Psxphile pretty much nailed the conundrum.

Taking out the Brotherhood vs. Alpha Flight: both were to establish a villainous force (if I'm thinking of the same A.F. wipe-out as hypershadow77). The Brotherhood led to an explanation of how Finitevus worked out his Enerjak-hex and established him as a methodical, evil character. Alpha Flight died to show how powerful that all-in-one-and-maybe-Xorn-thing was back in the day. (Did anything ever come from that?)

The difference to me, though, is that Alpha Flight provided something. They are the Canadian super-team with individual characters and back-story and all the good stuff already mentioned.

The Brotherhood had none of that. They were the embodiment of Knuckles' lineage, but they weren't contributing to the book. Sure, there were some nifty designs and potential for story, but as things stood they were drawing the focus away from Knuckles. Why does it matter that Knuckles is a chaos-power-wielding-Guardian when you have five more chillin' in Haven? How is any threat to Angel Island viable when you've got that many high-powered characters with super-tech ready to rise to the occassion?

Athair was unique because he operated on a level higher than Knuckles - with the Ancient Walkers and the Chaos Force. That's why he's still around (sort of). Locke had his own unique traits, but I felt his demise in "Enerjak: Reborn" brought his story fully around and neatly closed: he played with nature to construct a Guardian, came to see the folly of his meddling, and ultimately redeemed himself by saving his son. The rest of the Brotherhood did nothing but provide peers for Locke to speak cryptically to.

I know not everyone's going to agree with that, but what's done is done. All I can do from here is explain my reasoning and hope we can all at least agree to disagree.

i'm glad you justified it at least and i do agree that it was probably locke's time to go. it was a good way to die vs. the penders' ending to him.

i believe that the new Omega flight features michael pointer (the xorn entity at the time) as a new guardian. i think marvel killed off the team so they could amp up sales for Omega flight after the civil war ended. they are doing that with another team after secret invasion i hear.

>>I'll agree that the Brotherhood had outlived their usefulness for the points you established Ian- and that they really did not have any true critical weight aside form once keeping Echidnapolis and all the other zones in working order while the current Guardian is up and about keeping the Island as a whole ok.

You've completely usurped that whole ..world, and that's great. I appreciate it. You gave the Brotherhood an OUT rather than a death sentence, and I am for that-but truthfully, and this is the fanboy in me, and I'm not gonna deny-you gotta bring them back-if only to give them a new role before meeting an end with any more Echidnas you plan to get rid of (yes I know Albion is now the only safe haven, but ya still might wanna eradicate a few more, I'm down for it.)

Cause face it. Knux is the point blank badarse Guardian. We need at least 1 older Guardian (not Athair) around to be like-that voice of "Well I agree we should take heads." Hawking was that. Then he died. Boom Done, I loved Hawking, and he went and I was kinda mad, but hey, that's what happens. Tobor-same thing (and I'm eternally pissed about that) Badarse anger, came back swinging, gets punted after doing his thing. (There was no damn true resolution to the Brotherhood figuring out Moritori /Tobor/Spectre thing-and I wanted that!!! Hell I think that was the final friggin Knux Loophole never explained.)

In any event, I think I'm done, and I'm gonna speculate one more thing for 200:

200: Sonic and Silver doing a Fastball Special. Yes, cheezy yet effective.

And that's why Spectre should be brought back. Dun care how. Dun have ideas how. Just wanna see 'im back , lol.

Hawking and Tobor did have that aspect to them, yes. But I don't think that's what was so endearing about them initially. I think what made us* like them so much is they gave us straight answers. They both gave us blow-by-blow accounts of their tenures as Guardians and why things are the way they are. Locke, for a time, had that trait too. Athair, eventually, gave some answers. The rest kept everything quiet, revealing only tidbits at a time and when it best suited them.

If we need an elder mentor with a proactive attitude, we don't need a Guardian. That's the whole reason I worked Archimedes back into the story. He was the original mentor and seemed to have a firm grasp on how to do things the traditional Brotherhood way and the practical way. That, and the pairing of Guardian Echidna + small, wise fire-ant is far more visually interesting than Knuckles = Knuckles-with-costume-change.

All that said, I do recognize there's still A LOT of the old Knuckles mythos left unresolved or could use some fleshing out. Now that we have SU up and running I'm hoping we can find a way to go back to it.

And now I'll stop derailing the thread.

*(and I mean that as a very vague blanket statement about the fandom "us")

most informative derailment ever

Thanks for the answers. Wow I feel learned now

I might have missed an issue that showed it or missed SOMETHING: I'd like to see whatever became of that ancient facility and ISSAC (or whatever the gold robot's name was, I think I forgot).

I might have missed an issue that showed it or missed SOMETHING: I'd like to see whatever became of that ancient facility and ISSAC (or whatever the gold robot's name was, I think I forgot).

Oh-OH NO I do NOT want anymore ISSAC. Not now, not EVER! XD;

I might have missed an issue that showed it or missed SOMETHING: I'd like to see whatever became of that ancient facility and ISSAC (or whatever the gold robot's name was, I think I forgot).

Finitevus took Issac apart for info and apparently planned to use the facility. Rouge didn't like what he was up to and did something to render all the missiles there useless before taking off.

Yep, Lea's right. In case you want the issue where that happens (though it only happens in a flashback) it was #165. Also, Rouge pretty much calls Ivan a frozen corpse, indicating that Ivan's probably/has been dead. Oh, and one more thing that was mentioned was that ISSAC's data was corrupted when Finitevus found him, and it might have been hinted (I believe) that it had been corrupted for a while.