Knuckles the Echidna (Sonic Boom)

"Strong. Determined. The muscle of the team."

- Sonic Boom Official Website

Knuckles the Echidna is one of the main characters in the Sonic Boom series. He is an anthropomorphic echidna and serves as the brawn of his team.

Concept and Creation
When developing the character designs, Knuckles was made larger and more muscular to emphasize his strength, his role as the strong guy on the team and the bruiser he is.

The sports tape Knuckles wears is inspired by fighters and American football players and is meant to give him a sense of practical heroism by showing that that he is not vain, which is a trait more fitting for villans, when saving the world, and to give him a more grounded approach. He specially got sports tape around his arms to emphasize that his specialty is power.

Appearance
Knuckles closely resembles his main series counterpart in overall characteristics, but is quite drastically different in terms of physical proportions. He is much larger than all of his team-mates, standing over a head taller than Sonic, and is considerably more muscular. He has an incredibly large torso, broad shoulders and thick muscular arms, making him very top-heavy, and possesses as well longer legs and quills.

For attire, Knuckles wears a pair of red and yellow shoes, designed with wrap-like markings, that have green cuffs and grey metal plates on top. He also has white sports tape wrapped around his hands and knuckle-spikes, the lower half of his arms and legs, and his biceps, making him similar to a Muay Thai boxer.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
In Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Knuckles was with Sonic, Tails and Amy in another endeavor to foil Dr. Eggman's evil plans when they arrived on an new island. There, they find an ancient tomb sealed deep within the island where Knuckles and the crew come across a powerful villain from the Ancients named Lyric, who plans to power his army of war mongering robots with the Chaos Crystals to destroy everything organic and create a world of twisted metal and robots. To stop Lyric, Knuckles and his friends have to work together and find the Chaos Crystals before Lyric.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
In Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Knuckles teamed up with Sonic, Tails and Sticks to track down and save Amy who had been kidnapped by Lyric and his robot army, who sought to use her archeological knowledge to find a Lost Crystal of Power and seize its power.

Archie Comics
On a bright day on the beach, Knuckles came to help Sonic and Tails fight Dr. Eggman in his Giga-Mech, but got stomped on. After Amy pulled him up and chided him for his cockiness, Knuckles joined his friends in a coordinated attack laid out by Amy and struck the mech at key point, making it fall and forcing Eggman to retreat.

Shortly after, Sticks arrived on the beach and told them that Tails' house had been robbed. Knuckles and gang followed Sticks to Tails' house, where he discovered that it was gone: what Sticks meant was that Tails' whole house had been stolen, and she described the thief as a "cyborg rock golem", created by Eggman, which left with the house. Though Knuckles had a hard time understanding the situation, Sticks seemingly caught the scent of the robot and they followed her. Though it turned out Sticks was only smelling the grass, the group still found the Rock-cyborg by following its footprints. Knuckles and Amy then began setting up an ambush for the Rock-cyborg and bring Tails' house back on its foundation, but Knuckles wanted to fight and had trouble understanding the plan, which made Amy tell him to "actually think" for once. However, this made Knuckles grow angry in silence. Once Sonic lured the Rock-cyborg to them, Knuckles and Amy attacked its legs while Tails and Sticks hit it from behind, allowing Sonic to destroy it and bring Tails' house back on its foundation, though Knuckles did not celebrate afterwards. The next day, Knuckles traveled to Dr. Eggman's lair where he asked the doctor if he wanted to team up.

Personality
Knuckles is described as a "punch-first-and-keep-punching-until-you-need-a-punch-break" kind of echidna, and the best solution to a problem for him is to smash it to pieces. He is determined and strong of character, but also hard-headed and cocky.

Knuckles is not the brightest of fellows and is a little slow on the uptake, as it takes him a significant time to process even simplified explanations. He is also a bit goofy and easily distracted to the point where he is drawn to things as simple as shiny objects. Despite his rough personality though, Knuckles does have a soft spot and he loves nature.

Powers and Abilities
Described as the "muscle of the team", Knuckles possesses extreme super strength, enough to smash large rocks and tri-polymer alloy armor with his bare fists. He also has incredible physically durability, only getting a bump from hitting a falling boulder with his head and being only dazed after being stomped halfway into the ground by a large robotic mech.

Using the spikes on his hands, Knuckles is able to dig through the ground and climb onto walls.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Knuckles has a friendly rivalry going on with Sonic the Hedgehog, though they still remain good friends. He does not take lightly to Sonic's snarky comments about him, but is nevertheless proud of his growth as a person.

Amy Rose
Amy Rose is one of Knuckles' friends and team-mates. When Knuckles has trouble understanding something, Amy usually is the one who explains it to him, but with limited success. They are also essentially opposites in how they deal with threats, with Knuckles facing trouble head-on without a plan while Amy thinks strategically ahead. This creates some tension between them and Knuckles does not take kindly to how Amy criticizes him.

Sticks the Badger
Sticks the Badger is another of Knuckles' friends and team-mates. While Knuckles behaves friendly and supportive towards Sticks, he honestly thinks she is a whack job.

Trivia

 * Knuckles' appearance is similar to those of other super-strong characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, such as Bark the Polarbear, Vector the Crocodile, Big the Cat and Storm the Albatross