Knuckles the Echidna: Issue 6

Knuckles the Echidna: Issue 6
Publication Date: August 1997


After a promising first part and an exposition-heavy second part, the “Lost Paradise” story arc rushes towards a cluttered conclusion. Knuckles and Archy BAMF into Lara-Le’s living room, where he rescues his mom from the dingo terrorists. Next, the heroes teleport over to where Julie-Su and Remington are hanging out. Their shot at quelling further attacks by the dingoes are interrupted by another tremor shaking the city. Knuckles attempts to make a temporary truce with General Stryker, at least in the middle of the earthquake, which partially works. Everyone is teleported around some more before Hawkings activates the Hyper Zone Projector again. His actions fused Echidnaopolis and the dingoes’ zone with the Floating Island, saving the city.

 
As you can tell, issue 6 leaps around repeatedly, sometimes in ways that aren’t necessary. After focusing so much on people standing around and watching a video in issue 5, issue 6 is focused on action and more action. Knuckles and his future stepdad Wynmacher, who dresses like Darth Vader for some reason, wrestle with the dingoes in their apartment. Next, there’s flipping and dodging as Knuckles and Julie-Su fight some dingoes in an alleyway. The only truly satisfying action sequence in the book comes when Knuckles and Julie-Su face down General Stryker. Wielding an energized power glove (yes, he calls it that), the bad guy smashes through a desk and takes a few swipes at Knux. The best thing about these action sequence is that Julie-Su is an active part of them. She’s not a sidekick or a damsel in distress. She’s an equal partner to Knuckles, helping him out in the heat of battle.

While the action is satisfying, it rockets the script forward so quickly that other plot points are overlooked. As the earthquakes shake the city, Remington tries to get the citizens into underground bunkers. Instead of showing huge crowds huddle into underground tunnels, the book focuses on one guy – who wears a lightening bolt shirt – and his group of friends. The origin behind the earthquakes and Echidnaopolis’ reappearance is explained to us in a one-page exposition dump. Turns out, it’s all a side effect of Robotnik activating the Ultimate Annihilator back in “Endgame.” (Gee, the book is going to lean on that plot device for a while now, isn’t it?) Hawkings fixes this problem by pressing a button on his control panel. Afterwards, the elder guardian vanishes, off-screen, his fate left unexplained.

Somewhere in there, the story also has a supporting cast to juggle. The Chaotix put in a token appearance on the book’s first page and never appear again. Midway through, Penders also hastily introduces Dio, Hawkings’ fire ant companion. Yes, that means a two-hundred year old ant exist in Archie’s “Sonic”-verse. We don’t even truly understand who Wynmacher is or what his relationship with Lara-Le is. That revelation must wait for another issue.

The only scene with any emotional punch in it is a brief moment between Knuckles and Lara-Le. Knuckles doesn’t know how to feel about his mom. He feels drawn to this woman, knowing she raised him, yet he hasn’t interacted with her in ten years. The scene between them is potentially touching. Lara-Le bemoans that Knuckles’ destiny prevented him from having a more normal childhood. Yet even this scene is hijacked by another flashback, showing that Lara-Le and Locke’s marriage was not a smooth one. It lasts for all of one page too, before the action forces the quiet scene aside and Knuckles is needed else where.

The story ends with something of a whimper too. Knuckles and Stryker step out of the underground bunker and realize that the city is now on the island. He asks about Grandpa Hawkings and gets shut down. Knuckles has so many damn questions and the people around him have answers. Yet they refuse to give them away. The book ends with Archimedes handing Knuckles’ Hawkings’ hat, which is identical to the hat Knuckles wore in the Japanese “Sonic” anime. Instead of wrapping up the dangling plot points or resolving an emotion issue, the story concludes on an in-joke. Damn it, Ken.

If “Paradise Lost” makes anything clear, it’s that Ken Penders has huge ideas for this universe and its characters, an expansive back story and complex plans. He’s so determined in setting up this world that he totally looses sight of its characters. Though it starts promising, and it introduces many important characters, the story ends as a jumbled mess, too many ideas competing for too little page space. [5/10]