#knuckles hat

Not much happens to JS in Knuckles the echidna issue Five, even though she is featured on the cover.

Anyhoo, We start with her walking down a hallway alongside Knuckles following Constable Remington and his team of Knuckles clones.

She gets separated from Knux for the rest of the issue. She should considered her lucky though as Knuckles has to listen of pages and pages of long winded sciencey techno babble. To sum it up: There's a tower that transmits radio waves that makes echidnas appear in a space and then overlap with the dingoes also occupying the same space. It's needlessly complicated to say the least.

Julie-Su is right about the echidnas using technology even though they say they're against it. They use it all the time and in a future issue there's even a working old fashioned arcade. I always felt the whole anti-technology stance to be a plot hole as a whole and not very well thought out. That's pretty much for issue #5. Issue #6 is much better in terms of things actually happening.

It may seem like some exciting cliffhanger but it's really just her reuniting with Knuckles and the rest of the group.

The dingoes are currently trying to take back Echidnapolis due to the overlapping waves from last issue that makes them reappear in the city. Julie-Su heads out with Knuckles to stop a group that is holding random echidna citizens hostage.

The scene above with Julie landing on the attacking dingo while giving him a snarky remark is when I started to actually like her. I certainly didn't mind that she was giving attitude to someone who was trying to shoot her.

Aw poor Knuckles he's just trying to be chivalrous.

They continue on trying to reach the head boss of the dingos a muscular one named General Stryker.

While looking up the correct spelling of the name I just found out that the stryker is a type of military tank.

Knuckles holds off Stryker so the rest of the echidnas can escape.

Julie-Su stays behind and assists Knuckles in taking Stryker out. I believe this will be the first (But not the last!) time that they work together.

A stalemate is reached and their fight ends.

The issue ends with Knuckles receiving his now iconic hat.

To put in context this hat first appeared in the Sonic OVA (Original Video Animation) from 1996. This issue came out in August 1997 only around 1 1/2 years later.

It's the first time Knuckles's hat appeared in a piece of western released Sonic media.

After this a short back up takes place in Sonic #53. Here Julie-Su introduces herself and has her first meeting with the Freedom Fighters. She's much more polite here then previously shown.

It's too bad we never actually get to see a detailed sub plot with Julie-Su befriending the freedom fighters.

An illustration from the first chapter of Prophecy of Chaos, an AU fic made by me and @pajulammas !!