Nice poster, but where’s the comic cover?
Knuckles The Echidna #5
Archie Comics Publications (September, 1997)
“Lost Paradise” part 2
WRITER: Ken Penders
PENCILER: Manny Galan
INKER: Andrew Pepoy
COLORIST: Barry Grossman
LETTERER: Vickie Williams
EDITOR: J. Freddy Gabrie
Knuckles, now recognized as a Guardian, and Julie-Su are taken to I guess police headquarters. There, the two are separated as Knuckles meets another of his great-grandfathers, seven generations removed. He tells Knuckles, through his old logs, about how the Echidnas were at war with the Dingos, a warlike group who kept wanting their advance tech. When the war went nuclear, multi-great grandfather Hawking used the Hyper-Zone Projector to protect both cities from the fallout, putting them in separate zones while the other species escaped the island. Now dingos have appeared in Echindaopolis as the zones are breaking down, and the constable recruits Julie-Su for a rescue mission…of Knuckles’ mother!
What they got right: Well, now we know what happened to the echidnas. It’s not a bad explanation.
What they got wrong: As Julie-Su points out, there’s a lot of hypocrisy going on considering the echndias were supposed to be anti-technology. They’re also fast-tracking Julie-Su’s place in this story. How does she knows who Knuckles’ mom is? Why is the constable totally ready to trust her because she was with Knuckles when they phased into their zone despite recognizing her as part of the Dark Legion? We’ve not seen any proof she’s reformed or whatever and if she’s one of their enemies he could have been taking her prisoner.
What I think overall: It’s a whole lot of exposition with bits of story. It’s not terrible but I’m starting to think Penders didn’t really care about being part of the video games and started forming his own story he later sued to take away from Archie and ruined their whole Sonicverse. Kind of kills it for me when the backstage stuff is destined to ruin the stories themselves.
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