“Yesterday’s” Comic> Knuckles The Echidna #30

What the cover needs to point out is which one IS Monk?

Knuckles The Echidna #30

Archie Comics Publications (November, 1999)

WRITER: Ken Penders

EDITOR: J.F. Gabrie

LETTERER: Vickie Williams

“King Of The Hill” part one: “Bad To The Bone”

PENCILER: Ken Penders

INKER: Harvey Mercadoocasio

COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo

Espio The Chameleon: “Hiding In Plain Sight”

PENCILER: Coleen Doran

INKER: Andrew Pepoy

COLORIST: Barry Grossman

In the main story, a childhood bully named Monk (the monkey on the cover) makes his way back to the Floating Island, after secretly being tossed off by the Brotherhood years ago. (I assume we’ll get the details in one of the next two issues.) Monk attacks Knuckles, but he’s not the only threat on the island. An Overlander hunter, who already took out Catweasel’s friend Snowpigeon, has come to the island as well. But what or who is he really here to hunt?

This is a story that would have fit better in Knuckles’ early years, before the appearance of Echnidopolis. While this does bring Knuckles back to his roots as Guardian of the Island, it’s strange he’s hanging out in his old home and not the city, since it’s not really explained (though the back-up will give a half an attempt). It does give us more of Knuckles’ history, but maybe combining the childhood bully who clearly never grew up with the hunter story isn’t a good idea. We’ll see if the other two chapters make it work, but there’s too much neutral here to give this the usual review format.

In the back-up, Julie-Su gets to meet Ray while searching for Knuckles. Espio offers to go with her while Mighty introduces Ray to Echidnaopolis. They come across an injured chameleon friend of Espio’s, who Julie-Su rushes to the hospital while Espio meets with his people, who are wary of outsiders. Maybe that’s why they so quickly bring him to see Valdez–who you may recall from current Sonic stories was part of Geoffrey St. John’s group until Robo-Robotnik captured and roboticized him.

So that’s kind of stupid on the chameleons’ part. Apparently Espio’s non-robot friend had never seen a SWAT Bot before, unless he was referring to Valdez as the one who attacked him. Either way, the chameleons just being this nonchalant about this simply because Valdez was one of them is kind of dumb. We’ll see where this story goes as well.

That’s basically where this issue stands. We’ll see if the other issues make this story work. This is mostly setting up storylines and we’ll see where this is headed as we continue to go back and forth with Sonic’s adventures.