“Yesterday’s” Comic> Knuckles The Echidna #12

This beach could use a good cleaning up.

Knuckles The Echidna #12

Archie Comics Publications (May, 1998)

“The Forgotten Tribe” part 3: “Journey’s End”

WRITER: Ken Penders

PENCILER: Manny Galan

INKER: Andrew Pepoy

COLORIST: Barry Grossman

LETTERER: Vickie Williams

EDITOR: J. Freddy Gabrie

Continuing from Sonic The Hedgehog #58, our heroes rescue Yanar and the rest of the tribe. Sonic decides he and Tails shouldn’t tell Antoine about his father’s fate to spare their friend. Rob O’ The Hedge, who stayed behind to help their escape and worried about his roboticized comrades, manages to escape the castle exploding and reunites Mari-An with her brothers. During his near-hanging, Yanar had a vision of Rob leading the tribe to a particular beach, and when Knuckles mentions it to Rob, he goes into a near trance and leads them to the beach. A walk of faith on the water leads everyone to Albion (though Mari-An stays behind with Rob), which turns out to be the former homeland of the Echidna, a magical, technical paradise, but some Echidnas left to form Downunda. With a jewel Athair entrusted to Yanar, Knuckles is given a beacon back to the Floating Island.

What they got right: As a finale it works well enough. Everything is wrapped up, maybe sped up a bit by convenience, and Knuckles gets to go home.

What they got wrong: The story takes a moment to check in with Hawking, Locke, and Lara-Le, but it’s mostly to remind us their subplots are happening as well, and aren’t worth discussing. At the time all of this backstory was fascinating, but that was before Sega started focusing on building out the world of the Sonic franchise, making all of this feel like a bit much. I’m not sure why Penders wanted to build so much lore around the Echidnas but it’s part of the reason Archie was eventually forced to recreate their universe after the lawsuit.

What I think overall: The story is fine for the most part, but in hindsight between Sega’s new direction and Penders’ lawsuit it’s not as enjoyable as it was at the time, at least for me.