You know what’s a neat little thing that I don’t think gets a lot of mention in Pre-Reboot Archie?
The fact there were Things about Mobius Prime that surprised Eggman.
God but issue 92 *sucked*.
But, anyway! Point is- I do actually appreciate these attempts to illustrate that Eggman’s life prior to coming to Mobius Prime and becoming Eggman were not identical to Robotnik Prime’s own, even taking into account the main diverging point of him Roboticizing himself.
Especially when, according to one bio, when said Roboticization happened-
Yep- Eggman was Roboticized a full three years before Robotnik Prime died in Endgame. Which, given that at this point the Robo-Robotnik from Issue Nineteen and Issue Twenty Two were explicitly one and the same (as established in issue Seventy Five), means that the Sonic and company of his zone were partially cyborgified when they were twelve or so... and then nearly killed Robotnik at that age. Eeeesh...
Anyway. I find it fascinating to consider, because some of these differences can be accounted for by the fact that Endgame never happened, while others imply there were other points of divergence even before then.
For example- Eggman being shocked at the existence of Echidnapolis at first seems a bit odd, since given that by the time he finally got his body back on ‘his’ Mobius and obliterated it, you’d think it’d be pretty clear there was an Echidna city on Angel Island by that point. It makes sense that the old Robotnik never knew about it given that he was dead before it came it back, but you’d expect Eggman to know. Yet he is completely surprised. It seems like an oversight... until you remember Endgame.
One of the explicit results of Endgame was that the Ultimate Annhilator’s overloading and subsequently blowing up released energies that weakened the barriers between Zones, and because of that, Echidnapolis and Cavem Canus both were being forced back into the Prime Zone at the same time, resulting in the destruction of the latter. If not for that though? Echidnapolis would never return, and its entirely possible that without Endgame forcing the issue it may never have returned to Angel Island even by the time Robo-Robotnik finally came back and destroyed everything. Now, I don’t know when Guardians in Archie are allowed back into Echidnapolis and told the whole story of things, but I wanna say Eighteen or so. So, Knux would have at least a few more years before finding out the truth of his people, and that knowledge might haven ever left him or Sally.
Kinda makes me wonder how that world’s Julie-Su adjusted to life on Angel Island without any access to the modernity of Echidnapolis...
Likewise though, this would also explain why Eggman didn’t recognize Drago. Since Endgame never happened, he never had any need to associate with Drago or use him in his schemes. It’s interesting how THAT is actually kept rather consistent, that some of the gaps in Eggman’s knowledge are because that One Big Thing never happened.
But then you get the info about Colin, and more intriguing possibilities arise as to how different Eggman’s world was. See, in the Prime Zone, after the Great War Colin led a migration of Overlanders into space to find a new world and as such missed out on Julian taking over Mobius and all the other fun stuff that followed. The quest for a new home was a failure, and Colin’s group returned to Mobius (and unintentionally helped alert the Xorda to the fact life was still on what used to be Earth. Way to go there, Colin).
Eggman’s words here though spell out that he Roboticized his own Colin a while ago, meaning that on HIS Mobius? Colin for whatever reason never left the Great War. And while I doubt it was planned out this way, this would also explain why Eggman never anticipated the Xorda- on his own Mobius, Colin never leaving Mobius means that the Xorda never find their way back to Mobius or try to destroy it, so Eggman is as off-guard as everyone else.
It also makes me wonder if there is some kind of intrinsic difference in the Roboticization process of his own Zone or some kind of subtle difference between the Overlanders of Mobius Prime and the Overlanders of the ‘Cyber Zone’, because that might explain why Roboticization doesn’t work properly on Overlanders... in the Prime Zone anyway.
Where am I going with this? Nowhere in particular, I just find it kind of interesting to note that there WAS an effort made to establish that Eggman’s life was different from Robotnik’s in Archie, small as that effort was. It wasn’t enough to really salvage the whole ‘Replacement from Another Zone’ conceit, especially given how often the writers resorted to spelling it out over and over again. The whole plot point was INCREDIBLY confusing and convoluted... but all the same, I appreciate that effort and find it fascinating, even if it never went anywhere and probably never could.
