Writer: Ken Penders
Pencils: Steven Butler
Colors: Frank Gagliardo
The cat queen has decided that the best way to settle the differences between her clan and the echidnas is to force Locke into mortal combat against a champion of her own, Razorklaw. Locke tries to reason with her, saying they should talk things out peacefully, but she insists on the fight, and so Locke readies himself for battle.
And that, my friends, is why you do not mess with a Guardian. Locke turns to the queen as Razorklaw lies unconscious on the ground, and once again insists on a peaceful discussion, which she has no choice but to accept. Meanwhile, inside Station Square, Sonic continues his own fight against Perfect Chaos, protected from the worst of the battering by his super state. In the middle of the battle, some debris goes flying, and a piece knocks Antoine on the head. Antoine tries to do the whole "leave me, save yourself" tragic hero thing, a line which Bunnie and Knuckles promptly ignore in favor of carrying him to safety.
As Sonic continues to fight Perfect Chaos, Locke has his discussion with the cat queen, where she explains stiffly that she's not inclined to trust echidnas after her clan's past with them. Locke tries to claim that for the most part, his ancestors always tried to do good (a very skewed view of past events, if you ask me) but the cat queen simply pulls back the leaves of the brush nearby, revealing something offscreen to Locke that makes him stop in his tracks with a shocked look. Back in the city, Knuckles has arrived at the city's main power plant, the one Tikal said is still connected to the waters underneath Perfect Chaos.
It's still so bizarre to me that in the preboot universe, Sonic is apparently unafraid of water and totally fine with swimming, while Knuckles is unable to swim and scared of water. It's such a complete role reversal for the two compared to the games, where Knuckles is a casually strong swimmer and Sonic sinks like a terrified rock. While he faces his fears underneath the water, Sonic, beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion from the ongoing fight, decides to fly between the buildings at high speeds, hoping that Chaos can't keep up with him. Sally catches his attention and hands him a copper pipe for some unfathomable reason (considering he takes it and then just never uses it), telling him that Knuckles is working on getting the generator working again, and Sonic continues to fly as Tails grabs Sally and lifts her to safety.
Knuckles dives once more and attempts to lift the machinery into position, at first struggling with the weight, but then suddenly his pupils turn into images of Chaos Emeralds and he lifts it successfully, I guess calling on his innate Chaos powers or something. The generator roars to life, shocking Perfect Chaos, and the jolt reverts it back to its zero state, with all seven Super Emeralds likewise turning back into chao that float peacefully around their god as Knuckles emerges from the waters.
I mean, I gotta agree with Sonic - that was an incredibly abrupt ending. And what zone are you even talking about anyway, Tikal? You're from the past, not a different zone! Ah, whatever, this adaption was already weird enough as it is. Everyone says goodbye to Knuckles, and he heads out to return the shards of the Master Emerald to his island, leading into the backup story.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Writer: Ken Penders
Pencils: Steven Butler and Pam Eklund
Colors: Frank Gagliardo
Knuckles glides back to the Floating Island, where he finds Sabre and Spectre waiting for him, pleased at the retrieval of the shards. They direct him to a new altar, which Knuckles finds familiar.
With the emerald restored and the island once again rising into the air, Thunderhawk offers to fly Knuckles to the Mysterious Cat Country where his father awaits him. Knuckles meets an escort from the cat warriors, who take him to the Chaotix who are happy to see him safe and sound, and he notices that they were all staring at something through the bushes, where his father is waiting with the queen…
Oh, yeesh.
The cat queen, now friendly, explains that due to her people's past history with echidnas, she had genuinely thought they were planning to attack and invade once again, and honestly, given what the Knuckles Clan tried to pull, she had every reason to believe that. Thankfully, Locke was able to convince her otherwise. Locke reveals that he knew some of the history of the Knuckles Clan, including how every echidna in the group of settlers besides the warrior caste had rejected Pachacamac's campaign against the native cats, but when he and Lara-Le were searching for a name for their child they'd discovered that part of their history, and decided that it was an appropriate time to reclaim the name for good instead of evil. While I can appreciate somewhat the wish to reclaim old names from negative parts of the family history, we're talking about a people who literally tried to butcher the native inhabitants for no other reason than that they wanted the land and the cats weren't about to move. I'm honestly surprised the cats never tried to destroy such a horrific statue depicting this ancient imperialist regime. At least things ended amicably enough, and everyone heads out, returning to the Floating Island now that the Master Emerald has been restored.
So - what about everything else, though? What about the Flicky bird Amy saved? What about Gamma? What about Zero, or the Station Square missile attack, or Tails' growing independence from his childhood hero or any of the other important plot points from the game? Well, the simple answer is we don't care! Seriously, the comic just completely abandons those plot threads and moves on from here. That doesn't mean we're done with Station Square just yet, or that we'll never see any of those characters again, but I suppose the comic just didn’t deem it important enough to cover those things in its adaption of the game, and so we don't get any kind of closure on them until much further on from now (like, we're talking over a hundred issues here, so don't hold your breath). But yeah, that's the end of the Sonic Adventure adaption! Certainly it was very different from the game, though it tried to be mostly faithful to certain plot points, and it's interesting to see how they tried to bring certain concepts in line with those from the games while still staying true to the world the comic has built up so far.
Adventure Sonic, who just wants to pacify Chaos because he doesn’t want to perpetuate a millennia long cycle of violence: “How can that help? It won't change how he feels inside, will it? His heart will still remain in turmoil and his anger just won't vanish!”
Penders Sonic: “Fuck you Chaos, I’m gonna kick your ass”
So upon Sally’s advice, Super Sonic leads Chaos to some power lines while Knuckles uses his special chaos powers to get the power back online, thus electrocuting Chaos and turning him back to normal
Yes, of course Penders found a way to make Knuckles the one who beats Chaos
“Hey son! You see this statue of an echidna literally stepping on a member of a native race that our ancestors colonized? This guy was a real asshole, and everybody hated him. Anyway, that’s who you’re named after! Neat, huh?”
You thought this issue was gonna be all about Super Sonic and Chaos? Oh no, no, no! It’s also about this nonsense! Be honest, how many of y’all forgot about this subplot
Locke spends about five seconds acting like he’s interested in a peaceful solution (even though he said he wanted to kick the cats’ asses last time) just so Penders can paint the white-coded echidna as the smart, rational one and the colonized natives he’s fighting as uncivilized and violent. Typical Penders
The irony of all this? Sonic Adventure’s central theme, as explained in the climax, is about breaking cycles of violence. Sonic decides they shouldn’t seal Chaos away again, because that would only continue the cycle. Bollers even directly adapted this very scene at the end of the last issue! And now here comes Penders, making Locke pick a fight with a group historically colonized by his kind because they were mean to Knuckles’ friends. He literally even said “The Knuckles Clan is prepared to refight the war”. This whole subplot is just spitting in the face of what Adventure was trying to say
And yes, without his lab coat, Locke is literally just Knuckles with a goatee, blue eyes, and different shoes
