, something kinda wacky happens.

both of tails’ parents get abducted by aliens, unroboticized, and spend the next 11 years on an alien planet without any contact back to sonic’s world. yeah.

(the aliens are called Bem, they're all scientists and have cute eyelashes.)

11 years pass, and our pal sonic the hedgehog gets lost in space due to Reasons and Events that would take literally forever for me to explain. during his funny little space adventure, he finds himself on the alien planet tails’ parents are on and is reunited with them!

while sonic is there, though, the Bem are hosting a democratic trial for a Bem scientist named Ceneca-9009, who is the alien that transported tails’ parents away from their home in the first place. she's being sentenced to death for kidnapping tails' parents and doing other science experiments related to eggman's roboticization that i don't remember the details of

shenanigans happen, sonic and tails’ parents save Ceneca from execution, and sonic gets back home (unfortunately without tails’ parents - his spaceship was too small). the most important takeaway here is, interestingly enough, the democratic nature of the Bem alien government.

remember, sonic’s home is under rule of a monarchy, specifically the acorn kingdom. on the Bem planet, however, their government functions through democratically elected officials and judicial trials. and tails’ parents REALLY like it compared to the monarchy they know.

eventually, amadeus and rosemary are saved from the alien planet thanks to the help of sonic, knuckles, tails, and tails’s wizard uncle named merlin. i will not be explaining merlin here i honestly have no fucking clue what his deal is

this is REALLY important for tails, because he lived his entire life convinced his parents were gone. in the archie comics, both sonic and knuckles manage to reunite with both of their parents, and tails finally gets that chance as well.

when tails’ parents return, however, it’s clear that they have something big in mind for the acorn kingdom, which is currently going through… a lot. the king, maximillian acorn, is having trouble with Old Man Disease which has previously endangered a lot of his royal subjects (like he tried to order mass genocide once sorta endangerment. dude kinda sucks). because of this, the kingdom is in a transition of power from him to his son elias acorn, who previously ran away to avoid his royal responsibilities. elias is just kinda bad at his job

with the monarchy weakened, the kingdom still recovering from an eggman attack that nearly wiped out their entire population, and two democracy-loving foxes back in town, it’s the perfect setting for a lovely little coup.

(i always get amadeus and elias confused - amadeus is the one with the eyepatch.)

amadeus leads an army of restless citizens to try and overthrow the government, but is very quickly imprisoned. meanwhile, there’s a lot of trouble brewing between sonic and tails for... a number of reasons. sonic insults tails’ dad, sonic had previously dated a girl that tails liked, and tails is kinda getting sick and tired of sonic’s bullshit.

so tails sides with his parents and helps break his dad out of prison, thus making himself an enemy of the state.

when sonic shows up to stop the jailbreak, he and tails have a McFreaking Showdown and yell about their feelings n stuff. meanwhile, tails’ parents go straight to elias acorn and challenge him to a duel for the kingdom.

then like two seconds later sally acorn shows up and makes them talk it out over tea LMAO

so yeah, the coup is very abruptly cancelled and the gang decides to create a democratically elected council to govern alongside the royal family. and oh boy does that constitutional monarchy cause some problems later

and thus concludes the tails enemy of the state lore. House of Cards is a good read imo and there are a lot of good character moments that i skipped over! i think the biggest takeaway here is that sally acorn is the only emotionally intelligent sonic character lmao