Knuckles #20 [Should be off the shelves by January 1999]
     Spaz/Penders cover: Panning right on the triptych, we see
father and son (Locke and Sabre) peeking in on the junior member
of the firm.  I don't know why they appear to be ready to
digitally enhance Knuckles's righthand dread as well as his
groin, and I don't WANT to know!  Additionally there's what
appears to be a stained glass window representation of Geoffrey
St. John, but don't ask me whose idea it was to canonize him. 
Can't tell what's happening on the screen just above that one
because of the logo.
     The Forbidden Zone: Part 2
     Once Upon a Time in Mobotropolis"
     Story: Ken Penders; Art: Manny Galan; Ink: Andrew Pepoy;
Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-
Force.
     Credits page: Spaz serves up a worm's-eye-view shot of
Colonel Blimp, aka "the Colonel," aka Colonel Summersby.  As has
been explained since my previous review, he and the Mrs. are
husband and wife rather than mother and son.  Ken Penders cited
members of his family who, though married, addressed each other
as "mother" and "father" and suggested that the habit may have
carried over from their Polish origins.  Ron Bauerle, however,
has suggested that it's an Old Married Couple thing.  In any
event, I stand corrected.
     Flashback to the opening sequence of "Kramer v. Kramer." 
Actually, Locke is a much colder fish than Dustin Hoffman was
when Meryl Streep told him she was leaving him.  Locke insists
that she's not getting custody of Knuckles, which is one of the
things that probably doomed the marriage in the first place. 
"You knew his obligations before we even united!" he reminds her. 
Once again I find myself convinced that the Soultouch (see
Knuckles #11) may guarantee that a next generation Guardian will
be sired but that's about all.  
     Quick cut to the present where Lara-Le's greeting to her ex
is colder than the current freaky weather.  Locke makes an
attempt at reconciliation, and we are then treated to a cutaway
while Ken discreetly informs us that the two of them "discover
they have a lot to talk about."  Sure, Ken!  If I were Lara-Le,
I'd have re-acquainted Locke's face with the palm of my hand, but
Ken and Manny keep us from entertaining THAT possibility.
     But let's get to the Main Event: in the two-page splash
wearing blue and gold and walking all over the story title:
Prince Elias!  He immediately claims King Max as his father,
something about which Geoffrey expresses doubt, even despite
Colonel Blimp's assurances.  For his part, Elias is sharp enough
to point out that Geoff "is more likely [the King's]
instrument sent here to divine fact from fiction..."  In other
words, he rather obliquely asks Geoff: "How does it feel to be
used?"  The irony of this sails right past Geoffrey, who's in the
business of using others himself; why else would Hershey and the
others be along for the ride?  Elias then suggests that everybody
turn in and he'll take them in the morning "to Haven."
     Rather than wade through two pages of ads, I stopped and
pondered something Ken said recently in an online exchange on one
of the lists: "We have at most three issues to tell a story, and
you have no idea how many times I wish we had a fourth to play
with."  I could believe that statement as Ken relied on a simple
panning away from the compound at this point.  So far in this
arc, too much has been left unsaid, and I've come to realize that
the reason why I had pondered how to write Sally into the
scenario was that a novelization (which wouldn't be bound by the
three-issue rule) would do this story justice, it's becoming THAT
big!  This time around I found myself wondering how each of the
players would be reacting that evening in the compound, possibly
alone except for their thoughts.  I especially found myself
wondering if Elias would have taken time to remember and, in
remembering, to weep.
     The next day finds Knuckles, Julie-Su, Wynmacher and
Remington heading for the site where Lara-Le's craft went off the
radar.  Knuckles vetoes Remington's suggestion that he wait while
the professionals check things out.  Julie-Su seconds the
Constable's motion; she doesn't say it in so many words but she
hints that Lara-Le might not be in much shape for a mother-and-
child reunion after having been in a crash.  Knuckles, however,
invokes the Whose Comic Book Is This, Anyway? Clause and goes out
alone, only to find her ship empty.  He then more or less
rephrases the line from "Titanic": "This is an ISLAND; there are
only so many places she could be!"
     Where she is, in fact, is on board Locke's craft, and from
the dialogue and the flashback (wherein Locke announces his
intention of taking Knuckles to Haven and the Floating Island to
begin his training, end of discussion) she'd rather be anywhere
else.  Guess Locke's not as hot a kisser as he thought.  And on
top of everything else he can't seem to locate the homing beacon
for Haven.  Either that or the batteries in the garage door
opener are dead.
     Back at the compound, Elias is inspecting a knickknack of
some sort when Geoff enters.  Whatever kind of a night's sleep 
the spymeister had, it apparently didn't do his suspicious nature
any good.  Elias explains that the dohickey, which is called a
"homing rod," was passed on to him by "an echidna named Sabre"
and that it had belonged to Queen Alicia who got it from King
Max.  Thus, in true foundling fashion, Elias has both a
distinctive birthmark (the black star on his left forearm) and an
identifying token.  According to John Boswell's study of
abandoned children in Europe from late antiquity to the
Renaissance, "The Kindness of Strangers," these tokens (sometimes
a scarf embroidered with a family crest) and other loose pieces
of identification served a useful purpose by establishing just
enough paternity for a foundling to prevent abandoned children
from marrying a half-sibling when they grew up.  But this is a
family comic book so let's not go there.
     Colonel Blimp reacts with surprise upon seeing the homing
rod; frankly, *I* was surprised that he hadn't seen it before
now.  But now it's the Colonel's turn to visit Flashbackland:
     Seems he worked with Geoff's dad in the old days, and one
day they were to have transported Queen Alicia and son to the
Floating Island and the Royal Compound thereupon.  With all the
text boxes thrown in to fill in the newbies, I'm surprised
Freddie never got around to mentioning Sonic #44 and "Black and
Blue and Red All Over" wherein we don't get to see the compound
but Sally and Knuckles have an early face-to-face.  Anyway, the
ship was ambushed by Overlanders short of its destination, and
Colonel Blimp was the only one in the wreckage when he came to. 
As for Elias, he didn't show up again until "years later" and it
was the birthmark that established his identity (at least to
Colonel Blimp's satisfaction if not to Geoff's).  Elias once
again repeats his offer to convey everyone to where he had been
let go by "The Brotherhood."  This tracks with the reference to
"Haven" back on page 6.
     Now I REALLY feel sorry for Elias!  Bad enough he was
separated from his mom but he was also subjected to the
Guardians' highly dubious parenting skills.  And to think that at
some point Knuckles and Elias were so close and yet so far. 
Locke was drilling his brand of nonsense into Knuckles's
dreadhead at about the same time Elias was in Haven, so why
didn't someone in The Brotherhood get the idea to relax the rules
a bit?  That way the two boys could have grown up together and
Knuckles could have acquired some badly-needed socialization
skills.  But such a sensible plan never got off the ground,
probably because Hawking or some other old grumpus complained
that having one rugrat running around their high tech clubhouse
was one too many and what were they trying to do, turn Haven into
a day care center?  But this does establish Elias as having one
of those "unique" families of origin; just as Tarzan grew up
among the apes and Mowgli was raised by wolves, so Prince Elias
was apparently raised by bores.
     Knuckles, meanwhile, is back on board Remington's ship and
he's just about to give the Constable grief for not being honest
with him (So what else is new?  This IS a Ken Penders story,
after all) when the snow turns to rain, lightning strikes the
ship and it goes down.
     The weather isn't any kinder to Locke and Lara-Le.  Locke
can't understand the changes in the weather, though it's all
clear to Lara-Le that this is connected with the Day of Fury: the
Tomes say it, she believes it, that settles it.  Locke lets it be
known that his early experience with family worship apparently
wasn't a pleasant one.  So on top of everything else, theirs was
an interfaith marriage.  The Soultouch must REALLY have been off
its game when it brought these two together!
     Locke then picks up a signal, but it's not the one he had in
mind.  What he's tuned into is the homing rod being wielded by an
unusually cheery Prince Elias who, like Geoff and the rest of the
party, is about to be swept away by rising flood waters.  What's
he so happy about?  My guess is that after being cooped up with
the Somersbys in the Royal Compound for who knows how long, as
far as Elias is concerned getting out into the elements and
almost drowning looks like a good time.
     Knuckles comes to in the ship to find everybody else still
unconscious.  Stepping out to check the weather, he suffers from
a serious case of *deja vu* as he realizes that he's returned to
the place where Locke did his original disappearing act.  It
gives you an idea of how traumatic that event must have been to
his then-young mind that he is still able to recognize the place;
frankly, desolate stretches of abandoned wasteland all look alike
to me.  Fred Gabrie, who's mostly been on the ball, fails to cite
"Fathers and Sons" from the Super Sonic v. Hyper Knuckles Special
as the story where Locke more or less abandoned his son. 
Knuckles tries literally walking in his father's footsteps.  He
hits the wall in a way no marathon runner ever could, and with a
rather prosaic "Hoo boy!" (I think if I'd have walked into a wall
of flame I'd have said something a tad more emphatic...at the top
of my lungs!), comes to inside Haven surrounded by Spectre,
Sabre, Pseudo-Tobor/Moritori Rex, Thunderhawk (whose name I'd
forgotten and I had to look it up), Sojourner (ditto), and
Archimedes.  None of them seem particularly happy to see him, but
with relatives like THESE I wouldn't expect a Kodak moment, let
alone a Norman Rockwell painting.
     As I said earlier, I find myself seeing possibilities for
expanding the story line abounding in this arc that I've never
seen anywhere else.  This doesn't mean that Ken isn't running as
tight a ship as usual; the story's pacing is first-rate, and I
don't get a feeling that some story elements had to fall by the
wayside.  But the potential for character/emotional development
is HUGE here, easily surpassing anything from The Forgotten Tribe
arc or even Endgame.  Terms like "epic sweep" may sound too
grandiose to be applied to a comic book, but they apply here,
especially as the arc moves toward its denouement.
     And yet...
     This is, of course, a comic book dealing with talking
animals.  On that level alone it calls forth from the reader more
than a little suspension of disbelief.  Yet Ken Penders is asking
the reader to do the near-impossible: TO BELIEVE THAT A MONARCH,
HAVING SIRED A MALE HEIR, WOULD KEEP THAT A SECRET!  Goeff's
skepticism WRT Elias's identity is a HUGE pill to swallow.  I
could see the LOCATION of the prince being a wartime secret, but
his very EXISTENCE?  Everything I've ever learned about the male
ego screams out in protest against the notion.  Nor can I think
of ANY precedent for such an action, literary, historical, or
mythological.  Oedipus was abandoned after birth, but that was an
effort at derailing a dire prophecy.  The circumstances
surrounding the birth of Moses don't fit because he was born a
slave among a nation of slaves.  Even the "Circle of Life"
sequence which opens "The Lion King" isn't just an exercise in
animal pageantry but is entirely understandable on an emotional
and psychological level: a father has a son, a king has an heir. 
This is NOT something to be cloaked in secrecy.  And yet for the
story to work, Geoffrey had to be in total ignorance of Elias's
existence.
     Not that Ken is the first one to try dealing with the
existence of a Sally relative, either close or distant.  A number
of fanfic writers have dealt with the problem.  I myself wrestled
with it in "Bloodlines."  My own solution was to confine
ignorance of the relative in question to the Knothole crowd, who
in the obliviousness of childhood might not have noticed such a
character.  Had Ken made it clear that the young Geoff (the son
of someone close to the throne) had been sworn to secrecy about
Elias's disappearance and presumption of death, his skepticism
would be understandable.  A belief that the Prince is dead would
support a belief that Elias is a pretender far more easily than
having Geoff appear to be so clueless.  Of course, it also
invites speculation (from myself, anyway) that Geoffrey may have
a private agenda: determining what happened to his own father. 
But the notion that Elias's existence was supposed to be some
state secret is the lone absurdity marring what has been to date
the strongest narrative Ken has written for either the Sonic or
Knuckles books.
     And it's not that the character of Prince Elias is anyone to
be ashamed of, either.  He hasn't had much chance to come into
his own yet, but he seems a decent enough sort as the British
would say.  He hasn't lost his temper in the face of Geoffrey's
skepticism, he's been as up-front with Geoff about his origins as
his promise to The Brotherhood would allow, and he didn't seem
particularly put out by being caught in the flood waters with
Geoff and his troupe of supporting players (who still haven't
gotten much of a workout in this arc).  There's nothing about him
that would suggest locking him away somewhere, like Mr.
Rochester's mad wife in _Jane Eyre_.  So far, so good.
     The Fan Art is pretty routine this time.  Preston Simms's
drawing of Locke and Lara-Le smiling and pretending to be happy
is well done, as is Priscilla Lassiter's portrait of Julie-Su. 
Speaking of whom...
     What IS it about the Knuckles books?  They've become like a
hothouse for talent lately.  First Manny Galan manages to find
himself in the course of drawing the first two years of the book
after IMHO floundering every time he drew anything for Sonic. 
Now in the Pro-Art section we have an amazingly beautiful
portrait of Julie-Su from Frank Strom.  Anyone who read my
reviews of his Monkey Khan stories in Sonic knows I had no
trouble keeping my enthusiasm in check as far as his artwork was
concerned.  But here...he's like a whole new artist!  Julie-Su
isn't just on-model, she's in character as well.  The expression
he's given her is absolutely perfect, and the composition as a
whole is flawless.  The use of the shoreline, with its
contrasting moods of stillness and motion, precisely mirrors the
complexity of Julie-Su's character.  If Frank Strom can bring
that kind of touch to the other inhabitants of the Floating
Island, I wouldn't mind seeing him as Manny Galan's successor.
     Fistful of No Letters: Instead, we get blurbs for Sonic #67
and Knuckles #20.  This is a bad sign.  Suddenly, the plot line
of the Sonic books (Sonic looking for a power ring with an
obvious bow to Indiana Jones) seems worse than a bad idea: it's
trivial to the point of being inconsequential.  Because Knuckles
#20 (despite a token fight scene involving Pseudo-Tobor/Moritori
Rex, and you can see THAT development coming atcha from a mile
away) is faced with having to resolve the Prince Elias story
element, the Locke and Lara-Le story element, AND we're still
waiting to see whether the question asked in #19, "Whatever
Happened to Queen Alicia?" will get answered.  That's an awful
lot of heavy issues, even with loose continuity as a factor.
After two years on its own, the Knuckles comic is standing dreads
and shoulders above the Sonic line that spawned it in terms of
creating literate and emotionally engaging material.  Speaking of
"Spawn," Sam Maxwell's tribute to the Image crossover special
gets run past us once again.