Julie-Su In: "Shadows"
A Review by Chaos Theory T. Echidna.
October 8, 1999.
As we started this issue, so shall we end it--with a relatively quiet story of self-discovery. We join Julie-girl flying over the Floating Island on her hoverbike thingie--I think it's the same one from the cover of Knuckles #15--and thinking to herself: "I can't take it anymore. I HAVE to know. I can't go forward with my life until I know my past." She also mentions a "skydate" and a "personal log". Okay, okay, enough with the Star Trek references...!
So she returns to the burned-out old Dark Legion headquarters building (at least, that's what I assumed it was), which is completely stomped to bits. The artwork, by the way, in this story was quite good but BIZZARRE; it was done by Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante and I wasn't aware he ever did anything except covers! As a result, it makes a rather strange combination. For one thing, he draws Julie-Su with transparent bangs. I'm not kidding you--when he wants to have her hair fall in front of her face (which is almost all the time) AND show her eyes (ditto) he solves the problem by making her bangs see-through. It's WEIRD... Oh, and the fact that she has no pupils in her eyes the way he draws her, they're just solid purple.
Anyway, Julie gasps in amazement at all the damage but continues to search for...whatever it is she came for...until she finds her old living quarters, trashed to a pulp! This causes her to go into a flashback. (Like, groovy, man. No, not THAT kind of flashback. Not now that the Happyland Amusement Park has been shut down, anyway...)
Evidently the Dark Legion likes their women babe-like, 'cos back then, she used to go around with an EXTREMELY silky-thin, clinging, tight tank-top on when she wasn't wearing her robes--it shows her EVERY curve, and they seem to be curvier than they used to be, or is it just me? Anyway, she remembers about how she used to sleep on a slab for six hours every night (only six? geez!) and then wake up and have a sonic shower (in this picture, it looks as if the beams of sound are targeting her muzzle, her middle, and her left leg, but leaving the right side of her body alone! Um...) and then report to her duties in the main command center. She always had the feeling that Kragok and his second-in-command, a babe-esque lady echidna named "Kommissar", were always watching her. But why, she never knew...
While Julie looks on (you can STILL see her eyes even under the shadows of her hood!) Der Kommissar says rather nastily, "We would have been better off if father had simply jettisoned her out an airlock years ago!" Hey...wait...Kragok and Kommissar are RELATED...
And there's more where that came from. Back in the present, Julie-girl hears someone coming from the armoury, which causes her to remember when she had her taser outfitted (she has a built-in taser? Funky!) and then pull out her gun. Which results in a REALLY huge, dramatic, posed, splash-page shot closeup of Julie-Su with her gun, posed JUST so, like the cyborg heroine of a science-fiction action movie. This picture would be PERFECT if it wasn't for the transparent bangs and the pupil-less eyes. But even so, it's quite good.
She then sets off the security shield with her running around, slams into a wall, and eventually finds a very old, beat-up echidna called Simon, who tells her the following story:
Simon and his wife Floren-Ca had raised Julie-Su from when she was a toddler up to when she was about ten. Why only that long, and why she doesn't remember, you'll have to keep reading to find out. Julie-Su is understandably suspicious, but he goes on with the story.
Over 30 years ago "their time" Moritori Rex's son Luger married a woman named Merin-Da, and they had twin children--Kragok and Lien-Da. The picture of the two little, itty, BITTY babies is really cute, but I have a little, itty, bitty nitpick here: Real-life echidnas can't have twins. Ever. But I'm probably about the only person who uses information about the real animals when writing about Mobians. So let's move on. The two kids were going to be Dimitri's heirs when they grew up. The portal that the Zone Echidnaopolis was trapped in all this time (and why, I still have yet to find out) opened up temporarily when the kids were about 8, and everyone was free to return to the Floating Island. Unfortunately, for some reason Merin-Da turned out to be really delicate and the climate killed her.
Several years later, Luger eventually recovered from his loss and married Mari-Su, in a really ADORABLE picture where they are holding hands in the moonlight, and Mari-Su is giving him the CUTEST expression out of her huge, huge eyes. Yeah, that's Julie's mother, all right. She has "the most eyes" I've ever seen. (Private in-joke, never mind. And WAIT a minute--does this mean this is a self-insertion fanfic? Mari-Su--"Mary Sue"? Get it?! Ah, never mind...) Unfortunately, the twins from Luger's earlier marriage, Kragok and Lien-Da (who is now starting to turn into a Dark Legion Babe as well) were now both sixteen and saw Mari-Su as a threat to their own ambitions. And Lien-Da, who it is quite obvious by now is Kommissar, LOOKS like she's related to Julie-Su...
Because, indeed, Mari-Su is Julie-Su's mom. She was born a year later, and she (Julie) wanted so badly to play with her older half-brother and half-sister but they HATED her and shunned her every chance they got. And we're talking meaner than ordinary sibling rivalry here, considering who these people are...
The picture on page 9 of this story, by the way, of Julie-Su as a heartbroken toddler, is SO CUTE and SO SAD! Awwwwwww...
Then Mari-Su conveniently suffered an "accident" that killed her and we are left with absolutely NO doubt that Kragok and Lien-Da/Kommissar were behind it--they killed their own stepmother. Creeeeeepyyyyy... Luger was too much of a wuss to even TRY being a single dad so he gave Julie to Simon and Floren-Ca.
Not long after that, Luger disappeared, and no-one really knows what happened to him...but it's kinda obvious...
And Kragok seized power. Then, as it turns out that all Legionnaires have a memory neutralising chip implanted in their brains at birth, and he didn't want Julie-Su to know or remember what he and Lien-Da had done in the past, he activated her chip and wiped out Julie's memory!
The two evil twins forced Simon and Floren to pretend Julie was an orphan, and then kept assigning Simon to dangerous missions in the hopes that it would get him killed off.
Obviously that didn't quite work. And after eight years, they took Julie away from Floren-Ca. Then the portal opened up again and Simon decided to take Floren-Ca and move to the Floating Island.
Simon then wraps up his story by saying that he knows "someone who would dearly love to see you!" and they go off, presumably to meet Floren-Ca, and Julie-Su will get to see the woman who raised her for the "first" time in her life--again.
By this time, Julie believes him and we end the issue.
Of course, this story raises some unpleasant questions, such as...WAIT a minute, isn't Knuckles related to Kragok too?! Doesn't that mean that when Knuckles and Julie-Su get married and have Lara-Su in the future, that will be in-breeding?! EEW!
They are several generations removed, of course, but still, that's a little bit disturbing! If we didn't KNOW about the relationship, of course, it wouldn't be as bad.
Otherwise, good story.
Bottom line: Even though I majorly disagree with most of the things that were said and discovered in this issue, you definitely need it for your collection. The character development and information are invaluable. And a special THIS special isn't likely to happen again for a long time.
Still, I wish it could have been less depressing...
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tourists have stopped by to read Julie-Su's story since October 8, 1999. Of course, Kragok and Kommissar made sure they all met with...."accidents"....