Knuckles the Echidna (comics)

Knuckles the Echidna, originally published as Knuckles: The Dark Legion, is an action-adventure comic book series published by Archie Comics. The series starred Knuckles the Echidna, a main character from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games. The book was a spin-off of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog, with both series sharing narrative continuity. The series served as a successor to Sonic's Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles, a three-issue limited series from 1996. Knuckles was almost exclusively written by Ken Penders, the former lead writer of Sonic.

Running from 1997 to 2000, the series had 32 issues in total. The first 21 issues were eventually reprinted alongside the Sonic's Friendly Nemesis miniseries in the Knuckles the Echidna Archives series of graphic novels, which ran from 2011 to 2013. The series consisted of four volumes, with two more left unreleased after numerous delays.

Focusing on Knuckles' exploits of fighting evil and seeking answers about his past, the series was notable for heavily expanding upon the Sonic series' fictionalized echidna race's history. After the series' cancellation, its storyline was continued through supporting stories in Sonic the Hedgehog, sometimes even tying in with the main stories. Knuckles wouldn't get a leading role in comics again until 2009 with the Sonic Universe anthology comic series.

By 2013, all characters, locations and other elements introduced in Knuckles had been erased from Archie's Sonic books through a continuity reboot.

Background
Knuckles' first appearance in Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog came in "This Island Hedgehog", a loose comic adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 featured as the main story of issue #13. Following his comic debut, Knuckles instantly became a popular character, with readers demanding to see more of him. This feedback gained him appearances in several one-shot specials as well as Sonic 's supporting stories. Sonic issues #34-#36 featured a particularly significant Knuckles-centric storyline, "A Sense Of History". Written and illustrated by lead writer Ken Penders, it was the first Sonic story to explore Knuckles' heritage.

Knuckles got his first own comic series in 1996 with Sonic's Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles, a three-issue limited series which followed the events of "A Sense Of History". A second limited series followed in 1997 as Knuckles: The Dark Legion, which was also meant to end at three issues. However, due to demand from readers, Archie chose to turn The Dark Legion into a full comic series, changing its title to Knuckles the Echidna by issue #4.

Most of the series' cover art was done in a triptych style, where placing three issues of a specific storyline next to each other would form a singular image.

Overview
The series follows Knuckles' adventures on his home of the Floating Island, a floating landmass on the planet Mobius. For the most part, the series focuses on the echidnas, who are an advanced civilization plagued by internal conflicts within Archie's Sonic universe. Knuckles himself is a member of the Brotherhood of Guardians, an ancient organization dedicated to preserving echidna culture and protecting the Floating Island. Their main adversaries are the Dark Legion, a rogue faction of echidnas obsessed with intellectualism, weapons and cybernetic implants. Due to both factions deriving from the same echidna bloodline, both consider themselves to be the rightful rulers of the Floating Island. All echidnas, however, are united in the struggle against the Floating Island's second major race, dingoes, who strongly resent echidnas.

Other major plot threads include encounters with other echidna civilizations around Mobius, a conspiracy of poisoned food being sold on the Floating Island, Knuckles' affiliation with the Acorn royal family from the surface of Mobius and sinister forces attempting to steal the power of the Chaos Emeralds, powerful gemstones that keep the Floating Island aloft.

Main characters
With the exception of Knuckles, the Chaotix, and a few others, Knuckles the Echidna featured a completely original cast of characters created specifically for the book, some of whom went on to play a large part in Archie's main Sonic the Hedgehog series and universe.

Heroes

 * Knuckles the Echidna – Sworn guardian of the Floating Island trained by his father Locke. While often headstong and gullible, Knuckles has a strong sense of justice and is always willing to protect the innocent.
 * Julie-Su – A former soldier of the villainous Dark Legion, Julie-Su is a female echidna who has since defected and become one of Knuckles' closest allies. Often depicted as Knuckles' love interest, Julie-Su has a psychic connection to Knuckles through a phenomenon known as the Soultouch, which has designated her and Knuckles to be soulmates.
 * Chaotix – A group of warriors formed by Knuckles to help him defend the Floating Island, the Chaotix consists of the laid-back crocodile Vector, the spunky armadillo Mighty, the mischievous bee Charmy and the mysterious chameleon Espio. Later in the series, Julie-Su joins their ranks.
 * Locke the Echidna – Knuckles' father and a loyal member of the Brotherhood of Guardians, Locke trained his son to guard the Floating Island, but seemingly abandoned him at a young age. Locke makes short, sporadic reappearances throughout the series to guide his son.
 * Archimedes – A fire ant who mentors Knuckles. While kind and good natured, his mysterious nature often frustrates Knuckles.
 * The Brotherhood of Guardians – An order of echidnas formed by Knuckles' ancestor Edmund who have dedicated their lives to protecting the Floating Island. The Brotherhood operates from a secret headquarters to assist and guide their descendants, namely Knuckles.

Villains

 * Dimitri the Echidna (Enerjak) – Knuckles' great-great-granduncle and supreme leader of the Dark Legion, Dimitri arguably serves as the series' main antagonist. Having once stolen the power of eleven Chaos Emeralds that were sustaining the Floating Island, he was transformed into Enerjak, a godlike being seeking to reform echidna society in his own image. Albeit eventually drained of his powers, Dimitri was rebuilt as a cyborg and continued to lead the Dark Legion.
 * Renfield T. Rodent – A former ally of Sonic's arch-nemesis Doctor Robotnik, Renfield is a shady businessman with underworld connections who operates the Happyland theme park on the Floating Island.
 * General Helmut von Stryker – The leader of the dingoes, General Stryker is a huge, muscled soldier with an aggressive nature and a hatred of echidnas.
 * The Dark Legion – The antithesis to the Brotherhood of Guardians, the Legion is an army of cyborg echidnas who worship technology. Its leaders (known as Grandmasters) are descendants of Dimitri the Echidna.

Reception
Knuckles the Echidna has been commented on by media critics for its bizarre nature. Many of the series' elements have been met with bewilderment, including its tonal inconsistency, complicated dialogue and extremely blunt political allusions, all while being aimed at children who might be unable to comprehend said aspects properly.

Legacy
Although the series was cancelled with issue #32, writer Ken Penders resolved many dangling plot threads in Sonic Super Special issue #14. He also kept writing supporting stories in the regular Sonic the Hedgehog series, which picked Knuckles' story up from where his own series left off. Sonic issues #131 to #144 contained "Mobius: 25 Years Later", a storyline that Penders billed as a continuation to Knuckles.

The plot of the 2008 Sonic game Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood borrowed many narrative elements from Knuckles the Echidna 's storyline, prompting legal action from Penders.

After a crossover between Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man comics in 2013, all of the characters introduced in Knuckles were severed from the Sonic universe through a reboot of the continuity, due in most part to Archie's legal issues with Penders. For the remainder of the run of Archie's Sonic books, Knuckles' characterization mainly drew only from aspects of Sega's Sonic games, with all of his personality traits, abilities and backstory introduced in Knuckles being dismissed.

The 2020 film Sonic the Hedgehog contains a scene where Sonic's home is attacked by a group of echidna warriors, with its 2022 sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2 revealing that one of them was Knuckles' father. Seeing similarities with this unnamed father character and the Knuckles series' Locke the Echidna, Penders went on X to claim that Paramount Pictures, the production company of the Sonic film series, was using a character belonging to him without permission. In a later post, Penders threatened to pursue legal action against Paramount over the matter.

In 2024, Penders published The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a graphic novel containing a reprint of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" alongside "The Storm", an original story featuring characters from the Knuckles series. In the book, "Mobius: 25 Years Later" is given a new ending, revealing that the main characters' actions in the storyline resulted in major changes to the series' fictional universe. The amplitude of these changes can be seen in "The Storm", as all of Penders' characters have been given redesigns while characters and concepts not belonging to Penders have been replaced with new ones.