So yes, Knuckles’ mom had that baby she’d been pregnant with prior to the timeskip. As we saw in Mobius: 25 Years Later, Penders named him Mace. However, Bollers has decided that that wasn’t his full name...
No, his full name is Knecapeon Mace. He’s better known by his nickname...
Kneecaps the Echidna
I love it. I love it with all my heart. It’s so stupid. It’s perfect. Penders usually named his male echidnas after philosophers, scientists, and artists and gave the girls hyphenated Kryptonian-style names. But that never really fit. What the hell kind of name is “Knuckles” in a family full of names like Rembrandt and Hawking? After Sonic Adventure, Penders retconned it and said that Knuckles had been named after the ancient Knuckles Clan, but it still didn’t feel quite right. So here comes Bollers with another silly body part name to go with Knuckles. I love it
You know who didn’t love the name Kneecaps? Penders. Oh, he hated it. Which just makes me like it even more
Return to Angel Island (Part 3): How Many Echidnas Does It Take to Protect a Master Emerald?
Writer: Karl Bollers
Pencils: Jon Gray
Colors: Jason Jensen
So! We didn't forget that Lara-Le was pregnant a year ago, did we? Knuckles is completely stunned at the sight of his baby brother, and carefully hands him back, asking what his name is.
Honestly, this series of panels alone is enough to sell me on Jon Gray as an artist - I don't think anyone else could have pulled off this joke as well as he did. Anyway, yeah, this is in fact the Mace we briefly saw in StH#132, so clearly once he grew up he also agreed that Kneecaps is a horrible name and started going by Mace instead. That night, the echidna refugees all set up tents for Knuckles and his friends, but Knuckles is reluctant to accept the hospitality, still disturbed by everyone's reverence for him. He leaves, and Sonic is confused about his attitude, which Mighty says is likely influenced by the way everyone treats him differently after coming back from the dead. This draws a parallel in Sonic's mind between Knuckles' situation and his own with Sally, which I'm honestly surprised hasn't really been explored as of yet, considering it's one of the main things they currently have in common. Knuckles heads to the Hidden Palace, but ignores both Finitevus and Lien-Da when they try to ask him what he's doing, instead going straight for the Master Emerald in the chamber beyond. There, he sits just far enough from it that the pain doesn't affect him, and reflects on his choices up till now.
Okay, first of all Knuckles, we already established that you hardly came back for egotistical reasons. You fully accepted the fact that returning from the afterlife would have consequences, and came back anyway to save literally everyone on the planet from being sucked into a black hole. I'd say that's a worthy goddamn reason to go against Aurora's warnings. And second of all, Archimedes?! Dear lord, it's been… what, sixty-six freaking issues since we last saw you! Why do you look so evil there? Like seriously, it's a weird design choice, because when I first read this I was worried that Archimedes was being mind controlled or had gone evil or something, but I'll spoil it right now for you that he's totally fine and his excitement over his predictions being true is completely benevolent. I'm honestly sad that we haven't seen him in so long, because I actually quite like Archimedes, and enjoyed the larger role he played in earlier issues, particularly throughout a lot of the KtE series. He's been relegated to barely more than a bit part at this point, even though he and Knuckles seemed to be building such a good rapport when they first met.
Anyway, General Kage contacts Eggman to inform him of the invasion of one of the prison camps by Knuckles and his entourage, and Eggman becomes angry, telling Kage to work harder to root the disturbance out and get things working more smoothly on the island. M, repaired by now and with a fresh coat of "makeup," suggests that she go to Angel Island to oversee things, but Eggman vetoes that, right as they walk past a room ominously labeled "Snively Processing Lab," with a horrifyingly familiar silhouette inside being experimented on. It's clear that in the year that has passed, Eggman has reduced Snively to nothing better than fuel for his experiments - we've only seen him one other time since Sonic returned, and he seemed utterly terrified of his boss. Given his hatred of his uncle, and how this version of Robotnik is even more brutal than the original, I feel genuinely bad for him. Eggman reassures M that he knows just how to fix things on Angel Island, and goes to release someone from a prison pod in his base, equipping the mysterious prisoner with a control collar to ensure total obedience…
The next morning, Knuckles is awoken from where he passed out in front of the Master Emerald by Julie-Su - apparently, their double agent in the dingoes' ranks has contacted them with Locke's location, and so the full force of the Dark Legion, as well as Knuckles and all his friends, all make for the base in Dingo City where he's being held, with Espio surprisingly swearing up a storm as they take the Legion's hovercraft. As they race to the rescue, we finally get a clue as to where our favorite dingo has been all this time! How ya doing, Harry old boy?
Oh, gee, not so good, I see. The general is distracted from Harry dropping his breakfast in a fright by a call from Eggman, who tells him that if Locke isn't going to give up the information, it's time to cut their losses and "terminate" him. However, at that exact moment, the cavalry bursts in and begins beating the dingo sentries into the ground.
Knuckles immediately rushes to get his father down, and despite his rough treatment Locke is relatively okay, if weak. Kage tries to get back up, but Sonic and Knuckles merely grin at each other and punch him right back into unconsciousness. However, before they can congratulate themselves too much, Eggman projects his face as a hologram at them, as he is wont to do, and gloats that Locke was only one of his methods for finding the Master Emerald. While they've been busy in the city, Eggman has sent someone else to attack the echidna refugees' camp… and it's none other than Hunter from the ending of the KtE series, powered up and ready to wreak havoc once more!
Mobius 25 Years Later: A Difference of Opinion
Writer: Ken Penders
Pencils: Steven Butler
Colors: Jason Jensen
In stark contrast to the sense of fierce camaraderie born of fire that Sonic and Knuckles share in the previous story, here we get to finally see their older counterparts interact one on one and be all hostile for no reason. Well, actually, we do get a reason. Knuckles finds Sonic lounging outside on his nightly walk, and invites him along for a chat, with their wives secretly watching from the windows and hoping they'll be able to work things out. Sonic is apparently skeptical of Rotor's claims of approaching armageddon, while Knuckles is more inclined to believe him. Sonic is then forced into some contrived dialogue that conveniently leaves him free to explain in detail exactly what caused them to start hating each other so much. Instead of typing out a summary here, I'm gonna go ahead and let the comic explain the whole thing for me, so you can see for yourself how much this sucks.
This… this is literally the worst thing we've seen so far. Okay, okay, maybe not the worst - Sonic trying to drown his own son really takes the cake - but it's up there. This entire backstory is built entirely on the idea of Knuckles literally trying to rewrite reality in the middle of an out-of-nowhere god complex and then facing absolutely no repercussions for it afterward aside from the loss of an eye. This is the reason that Julie-Su is missing her cybernetics - because sometime in the past, Knuckles, without even asking her what she wanted, took them from her, simply because he apparently thought she'd be better off without them. And now, he still considers Sonic to be the bad guy of the story, because Sonic had the nerve to consider Knuckles trying to reshape their entire world the way he liked it to be a threat to their continued peaceful existence. And as far as Knuckles losing an eye as a result, all things considered, that is not bad at all. I mean sure, losing any body part sucks, but in this universe one can be outfitted with various cybernetics that are better that the original organic part they're replacing, and as Sonic points out, the technology exists to just give him back his organic eye with no lasting side effects. Furthermore, Knuckles also seems put out that Sonic prevented him from becoming a Chaos-Emerald-powered god, even though literally not that long ago we just saw how badly things turn out when that happens! You freaking died, Knuckles! I can't even begin to put my disdain for this backstory into proper words, it's so bad. Like, there's not even one single thing I can pin down to explain how bad it is - it's just a jumbled mess, and such a disappointment. I mean, all this time I've been pointing out how out of character it is for Sonic and Knuckles to hate each other, but since we didn't know why they hated each other there was always the chance that later on the story would finally reveal to us the real reason for their enmity, and that it would change everything, revealing some unknown details that explained everything we've seen and made it totally believable. This story not only failed to do that, it has actually done the opposite, making their rivalry less believable and making Knuckles feel just as out of character as everyone else so far. Like, I'm seriously surprised that Kenders would do this to his favorite character in the series, because it just makes Knuckles seem so unsympathetic and unlikable that it basically renders a lot of his character development up till now seem totally pointless. Like, just… why?
