Oh look, time for another cash-in… wait what? Oh, it’s a tie in with the Sonic & Knuckles game? Oh… okay. Special: Sonic & Knuckles With the arrival of Sonic & Knuckles, and Knux as a playable character, it’s pretty clear he wasn’t a one shot side character but part of the main cast now. Of course, so far all he’s had just one half-comic story quite a few months ago, and nothing since then. So now he gets a whole special to himself. Nice! We get a quick summary about the Floating Island and Knuckles himself, and then we’re into the stories. Story 1: Panic in the Sky! We open on a beach on ‘The Western Coast of the Great Continent’, which either means this was before the decision to base Mobius on Earth, or the writer has a lot of pride in the US. Apparently this place has frequent earthquakes, mudslides, floods and, somehow, wildfires, yet is unscarred by conflict. Yeah… just scarred by everything else. And the natives live ‘without care’. Despite the frequent earthquakes, mudslides, floods and wildfires. Okay, clearly the only explanation is that local plant life is a narcotic, so whenever it floods it fills the water so anyone who drinks it gets high, ditto when it catches fire and all this trippy smoke is floating around. Despite being said that the Mobians we’re seeing are natives, we see the trainee Freedom Fighters from Sally’s mini-series. I doubt they’re all natives to this beach. But as they play volleyball with each team a player short, a shadow falls across the beach. Looking up, the ‘natives’ are shocked to see the Floating Island hovering above them. Cue mass panic. And I wonder if panic makes Mobian noses turn blue. And Hamlin, if you’ve forgotten your beach trunks, don’t were your spotted boxer shorts. It’s NOT a good look. How NO ONE saw the Floating Island until it was right above them I have no idea… Also, it appears that Mobius has two suns. As our establishing frames show the sun over the landmass as we’re looking inland from the ocean. Then, we spin 180 degrees to look out over the ocean and the Floating Island, and there is the sun again. We move to Knothole to see it’s been seriously upgraded with monitors and 60’s era computers, where Rotor is telling the Freedom Fighters what we’ve just seen, and that the Floating Island is heading inland towards Knothole. Sonic and Tails arrive, immediately recognising the Floating Island, and having to fill the other’s in on the story. Wait, you guys seriously didn’t tell anyone else about any of that adventure? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Unsure wither they can trust Knux given his sorta neutral outlook, and presumably his ‘punch-first, ask questions later’ approach, Sonic and Tails fly up to the island in Antoine’s plane, which seems to have USAF markings…. Anyway, as they approach cannons mounted on the underside of the island open fire, much to the surprise to the three occupants of the plane. They fly above the island, out of the guns line of fire, and Sonic and Tails jump to the surface below. Sonic using the parachute, declining Tails’ offer of a lift out of pride. But they’re being watched by a shadow covered Knux, and for some inexplicable reason they are trying to disguise his identity when it is so clear in the story and the art it’s him. And he doesn’t seem happy seeing the two back despite parting on friendly terms. We then wander into the game adaption part of the story as they wind up in Mushroom Hill Zone, complete with the giant mushrooms, the pendulums, and the floating woodcutter robot mini-boss, who’s quickly dispatched. Kinda lacking in the ‘hill’ department though! Racing from the scene, Sonic ends up falling down a tiny hole. Once again, looks like my poor controller skills have doomed Sonic. He just manages to grab a ledge, only to see Knux above him. Sonic is initially happy, until Knux complains about Sonic turning his Island into a warzone. He makes to stamp on Sonic’s hand, but Tails interrupts trying to drop a rock on him. Which knocks Knuckles AND Sonic off the ledge. Something they both snark about as they fall. Until the land on a small rock in a lava river. Knux is all for continuing the punching until he spots the lava, guess the heat didn’t give it away, and Tails flies in to grab both of them and fly them back to the surface. Sonic tells Tails to ignore his earlier comment on not wanting a lift, just as well otherwise I was gonna yell at him for ignoring all those other times! After Knux comments that he’s able to glide, though he might not have gotten enough height to escape by himself, Sonic points to the sky. Despite earlier making it clear it was only around 2 in the afternoon when they left for the Floating Island, its now dark out and the stars are out. Knux notes that the stars are in the wrong place. Okay… so…. The Floating Island has been moving off-course, and he hasn’t noticed until now. Okay… if he was mostly inland and not on the edge of the island, that is maybe understandable, though a little hard to swallow. But…. If the Island moves around Mobius normally, how can he tell when the stars are wrong? Knux doesn’t seem the type of guy to memorise the star patterns all across Mobius. So it’s taking him this long to realise something was wrong. Which means he doesn’t know about the guns on the underside of the Island. Which, in turn, means that he had no reason to accuse Sonic of brining war to his island, as he thought it was at peace. And hence no reason to wanna see Sonic burned alive in lava. Knux then comments that the Island will now be above Knothole, and that nobody would notice cause it’s dark. Okay, ignore how Knux knows they’re over Knothole when Sonic didn’t tell him that was where the Island was heading, how would nobody notice? Those in Knothole already know about the giant Floating Island heading their way, and even if it was dark, I’m pretty sure the Island is that freaking big you’d still see it. After all, it IS a clear night with lots of stars to block out, as we’ve just established. Leaving that aside, realising he’s been tricked (again) Knux opens a secret passage leading to the secret chamber when the Chaos Emerald is that keep the Island floating. No idea why it’s called a Zoot Chute, I’m guessing that’s a reference to something. And I have to say, a proper secure chamber is better than the small pile of rocks from the first story. They soon arrive in the chamber which looks like someone has places multi-colours crazy paving on the wall, only to see the and energy syphon draining the Emeralds energy in this supposedly secure room. Knux tries to grab the syphon, only to get zapped for his trouble, another game reference, or just coincidence? A hologram of Robotnik’s head appears, really, was it going to be anyone else? Sonic demands to know why Robotnik turned the Island into a massive flying battleship. Er… kinda answered your own question there Sonic. Robotnik says ‘isn’t it obvious?’ and yes, it is. You know have a massive flying battleship! But no, Robotnik continues saying that of course it’s not obvious, uh…. Okay… because apparently only he had the vision to see it’s strategic importance. Sorry, but that is seriously clear Robotnik. I know you look down on others, but seriously, how could this NOT be as clear as glass! Continuing on Robotnik explains how he attacked his machines to the island, creating engines and weapons and using the syphon to power them. So now he’s flying to Knothole Village and plans to bombard it from above. Wait…. How do you know where Knothole is? A major part of many of the stories we’ve hand is not knowing where it is located. A major part of FUTURE stories is not knowing where it is. And no, he’s not meaning that he’s just gonna bombard the forest. He’s waiting until he’s ‘directly overhead’. Guess he’s still knocking back those amnesia drugs that made him forget about Bunnie kicking his ass. Ashamed at what’s happened, Knux picks up the Chaos Emerald, and smashes it. I’m sure that will never happen again. Unsurprisingly, this causes the Island to start falling. Robotnik makes his escape, distracting his command ship and flying off, gloating all the while that he’ll still win as the Floating Island will destroy Knothole when it crashes. But Knux pulls out a spare Emerald from a hiding place and jams it back on the pedestal, causing the island to start floating again just before impact. And look, it’s daytime again! Considering how much care they took at the start to tell us the exact time, they’ve now thrown that out the window utterly. Knux says that next time he’ll try to ‘look before leaping to the wrong conclusion’…. Yeah, we’ll see how long THAT lasts. He then reveals that what he said was a spare Emerald was actually the original, he just performed a sleight of hand trick and smashed a fake one… somehow. With those mittens on I’d have thought such a switcharoo would be pretty impossible. Sonic offers Knux and chance to join them, but Knux refuses, of course. Returning home, this time Sonic and Tails fill the others in about what happened, and that they doubt that Knux will ever join the Freedom Fighters. And something really freaky is up with Sally’s eyes. It’s like she has an extra iris or something. In terms of action, this is a pretty middle of the road story, buoyed up by the spectacle of the Floating Island. However, whenever it tries to do exposition, it fumbles it, hard. And it does fall into the ‘Knuckles is tricked’ storyline again. It’s not bad by any rate, just it could have done with a few tweaks to be truly memorable. Story 2: Fire Drill Aka: The start of the plot! Seriously. This is the first story that kicks off a long running plot that won’t be resolved in a few issues (like the Sally stories earlier) of that isn’t just a natural part of the story (i.e. Sonic vs Robotnik) and that will have important element that will appear and reappear through the comic’s run. But for now, it all starts with an explosion. Well that’s one way to get attention. Specifically Knuckles’, who flies to the beach where the explosion came from, all the while taking to himself about how awesome he is. And they say Sonic has an ego. He follows some footprints from the crater, but loses the trail when they disappear into some empty bushes. Starting to get mad, Knux jumps to two conclusions. One, that whoever they are must have gone to the Sandopolis ruins, and two, that it must be Sonic. And that’s how long ‘not jumping to the wrong conclusion’ lasted. Four pages. He heads into the ruins, as someone triggers off a couple of traps, though they mostly just annoy Knux, rather than hurting them. Now, credit where it’s due here, we see the shadow of the person behind all this, but it’s drawn in such a way that it does look like Sonic, but when you know who it really is, you can tell it’s them too. Oh, yeah, spoiler warning, it’s not Sonic! ;-p Knux travels further into the ruins, commenting that his dad told him a lot about the Floating Island, but not everything. And then the whole place starts filling with stand, so Knux bursts out a wall to escape. Following another trail out of the ruins, he finds it leads to the Islands edge, so Knux assumes the person he’s chasing must have left. But we see he’s still watching, and has further plans for Knux. Oh, further spoiler, it’s a he, not a she. There’s not much to add about this story. It’s mostly, I’m afraid to say, Knuckles bumbling around while boasting about himself. There’s little substance to it in itself, it’s mostly the setoff for payment down the road. Story 3: Lord of the Floating Island This story begins with Knux gliding over the Island, commenting on the strong wings around. He spots a young kangaroo Mobian, therefore establishing that there are others living on the Floating Island aside from Knuckles. The kid has lost his mother, so Knux agrees to help the kid find her. As they look, the kid mentions he knows who Knux is, and the two talk about the eclipse that’s occurring, and apparently responsible for the strong winds, because usually the Island doesn’t get windy. Uh huh… Their conversation is interrupted by a pack of panicking Dingos. Knuxs mentions that they are ‘normally friendly’. Given what will later be done with the Dingos, you couldn’t be more wrong Knux. And it’s a something of a continuity snarl to see them here, but maybe some escaped the horrible fate we learn about later. They soon find the kids mother, and with them happily reunited, Knux insists he’s just doing his job and it’s his duty to protect the Island and its people, and glides off. Overall The special is overall enjoyable, with a nice action story, a prelude story, and a world building story. However, none of them really stand up to security, and the final story does suffer a little from some of it’s details being changed later. Worth reading, but not spending time on.
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