Knuckles the Echidna (comics)

Knuckles the Echidna
Cover of the first issue of Knuckles the Echidna, art by Patrick Spaziante
Publication information
Publisher	Archie Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Publication date	April 1997 - February 2000
Number of issues	32
Creative team
Writer(s)	Ken Penders
Artist(s)	Manny Galan, et al.

Knuckles the Echidna is a 32-issue series of American comic books published by Archie Comics that ran from 1997 to 2000, featuring Knuckles the Echidna, one of Sega's mascot video game characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The series was a spin-off of Sonic the Hedgehog and shared continuity with that title. The series continued the ongoing story of Knuckles's search for answers about his heritage and true nature, which had previously been featured in the Sonic the Hedgehog series as well as several specials and miniseries.

After the series' cancellation in 2000, Knuckles's stories were continued as a regular feature in issues of Sonic the Hegehog until 2003. After this, Knuckles and several of his supporting cast members became a semi-regular feature of Sonic's stories, ultimately crossing over both storylines in a usual manner. Archie Comics made a surprise announcement that they will re-release some of the series first issues in February 2009, along with the new side-series Sonic Universe. Archie have stated that they plan to eventually reprint the Knuckles series in graphic novel form, just like Sonic Archives.

The main focus of the comic is the title character, Knuckles the Echidna. His sacred duty is guarding the "Master Emerald", why he is destined to do this job is beyond even him.

Knuckles' first three part miniseries "Sonic's Friendly Nemesis Knuckles" was released in 1996. His second miniseries was published in 1997, Knuckles: The Dark Legion and after three issues was continued into Knuckles the Echidna which began starting its numbering from issue 4. Archie has essentially 'retconned' "Sonic's Friendly Nemesis" as being Knuckles the Echidna 1 through 3. This was also done with the Sonic Vs Knuckles: Battle Royal one-shot which they 'retconned' into being Sonic Super Special #1. Knuckles Chaotix is a one shot that ties directly into the ongoing series.

Knuckles the Echidna also used a cover gimmick where the three issues that made up one story had covers that when joined together made one big image three covers wide (known as a triptych). These covers were drawn by Patrick Spaziante until issue 25 when Manny Galan took over for the final issues, Gallan was the series’ interior artist until issue 25 when the series changed format with issue 26 into a main story and a back-up story, Galan became the artist for the back-up stories (Featuring Mighty the Armadillo and Espio the Chameleon) and the main story was drawn by different artists, first Chris Allan (#26-28) then Sonic the Hedgehog regular Art Mawhinney (#29) then finally the writer Ken Penders for the rest of the series’ duration.