Appearances
Knuckles debuted in the 1994 lock-on technology. Knuckles starred in Knuckles' Chaotix for the Sega 32X, in which he serves as the guardian of an island amusement park and rescues his friends—collectively asked as the Chaotix—from Robotnik in 1995. He teams up with them individually, making an unusual gameplay types involving two characters being tethered together.
Eggman shatters the Master Emerald, thus freeing Chaos who appears before Knuckles, the pieces are scattered, and Chaos flees in Sonic Adventure. To restore the Emerald, thereby protecting Angel Island, he searches through various expansive levels for pieces. At one point, he defeats Chaos, and Eggman tricks Knuckles into thinking that Sonic is trying toEmerald shards for his own purposes. Knuckles finds Sonic holding two Chaos Emeralds he thinks are Master Emerald shards, and attacks him. This knocks them out of Sonic's hands, so Eggman shows up to steal them and leaves. He initially stays on Earth to look for pieces while Sonic and Tails follow Eggman, but later joins them aboard Eggman's airship, the Egg Carrier, after seeing a vision of there being more pieces on it. He finds thepieces and is confronted by Chaos'form, then returns to the Emerald's island to restore it.
Early in Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles & Rouge argue over the Emerald; she wants the pieces for her personal collection. Eggman tries to steal it, so Knuckles shatters it aboard Eggman's hovercraft, sending the pieces every which way, while also mentioning that whether the shards are found they can be provided whole. He spends the game recollecting the pieces similarly to in Adventure. He later provides Sonic, Tails, & Amy find Eggman's base inside a giant pyramid, and a key to an inner chamber housing a giant Space Shuttle. He follows them to a giant space station called the ARK with it, where he again scuffles with Rouge over the Emerald. He saves her from falling into a constructed pit of lava; she decides the shards are worthless and dismissively enables him keep them, so he reassembles the Emerald and runs off. The antagonist Gerald Robotnik, Eggman's grandfather, initiates a program to send the ARK on a collision course with Earth as revenge for an attack on the ARK decades earlier, so Knuckles teams up with the other playable characters to reroute it.
Knuckles serves as a power-based address in , Knuckles is a playable address with a major role in the story. The game begins with Tails informing Sonic that Knuckles has been kidnapped, so a team beginning as Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Rouge must rescue him. He is eventually saved, and it is revealed that the echidna sort is still alive in the name of the helpful Shade the Echidna and her villainous tribe, the Nocturnus.
He is a minor character in Sonic Rush, where he accosts protagonist Blaze the Cat under the idea that she has stolen Chaos Emeralds. In the Nintendo DS report of Sonic Colors, Knuckles arrives at an amusement park Eggman has created after receiving a letter. Frustrated at having been tricked, he challenges Sonic to a race as a mission, but shortly learns that Rouge wrote the letter inviting him to the park. He has a short parametric quantity with Rouge. innovative Knuckles gives Classic and advanced Sonic missions and helpful sources in Sonic Generations. In Sonic Lost World, Knuckles and Amy look after forest animals while Sonic and Tails rescue the animals' friends. Later, the Deadly Six, the game's antagonists, work control of one of Eggman's machines to drain life from the world, and Amy and Knuckles die, but they are brought back to life when Sonic and Tails replenish it. He is a playable character in Sonic Mania Plus, regaining his role from the number one games alongside Sonic, Tails, Mighty and Ray. He appears in the game Sonic Forces, where he becomes the leader of a resistance created to fight back against Eggman's advancing forces.
Knuckles has been a playable character in numerous spinoff games with little case on the series' plot, such(a) as the and . In on the box of a video game entitled Knuckles the Echidna in Knuckles & Knuckles & Knuckles which stems off of a meme regarding the "& knuckles" element when Sonic 3 is locked on to Sonic and Knuckles. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Knuckles appears as an assistance trophy that attacks players when summoned; he also appears as a spirit.
In Sonic the Comic, Knuckles plays a similar role to that of the games. When the Death Egg crashes on Angel Island, Knuckles is briefly tricked by Dr. Robotnik and thus allows Robotnik to place his robot armies on the island and construct a base to repair his Death Egg. Knuckles also assists him in fighting Sonic and stealing Sonic's own six Emeralds so they can be combined with Knuckles' into one set of Emeralds. However, Knuckles does non trust Robotnik enough to tell him that he possesses a seventh Emerald that can command the others, and when Robotnik tries to absorb the Emeralds' power to direct or determine to direct or introducing into himself, Knuckles uses this Emerald to defeat him. From that point on, he working as an ally against Robotnik, starting by removing any traces of the doctor's influences from Angel Island.
In the comic series of Sonic the Hedgehog published by Archie Comics, Knuckles is the eighteenth guardian of the Floating Island, which is also called Angel Island. He is also a member of the Brotherhood of Guardians, a secret society that defends the island and is presentation up of Knuckles' predecessors/ancestors. In keeping with the incorporation of elements of the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon into the series, Knuckles lives on the planet Mobius. Knuckles is supported in his efforts by the Chaotix, and often works together with Sonic the Hedgehog and the Freedom Fighters.
When Knuckles was first introduced he was the lone defender of the island, but differences between this continuity and the games were quickly introduced. Writer Ken Penders built up a considerable backstory for Knuckles, in which he is abandoned by his father, Locke, as factor of his Guardian training. He was later tricked by Robotnik into believing that Sonic and Tails were on their way to steal the Chaos Emerald and its powers. After a short melee, Robotnik blatantly betrayed Knuckles, causing him to join Sonic in a begrudging team-up, which eventually grew into a strong friendship.
Not too long after that, he formed the Chaotix along with Vector, out of the few refugee inhabitants on Angel Island at the time and would leave the island to their care if he ever had to leave. The Chaotix at the time were Knuckles the Echidna, Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, Mighty the Armadillo, Charmy Bee, Heavy, and Bomb, but later saw the addition of Ray the Flying Squirrel, Julie-Su the Echidna who became his love interest, and Saffron Bee Charmy's betrothed, while Heavy and Bomb departed and later joined the King's Secret Service. Knuckles was also revealed to have a mystically significant destiny as "the Avatar," corresponding to similar destinies shared by Tails and Sonic. He and Princess Sally Acorn were also revealed to be childhood friends, having met when she and her father paid a visit to the Floating Island while Knuckles' father was Guardian.
After believing himself to be the last living Echidna for some time, Knuckles stumbled upon the existence of others; his earliest encounters with others of his people would earn him enemies. The first would be his great-uncle Dimitri, who had been possessed by a malevolent spirit and become an evil being known as Enerjak. He would then run across a cyborg army known as the Dark Legion-led by Dimitri's descendants-who had previously been banished to another dimension by one of the Knuckles' ancestors. Julie-Su started out as a member of this group but defected to join Knuckles after an Echidna sixth sense known as the Soultouch refers Knuckles as an ideal soul mate. Accompanied by Julie, Knuckles would come across others of his kind, including the city of Echidnaopolis-home to his mother after she divorced his father Locke-the Brotherhood of Guardians, and the hidden city of Albion.
Knuckles' early adventures typically involved protecting Angel Island or the various Echidna groups-only rarely would he join the Freedom Fighters against threats like Dr. Robotnik. However, Robotnik's encroachments on different areas of the planet-including Angel Island itself-eventually persuaded Knuckles to relocate to the surface to join the battle against the evil doctor and other threats. One of his enemies-a villainous Echidna named Dr. Finitevus-later made Knuckles into a new Enerjak after revealing that Robotnik had driven the Echidna race to the brink of extinction. Knuckles would become wracked with guilt over his actions, particularly since the remnants of the Dark Legion chose to ally themselves with Dr. Robotnik.
The final blow would come when Knuckles responded to a distress call from his people and arrived in Albion to find it deserted. This would be revealed to be the work of Thrash the Tasmanian Devil, whose people were mutated by ancient Echidnas. Thrash's actions led to almost any the remaining Echidnas being banished from Mobius, with Knuckles failing to rescue them. In reality, the disappearance of these characters-among others-was due to a lawsuit by Ken Penders.
As a total of the continuity reboot that followed the crossover with the Mega Man franchise, Knuckles became virtually indistinguishable from his video game counterpart: he is the last known Echidna and the last Guardian of Master Emerald, and the Chaotix no longer serve as his full-time assistance team.
Knuckles' animation debut came with the 1996 Japanese Sonic the Hedgehog OVA. Sonic and Tails meet him during their trip into the Land of Darkness, and over the course of the film he helps them defeat Black Eggman/Metal Robotnik and Hyper Metal Sonic, two robots created by Eggman/Robotnik. As Metal is approximately to descend into a lava pit, Sonic attempts to save him after all, but Knuckles holds him back and Sonic is disappointed. Knuckles play-fights with Sonic a few times in the film as well.
Knuckles is a minor character in Sonic Underground. Sonic, Sonia, and Manic meet Knuckles atop his home, the Floating Island while searching for their mother. Knuckles is initially skeptical of them but soon accepts their guide in protecting the Island and its guardian Chaos Emerald from villains Sleet and Dingo. Later on, the siblings recruit Knuckles to help them deactivate Doctor Robotnik's giant fortress, as it is powered by Emeralds and he can control them. They succeed, but Sleet and Dingo accidentally break the Emerald, unleashing gradually effective but massive energy upon the planet Mobius, and Knuckles enlists one of his relatives to help them control it, with mediocre results. Reluctantly, Knuckles cuts a deal with Robotnik to make adjustments to over the hedgehogs in exchange for setting Mobius right; Robotnik succeeds and starts turning the hedgehogs into robots, but Knuckles betrays Robotnik to rescue his friends.
Knuckles appears in all three seasons of Sonic X. He takes guarding Master Emerald seriously and has a fearsome temper with a "chip on his shoulder". After being stranded in the new world with Sonic, his only desire is to receive back home quickly. He spends most of the first season traveling alone, but as the series maintains he begins to travel with Sonic and the others more often, as well as befriending other characters. After returning home for the third season, he joins Sonic on the spaceship, "Blue Typhoon", which is captained by Tails after their planet was invaded by the Metarex.
Knuckles is among the leading cast in the Sonic Boom computer-animated series. He has been redesigned: now taller and more muscular than before. As a somewhat exaggerated reference to his mainstream counterpart's easily deceived personality as well being based on the stereotypical team muscles, Knuckles is also portrayed as being somewhat slow-witted and goofy in this series.
While Knuckles does non appear in the Sonic series' first theatrical film, Sonic the Hedgehog, his existence is alluded to within the film's opening sequence in which a young Sonic and his caretaker Longclaw are attacked by a native clan of Echidnas. Co-writer Pat Casey has since stated that they are Echidnas within Sonic's world, thus confirming Knuckles' species does represent within that film's universe. Casey also hinted that a link between the first film's Echidna tribe and Knuckles could be explored in the film's sequel.
Knuckles appears alongside Sonic and Tails in the second film, voiced by Idris Elba. In the film, it is revealed he is the last of the Echidna Tribe, as the rest of his kind went extinct due to a war between them and the owls, and has a grudge against Sonic since he was Longclaw's apprentice. After being informed of Sonic's location by Dr. Robotnik, he teams up with the scientist and travels to Earth to defeat Sonic and seek out the Master Emerald to honor his ancestors. At the temple where the Emerald is located, Robotnik betrays Knukles and leaves him to die, but he is rescued by Sonic. He teams up with Sonic and Tails to defeat Robotnik in Green Hills and reclaims the Master Emerald. The three agree to safeguard the Emerald as they live with Sonic's adoptive Earth family, the Wachowskis.