
What should have happened for Knuckles to stop using this protection?
Was it broken and he found it insufficient, or did he just forget about it?

Was it broken and he found it insufficient, or did he just forget about it?
Since Eggman still decides to use bio-data scanners to create a metal copy of the character, I'm even afraid to imagine a metal army of all the MHA characters.
>!Lex just realized that he's not the number 1 genius.!<
After being deceived three times (at best), he really became more attentive and can recognize deception.
I think the main reason for the toxicity of fandom is that fans understand words and moments too superficially. In other words, they mostly understand only the visible part, without delving into the essence and subtext.
For example, the whole discussion about Sonic's lightning. Fans saw Sonic's lightning aura in the Frontiers, and they immediately claimed that Sonic was being deprived of the wind motif, even coming up with plot reasons for it, not realizing that the aura only appeared when Sonic had a Power Boost from the maximum number of rings/speed level, and that all of Sonic's combat techniques were based on wind. Another example is a moment in issue 24 where fans complain that Sonic's character is ruined, although this moment was blatantly taken out of context and that Sonic was already physically and mentally exhausted by that point. And that's not even mentioning the outright hatred towards Ian Flynn, who makes it clear that he is not an official representative of SEGA and that his words are primarily his personal opinion.
Fans need to learn to stop judging a book by its cover. For example, words can always have different meanings.
My hunch that Cthulhu is using the technology of the Ancients in the coffin with the Chaos Emeralds is getting truer. These clones began to look and sound more believable after he stole something from Sage.
If it really is because of the mask, then it's time for fans to address their main issue, which is a superficial understanding. It can't be Mimic for several reasons:
Since the Angel Storm arc (I decided to call the 87-88 arc that way) is a separate story, unrelated to For My Destiny, we can only hope that there will be one-shot that explains this story.
To be honest, I can already see how this story can happen so that Frontiers still happen between issues 83-84: after issue 83, Cthulhu tries to use all seven emeralds for his copy of Cyberspace, but something goes wrong and it becomes unstable, causing space and time to begin to distort, leading to a devastating disaster. As a result, Sonic, Tails, and Amy had to survive it until it stopped because the emeralds flew to the Starfall Islands, but Cthulhu manages to follow them and also ends up on the islands. As a result, Cthulhu gets hold of ancient technologies and manages to leave the caves before Eggman arrives on them, and with the help of these technologies, he summons emeralds after they have flown away after the game.
Poor Station Square. It was flooded again.