Knuckles #21 [After February 1999, check the back issue bins] Spaz/Penders/something-something cover: In the two years since Knuckles got his own comic title (Yes, it's been THAT long!), Pat Spaziante and Ken Penders have mostly relied on the device of a triptych to lay out the covers of the books in a three-issue arc. Of all the designs to date, the covers of the Forbidden Zone arc have to stand out as the best of the bunch, and a solid justification for using the technique. Instead of making Knuckles an occasionally shadowy presence, as he was during the Chaotix Caper arc, Spaz and Penders have hit upon the device of representing Knuckles on video screens in Haven for the first two issues. Only now does the real deal makes his appearance. And taken as a whole, it's a very symbolic composition. Sabre and Locke are so intent on looking at the video Knuckles that they don't connect with him when he's actually in the same room as they are. They don't even seem to be aware of his presence! It says a lot about the Brotherhood and their insular ways; I won't presume to guess whether it says anything about any paternal abandonment issues Spaz and/or Penders may be trying to work through. "The Forbidden Zone: Part 3" "The Many Facets of the Truth" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Manny Galan; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force We get a back shot of Prince Elias as we're told that "various individuals [are] on a collision course with destiny." Forget about destiny; it's the fact that they're on a collision course with each other that makes this story interesting. We rejoin Geoffrey, Elias, and the troops as they're about to be swept away by the floodwaters as the cavalry (Locke and Lara-Le) charge to the rescue. Locke needs to work on his timing, though, for Heavy and Bomb are swept away by the current. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, that link is right here. This scene just feels wrong. It's bad enough that Bomb can suddenly talk after not having said word one up until now (shades of Eddy the Yeti's sudden gift of speech in Sonic #66, limited though it was). Unfortunately, the dialogue Ken has given them seriously lacks the one-sided wit of C-3PO and R2-D2 in their prime. Considering how useless their exposition is, how little it contributes to their characterization, and how uncomical this "comic relief" sequence is as a whole, I don't know why Ken even bothered. Anyway, it's a relief that Locke levitates these two (and the rest of the search party) into the craft because it cuts the scene short. While Lara-Le picks a fine time to reopen an old wound, we get a two-page splash of the Brotherhood facing an unplanned family reunion. Sojourner and Thunderhawk are all in favor of showing Knuckles the door, Sabre and Spectre are having second thoughts about the Brotherhood's tradition of ignoring a problem in the hopes that it goes away, and Pseudo- Tobor/Moritori Rex tries not to blow his cover before Knuckles can do it for him. Since PT/MR won't act as the tie-breaker, the Brotherhood is deadlocked on what to do so Knuckles is introduced to this motley crew. When introduced to Tobor, he passes up the chance to say "I know Tobor, I've had lunch with him, and you, sir, are no Tobor!" Having learned patience somewhere along the way, he decides that wait another 7 pages before he starts throwing punches. PT/MR conducts Knuckles to Sick Bay where Knuckles spots Hawking in the Produce Bin while PT/MR loads up a syringe. Bypassing the ads (I hope Spaz's cover for Special #8 is more coherent once it comes out than the artwork in the ad), we cut back to Locke's ship as he brings the search party up to speed: Remember when the Queen's craft crashed in the last issue? Well, when the Brotherhood got to the crash site, they apparently did such a cursory inspection that they only found a couple bodies (one of them being Geoffrey St. John's dad, Ian)and the infant Elias. But the Overlanders showed up as well so (I'm guessing here because the narrative doesn't flow very smoothly) Sojourner skedaddled with the kid while Sabre met with the leader of the Os. You can tell he's the chief Overlander because he has the stupidest looking hair. Sabre no sooner finishes lying through his teeth to get the Os to go away when they discover what's left of Queen Alicia. She and her son are taken back to Haven where Elias gets a taste of the Brotherhood's parenting skills and Queen Alicia is more or less pickled until they can figure out how to jump-start her brain. BTW, since when did having someone floating fetus-like in a tank full of liquid become short-hand for high-tech medicine/life support? It's almost gotten to be a cliche. So the Brotherhood managed to maintain their neutrality in the Great War by not playing straight with either side and acting like a law unto themselves. This is called "moral authority." They keep Elias until he turned 10, when "he was allowed to venture forth," which is a polite way of saying that they kicked his royal heinie out of Haven. BTW, that is one ugly drawing of Elias at the bottom of page 10, presumably taking his leave of the Fuddy-Duddyhood; he looks like he hasn't slept for two months. Geoffrey still has some questions, though, such as "Where does Colonel and Mrs. Summersby fit into this?" and "Why am I wearing a brown beret when it was olive drab in the last two issues?" I can't presume to speak for Barry Grossman but Locke goes on to say that not finding the Colonel was an oversight on Tobor's part, and simply states that the old boy "exiled himself to the Royal Compound" where the Missus presumably joined him later. Locke says no more about this aspects of the story (but I will, don't worry!) as he prepares to park in Haven. Meanwhile, Knuckles and Archie can't put it off any longer and the fight with PT/MR has started. But there are some more ads to wade through. BTW, I tried e-mailing Paul Castiglia about the Know Your Superheroes segment but my server was particularly uncooperative. However, I have it on good authority that Comet et al. Were once characters of another Archie imprint that folded. Why they're being dusted off now I don't know. My best guess is that Paul or someone was inspired to do so by the Sonic/Image crossover special. A page of fighting later, and we quick-cut to the Haven garage. It's supposed to be impressively high-tech, as Ken and Manny take pains to make us believe, relying on suggestion rather than depiction. Gotta use your imagination at some point, right? Myself, I visualized something along the lines of the Krell complex from the movie "Forbidden Planet" and I urge you to watch it if you haven't already done so. I don't quite agree with those who see it as a retelling of Shakespeare's "Tempest" but it's still a good time and a neat meditation on Francisco Goya's aphorism that "The sleep of reason brings forth monsters." But I digress. They no sooner arrive than Locke has to take off again. Lara-Le insists on going along, because she hasn't finished yelling at her ex yet. Like many a negligent dad before and since, Locke tells Elias to tell Knuckles he's sorry he couldn't make it to Knuckles's Little League game. The group heads out of the garage. With her huge blue eyes and brown beret and vest, Hershey is looking less like a member of an elite commando unit and more like a Brownie out selling cookies for the first time. Meanwhile, back at the fight, Knuckles has PT/MR on the run. Borrowing from the Chaotix Caper, Ken has PT/MR blast up the place the way Downtown Ebony Hare shot up the warehouse in Knuckles #15, with similar results. Knuckles appears out of nowhere (he's apparently got the hang of that trick) and decks PT/MR, but has to take a flying leap before he's sealed in the same compartment with his fallen foe. As Knuckles, the Brotherhood, Geoffrey's commandoes and Elias try to sort things out, Knuckles demonstrates that he's not about to start trusting the 'Kidnas in Da Hood just because they use the F- word. But when Spectre opens the airlock or whatever, they discover PT/MR has escaped after leaving a souvenir. I'll leave it to someone else to establish the origin of "shinginta" or "shamma-lamma-ding-dong" or whatever. Locke, meanwhile, has got his own mittens full trying to rescue Remington, Julie-Su, Wynmacher and some EST bit player while Lara-Le tells him it's no longer enough that he sends in his child support payments on time. And I have to wonder whether Locke's version of The Talk carried the following disclaimer: "By the way, I'll be abandoning you when you're nine years old, it'll be another six or seven years before you even SEE a female echidna so there's a good chance you'll have forgotten everything I just told you, and thanks to my having raised you in isolation your social skills are shot anyway. If you have any other questions, go ask your mother. Oh yeah, she exists in a different dimension from us, doesn't she? Well, never mind, the Soultouch will sort things out. Now move your dreads out of the way, I can't see the halftime show!" Small wonder Lara-Le looks happier being in Wynmacher's company. Finally, on page 21, we get the payoff: Elias introduces Geoffrey (whose brown duds changed back to olive drab on page 16) to Queen Alicia, and we get introduced to the fact that Ken and/or Manny have played fast and loose with the concept of physical evidence. I know this may sound like sour grapes coming from one of the few who guessed that it WASN'T Queen Alicia floating around in the tank in Knuckles #17 but at least I had EVIDENCE to support my theory: that bracelet which is now conspicuous by its absence. But then again, Elias has gone through this entire issue with his birthmark (the black star on his left forearm, remember?) missing as well. Maybe it was one of those temporary press-on numbers you buy at the mall. And on that note the torch is passed to Karl Bollers and Steve Butler. Despite its weaknesses, it's still a strong story and the most engaging in a long time. And Ken hasn't left any easy outs here: if the Queen doesn't recover somehow, there's really no alternative to her dying at some point. With the story being handed on to the Sonic books and its younger and more masculine clientele (not to mention the increased vigilance of the Sega suits compared with their watchdogging of the Knuckles books), she certainly can't be allowed to linger on and on in suspension like a soap opera starlet in a writer-induced "coma" during contract negotiations. If Bollers hasn't figured out how to find a happy ending in the midst of all this, I hope he can at least give Alicia a decent funeral. As I said, this story has its share of weaknesses. But aside from the mechanical errors such as the color change of the uniforms, and the Heavy and Bomb interlude in the beginning (which, to get into the spirit of the dialogue, was much adoo-doo about nothing), there are other problems which, like it or not, may simply be due to the nature of the medium. As has already been pointed out by the Hershey fanboys, she didn't get to do much of anything in this story. For that matter, neither did the other squad members. After they were recruited and trained they mainly served as a collection of warm bodies for Geoffrey to order around. Unfortunately, it appears to be in the nature of comic books to play up a handful of characters and let incidental but interesting ones fall by the wayside if the plot demands it. That's a pity because some of them might have been useful in questioning Geoffrey's wisdom or giving their own assessments of Prince Elias. I would especially have liked to hear Hershey's comments on the long-lost Acorn; as the sole female member of the team, did she think his story was bunk or that he was a hunk? More fundamentally, the Summersbys were seriously ill- used. These two could have been very rich characters if given more space, and some of that came through in the few scenes they had. I got the sense that the Colonel was caught in that twilight land where a lot of retired military men live, unable to let go completely of the disciplines and assumptions that shaped his military career and which may have represented, to him, the best years of his life. Still, his choice of retirement locale (the Royal Compound) is a telling one because it was as if a part of him still hoped against hope that he WOULD find Elias one day. That scene deserved an entire PAGE, not the one panel it got in the last issue. And it's easy to imagine Mrs. S being all fussy and domestic about things. So between the two of them, they would have made quite a contrast to the Brotherhood in terms of parenting styles. I found myself wondering how Elias handled the shifting of gears; was it an improvement? I like to think so. The fact that he addressed Mrs. S as "Nana" (the name of the dog who belonged to the Darling family in "Peter Pan," for those of you looking for literary allusions) implies that a certain amount of affection must have developed between the two. The Prince himself is still a cipher, unfortunately. Karl Bollers will probably dole out more factoids about him and his life as the story develops in the Sonic comics. But the most glaring omission, the biggest missed opportunity of the entire story arc, was Geoffrey St. John himself. He started out this arc his old self: a by-the-book anal retentive, even more robot-like in his character than Heavy and Bomb. And there's no sign, now that it's over, that he's changed any. He spent the entire arc relentlessly disbelieving Elias when he wasn't ordering his troops around. Yet he never, for a single moment, seemed to realize that this mission would tell him not only what had happened to Queen Alicia, but also what had happened to his own father. And it could have been taken care of so easily! A few well-placed thought balloons in "The Mission" (Sonic #64) and in the first two installments of this arc, culminating in a simple one-page denouement inserted after page 20 [replacing page 2 with its misfired comedy with no tears shed]: PAGE 20.1 Panel 1 - It's still raining so the background colors are mostly grays. ELIAS and GEOFFREY can be seen in the foreground; in the mid-ground, at the top of a small rise, are the grave markers as depicted on page 9. ELIAS looks at GEOFFREY; his expression is solemn and somewhat sad, while GEOFFREY has his military game face on: all business. He looks at the markers. CAPTION: LATER... ELIAS: Well, there they are, Commander. I'll...wait here. GEOFFREY: (thought balloon) This is WEIRD... Panel 2 - The grave markers are in the foreground now as we see GEOFFREY walking up the hill. His expression hasn't changed. GEOFFREY: (thought balloon) I remember Mum telling me that Dad had been KILLED... GEOFFREY: (thought balloon) ...and wondering if I'd EVER know just WHAT HAPPENED. Panel 3 - Close up of GEOFFREY'S face, his hand raised in a salute. GEOFFREY: (thought balloon) Now I KNOW what happened. GEOFFREY: (thought balloon) And here I am at my FATHER'S GRAVE and...and... Panel 4 - At first glance it's almost identical to panel 3, but there are subtle changes: GEOFFREY'S still saluting but his lip is trembling, the sternness is gone from his expression, and his eyes are just beginning to fill with tears. Panel 5 - In a page-wide shot, GEOFFREY has lost his composure. His shoulders sag, his head is bent, his face is buried in his paws as he silently weeps. If at all possible, GEOFFREY and the grave markers should be seen in silhouette in the foreground; think of the "As God is my witness" scene from GONE WITH THE WIND. Otherwise, go with shades of gray. Not that I'm trying to tell Ken how to do his job; I just had to get that off my chest. It could have worked, too; after all, the Big Boys Don't Cry Rule had been broken back in the Chaotix Caper with the death and burial of Mello. And if someone in management wanted to veto the page, I'd send them the following memo: ----- TO: FROM: Daniel J. Drazen RE: Page 20.1 "Even the strongest and bravest must sometimes weep. It shows they have a great heart, one that can feel compassion for others." Brian Jacques, REDWALL. p.s.: Bite me! ----- Fan Art: Can't tell if that's Lisa Hodge's version of the Brotherhood or an echidna fashion show. And pro-art by Steve Butler teasing Robotnik's return yet again. Fistful of Letters: No mention of a makeover here, as in Sonic #67. Then again, the changes haven't kicked in yet for Knuckles anyway. Just blurbs for Sonic #68 which mentions Snively's return, Karl Bollers's intention of ripping off "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" this time, and Sonic's attempt to slip back unnoticed. That last part is easy: just wait until everybody is busy watching Queen Alicia being unloaded. And Knuckles #22 has Valentino and Harvo taking over for Galan and Pepoy. The letters: In reply to Brian Fawcett, Justin supplies a partial list of Guardians (only 10 generations including Knuckles but, hey, it's a start!). And regrets expressed that Charmy has left the cast. Valentino throws in a thumbnail of Sonic-as-Shadowhawk. And a tip of the hat to Manny Galan; it's been a heck of a ride.