Knuckles #1-3 [Apr-Jun 1997]
     "The Dark Legion"
     Story: Ken Penders and Kent Taylor; Art; Manny Gala'n and
Andrew Pepoy
     Cover: Spaziante and Penders collaborate (for the first time,
I believe) in a three-way cover for the miniseries.  Impressive,
even though it looks like the whole triptych takes place under
water.
     Part 1: Army of Darkness
     "The lessons of history and culture have always been handed
down from one generation to the next," we are told in the text that
pretty much obliterates the panels on the splash page.  You don't
have to raise your hands, but how many of you read it all the way
through before getting on with the action?  Well, there's a lot of
ground to cover so in the words of a certain hedgehog who'll play
no role whatever in this story, "Let's do it to it":
     Even before we get to the title, we (sort of) see Knuckles'
dad from the previous miniseries and other stories going back to
"Fathers and Sons" looking at a bank of monitors, one of which
shows (oddly enough) a cattle skull.  I suppose showing a saguaro
cactus would have said "desert" just as much, but never mind.  He
seems to be talking to himself, yet he also calls himself
"brother".  Before he can get around to diagnosing himself as
having multiple personalities, some kind of space-time portal in
the sky opens and the title army enters.  The AoD consists of
hooded figures riding in open flying saucers, a lot of robots which
look like they fought against Superman in the 1930s, and the
occasional tank.  We then
     Quick cut (QC for short -- better get used to that
abbreviation) to Knuckles and Archimedes kicking back.  Archie
suddenly senses Knuckles' dad trying to contact him telepathically. 
While the ant dithers about whether to tell Knuckles -- in a
situation sort of like having Caller I.D. and letting the phone
ring while you make up your mind whether to answer it -- Knuckles
picks up on something...
     QC to "The Past" where everything was mostly orange and
yellow.  We join Edmund and Dimitri explaining the mechanics of the
Chaos syphon to the assembled echidnas.  For the first time, we see
not only an ant delegation at that meeting but also a visitor's
gallery where the families are seated.  Since they lack "Hi! My
name is..." tags, we can only guess that the wives and children of
Edmund and Dimitri (one each) are in attendance; none of them are 
named.  About all we can really tell about the players at this
point is that Dimitri's son is starting to grow a Mohawk; either
that or he was Mr. T in another incarnation.
     QC to the present as Knuckles goes looking for trouble while
Archie continues talking to himself.  Knuckles finds what he was
looking for.  One of the robots picks up "heat signatures ten
kilometers to the right."    If the bot was talking about Knuckles
and Archie, it should get a tune up -- the pair are maybe ten FEET
from the bot, not ten kilometers.  Besides, ants are cold-blooded
and shouldn't even HAVE a heat signature; of course, we ARE talking
about a fire-breathing ant, so let that pass.
     QC to the destruction of Mount Fate.  Turns out the name of
Dimitri's son is "Menniker"; I tried looking it up but couldn't
find anything.  Ken manages to work in the ant quotation from
Proverbs one more time before we
     QC to the present.  The bot almost finds Archie and Knuckles
but they do that disappearing thing.  Having gone through about 5
quick changes in 8 pages, Archie gives us a break and eases us into
the next flashback, showing the Echidna Hall of Science (which
bears a certain resemblance to Bruno Taut's "Glass Pavilion", part
of the 1914 Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne, Germany -- who says
comic books aren't educational?).
     We then witness a wrenching little domestic drama: apparently
the decision to dial back echidna technology was not unanimous.  So
we are treated to the sight of a VCR and a Sega Saturn unit being
confiscated from one household where the husband, a Mr. Arrunda,
shouts his objections while the Mrs. complies with the order
because she's had it up to her eyelashes with "foozball", which I
always thought was a game played by a couple drunken college guys
in a sports bar.  Or is that "foosball"?  Anyway, Edmund's son and
Menniker's cousin, Steppenwolf (named after the title character in
the Herman Hesse novel -- and THAT I was able to verify from Ken
Penders himself, BTW) is part of the clean-up crew.  Unfortunately,
in a scene that had to be guesswork instead of a true flashback,
Menniker appears to have been hoarding technology.
     Fan Art: You wonder why Archie published a lame story like
"Battle Royal"?  Sandy Lamison's fan art explains a lot about the
core constituency.  "I want my Knuckles' comic now!!!" Name Page:
"Cool out"?
     QC to the present.  Archie materializes on the bot's shoulder
and Knuckles comes down swinging.  He's only able to take out a
couple bots before having to retreat in a burst of repartee between
himself and Archie, while a hooded figure with a gleam in its
eye(?) orders the other Legionnaires to give chase.
     QC back to the high-tech roundup.  Steppenwolf tells his dad
that there's some underground discontent with the decision.  He
speaks of the opposition, "the kind that skulk in the shadows" and
wear these hooded robes that make their members stick out like sore
thumbs.  Steppenwolf follows one of these inconspicuous
insurrectionists to a meeting of Dimitri's disciples.  Naturally,
since he ISN'T dressed like a Jawa stand-in, Steppenwolf is spotted
by the anti-Luddites and they give pursuit.
     QC to Knuckles rounding up the Chaotix.  They start with
Vector, who appears to be Hooked On Ebonics.  Mighty, Charmy and
Espio join them and they set up a 4-page slugfest that ends in a
strategic withdrawal as well as a
     QC to Steppenwolf escaping via flying saucer but not very far
before his craft is shot down.  Two of the crew land to make sure
Steppenwolf has bought the farm.  All they had to do was have him
change his name to "Sally Elisha."
     QC to Knuckles recognizing lousy odds when he sees them.  The
Chaotic are then introduced to the head honcho: KRAGOK OF BORG. 
Well, he IS rather retrofitted.  He also shares a characteristic
with Enerjak in that their names seem to have been inspired by
losing hands of Scrabble.
     "Postcards From The Edge Of The Floating Island": No wonder
they're shopping around for a new name!  And some leftover
uncredited fan art.  Caught your breath yet?
     Part 2: Sins of the Fathers.  After a rude awakening Knuckles
is taken to Kragok for questioning.  As they begin we
     QC to "The Past" again (hope you hadn't planned on staying in
one place).  Specifically, to a council of ants.  Apparently the
echidnas hadn't had anyone in Edmund's position before.  An ant
named Christopheles is more or less volunteered to "guide" Edmund,
who on the next page is practicing his Bruce Wayne lines to
audition for the next "Batman" movie.  Christopheles starts to
explain things to Edmund but when he lets slip the news that
Steppenwolf is in danger, Edmund mounts a Pasha (some horse or
other that reminds me of that figurine from "The Black Stallion")
and rides off to the rescue.  Hey, they really DO have a thing
against technology!  BTW, Ken has stated that he hoped that
depicting the Pasha would spark some discussion about Mobian life
forms amongst the fans.  Ken, I wouldn't expect a lot of talk from
the readers about horses until their minds have been put at ease
about the fate of a certain ground squirrel.  We've got our
priorities, y'know?
     QC to Knuckles trying to punch out Kragok.  Guess he was
working up for "Battle Royal" and Sonic #49.  Anyway, he gets
beaten up for his efforts.  Kragok then asks Knuckles where the
Chaos Chamber is located.  Knuckles refuses to answer...so Kragok
orders his people to beat up on Knuckles some more.  Knuckles
manages to overcome three guards, knocking one into a tanning bed
(BOY, these guys love their technology!).  He then gets into a robe
in order to
     QC to Edmund as he comes upon the two DLers sifting through
the wreckage of Steppenwolf's saucer; no sign of Steppenwolf or the
Pasha, BTW.  He then manages to get the drop on the two of them
before a shot rings out and Edmund's glasses drop and shatter. 
Slightly more poetic that watching Sally become roadkill.
     Fan Art: In terms of design alone, Jeff Carnell has a nice
sense.  "I Want...."  OK, OK, they HEARD you already!
     Steppenwolf then appears out of nowhere, thanks to the magic
of Bad Writing; we have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER of how he survived the
saucer crash or where he was while his old man was getting wasted. 
As Steppenwolf mourns his father's demise, Christopheles appears
and offers his help.  Before Steppenwolf asks whether he can
resurrect the dead, we
     QC to the Chaotix, who are being sprung by the disguised
Knuckles.  In the midst of the break, Archie reappears by Knuckles'
dad just in time for yet another alarm to go off.  No, THIS time
we're not talking about any DLers but an old holdover: Athair,
still walking around in shower clogs.  You can tell from the
icicles hanging from Knuckles' dad's dialogue balloon that this
isn't going to be a Kodak moment.  But since we're on a roll
     QC to the DL base camp where the Chaotix roll a tank down a
hill and into the camp as a diversion to cover their escape while
they
     QC BACK to Athair and Knuckle's dad, who is called "Grandson"
by Athair; that makes the superannuated echidna Knuckles' great-
granddad.  Just as we're on the verge of watching Knuckles' dad
reopen some old family wound...
     GOTCHA!  Bet you thought it'd be another QC!  No, but we ARE
treated to a cameo by the Ancient Walkers.  They provide some
backlighting for Athair, and then the four of them promptly
disappear.  Athair says "Consider this your warning" -- now THERE's
a statement that covers a lot of ground without telling US
anything!  Knuckles' dad then convinces Archie to stay with him
rather than rejoin the Chaotix.  As a result we
     QC to Steppenwolf's physical, mental and spiritual (!)
development under Christopheles, after which he's introduced to the
Chaos Emerald.  His ability to mentally tap into its energy and
levitate was apparently some kind of final exam.  Steppenwolf is
then set out in the middle of nowhere and just happens to pass
through some invisible/dimensional gateway into the headquarters
seen in Part 1.  Well, we FINALLY know how Knuckles' dad managed
that wall of flames vanishing act in "Fathers and Sons".  From the
base of operations, called "Haven," 
     QC to hell as the Chaotix, still on the lam from the DL, find
themselves cut off by a forest fire started by the Legion's tanks. 
Now you or I might think being trapped in a forest fire would be
enough peril and a suitable cliffhanger for one issue; but we're
not executives, are we?  I have a sinking feeling that some higher-
up at Archie took one look at the ending of the issue and said:
"Hey!  Make it a forest fire AND a stampede!"  So we're treated to
the Chaotix about to be trampled by a bunch of inhabitants of the
Floating Island we've never seen before (for the most part) and
whose only purpose for existing (at this point) is to provide a
convenient plot device!  And Ken wonders why the Pasha didn't
elicit more comments.
     Part 3: "Blood is Thicker" but you can't show it in the comic.
     "What does one do when faced with an enemy whose resources
seem limitless, whose numbers are many, and whose goal is total
victory no matter "what" the cost?"  If you're an editor, you
wonder why there are quotation marks around the word WHAT.  If
you're an echidna named Knuckles, you let Freddy worry about that
sort of thing while you try to figure how to get your caboose out
of the way of the stampede.  So you have Mighty push a tree down in
front of the oncoming stampede and hope that everyone has read the
script and knows not to try jumping over the fallen tree or to run
into it and cause a pile-up.  As for the forest fire, you have
Vector implement a firefighting solution worthy of Mike (Mr.
Science) Gallagher: have him point his itty-bitty headphones at the
fire and pump up the volume enabling him to not only blow out the
fire but send some saucers containing the DL tumbling.  Back when
I lived in Chicago, a morning radio guy named Johnny Brandmeier
used to have listeners crank up their car stereo speakers REAL
LOUD; that trick never put out any forest fires but it DID blow out
some speakers.  However, if you're an echidna named Knuckles you
let someone else worry about plausibility factor of these kind of
stunts while the editor worries about the next 
     QC to the Hall of Science, which is under attack by the DLes. 
Seems the assembled echidnas are beginning to think that
confiscation of private property may not have been the best idea
they ever had, as their society is about to slide into civil war. 
Some civil wars are fought over race, others over larger issues
such as religion or slavery; THIS one looks like it's going to be
about microwave ovens and garage door openers.  Steppenwolf then
enters to make his case and to lead us through three VERY scary
pages, though Ken and Kent probably didn't plan it that way. 
Steppenwolf barely opens his mouth when a member of the council
named Garak decides that echidna interests would best be served at
this point by his arranging a father-son reunion for Steppenwolf
and Edmund.  He pulls out a blaster that resembles a 1950's era tin
toy and points it as Steppenwolf, who walks up to point-blank range
and says in effect: "Go ahead; make your day."  The two stand
eyeball-to-eyeball and Garak blinks.  Having demonstrated his
spiritual superiority (or at least his ability to play poker),
Steppenwolf  launches into some speech making.  It was probably
MEANT to sound heroic, having to do with unifying a torn society
and so forth.  What we GET, unfortunately, is something truly
spooky -- a speech that manages to combine elements of Bill Clinton
on the campaign trail (when he talks about building a bridge
between the factions) and Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Nazi Party
rallies (when he talks about accepting the "New Order").  While he
then advises the assembled echidnas to "choose wisely" he really
hasn't given them much to choose from: essentially, it's a choice
between Plan A and Plan A.  Which he's going to go out and
implement anyway.  The High Councilor is so inspired by this
nonsense that he actually manages to use the phrase "we shall
overcome"; apparently he thinks he's in the middle of the Million
Echidna March.
     Let's clarify something: Herman Hesse's 1927 psychological
novel "Steppenwolf" had to do with (among other things) the notion
that while most members of bourgeois society insists on viewing
themselves in a rigid manner that produces sheetlike behavior, only
those few individuals who can think of themselves in broader terms
can become the leaders of their fields.  Which is fine, except that
there's a dark side to this theme as well: the belief in the
providential leading of a strong solitary visionary.  This sort of
thing can be relatively harmless in the context of literature, such
as Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" where overwhelming artistic ego
wears the disguise of high-minded devotion to principle.  When the
word is made flesh in the political sphere, however, the results
are likely to be a Hitler or a Stalin or a Pol Pot.  In this case,
Steppenwolf's words happened to be tempered by his deeds -- his not
taking action against Garak for wanting to part his dreadlocks with
a blaster.  The writers have still given voice to a dangerous
impulse, though, whether they meant to take the gamble or not. 
Frankly, I was glad when the sequence was over and we could 
     QC to the Chaotix pulling themselves together, disguising
themselves in DL cloaks and swiping a few saucers.  They join a
bunch of other saucers to converge on a mushroom-shaped hanger of
some sort.  Whoever else is watching Knux and the gang, his father
and Archie are able to monitor the situation from within Haven. 
The two banter a bit before Archie is sent to him, while Knuckles'
dad refers to his kid as "our future guardian."  Since when did he
get put on probation?
     They land and follow the crowd to the Great Hall where Kragok
the Marginally Pronounceable tells the assembled multitude that
with "the last son of Edmund burned to a crisp" [I assume he's
speaking figuratively here], they will soon be in possession of the
Chaos Emerald.  That's Knuckles' cue to leap on stage and confront
Kragok...while we pause for an ad for junk food-flavored lip gloss,
the Fan Art page, and the by now superfluous "I want..." page.  All
this just before we
     QC to the past where, without any explanation or exposition,
we see Steppenwolf stepping up to confront the leader of the DL,
who turns out to be (to nobody's surprise) Menniker.  There follows
the Obligatory Bad Guy Exposition in which Menniker tells how he
sensed his dad trying to "send...a message"; apparently he didn't
realize that his old man was really in the process of morphing into
Enerjak and the message was "Could you please come up with a name
that doesn't sound so stupid?".  Anyway, Steppenwolf cuts this
whole business short by opening up some kind of space-time portal
in the sky which sucks up Menniker and the Legionnaires.  Since the
portal bears a resemblance to the one that deposited Kragok and his
boys into this story two issues ago, one wonders whether Kragok and
Menniker are the same.  Kragok never takes off his hood so there's
no way we can see if he has the distinctive echidna Mohawk or not. 
Anyway, we then do a
     SLOW DISSOLVE (!) from then to now as Knuckles and Kragok face
off.  There's about a page or two of fighting while Knuckles' dad
talks about how he blasted Dimitri/Enerjak into orbit in "Rites of
Passage" #3; he then goes into some kind of lotus position that
knocks out the Legion's weapons.  While Knuckles gives chase after
Kragok (just as Archie shows up), the Villain's Fortress Begins to
Self-Destruct (have you ever known one that DIDN'T?).  The Chaotix
and eventually Knuckles (whose quarry has eluded him) escape and on
that rather hollow note and accompanied by a quote from the
Firesign Theater's celebrated "Nick Danger: Third Eye" routine, it's
over.
     Very successful storytelling, in that the QC-ing back and
forth didn't manage to lose the reader.  The lapses in logic (the
fighting fire with headphones bit) are generally forgivable, though 
Ken and Kent could have taken a LITTLE effort to determine how
Steppenwolf escaped the saucer crash; as it is, it has the feel of
hack writing.  And the Team of Gala'n and Pepoy turn in EXTREMELY
impressive work.  Gala'n may have found his calling here, being to
Knuckles what Art Mawhinney is to Sonic.
     And speaking of Sonic, I have to ask: WHY does Ken seem to
have experienced a creative renaissance as a writer having moved on
to do Knuckles stories while the quality of the writing for Sonic
(and NOT just by Ken) is showing a decline?  And that goes for the
as-yet unfinished "Endgame" as well!  From what we've seen in the
Knuckles' series and from what's to come--based on things he told
me at the Motor City Comic Con--NOT writing for Sonic seems to
agree with him.  Has the blue blur burned him out?  Is he so
resentful of the canonicity of the SatAM cartoon that he finds
Knuckles to be a kind of "tabula rasa"--a "clean slate" on which he
can work with a freer hand?  I can't say.  I can only hope that the
talent will be spread around and that Knuckles' success won't come
at the expense of the Sonic line; otherwise, the Brave New World is
going to have a shorter shelf-life than the OLD one!