Knuckles the Echidna Comic #14:



"The Chaotix Caper: Volume 2: "A Tenuous Grip on Reality"





Reviewed by Chaos Theory T. Echidna, June 30, 1999

Okay, let's start with the cover again. I must say, first of all, that while the artwork on this cover is quite good as always, I do not like it as much as the cover for the first part of the Chaotix Caper (Knux #13). That's because this one seems too cluttered somehow, whereas the other one seemed to have a stark, sad, moody atmosphere to it while still having lots of things and people. Oh, well. At any rate, here we see Dudley Do-Right and Julie-Locks (as Vector later calls them), I mean, erm, Constable Remington and Julie-Su Echidna, preparing to get medieval on the hineys of Renfield T. Rodent and some INCREDIBLY overmuscled goon who I suppose is another.....rat? I honestly can't tell WHAT species that critter is supposed to be and frankly I'm somewhat scared to ask. Since Knuckles himself only gets a bit part in his own comic book, again, he's been reduced to the role of a circus poster on the wall. "SEE! KNUCKLES THE ECHIDNA!!" Gee, what an honour...
The confetti all over the ground IS a nice touch, though, I'll give them that.
On to the introduction page. Well, first we have the Chaotix standing in the same pose as in the last issue--Charmy looking adorably real-bee-ish, Remington looking evil, Julie-Su and Espio both looking sneaky and suspicious, and Mighty acting WEIRD--and THEN we have the introduction page. Behind the words we have a nice close-up of a rather upset-looking Charmy flying for his life, it seems (for indeed, in this issue, and pretty much the entire trilogy, he gets to take the spotlight more than any of the other characters), with Knuckles, Mighty, Espio, and Vector around him, and if Julie-Su's there I can't see her. The words leave a LOT to be desired: the middle paragraph is a run-on sentence consisting of no less than FIFTY SEVEN words in a ROW, and to boot the grammar is messed up. Then the last paragraph ends with "as they have fallen victim to an evil villian's scheme and are suffering dearly for their careless..."
Um...suffering for their careless? HUH? I assume they meant "carelessNESS", but I cannot BELIEVE this actually made it out onto the stands without being corrected at SOME point along the line. Also, not to be nitpicky, but "evil villian" is rather redundant. Aren't ALL villians evil? Isn't that, like, the DEFINITION of being a villian? Oh, well...
Anyway, now that we're done with that, let's plunge into the story itself, which is MUCH better. We start off still on our journey to the centre of Charmy's mind as he has a rather illuminating and disturbing flashback. Charmy's family is all excited--his father, who has EXACTLY the same goatee as Locke, Knuckles' father (I wonder if they go to the same barber?), his mother, Sonia, and his sister, Amy Rose. No, just KIDDING, but his sister DOES look a LOT like Amy only with different colouring (and presumably also wings, antennae, stripes, and a stinger, but from this angle and because she's wearing a dress you can't see any of those things.) Anyway, they are all excited because today is Charmy's big day...and, oh, did I mention that his father and mother are both wearing CROWNS?!!
Yes, that's right, our dear little Charmy is a PRINCE! Neat, huh? In most cases I would go, "Oh, come on, a PRINCE? Isn't that like SUCH a stupid overdone cliché?" But in Charmy's case, it works. He's got such a sophisticated, elegant, mannered way about him that it makes SENSE for him to have been raised in a royal court! Anyway, inside a lovely castle where all the walls are hexagonal (like in a beehive--nice touch, that) Charmy's family gathers around his bed and wakes him up--and it's a fancy canopy bed, to boot--while his father wants to put a super-fancy crown on his head. Evidently this is some kind of ceremony where the Crown Prince sort of "practices" being King in front of the people at one point ahead of time, when he's still a kid, to sort of make his succession "official" when the time actually comes. I don't quite understand it. But that's not REALLY important, what IS important is Charmy's reaction to all of this. He looks at himself in the mirror with this totally MISERABLE expression on his face, while his father says he looks "Perfect! A true prince of the bee realm!" and Charmy then takes the crown off, screams, "NOOOOOO!!!!" at the top of his lungs and THROWS it on the floor, smashing it.
The next part, a large two-page spread picture, just GOT me. I don't often cry over a comic book, and I didn't here, but I DID start sniffling a bit. As we get a REALLY nice close-up on Charmy, crying his little eyes out and running FRANTICALLY away, scared to death, his mother and father are both confused and poor little Amy (she doesn't actually have a name) starts crying too. He yells, "LEAVE ME ALONE!! I NEVER WANTED TO BE A PRINCE ANYWAY!!!" and you can just FEEL the desperation...
Sure, Charmy's behaviour may seem rather immature, but on the other paw, how many of us have never wanted OUT of a big responsibility? How many of us have never seen what the future holds for us and tried desperately to avoid it, or wanted to follow our OWN path instead of being forced into one by others? You wouldn't want THAT, would you?
So now you understand poor Charmy a bit better.
ANYway, on the next page we see Charmy crash violently into the castle butler, a distinguished elderly bee dressed in fine 1700s-style livery complete with a powdered ponytailed wig and ruffles. That is, he WOULD have been distinguished had he not looked like he was drunk, as it is... Meanwhile, Charmy keeps hearing these voices in his head, saying creepily, "RUN, WHY DON'T YOU? WHY DON'T YOU RUN? RUN! RUN! RUN!!!" and scary phantasms swirl all around him as he flies the heck out of there. Another rather poignant bit. Lemme tell ya, even though in real life I am SCARED to death of bees, the way Charmy looked on pages 3 and 4, I just wanted to HUG him SO BAD! But maybe that's just me...
Switching back to the real world, we hear the voice of the echidna doctor who is working on Charmy, who is such a "fighter" that he's actually fighting off the antibiotics! He says he wants "a full transfusion, immediately if not sooner!" and the cute little blonde-banged echidna nurse, who ends up being one of the FUNNIEST characters in the whole thing, runs off to do so. In the background we can see Espio, Mighty, and Vector all laying asleep on the hospital beds with expressions on their faces like they're in pain, and blankets that only partially cover them. (I must say, if they want to keep Espio and Vector (and for that matter, Charmy himself) warm, they had better be using ELECTRIC blankets--normal ones won't work--they're COLD-BLOODED, they HAVE no body heat of their own! Either that or just crank the heat up in the room...)
Then Doctor Flat-top comes in to talk to Remington and Julie-Su about the patients. (Julie-Su's drinking a cup of tea in this picture was a very nice touch; food and drink preferences are ALWAYS a good way to round out a character. And funny--I had Julie pegged more as a soda-pop or even booze kinda girl.) They ask if the other Chaotix are gonna be all right, and the doctor tells them that they brought them here JUST in time and they SHOULD be fine. Then Julie and Rem get into his (Remington's, duh) police car while discussing why everyone else was fine after sleeping it off, and WHY all the people tested had the Lemon Sundrop Dandelion (snark) in their systems but could not REMEMBER eating anything strange! They zip down the street in Rem's open hovercar on their way to Happyland to look for some more clues.
Back--unfortunately--to Downtown Ebony Hare, his lady-friend, Foxie, and his thug, Blackjack, as they terrorise Renfield T. Rodent. Downtown does NOT want to be KILLING people; that takes away from the market, and he orders Renfield to cut down the amount of "special sauce" on the chili dogs. Renfield argues that the customer is always right and if they want more sauce, he'll GIVE them more sauce! He then backs this up by having that HUGE ugly sucker we saw on the cover--although now for some reason he's red instead of white--come into the room and loom threateningly over Downtown and Foxie while Renfield makes all kinds of horrible puns based off of real-life fast food slogans. ("I say let 'em have it THEIR way! Ask my pal, Ripper, here, if you've had your break today--HE'LL make sure you WILL!" GROAN....) However, he's NOT so tough despite his huge appearance (the red thug, not Renfield) because Blackjack is able to knock him down with one punch. Well, it just goes to show...you can't get good help anymore...or rather, ONE person can get good help if they hurry and then everyone else has to settle for whatever's left over. ANYway, Downtown then grabs Renfield by the collar and rather slangily, through gritted teeth, repeats his orders to USE LESS SAUCE...and we switch back to our Lemon Sundrop-induced flashback in Charmy's mind.
Here we see his girlfriend, a LOVELY bee-lady named Saffron. She is SO pretty, with her long, flowing blue (!) hair and her huge long-lashed lilac purple eyes. If you ask me, Charmy is an IDIOT for just brushing her off the way he does here! Not to mention she's NICE, too--she keeps desperately begging him to tell her what's wrong, she only wants to HELP!--but he uncaringly buzzes right away from her, thinking only, "What a nudge!" He's still in his "I want to be ALONE!!" mood so of COURSE his buddy Mello has to LAND on him. (That's gotta take some aiming--to land on a bee RIGHT between the wings, so you don't smush 'em and cause him to crash, and the stinger, so you don't HURT yourself on the way down!) I thought this was a rather ODD way to say hello, but it's better than Mello's actual words: "Charms, m'budsman, how's it flyin?" Shudder... Charmy tells him that today is his "acknowledgement ceremony" (so THAT'S what that was) and complains, "Nobody ASKS me if THIS is what I want! I'm just expected to go along!" Mello sympathises with him (and I'll say it again, LOVE the scarf. You don't realise how snazzy it looks until you see him wearing it while he's actually FLYING.) and Charmy says he needs to fly solo for a while. He's gonna find a place where his parents will never find him...
The Floating Island!
A-HA! Cue Important Music here...
Then we get a monologue from inside Charmy's mind as he uncertainly approaches the Island. "The Floating Island. You've seen it fly overhead many times. You've often wondered about that fabled land soaring through the skies. And now...now you're rushing to experience its wonders. Reality is about to replace fantasy. If you're going to escape your responsibilities--why not hide out where your parents would never suspect? No reason not to make new friends."
And as for those new friends--we see a VERY familiar figure from the back, dangling his feet in a beautiful forest stream. It's MIGHTY!! Charmy is now starting to become part of the group. I loved this bit, it was SO adorable, and I'd really like to see more of how the Chaotix all first met each other and what/where they came from, etc, but I suppose that's just a dream, huh? Anyway, Charmy must be in his flight-mode size (although I don't REMEMBER seeing him shrink) because Mighty complains that he can HEAR him but not SEE him. When Charmy finally flies right in front of Mighty's face, he exclaims delightedly that he has NEVER seen anyone like THAT before, and introduces himself: "My name is Mighty, the Armadillo--"
SWITCHING BACK TO REAL-TIME
"--and I wish someone would stop the ringing in my head!" says our shelled friend as he wakes up, bleary-eyed and woozy, in the hospital. He says he feels so weak and needs to "get the blood circulating" while the rather flustered blonde-banged nurse tells him to get back into bed. We then briefly cut away to Doctor Flat-top, who is trying to decide how to handle the patients. Just as he has decided he needs to be ready for ANYTHING, he comes back into the room to see one of the "poor, sick, weak" patients, Mighty, HOLDING his own hospital bed over his HEAD with ONE ARM while the nurse is ON it!! (The bed, not the arm.) She has this absolutely PRICELESS scared look on her face as Mighty cannot RESIST the opportunity to quote Bugs Bunny: "Saaayy...what's up, doc?" GROAN...
Back to Renfield and company as Downtown calls him a "homeboy" (ack) who is too smart for his own good. Renfield says he's being signaled and that "they" have trouble. "No, YOU have trouble, deal with it!" says Downtown and stomps out of there. What is the trouble?
Well, Cecil the Weasel, their operative who runs the chili dog stand at Happyland, has spotted Constable Remington and Julie-Su. Remmy tries to ask the guy some questions when Renfield comes RUNNING up frantically, trying to look happy and relaxed while sweating like a pig, and gives them the Happyland sales pitch. Remmy and Julie admit that it does SEEM as if no-one's sick at the moment, but prefer to keep looking around. Back to Downtown, as we see that he's watching all of this on his monitor and tells Blackjack to make sure that, as soon as everything's set up correctly, Renfield doesn't see tomorrow...
And speaking of watching people on monitors, back to Haven again, where Locke and Saber are watching Knuckles take on the source of the bright lights and loud noises he was bothered by in the last issue--BIKER BEARS?! Excuse me? Oh, yeah, like THAT'S scary! Anyway, Knux twirls around and puts on quite a show, soon getting rid of ALL of them. He collapses to the ground for a second, then waves his fists in a victory pose while the two other Guardians totally FREAK about his newfound powers, and how they're growing so fast. Locke says that Archimedes can teach Knuckles how to harness his new abilities, but Sabre says, basically, "Uh...hello...Mobius to Locke...he's YOUR SON, you dimwit, don't you think this should be YOUR responsibility?"
And we're back to the hospital, where now Vector is finishing the running gag with the nurse that was set up earlier by Mighty. I know this type of humour has been done before, but I just thought it was SO FUNNY! The first time I read this, I couldn't stop laughing for some reason. Vector wakes up, feeling bleary and miserable ("like my skull wants to bust outta my head!") and the nurse, startled, says, "Not ANOTHER one!" Vector, confused, stretches and does a GREAT, BIG, HUGE yawn, showing ALLLLLLLL of his long, pointy, curved, sharp teeth, then looks RIGHT at the nurse while asking her if there's anything to eat around here.
Right. :)
The nurse then decides she's had ENOUGH and goes RUNNING out of the room muttering to herself along the lines of "Get me AWAY from all these weirdos!!" and screams for the doctor. Vector then wonders what HER problem is--and turns around to notice Charmy, struggling and kicking and thrashing around in great pain, with his covers kicked almost all the way off. Poor little guy...the doctor then comes in and is evidently preparing to wheel Charmy off to surgery. Eeek...
We then have a brief interlude with Harry in his cab and General Buzzcut--I mean, Stryker--who drops by to tell him that he's not in a bad enough mood for a dingo, so he thought he'd just yell at him to make sure he was. The scene ends with Harry muttering that Stryker needs more fiber in his diet as the snarling general walks away.
Then back to Dudley and Julie-Locks as they decide to question...um...Harry? Oh, yeah, sure, when I need information about the underground the very FIRST person I ask is a cab driver. Huh? Anyway, they play good cop and bad cop with him...no, wait, only bad cop--and Remington eventually manages to cut a deal with Harry to find out where the criminals are.
Cut to Downtown, who is talking on his cell-phone in his white tailfinned limo and hears about how "Some babe" wants to make a business deal with him before they're ready, eh? He rightfully thinks that sounds rather suspicious--obnoxious he may be, but he's not a totally STUPID villian--and tells his associates to keep Julie-Su "on ice" until he gets there. Then we see that Remington is watching all of this through a snazzy pair of goggles of some kind and that he's agreed to waive Harry's unpaid parking tickets in exchange for his help.
I must take a moment to note here that...Julie-Su and Remington make a GREAT team! No, all you "Knux & Julie" fans, don't get your dreadlocks in a knot, I'm NOT saying they make a good COUPLE (although, if this was acted out instead of a flat book, I'd say the two actors have "chemistry"--they REALLY do!), I mean they WORK well together. They make a terrific partnership! An officer of the law and a woman who used to belong to an evil organisation that almost wiped out the entire echidna civilisation once--who woulda' thunk it? I think it would be cool if Julie-Su actually became a full-time cop! Wouldn't that be NEAT? To have someone who SCARES the beejeebers out of people being one of the actual authorities? Heh heh. You could just cut the irony with a KNIFE if that happened. :) And now back to your regularly scheduled commercials...
Meanwhile Julie-Su, who is, of course, the "babe who wants to deal", is...blindfolded? "Hey, guys! This isn't any way to conduct business!" she calls, understandably freaked. Downtown and Blackjack then come stomping in and threaten her while saying that they're suspicious of her set-up. She tries to get up and walk away but Downtown SLAMS her back into the chair so she and Blackjack could have a "pleasant conversation".
Constable Remington suddenly can't get Julie's signal anymore. He's worried about her, and with good reason...
...the bad guys just THREW HER OFF THE ROOF OF THE BUILDING!!!
And if you wanna know how she gets outta this, read the review of the third part! BWAHAHA!!



Click HERE to return to the main Archie Knuckles Comics Reviews page.

Click HERE to return to the main Comics Reviews page.

Click HERE to return to the main Reviews page.

Click HERE to return to Sandopolis.



174 curious tourists have attemtped to solve the mystery of the Happyland drug problem since June 30, 1999...and we TOSSED all their butts straight off the roof! HA!