#guardian robots

[samobservessonic]

We’re here! This story on its own is most of the reason that I decided Sonic was the coolest thing ever that I needed in my life. And I’ve just always loved the visual of the Master Emerald surrounded by the Chaos Emeralds in that beam thing

Porker: There’s just no nice way to tell you that Knuckles gets the best stories in your comic, Sonic

On that note, there sadly isn’t a Knuckles story in this issue, but I’m sure that would’ve doubly sealed the deal for me carrying on reading StC back then if there had been

This works both as another “It’s not like I like Knuckles” SonKnux hint, but also as a great moment to show Sonic caring about his friends. As a kid, it brought me up to speed with the situation with Porker and also painted Sonic as someone who checks in on his friends and doesn’t think of Porker as a coward for not being able to carry on working with the Freedom Fighters. The Sonic & Porker friendship has always meant a lot to me and that can probably be pinned back to this issue

Aww, Porker & Amy friendship is also great!

Anyway, a seemingly small shock sees Sonic fall off the ledge and if you think dropping StC Sonic into a vat of chaos energy won’t end well for anyone then… you’d be right :) 

This whole page deserves to be shared as it is, because Porker’s breakdown really sells just how dire the situation is. That even a soft-spoken character like him gets frustrated with the robot head. To me as a kid, just Sonic falling off a ledge seemed kinda bad, but this page hammers home that it’s terrifying for reasons I didn’t know about yet

Like this reason! I’m glad there was no one there to tell me back then that this is not a thing that Sonic can do in other versions of the series. I’m even more glad that Elson was there to draw this issue

He was thinking of how annoying he’s found Amy lately right before he fell in. So I’m sorry SonAmy fans, this isn’t one of those lesser-spotted StC SonAmy moments. Though I guess if you wanna read it that way, feel free

More than that, just look at the sheer power of Super Sonic blasting out of the Emerald Chamber in that bottom panel! Like holy shit, this guy is powerful! We’ve had a few Super Sonic appearances before now, but I do think this is the first one that truly puts across the scale of his abilities compared to regular Sonic. And also his abilities compared to, well, most other characters in StC

Adding to the previous point: This whole page of Super Sonic wiping out an aircraft full of robots without even noticing just because it happened to be in his flight path

Amy, please don’t say ominous things like that Also, Tails is here like “Thanks for letting me be in the team for this issue, guys. I feel like I haven’t been able to hang out with you all for ages, but maybe there’s impressionable new readers who need to know I’m part of the Freedom Fighters”

Honestly, after how Sonic treated Amy on the Miracle Planet last time I’m not surprised she’s glad of a break from him

But here it is, the big cliffhanger that got me to come back! I’ve talked about this full page spread a lot in the pinned post and everything I said there holds true. Even looking at this some 28 years later, this still radiates the same raw awesomeness that it did when I first saw it. Super Sonic just bursting through the trees and making a sharp angled turn to come at Amy at such a speed! On the surface, it seemed like Amy had no chance - but she already seemed so cool and capable in this story that I had faith she’d be okay and had to see how that worked out for her next time

You know, if I one day wanted to make some sort of top ten of my favourite moments in Sonic Comics overall, I’d need to reread a lot of stuff from Archie to refresh (as well as properly read the various Sonic manga), but I’m certain that this moment would rank very high, if not take the top spot on that list. Just… glorious!

[askvectorprime]

Vector Prime, what is the fundamental difference between a Titan and a War Titan? What makes war titans so much more agressive than regular titans? And did war titans exist in the first IDW continuity?

Dear Titan Tracker,

In the reality of which you speak, the “War Titan” specialization was bestowed upon on not only the largest and most powerful Titans to be forged, but also those with the mental and physical fortitude to spearhead missions of conquest against those races who came into conflict with the Cybertronian empire—famous and infamous War Titans of the Age of Expansion include Iaconus, Vigilem, Waypoint, Nemesis, and Fortress Maximus, who burned planets and toppled empires in the name of Cybertronian supremacy.

Although War Titans were powerful fighters and almost unmatched on the battlefield, their status as “capital ships” meant that they operated alongside other Titan varieties. Versatile Guardian Titans—a smaller class of Titan that included Omega Supreme, Steelhaven, Xantium, and Axalon—filled a niche analogous to frigates as they escorted War Titans on long-range deployments to distant star systems. Nimble Patrol Titans like Chela and Lodestar rarely left planetary orbit, as their speed and maneuverability allowed them to intercept incoming threats like light warships or spaceborne debris. 

Still other Titans operated in purely supportive roles—even the mightiest of War Titans depended upon ‘bots like Cargohold, Doradus, and the vast amounts of Energon in their city-sized tanks, for refuelling on long-distance operations. And, of course, Colony Titans like Croaton, Navitas and Caminus left Cybertron with the intent of spreading Cybertronian civilization to new worlds.

[samobservessonic]

For part two of this story we shift focus to Knuckles and with that, Dobbyn takes over on art duties. Everyone’s maaaaad at Robotnik for almost turning them into a big computer, huh?

Unlike Vector, Robotnik knows what an electromagnetic pulse is and it means for him. He’s clutching at straws and remembers that Zachary’s robots are from an ancient civilisation and will probably be unaffected. But maybe there is part of them that might be affected…

So yeah, the robots are no longer a threat! In fact, they’re going to be quite helpful from here on out

I normally skip through the fight scenes, but we have limited Zachary appearances left, so let’s enjoy him getting punched by Knuckles

Sonic, as always, arrives just in time to save Knuckles from a situation that Knuckles absolutely has under control

It feels like too long since we’ve had good ol’ StC SonKnux. I’ve missed it

Zachary tries to slip away while they’re having a yaoi rival moment, but Knuckles really does have this situation under control. This is also technically Zachary’s last appearance in the book, but they do a follow-up story next issue dealing with the damage control of his attack, so I’m going to hold off writing his Post-Mortem post until after that

Robotnik’s been defeated! There’s something so cathartic about Porker in particular being the one who gets to bring him out here like this, after everything that Porker has been through. But we’ve still got two more parts to go and it’s not over yet

[samobservessonic]

Yes, after a long journey where he’s both helped and been hindered by a lot of people, as well as getting roped into doing some home renovations for the Freedom Fighters, Knuckles is finally home himself! He looks happy now, but if Porker’s appearance in the previous story is anything to judge by, that won’t last long

That broken door sure doesn’t suggest whatever’s happened here was good

And who could this mysterious figure who needs to be stopped from shooting Knuckles be?

Knuckles thinks he’s found the culprit, but it’s just our buddy Porker Lewis, trying not to get traumatised again

While we don’t get a lot of answers yet, as a former Freedom Fighter and a smart boy, Porker managed to evade capture and thus tie us in with the events of the first story

Knuckles momentarily remembers that the Chaotix were supposed to be his support cast, but StC dropped that angle much quicker than Archie did lol

Dr. Zachary is back! He’s teamed up with Robotnik and a lot more Guardian Robots and now he’s here for revenge!

[samobservessonic]

While the surface of Mobius might be busy dealing with long-term problems like governing zones, up on the Floating Island, Knuckles has more pressing matters to dealing with following the fallout of issue 100

…Or maybe he doesn’t, because Zachary has escaped!

That’s certainly a big plot point to potentially revisit one day, but you’ll be waiting a long time, since it never gets picked up again during StC. There certainly were plans for it, but I’ll be talking about that more in Zachary’s post-mortem post following this update

I’m not sure why this guy is being so abrasive with Knuckles, given how they’ve all gotten along great before this. Guess everyone’s a bit rattled after almost being turned into a giant computer. I love how Knuckles is so calm about it as well. Just “Yeah, I guess you’re right”

Nooo, not the Guardian Robots! They’re cool!

(Sonic Adventure Amy voice) “This robot is my friend! He helped me!”

“Would you maybe stay with me forever as my roommate, Porker? That’d be cool of you”

This is such a lovely last page of the story, with Knuckles and Porker standing in the Emerald Chamber, finally able to relax and think about getting started on those repairs after everything they’ve been through. At least, Knuckles is thinking about those repairs, since he probably doesn’t know yet that Porker intends to stay with him. But we’ll get to that soon

For now, Knuckles gets a chance to rest after his long journey and we’ll be checking in on Super Sonic next time before getting back to him

[samobservessonic]

New Knuckles story and I’m over the moon because Nigel Dobbyn has finally joined us in the main comic as an artist! Look at how pretty this looks! With Kitching on the writing that means we’ve got a double Nigel comic

Yeah, I’m going to count “I’m shattered!” as another coin the in British jar

Knuckles heads off to Megopolis to check out the disturbance, which he equally thinks could be dust in the system, but wants to be safe. Also, they bring up Knuckles’s people coming back more than I remember them doing. I always thought they just said that when Knuckles was introduced and then dropped it until the Sonic Adventure arc, but I guess not

Future robot friend! I really like the design of these robots. I know I’ve said before that a lot of the non-game robot designs were misses for me, but these ones really do look great

Still, for the moment they are not friends

“Masonry can’t speak!” really tickled me for some reason. But more importantly, from the look of that fist, we’ve got a bigger matter to focus on right now…

…It’s Dr. Zachary!

If you don’t know of him, then you probably will know of how the echoes of his character influenced the franchise. It’s speculated that he may have been the inspiration for the Archie Sonic character Dr. Finitevus, who in turn was possibly the inspiration for the Sonic Chronicles character Imperator Ix. And while he’s based on an entirely different egg-laying Australian mammal, it’s possible that IDW Sonic’s Dr. Starline was inspired by a soup of all of the above characters. So there you have it! A lot of stuff in different parts of the Sonic franchise have (admittedly unconfirmed) origins that could stem back to this one echidna guy There’s also something on the wiki about how he might be associated with the Wechnia glitch, which I don’t really know enough about to comment on. I always just thought he was coloured white to show he was an older echidna, along with that face scruff. And I’m not sure if Kitching knew about the Wechnia glitch? There’s probably a lot of folks out there more knowledgeable on that than me tho But who exactly is Dr. Zachary? He’s only just turned up, after all. Given that all those other characters I’ve mentioned who might’ve been inspired by him are villains, you can probably guess how this is going to go. Regardless, we’ll get back to these two next issue

[samobservessonic]

We didn’t see Knuckles at the end of his story last time, so now we catch up with him here. I’ve got to hand it to Dobbyn that he’s done a great job of making this tunnel system look daunting. It makes you wonder just how Knuckles knows his way through or where Dr. Zachary could be lurking, trying to wake up those criminal echidnas who never actually made it into the comic

Yeah, I like the Guardian Robots, but I’m not going to pretend I’m all that interested in seeing these villains fight them, honestly

They basically win the fight by making themselves invisible to the robots and then sneaking past them

Porker’s here like, “Well damn, that didn’t work”

Luckily, Knuckles happens across the villains all on his own

It’s always very satisfying to see Knuckles completely destroy the muscle from the other team

Knuckles so rarely has a good day in these comics, huh?

[samobservessonic]

We then catch up with Knuckles, who’s dealing with a problem of his own back on Mobius. Thankfully, he’s able to grab onto the side of the island, even without his sight, and wait there until it returns to him

Though his climb back up isn’t exactly easy

Luckily, the Floating Island has all these tunnels littered everywhere. Dr. Zachary is even lurking in them somewhere, not that we ever see him again

Oh my gosh, that last panel is so tragic! Just hang in there, buddy! Emotionally as well as literally…

Here’s a reminder of the villains. I like the lizard lady best, because of course I do

I think “These flipping Chaos Emeralds” is possibly the most disrespect that anyone’s shown the Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic series. Anyway, I always feel bad for Porker when he’s floundering to deal with a situation that’s over his head, because he reminds me so much of myself

Knuckles isn’t even in this cliffhanger, but I’ve said a million times that I think the Guardian Robots are cool, so that’s fine with me