“Yesterday’s” Comic> Sonic Vs. Knuckles: Battle Royal

“Weren’t we supposed to do this a few comics ago?” “Blame the reviewer.”

Sonic Vs. Knuckles: Battle Royal

Archie Comics (1997)

EDITOR: J. Freddy Gabrie

“Battle Royal”

WRITERS: Kent Taylor & Ken Penders

PENCILER: Sam Maxwell

INKER: Jim Amash

COLORIST: Karl Bollers

LETTERER: Jeff Powell

“The Map”

WRITER: Tom Rolston

PENCILER: Dave Manak

INKER: Rich Koslowski

COLORIST: Barry Grossman

LETTERER: Vickie Williams

In our main story, the Chaotix and Freedom Fighters both receive messages about the Sword Of Acorns, that Knuckles is keeping it or that Sonic thinks they’ve held onto it too long. The Freedom Fighters are attacked as they land on the Floating Island, believing the place was under siege, but get attacked by the Chaotix. Meanwhile the waiting Chaotix are attacked by the Freedom Fighters. The two groups meet for real and fight but Sally and Archimedes realize something is wrong and manage to get everyone to fake their deaths. It’s then reveal this is part of a plot by Mammoth Mogul and his minions to keep the Sword Of Acorns for him, but after comparing information the heroes team up and seemingly destroy him, retrieving the Sword. Except he faked his death and if I had reviewed this comic where I was supposed to we would be surprised to see King Acorn up and around.

We get some more lore that Sonic and Mighty are actually old friends but the rest is the same old “heroes fight each other then team up against the real enemy” plot. At least this time they were legitimately tricked and worked out how they were tricked. It’s an okay story but heroes fighting each other is why I’m less into Marvel than I am DC. Or that’s how it used to be.

In the back-up story Antoine is looking at a map he found in the hilt of his father’s sword in a previous story. However, he only has one half, with the other half ending up in the hands of Snively. Both at first suspect it could lead to the Krudzu plants but Antoine realizes that would be difficult as they weren’t an issue back then. Snively wants to use to take over from Robotnik but thanks to Uncle Chuck, who drops an anonymous call to Robotnik when Sonic and friends try to find Antoine, Snively’s robots are either destroyed or chased off, and he has to come up with a quick lie to his boss.

I don’t remember if this story was ever revisited but while it was nice to see Antoine get a solo adventure this has problems. Antoine’s French-like accent as written here makes him hard to understand at times because they’re overdoing it. For some reason he’s also thinner and taller in this story.

Overall the main story worked better in its proper place while the second feels like filler. It’s kind of in the middle, not very good but not very bad either.