Knuckles #22 (Mar 1999) Spaz/Penders/Heroic Age cover: Take one-half Knuckles, one Espio, a Vector, add a dash of Mighty, throw in some protesting dingoes and a candidate whose name appears to be "Benedict" [or something close to it]; let steep for one month until the next installment arrives. "Dark Alliance: Part One "You Say You Want A Revolution" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Jim Valentino; Ink: Harvey Mercadoocasio; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force In place of the standard exposition to bring us up to speed, Ken Penders supplies us with a rewrite of a famous quotation widely attributed to Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984), a Lutheran pastor in Germany whose outspokenness about Hitler led to his cooling his heels as a guest of the Reich. He managed to survive imprisonment during the war and was one of the signers of the Stuttgart Declaration, an admission by the Evangelical Church in Germany that they hadn't "witnessed more courageously, prayed more faithfully, believed more joyously, loved more ardently" back when Hitler was just one politician among many clamoring for attention. In case you're wondering, here's a conversion table: Foxes = Communists Rabbits = Jews Squirrels = Trade Unionists Hedgehogs = Catholics Echidna = Protestant Not that there's anything particularly Jewish about rabbits or Protestant about echidnas. And at the "time" the statement would have been written (Mobian year 3229) Sonic, Sally, Knuckles et al. would only have been about eight or nine years old. Still, it's clear that Ken is in High Seriousness mode as this one kicks off. Very nice touch. Nothing like a little political terrorism to start off a story. In this case, a member of the High Council named "Pravda" (Russian for "truth") is roughed up and kidnaped by some Dark Legionnaires. The leader of this pack is only the second female Legionnaire we've seen. She doesn't bother with the hooded cloak look, preferring an outfit that looks like a cross between SS and S&M. Her name may or may not be "Kommissar"; the narrative is a little vague on that point. The goon squad trashes Pravda's digs then takes him with them back to "the Centre." Back in Haven, meanwhile, things are still sorting themselves out from the previous arc. Elias is gone and has taken the Queen/Mom with him, but Knuckles is still hanging around waiting for Locke to get back. Sabre does his best to try to communicate with his grandson, while Spectre does his Spawn impersonation so Jim Valentino will feel at home in his new surroundings. As for Locke, he's just dropping off Lara-Le, Wynmacher, Constable Remington and Julie-Su. Constable Remington gets the Golden "Duh!" Award for saying: "I take it things didn't go well between you and the Lady Lara-Le?" And THEN he follows it up by telling Julie-Su: "If I didn't know better...I'd think you actually cared about what happened to Knuckles." Gee, I thought this guy's job had something to do with intelligence! He should stop by the office; he could use a cup. Locke then guesses that Knuckles must be pretty steamed and heads off to where he thinks he'll be. Meanwhile Pravda (whose appropriately Lenin-esque facial hair is sometimes obscured by the artwork) is being hauled before what looks like Robo-Rat. This is our old friend Dimitri/Enerjak. And I do mean OLD---last we saw of him in K#9 he'd had his Chaos energy (eleven emeralds' worth, remember) sucked out of him by Mammoth Mogul and was looking slightly younger than dirt. I'm surprised he's not in a freezer himself. The Constable is driving Lara-Le and Wyn back home when they find their path is blocked by demonstrating dingoes. We haven't heard much about the political situation since K#14, and it looks like Ken's decided it's time to stir the pot. As the Constable tries to assert that he has the right-of-way, someone starts serving cocktails. Deciding that bringing in a bunch of uniformed echidnas would send the wrong signal, Remington calls on Knuckles who disappears along with Archy, to the general consternation of the older generation. As for Locke, whether or not his heart is in the right place the rest of him isn't: his assumption that Knuckles would be off pouting in the Emerald Chamber was dead wrong. But it gave him an excuse to avoid having to face his son. Moving past the origin of Black Jack [again], we find Knuckles kicking echidna butt and coming face to face with another joker: our old friend, General Buzzcut. Oddly enough, cooler heads do manage to prevail for the moment. Pravda, meanwhile, is NOT having a good day as Dimitri flashes back to a revision in the original back story [Sonic #35; c.f. Knuckles #3]. Seems that one of the reasons the use of the Chaos Syphon was vetoed by the council was that its success would have run counter to the ambitions of a member of the High Council, someone named Menthor. But back during the Cold War, Pravda and revisionism always did go together. Cut to Knuckles disappearing from the crowd scene and reappearing amongst what's left of the Chaotix, but it's up to Julie-Su (who spent part of the last arc along with Knuckles in the Forbidden Zone) to bring everyone up to speed: the High Council has done nothing about the Dingo Question because they've been too busy acting like weathermen waiting to see which way the wind blows, and upcoming elections could either move the agenda off dead-center or leave it dead, period. And Pravda's disappearance doesn't help matters any. Vector assumes the worst and is wide of the mark. Kommissar, meanwhile, is extending the terror campaign beyond the fatcat demographic to include the ordinary echidna citizenry. This appears to be part of the Dark Legion's Master Plan: to destabilize the social order only to foist a retrofitted Pravda upon the masses. So long as the voters are willing to ignore the fact that he's picked up a couple Borg-like facial appendages somewhere along the way which are only slightly less obvious than the Destruct Button on the back of the "King"'s head in "Endgame" (Sonic #49). Besides, his outfit makes him look like he's 8 months pregnant. HEAD: Having done a "caper" and a "human interest" plotline, Ken is trying his hand at writing a Taut Political Thriller on the order of "The Manchurian Candidate" or "Seven Days In May." Rent 'em if you've never seen 'em; they provide all the suspense and paranoia of "The X-Files" without all the monster movie/sci-fi hoo- ha. Plotwise, Ken's on the beam, but I wish he'd had a bit more time to rewrite several very awkward passages: Locke's "The differences are more than we're able to surmount" on page 6 is not only too wordy, but totally unnecessary in view of the visual of Lara-Le obviously happier with Wynmacher's company than that of her ex. Locke's silence would have been far more eloquent. Someone also should tell Remington that nobody "goes amok", they RUN amok (p. 12). And if we take literally Kommissar's injunction on page 20 to "Beat this miscreant senselessly!", her minions would have to administer a pointless beating rather than beating the poor guy senseless (i.e., until he was unconscious). Minor flaws, but they do add up. Head Score: 7.5. EYE: Jim Valentino steps in to Manny Galan's shoes. The results are mainly on-model, though his full-face treatment of Julie-Su on page 19 makes her look (as one correspondent put it) like a puppy dog. The change in style between pages 19 and 20 is also pretty severe. But it's Jim's first time out so he gets some slack. Eye Score: 8. HEART: You'd think there'd be little room for much of a Heart factor in a Taut Political Thriller, yet it's there in the person of...Locke. With a direct line to Haven and all the other resources at the disposal of a former Guardian, do you think he'd have to GUESS as to where Knuckles would be? And that he'd guess WRONG on top of that? I got the feeling that he could hook up with Knuckles at any time but is avoiding the face-to-face with his son for as long as possible, if only on an unconscious level. He's already been pointedly reminded of his failure with Lara-Le; I don't see him eager to make it 0 for 2. I may be putting the best possible spin on his behavior, but just about anything would look good after "Surprise!" Heart Score: 7. Fistful of Letters: Now THIS is what bad Web site wallpaper looks like! I needed a strong light and clean glasses to read the text once it drifted down to the darker emerald green backgrounds. And I totally sympathize with Knuckles in "Off Panel": to name a line of sneakers after what are supposed to be angelic beings in the echidna cosmology shows about the same level of sensitivity and spiritual insight as marketing Touched By An Angel bathroom tissue! Once we get past the copy from the boys in Marketing, we get as many opinions about Lara-Le's remarriage as we do letters. "Kat" Najera can expect to get some letters (that WAS the idea, right, Kat?). Don't ask me what Alli Shular was thinking. Blurbs for Special #8, Sonic #69 and Knuckles #23, the Find Your Name page, and Harvo takes a turn at doing the Pro Art (before Charmy's dismissal). And the Fan Art: VERY impressive envelope art by Sarah Swain, and I don't know which is scarier: Cara B.'s drawing of Kragok, or Matt Kantor's super-deformed-pyooky-kyoot drawing of Sonic and Knuckles.