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The Devil's Gulag[1], also known as the Devil's Island Gulag[2], or the Devil's Island[3], is a location that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by Archie Comics. It is an offshore prison complex that was once the primary prison used by the Kingdom of Acorn to hold its most dangerous captives.
Description[]
The Devil's Gulag is a veritable fortress, situated atop a mile-high spire in the middle of a stretch of ocean and surrounded by a ring of active volcanoes. The lava flow continually heats the water to a boiling 220 degrees Fahrenheit, preventing any escape by sea, and gives the place a hellish atmosphere (hence its name). The searing water temperature also results in a dense cloud of steam continuously surrounding the Gulag, hiding it from being seen from the surface. Escape was widely considered impossible, although at least two breakouts are known to have occurred (one of which involved the intervention of Robo Robotnik and his orbiting satellites).[2][4]
History[]
Great War[]
The Devil's Gulag was established by the Kingdom of Acorn at an unknown point prior to or during the Great War, and was used as a prison for criminals and captured enemies from the war. Following the end of the Great War, however, the Devil's Gulag became defunct.[5]
Restoration and further usage[]
The Devil's Gulag remained in an abandoned state for roughly 10 years, until it was restored by the Kingdom of Acorn during the late days of the First Robotnik War.[5] The first two convicts sentenced to the reopened Gulag were Sleuth "Doggy" Dawg and Sonic the Hedgehog, the former receiving the sentence for betraying the Robotropolis Spy Network to Dr. Robotnik[6], and the latter having been framed for the murder of Princess Sally Acorn.[1] However, while both prisoners were loaded aboard the Turbo-Prop for transport to the Devil's Gulag, the plane was shot down mid-flight by a patrol of SWATbots, resulting in none of the passengers or prisoners making it to the island, and Sonic escaping. Sleuth, however, was knocked unconscious by the crash, and as such was eventually re-captured and successfully transported to the Gulag.[5]
Following the conclusion of Operation: EndGame and the First Robotnik War, many villains captured by the Freedom Fighters and Kingdom of Acorn were transported from Knothole Village's jail to the Devil's Gulag, including Nack the Weasel, Drago Wolf, and the members of the Fearsome Foursome (Sergeant Simian, Predator Hawk, Lightning Lynx, and Flying Frog).[7][8] Snively Robotnik was later directly sent to the Devil's Gulag after he was discovered in the retaken Mobotropolis. The last inmates to be brought to the Gulag were the crystallized Warlord Kodos and Uma Arachnis.[2]
While imprisoned in the Gulag, Snively overheard the guards talking of Ixis Naugus' return, and remotely activated his hidden team of Eggbots, which he sent in search of the wizard. All of the Eggbots were subsequently destroyed by the efforts of Monkey Khan and Sonic the Hedgehog, however, leaving Snively trapped again.[2][9]
Despite this setback, Snively continued to boast about his plans for freeing himself from the Gulag and enacting revenge on Sonic, prompting mockery from the other inmates. However, the taunting session coincided with Robo-Robotnik's secret activation of the B-Sat Egg Station unit directly over the Gulag, which remotely opened all the doors, freeing the inmates.[4] In under 6 minutes, the rampaging inmates had overpowered all the guards stationed at the Gulag, and laid waste to the fortress. As nobody (Snively included) was aware of the Egg Station's involvement, the other prisoners attributed credit for the breakout to Snively, who reluctantly pretended it was intentional, and accepted his position as their leader. After having caused sufficient damage to the Gulag, the former prisoners locked up the unconscious guards, and escaped to Mobotropolis in a hovercraft, also launching two unmanned hovercrafts as a diversion.[10][3] The breakout remained unknown to the Kingdom of Acorn for well over a week, until Geoffrey St. John was dispatched to the Gulag, and learned the truth from the captured guards.[11]
After some time working together as a group, the escapees from the Gulag were splintered by the Royal Secret Service in their rescue of Nate Morgan, resulting in the recapture of Nack, Drago, Sleuth, Lightning Lynx, Flying Frog, and Sergeant Simian, while Uma, Kodos, and Predator Hawk escaped.[3] Much later, the six remaining prisoners of the Devil's Gulag seemingly escaped again through their own means. Nack chose to leave the group[12], while the other five members met up with Predator Hawk to reorganize as the Destructix.[13][14]
Decline[]
As a result of Dr. Eggman's reclamation of Robotropolis and the advent of the Second Robotnik War, the Devil's Gulag was gradually phased out by the Kingdom of Acorn, with prisoners instead being relegated to an unsophisticated prison in Knothole.[15][16] Following the Destruction of Knothole, a Detention Center was designed and created by Nicole in New Mobotropolis, thus rendering Devil's Gulag redundant and resulting in it being effectively abandoned.[17][18]
Trivia[]
- The exact location of the Devil's Gulag is inconsistent. In Sonic the Hedgehog #70, Elias Acorn claims that Big Kahuna Island is the closest landmass to it, a statement corroborated by the maps of Mobius featured in Sonic Super Special #2 and on the Archie Comics website, which display the Gulag as a small island to the south of Big Kahuna Island's West Robotropolis. However, in the map featured in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia, the Devil's Gulag is repositioned to the south coast of Mobius.
- The Devil's Gulag most likely got its name from the now defunct Russian Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei (often abbreviated as "Gulag"), a government agency that administered labor and prison and concentration camp system in the Soviet Union.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sonic the Hedgehog #47, "Taking The Fall!"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Sonic the Hedgehog #54 "Running to Stand Still"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Sonic the Hedgehog #70 "Saving Nate Morgan"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sonic the Hedgehog #62 "Icon"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Sonic the Hedgehog #48, "Sonic The Fugitive"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #42, "In Every Kingdom There Must Exist A Little Chaos!"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #50 "The Big Goodbye"
- ↑ Sonic Super Special #6, "For Whom the Bell Tolls!"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #55 "Monkey Madness"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #63 "Icon II - Cult Of Personality"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #69 "A Day in the Life"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #91, "Hired Guns"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #117 "The Tortoise and the Hedgehog"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #162 "The Darkest Storm, Part 1: The Gathering Tempest"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #75 "I Am The Eggman"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #99, "Blow By Blow"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #175, "Eggman Empire"
- ↑ Sonic the Hedgehog #177, "Home, New Home"
External links[]
- Devil's Gulag at Mobius Encyclopaedia, the Archie Sonic wiki.