Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[Osmium]

Ok, time for Issue 3. 

 

I thought the fight was going to be real cool, but it turned out to be more fucking talking with a punch here and there. 

Enerjak then takes Knuckles out, and then there's more exposition because we haven't had enough of that everywhere already. 

It was basically explaining how shitty old Dimitri turned into Enerjak. 

Because this is what you want to see in a Sonic comic! 

 

Then there's a bunch more talking, and Archimedes calls a bunch of his fire ant friends to take Enerjak's ass down. 

 

Enerjak then flies away on a fucking rocket. Yea, that's really how he was defeated for the time now. WHAT THE FUCK. 

 

I think this panel explains itself. 

 

Then the city just randomly vanishes, and the Chaotix are back to normal. Gee, this is convenient. 

Knuckles then learns the power of friendship I guess. 

 

Apparently the rocket was launched by Locke, another fucking creep who basically just watches Knuckles all day. 

 

Here's the epilogue. 

Wow. What a great epilogue. That explained everything. 

 

Seriously, that was pretty shitty. Nothing happened outside of Knuckles meeting Enerjak and Archimedes. The rest is fucking talking and standing around. 

I can't believe this drivel would start an entire series, which obviously was even worse than this. 

 

I know this review was pretty shitty, but it was just to show you how uninspired and boring this is, and it actually gave the Archie staff confidence in creating a whole series around this boring piece of shit Echinda and his fire ant friend. Penders' Knuckles can't hold up a story. I don't know how they created a 32 issue series when they could barely fill up 3 issues with this bullshit. 

[GamerGirl54321]

 

 

Wow, Vector's speech is even worse than I had thought it would be. I can't read any of that in their voices :S

[Osmium]

Wow, Vector'a speech is even worse than I had thought it would be. I can't read any of that in their voices :S

 

The thing that makes it even worse is that you know Penders was trying to make him sound as cool as possible. 

[Disonoid 3000]

Actually seeing the pages is hilarious. It looks like Knuckles putting on a bunch of costume pieces and playing out all the echidna parts himself.

 

And I love how younger Knuckles looks exactly like current Knuckles except smaller. Cause that's how kids work alright.

 

Wit'ty Use'rnam'e

 

I believe that should be "Wit'ee Ua'zurnaim". 

[Osmium]

Actually seeing the pages is hilarious. It looks like Knuckles putting on a bunch of costume pieces and playing out all the parts himself.

 

And I love how younger Knuckles is just current Knuckles except smaller. Cause that's how kids work alright.

 

Of course! When you were 7, didn't you look identical to how you do now, except like a third the size?

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Of course! When you were 7, didn't you look identical to how you do now, except like a third the size?

I know my head was bigger than a good portion of the rest of my body when I was a kid, and that I was rather chubby as a teen.

[-blank-]

Of course! When you were 7, didn't you look identical to how you do now, except like a third the size?

[Osmium]

Meh, I was trying to be sarcastic with that quip. I wasn't serious at all.

[-blank-]

I know. ;P It just made me remember something like that. xD

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Everybody liking the comic in the 90s just turned out to be more Penders propaganda.

What a twist.

I think it was more a matter of not knowing any better. It seemed more "mature" and "sophisticated" to people who probably didn't fully grasp those concepts beyond being stuff that was basically over the head of the target audience.

Frankly, I think Penders managed to exploit that during his run, what with all his politics and misappropriation of things like Holocaust poems, and I'll bet some of his fans were defending their Sonic books as not being boring, but "mature." Yet when that audience grew up and did begin to know better, that's when the tide really began to turn on him.

 

As for the art, let's face it, it was bad more often than it wasn't. Getting a story that approached the quality seen on the covers was like some sort of special treat, but we kept reading along anyway to keep up with the story, as they basically kept leading us along with plot threads that never went anywhere.

 

The best thing about the Sonic Adventure arc was that it ended. There was probably more closure to that than to most stories during those days.

 

 

Pendejo's art is pretty distinctive. This isn't it. Not every piece of bad art is his.

 

Though he'd probably try to tell you otherwise while informing you of how great it actually is, thanks to him.

 

"...and that's when I said 'how about we make him purple?' Then they made me Emperor."

 

ShroomZ: Most of those images aren't working for me, except a few of the single panels.

 

In defense of the desert BBQ, I imagine they had to stop and eat sometime.

[horridus]

I think it was more a matter of not knowing any better. It seemed more "mature" and "sophisticated" to people who probably didn't fully grasp those concepts beyond being stuff that was basically over the head of the target audience.

 

I can garuntee you that was a big part of it. When I was reading it as a kid, the whole thing seemed deep, and as I got older and more capable of complex thinking and reasoning I began to PROJECT a deepness that simply wasn't there. I had always thought that the big 'point' of the Knuckles story was that both sides were wrong and that Knuckles was slowly starting to become aware that the entire conflict was foolish, and that he would be the one to try and settle the dispute instead of continuing it. Can you tell that this was in the days BEFORE I learned that Penders worshipped at the altar of Locke and deemed the Brotherhood sacrosanct?

 

I think one of the reasons it was as successful as it was then was for the same reason Twilight was successful. Jokes about quality aside, protagonist Bella Swan has very few real character traits or thoughts of her own. There's so little to her that you can interpret whatever you want about her, and that in turn makes it all the easier for the readers to imagine themselves in her position and with all that magical dramatic stuff she has going on in life. Same deal with Penders writing; you'd see what you would want to see, and get so caught up in it that you wouldn't bother to really think TOO deeply on how shallow and nonsensical it all is, really. 

[biznizz]

This just in from the Pen-Front, Pen gets catty.

 

 

 

CyberRevolution ‏@We_Cyber 21h21 hours ago

Its hilarious listening to a man @kenpenders who ruined a comic series talk about the comic book industry.

 

Ken Penders ‏@KenPenders

@We_Cyber If you could tell me something about working in the comics industry I'm unaware of, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Edited May 20, 2015 by biznizz

[Agie]

You're not alone. I've had to refresh the page more than once. In fact, I might have to do so after hitting that post button for this one.

[Zaysho]

This just in from the Pen-Front, Pen gets catty.

 

 

 

 

Also, having failed to get Ian and his fans stirred up over the Kickstarter controversy, Pen tries to incite Jimmy Palmiotti against Mark Waid, apparently. I dunno, why else would he seem to piss Palmiotti off?

 

 

 

 

For context, Palmiotti made obervations about why Archie, supposedly a big company, needed a Kickstarter instead of offering something on their website. Amidst this was drama on whether New Archie and any potential spinoff books would be sold in Direct Market LCB stores or big chains like Wal-Mart or Target, then apparently Goldwater himself kinda dropped the ball during an interview. Then Mark Waid himself replied to Palmiotti as gently was Waid does, and said that calling them a "big, rich company, was crap, and that the years of in-house fighting and lawsuits (as well as Pen's unsaid suit to Archie, which didn't help).

 

And during the research of this, I've found out that there's been a HUGE feud with Archie's founders, the Silberkieit and Goldwater familes, which has resulted in one of the Silberkieit women being sued and given a restraining order from the company offices due to sexual harrassment of all things. Ho. Ly. Crap.

 

Also, is anyone else having issues with posting comments lately, or is it just me. On both PC and phone, it doesn't seem to post unless I refresh the page.

[biznizz]

Oh yeah. Even today, you still have stuff like DC's practice of "dirivitive characters" and Gerry Conway's long post about it; Archie's in-house problems like their owner-infighting, creator crediting (i.e. Dan DeCarlo), their problems actually giving a sh*t about their licenced properties prior to 2005, and even their problems with keeping contracts which led to the Pendering; Marvel's own issues with creator rights/credits (Gerber with Howard the Duck, Wolfman with Ghost Rider, etc), and even one of IDW's editors, Bobby Curnow letting his mods delete topics on their forums when they turn to complaints about their writers.

 

Everything is f*cking ugly when you look beneath the surface; especially when money is involved. Pen is at least right on that one, but even a broken clock can be right twice a day.

[Salamander]

 

I just thought I'd point out, as a contribution to the "Penders can neither write nor draw anything original" argument, that "Who knows what fear lurks in the hearts of those who have been duped?  We know!" is an awkward riff on the tagline for the classic radio serial The Shadow: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  The Shadow knows!"

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Wit'ty Use'rnam'e

 

You have had your username penderized, it now looks awful. Oh right, still need to add that final Penders meme. Isn't that right Sir Calamari.

 

There we go, three awful writing techniques all used by Penders in the same post.

Devil dung! You're absolutely correct!

 

I regret nothing.

[Osmium]

In defense of the desert BBQ, I imagine they had to stop and eat sometime.

 

My argument wasn't so much about eating, but how Archimedes was this asshole who was basically stalking Knuckles around, and then he just kidnapped all of his friends. When Enerjak teleported Knuckles and Archimedes to the desert and they start wandering around, they barely know each other. From what Knuckles knows this guy should be a major cunt, but there's never any conflict about it. Knuckles never asks why Archimedes was fucking around putting his name on rocks and kidnapping his friends. They just become best friends in like 3 seconds, its forced and awkward. 

I think it was more a matter of not knowing any better. It seemed more "mature" and "sophisticated" to people who probably didn't fully grasp those concepts beyond being stuff that was basically over the head of the target audience.

Frankly, I think Penders managed to exploit that during his run, what with all his politics and misappropriation of things like Holocaust poems, and I'll bet some of his fans were defending their Sonic books as not being boring, but "mature." Yet when that audience grew up and did begin to know better, that's when the tide really began to turn on him.

 

I can garuntee you that was a big part of it. When I was reading it as a kid, the whole thing seemed deep, and as I got older and more capable of complex thinking and reasoning I began to PROJECT a deepness that simply wasn't there. I had always thought that the big 'point' of the Knuckles story was that both sides were wrong and that Knuckles was slowly starting to become aware that the entire conflict was foolish, and that he would be the one to try and settle the dispute instead of continuing it. Can you tell that this was in the days BEFORE I learned that Penders worshipped at the altar of Locke and deemed the Brotherhood sacrosanct?

 

Yeah, my fault. The problem was that I never even grew up with these as a child. I was like 14 when I first saw these and I was more dumbfounded at how ridiculous and boring most of the stories were, then thinking it's so deep as I was already a teen. So, it was more ignorance on my part then "Penders propaganda". 

[horridus]

Oh yeah. Even today, you still have stuff like DC's practice of "dirivitive characters" and Gerry Conway's long post about it; Archie's in-house problems like their owner-infighting, creator crediting (i.e. Dan DeCarlo), their problems actually giving a sh*t about their licenced properties prior to 2005, and even their problems with keeping contracts which led to the Pendering; Marvel's own issues with creator rights/credits (Gerber with Howard the Duck, Wolfman with Ghost Rider, etc), and even one of IDW's editors, Bobby Curnow letting his mods delete topics on their forums when they turn to complaints about their writers.

 

Everything is f*cking ugly when you look beneath the surface; especially when money is involved. Pen is at least right on that one, but even a broken clock can be right twice a day.

[Sunwalker]

My argument wasn't so much about eating, but how Archimedes was this asshole who was basically stalking Knuckles around, and then he just kidnapped all of his friends. When Enerjak teleported Knuckles and Archimedes to the desert and they start wandering around, they barely know each other. From what Knuckles knows this guy should be a major cunt, but there's never any conflict about it. Knuckles never asks why Archimedes was fucking around putting his name on rocks and kidnapping his friends. They just become best friends in like 3 seconds, its forced and awkward.

Yeah, my fault. The problem was that I never even grew up with these as a child. I was like 14 when I first saw these and I was more dumbfounded at how ridiculous and boring most of the stories were, then thinking it's so deep as I was already a teen. So, it was more ignorance on my part then "Penders propaganda".

I think that "propaganda" would be a too strong term for this case, though Penders did use some tricks to make his run to look more popular than what it really was.

Still, at some point he did know how to engage fans and sell his image. Some of the creatives on the comic today, including Ian, even were regulars on his forum back in 'ye olden days. In all seriousness, I think that Penders would work better in the PR department than as a writer.

About his stories. They seem to me more like randomness that was mistaken for profundity…

[horridus]

In all seriousness, I think that Penders would work better in the PR department than as a writer.

 

Given how slippery and dedicated to not answering anything inconvenient he is, I sometimes wonder if he wouldn't thrive more as a politician. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

A while ago, I had the idea to review the Knuckles mini-series...and I guess seeing ShroomZ do the same thing finally encouraged me to actually do it. So, thanks Shroom xD

 

After I'm done with this, I may review other works of Pen or other Archie stories in general, I like reviewing.

 

Here's issue #1 (also on my Tumblr):

 

Ken Penders is not exactly the most popular person among Sonic fans, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s almost as though Sonic fans can actually agree on something (freaky, I know). He’s certainly had fans in the past, but they’re growing increasingly hard to find, for various reasons – the fact that he claimed the characters he created for the Sonic comic as his own, which resulted in Archie suing him, which resulted in a settlement that effectively removed all characters created by past writers from the comic; him coming across as a maddeningly egotistical jerk on his forums and Twitter; and the fact that, well, everyone’s realizing that his work is pretty darn bad.

Why have I decided to review one of Penders’ early works? Well, I think that, at times, people’s anger at Penders may obscure the actual flaws in his work, ironic though this may be. At times, people may be so focused on individual things that are especially maddening that they miss the big picture. Penders isn’t merely annoying or offensive. He’s just plain not very good at what he does. And that’s the point of this review, and any subsequent reviews I do of his works. My intention is not to stir up even more Penders-raging than already exists; on the contrary, you could say I’m trying to bring a little less heat and a little more light to the “question” of Ken Penders.

I’ve chosen as the subject of my analysis the first Knuckles Mini-Series that ran in 1996, because – well, I own it (in the form of Knuckles Archives Volume 1, anyway), I read it, and it seems like a reasonable place to start. And there’s also the fact that it’s kind of enjoyable. It’s not hideous or unpleasant. And yet, when subjected to even a cursory analysis, it looks…well, not very good, to say the least. In a sense, that makes it the perfect place to start for my purposes, though I may review more overtly bad stuff in the future.

I really maybe should recap so that you know what’s going on, but…I’m not going to. It’s just too darn boring. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out, and if not, go to the Archie Sonic wiki to find out more.

So here we go with issue #1.

 

I’m not going to review the cover because there’s not much to say other than “it looks good”.

The first piece of actual story content is…a pretentious, boring recap of sorts written on top of some cool Spaz artwork. Um, how nice.

The first actual comic page shows Knuckles entering the Grand Conservatory. And right off the bat, we come across a huge flaw in Penders’ writing, and one which doesn’t get talked about much: cliché-ridden dialogue and narration.

The comic starts with these two narration boxes:

 

Yep. “Deep within the bowels”. Wow. That’s, um….really good-sounding. Right.

 

We proceed to read Knuckles’ thought balloons, which are just him thinking about the wide array of traps that exist in the GC. It’s not horrific or anything, but it’s not well-written either. Nothing about it sounds “Knuckles-like” in any meaningful way, for one thing. And we also get this gem:

 

…Okay? What? Electric eye? What does that MEAN? As far as I can tell, it’s a reference to a Judas Priest song…but why? What point is he trying to make? Is he trying to say that there are cameras in the place too, or what? I can only assume that, but it was not immediately obvious by any means.

Anyway, things are looking up in the next two pages, which form a two-page spread of Knuckles gliding across the complex. Art Mawhinney did a pretty good job making it look action-packed and whatnot.

But then…oh dear. Oh dear. I don’t really know how to prepare you for this, so I’m just going to plunge in, ‘k?

 

 

 

Great Caesar’s ghost, where do I start? No less than four clichés in rapid succession! Did he just know no other way to write it?

What comes in the panel after the next is a bit of a doozy too, in its own way:

 

Apart from the presence of even more clichés, that really…doesn’t sound like Knuckles. “What’s a nice echidna like me doing in a hidden temple anyway?” I dunno, why wouldn’t you be in a hidden temple? And why are you referring to yourself as a “nice” echidna? It just sounds like the sort of thing that would be said by…someone other than Knuckles, I guess.

What follows is a boring recap, and…hey, wait, I just realized Knuckles has been talking to himself for several pages now. (And what makes it even weirder is he was thinking to himself on the first page, but just suddenly switched to talking.) Or at least, Knuckles seemed to be talking to himself, but in one panel, he’s almost looking at the audience as if breaking the fourth wall. Maybe he was talking to us all along and – oh. Oh dear.

no

NO

NOOOOO

 

There’s no escaping from the wrath of the awkwardly-combined clichés! (Oh, and nice sound effect. Gra-DUNGE!)

In other news, Knuckles still doesn’t sound Knuckles-y in the slightest. Yes, the early games didn’t have dialogue, but Knuckles still had a personality: aggressive, hotheaded, and while not mean or malicious, not exactly a “nice guy” (just look at the pleasure he takes in thwarting Sonic!). So far in this comic, Knuckles has failed to show much personality to speak of.

I should probably mention that a scene referencing a certain archaeologist too obvious to name occurs, Mount Fate is exploding in a burst of green light. Not that KTE has any way of knowing this.

What happens next is that Knuckles, having successfully passed through all the trials ‘n’ tribulations, comes across a whole lotta doors. When he walks up to one, it…opens automatically.

…Okay. So you put in a bunch of deadly booby traps, then you just have the doors open automatically to anyone? If you really didn’t want people to see them, why not put in, I don’t know, a lock?

Anyway, what Knuckles finds is – well, I’ll let him tell you.

 

…Because laser guns are great digging tools?

And more importantly, how the heck does Knuckles know this? And perhaps even MORE importantly, what the heck does Knuckles know about technology? Considering the environment he grew up in, I wouldn’t expect the words “portable concussive blaster” to pass through his lips so easily.

Anyway, Knuckles, evidently not even slightly interested in what’s behind any of the other doors, just keeps walking until he finds…a door that looks extremely similar to all the other doors, but which doesn’t open for him. Knuckles, who is supposed to be impulsive and punchy, acts blatantly out-of-character by not even trying to punch down the door himself (he just somehow knows it won’t work because of “good workmanship”) and just lets the “concussive blaster” do the work for him.

 

Totally sounds like something Knuckles would say right.

You might want to make a note of what just happened. Let’s just say that Knuckles not being able to do things by himself and needing help from someone or something else that more or less comes out of nowhere becomes a bit of a recurring theme.

We get some melodramatic commentary courtesy of Archimedes and then we finally find him with the Chaotix, who I can only assume are experiencing a bit of Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, good food is nice, but you were still kidnapped, dudes.

 

After some recapping and explaining and stuff, we get…THE BIG VILLAIN REVEAL!

 

And it turns out, he looks…kind of ridiculous.

Everyone tries to attack Enerjak, a.k.a. Dimitri, but they’re completely ineffective due to Enerjak making “VRRRMMMMBBLL”, “sping!”, and “fwa-VOOOM!” sounds. Then, Enerjak sends Knuckles and Archimedes into the desert instead of just killing them, and as for the Chaotix, he…kidnaps them.

Yeah, they’ve been kidnapped by Archimedes since the Knuckles Chaotix special (i.e. where they were first introduced), and now they get kidnapped again. Ever get the feeling Penders doesn’t know what to do with these guys?

Overall this comic was…well, it was okay, especially considering it’s the only first issue, but it wasn’t great, especially considering the bad dialogue and incredible lack of characterization for all the characters from the games. Art Mawhinney’s artwork was pretty nice throughout, which helps. Only one issue in, it’s hard to make many judgments, so I’ll leave the more in-depth analysis to later reviews of the series.

[Osmium]

A running trend is Ken Penders' Sonic work, as we all know is how pathetic and uncool he makes characters, and this is basically going to be a montage of some of the most insufferable moments. These are focused around Sonic (and Anti-Sonic). 

 

Sonic is amazing.

 

 

Ken Penders' Sonic is that kid you knew who would crack shitty jokes all day and would be the only one to laugh at them. 

 

That is some AWKWARD wording. 

 

What does that even mean?? 

 

Sonic. Shut the fuck up already. 

 

The panel on the left makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. 

 

Sonic sounds like he's six years old. 

 

Penders' Sonic is the hugest dork to ever exist. 

 

Apparently Penders is fucking Doctor Seuss now. 

 

This panel is something special. 

 

STOP SAYING THAT 

 

Okay.

Sonic should never say knapsack. And he should never say doohickey. Especially doohickey. 

 

Cahoots is a word that I don't think I want Sonic to say ever again, either. 

 

That's all I will do right now. I know there are many other panels that are even worse than these but some of these are so fucking hilarious (The Bad Boys and the Mozzarella ones primarily ) that I had to show them. 

 

In conclusion, Penders' characters either have no personality or they try to be a cool as possible but come off as the kid who got his ass kicked every day at school. 

A while ago, I had the idea to review the Knuckles mini-series...and I guess seeing ShroomZ do the same thing finally encouraged me to actually do it. So, thanks Shroom xD

 

After I'm done with this, I may review other works of Pen or other Archie stories in general, I like reviewing.

 

Here's issue #1 (also on my Tumblr):

 

Ken Penders is not exactly the most popular person among Sonic fans, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s almost as though Sonic fans can actually agree on something (freaky, I know). He’s certainly had fans in the past, but they’re growing increasingly hard to find, for various reasons – the fact that he claimed the characters he created for the Sonic comic as his own, which resulted in Archie suing him, which resulted in a settlement that effectively removed all characters created by past writers from the comic; him coming across as a maddeningly egotistical jerk on his forums and Twitter; and the fact that, well, everyone’s realizing that his work is pretty darn bad.

Why have I decided to review one of Penders’ early works? Well, I think that, at times, people’s anger at Penders may obscure the actual flaws in his work, ironic though this may be. At times, people may be so focused on individual things that are especially maddening that they miss the big picture. Penders isn’t merely annoying or offensive. He’s just plain not very good at what he does. And that’s the point of this review, and any subsequent reviews I do of his works. My intention is not to stir up even more Penders-raging than already exists; on the contrary, you could say I’m trying to bring a little less heat and a little more light to the “question” of Ken Penders.

I’ve chosen as the subject of my analysis the first Knuckles Mini-Series that ran in 1996, because – well, I own it (in the form of Knuckles Archives Volume 1, anyway), I read it, and it seems like a reasonable place to start. And there’s also the fact that it’s kind of enjoyable. It’s not hideous or unpleasant. And yet, when subjected to even a cursory analysis, it looks…well, not very good, to say the least. In a sense, that makes it the perfect place to start for my purposes, though I may review more overtly bad stuff in the future.

I really maybe should recap so that you know what’s going on, but…I’m not going to. It’s just too darn boring. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out, and if not, go to the Archie Sonic wiki to find out more.

So here we go with issue #1.

 

I’m not going to review the cover because there’s not much to say other than “it looks good”.

The first piece of actual story content is…a pretentious, boring recap of sorts written on top of some cool Spaz artwork. Um, how nice.

The first actual comic page shows Knuckles entering the Grand Conservatory. And right off the bat, we come across a huge flaw in Penders’ writing, and one which doesn’t get talked about much: cliché-ridden dialogue and narration.

The comic starts with these two narration boxes:

 

Yep. “Deep within the bowels”. Wow. That’s, um….really good-sounding. Right.

 

We proceed to read Knuckles’ thought balloons, which are just him thinking about the wide array of traps that exist in the GC. It’s not horrific or anything, but it’s not well-written either. Nothing about it sounds “Knuckles-like” in any meaningful way, for one thing. And we also get this gem:

 

…Okay? What? Electric eye? What does that MEAN? As far as I can tell, it’s a reference to a Judas Priest song…but why? What point is he trying to make? Is he trying to say that there are cameras in the place too, or what? I can only assume that, but it was not immediately obvious by any means.

Anyway, things are looking up in the next two pages, which form a two-page spread of Knuckles gliding across the complex. Art Mawhinney did a pretty good job making it look action-packed and whatnot.

But then…oh dear. Oh dear. I don’t really know how to prepare you for this, so I’m just going to plunge in, ‘k?

 

 

 

Great Caesar’s ghost, where do I start? No less than four clichés in rapid succession! Did he just know no other way to write it?

What comes in the panel after the next is a bit of a doozy too, in its own way:

 

Apart from the presence of even more clichés, that really…doesn’t sound like Knuckles. “What’s a nice echidna like me doing in a hidden temple anyway?” I dunno, why wouldn’t you be in a hidden temple? And why are you referring to yourself as a “nice” echidna? It just sounds like the sort of thing that would be said by…someone other than Knuckles, I guess.

What follows is a boring recap, and…hey, wait, I just realized Knuckles has been talking to himself for several pages now. (And what makes it even weirder is he was thinking to himself on the first page, but just suddenly switched to talking.) Or at least, Knuckles seemed to be talking to himself, but in one panel, he’s almost looking at the audience as if breaking the fourth wall. Maybe he was talking to us all along and – oh. Oh dear.

no

NO

NOOOOO

 

There’s no escaping from the wrath of the awkwardly-combined clichés! (Oh, and nice sound effect. Gra-DUNGE!)

In other news, Knuckles still doesn’t sound Knuckles-y in the slightest. Yes, the early games didn’t have dialogue, but Knuckles still had a personality: aggressive, hotheaded, and while not mean or malicious, not exactly a “nice guy” (just look at the pleasure he takes in thwarting Sonic!). So far in this comic, Knuckles has failed to show much personality to speak of.

I should probably mention that a scene referencing a certain archaeologist too obvious to name occurs, Mount Fate is exploding in a burst of green light. Not that KTE has any way of knowing this.

What happens next is that Knuckles, having successfully passed through all the trials ‘n’ tribulations, comes across a whole lotta doors. When he walks up to one, it…opens automatically.

…Okay. So you put in a bunch of deadly booby traps, then you just have the doors open automatically to anyone? If you really didn’t want people to see them, why not put in, I don’t know, a lock?

Anyway, what Knuckles finds is – well, I’ll let him tell you.

 

…Because laser guns are great digging tools?

And more importantly, how the heck does Knuckles know this? And perhaps even MORE importantly, what the heck does Knuckles know about technology? Considering the environment he grew up in, I wouldn’t expect the words “portable concussive blaster” to pass through his lips so easily.

Anyway, Knuckles, evidently not even slightly interested in what’s behind any of the other doors, just keeps walking until he finds…a door that looks extremely similar to all the other doors, but which doesn’t open for him. Knuckles, who is supposed to be impulsive and punchy, acts blatantly out-of-character by not even trying to punch down the door himself (he just somehow knows it won’t work because of “good workmanship”) and just lets the “concussive blaster” do the work for him.

 

Totally sounds like something Knuckles would say right.

You might want to make a note of what just happened. Let’s just say that Knuckles not being able to do things by himself and needing help from someone or something else that more or less comes out of nowhere becomes a bit of a recurring theme.

We get some melodramatic commentary courtesy of Archimedes and then we finally find him with the Chaotix, who I can only assume are experiencing a bit of Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, good food is nice, but you were still kidnapped, dudes.

 

After some recapping and explaining and stuff, we get…THE BIG VILLAIN REVEAL!

 

And it turns out, he looks…kind of ridiculous.

Everyone tries to attack Enerjak, a.k.a. Dimitri, but they’re completely ineffective due to Enerjak making “VRRRMMMMBBLL”, “sping!”, and “fwa-VOOOM!” sounds. Then, Enerjak sends Knuckles and Archimedes into the desert instead of just killing them, and as for the Chaotix, he…kidnaps them.

Yeah, they’ve been kidnapped by Archimedes since the Knuckles Chaotix special (i.e. where they were first introduced), and now they get kidnapped again. Ever get the feeling Penders doesn’t know what to do with these guys?

Overall this comic was…well, it was okay, especially considering it’s the only first issue, but it wasn’t great, especially considering the bad dialogue and incredible lack of characterization for all the characters from the games. Art Mawhinney’s artwork was pretty nice throughout, which helps. Only one issue in, it’s hard to make many judgments, so I’ll leave the more in-depth analysis to later reviews of the series.

 

Your welcome! Your review sure looks a hell of a lot better than mine (even though my review was just more to summarize and to show how ridiculous some of the panels looked)! I sure hope you do more of these !  

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Given how slippery and dedicated to not answering anything inconvenient he is, I sometimes wonder if he wouldn't thrive more as a politician.

I don't know. These days, I don't think he could sell me a glass of water if my hair was on fire, and I'd want to leave any district he was running.

If he was the god he thinks he is, he makes a strong case for atheism.

ShroomZ: I don't know if it's just the time period those came from or what, but my mind went full-on Jaleel White Sonic for pretty much all of that. It honestly seemed to work to me.

[Disonoid 3000]

So Ken's dialogue's actually gotten better?     This stuff makes "Devil dung!" sound natural and intelligent.