King Acorn's Secret Service

King Acorn's Secret Service is an organization from the Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog storyline. They serve as professional counterparts to the Freedom Fighters, and the two are often at odds due to the competition between them.

Fleming
This middle-aged beaver was once head of the Secret Service. Upon retiring, he is succeeded by Geoffrey St. John. His name is a reference to Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series.

Geoffrey St. John
Geoffrey St. John is a Mobian Skunk with green eyes, white and black hair, a Cockney accent (e.g. calling female characters "love" and male characters "bloke" or "mate"), and his weapon of choice is a wrist-mounted crossbow.

As a child, St. John gained his sense of duty from his father, Ian St. John, and was groomed by him to one day take his place as head of the Royal Secret Service. When Ian was killed during the Great War by the Overlanders, Geoffrey developed a strong dislike for the human species. Geoffrey is furiously loyal to the Kingdom of Acorn, especially King Maximillian and Princess Sally (who he at one point had a relationship with), but was arrogant, rude and prideful. This stems from a number of unpleasant actions on his part, including accusing Sonic of murder, declaring Armand D'Coolette a traitor, and even attempting to give orders to Knuckles the Echidna.

Geoffrey first came to Knothole and to the Knothole Freedom Fighters claiming to be a former member of the King's royal guard and acting head of the Royal Underground, the "legitamite" underground movement acting against Dr. Robotnik, dismissing the rebels as foolish children (in his own words; "Sally's Trainees" or "Rank Amateurs").

Geoffrey and his men fought alongside the Freedom Fighters on many occasions, and St. John aided in the return of King Acorn and eventually re-established the King's Secret Service and, following Robotnik's death, became head of security during the reclaiming of Mobotropolis. Geoffrey in particular was increasingly jealous of Sonic the Hedgehog, putting him down as a child, and as such did everything he could to put himself in the best light possible. Geoffrey and Sonic physically fought on numerous occasions, but made temporary amends in the end. Upon forming a new Secret Service team, he recovered Queen Alicia and Prince Elias, Sally's mother and brother respectively.

Upon the rise of Dr. Eggman, fall of Mobotropolis, and re-colonization of Knothole, Geoffrey witnessed Sonic being knighted, and reluctantly called Sonic "Sir" as he now surpassed him in rank, and was privately embarrassed when the Secret Service and Freedom Fighters were sent to work together on numerous occasions. Following the theft of the Sword of Acorns by Sonic, and paralyzation of King Max, Geoffrey, desperate to upstage Sonic, approached the inexperienced head-of-state; Elias, and manipulated his gullible nature to allow him to become his behind-the-scenes advisor. Using Elias as nothing more than a puppet, Geoffrey had Sonic's knighthood taken away, and as a child, confined to Knothole, and later had the Freedom Fighters forced to cease operations. During a mission into Robotropolis to retrieve the Sword, Geoffrey and his team were infected with nanoprobes that left them vulnerable to Eggman's manipulation, and went through extensive medical treatment to destroy them. During his time of reflection of his actions, Geoffrey realized how big a pompous fool he had been, and considered resigning from the service. However, his long-time admirer Hershey the Cat convinced him otherwise, leading them to develop a relationship. Seeking a way to redeem himself, Geoffrey and Hershey journied across the world to find Elias, who had abandoned his position because of everything falling apart due to Geoffrey's advice. Geoffrey and Hershey later joined in the battle against the Xorda.

Upon Sonic's return from his year spent in space, he saved the newly-married Geoffrey and Hershey from execution by a phalanx of SWATbots under A.D.A.M.'s control. Geoffrey, because of this, finally put an end to his rivalry with Sonic, acknowledging he was a better hero than he ever could be. Geoffrey has since took up residence in New Mobotropolis after Knothole's destruction, and runs the Secret Service from the top floor of the army headquarters. His first known mission after arriving in the city was to accompany Rouge the Bat to a casino run by Mammoth Mogul to investigate the villain and his many 'business associates'-Badniks and the Destructix-though Geoffrey also had to contend with his partner's flirtatious attitude. He later joined up with Sally Acorn and Amy Rose when the two came to liberate Sonic, who had been abducted by the Destructix. Although the rescue was successful, Geoffrey and company were humiliated when they were unable to prove their claims of Mogul's involvement in the incident due to lack of evidence.


 * The character who would evolve to Geoffrey appeared in several episodes of SatAM, though was unamed nor given a speaking role. The relationship of Hershey and Geoffrey, being a romance between a black cat and a skunk, is likely a tribute to Penelope Pussycat and Pepé Le Pew.

Ian St. John
Father of modern day Secret Service leader Geoffrey St. John, Ian was the leader of the Secret Service back in the days preceding Robotnik's coup. Like Geoffrey, he was a Mobian skunk, appearing virtually identical to his son except for having a military crew cut of white hair rather than Geoffrey's tuft.

Assigned to be the personal bodyguard of Queen Alicia and Prince Elias Acorn at the time of the coup, Ian and his team were carrying them to an unknown destination (presumably a safehouse of some sort) when their ship was damaged by an Overlander attack and crash landed on Angel Island. Ian and his team, with a single exception, were all killed. Inspired by his father's sacrifice, Geoffrey later followed in his footsteps to become leader of the Secret Service.

Hershey St. John
Hershey St. John, formerly known more simply as Hershey the Cat, is partner and wife to Geoffrey St. John. She is a female, anthropomorphic cat with black fur covering her entire body except her face and chest, which are white. Hershey also has green eyes and short black hair, and her wardrobe commonly includes boots and a vest of some sort. As a Cat, her main weakness is that she can't swim; other than that, she's skilled in numerous forms of combat and other areas.

Hershey was thought to be nothing more than an amateur, but that theory is crushed in a story of her own, Hershey Solo, in Sonic Super Special #5. Hershey was originally a pawn in a scheme to kill Sally Acorn when her then boyfriend, Drago Wolf, tricked her into wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog disguise. However, the mask contained eyepieces that caused the wearer to see Snively in place of anyone else. This led to Hershey cutting the rope Sally was hanging from, thinking that Snively was dangling from it. She later learned the truth, and vengefully helped put Drago behind bars; thankfully, Sally was not permanently harmed by the incident. She was forgiven, and joined King Acorn's Secret Service at the behest of Geoffrey.

Hershey made several appearances over time, working together with Geoffrey in multiple instances. Unfortunately, Hershey was taken off active duty along with the rest of Geofferey's squad after being infected with nanobots injected into their bloodstreams. Luckily, it wasn't too long before these probes were eliminated and Hershey was able to rejoin Geoffrey on active duty. Among her more prominent assignments were locating Prince Elias Acorn and joining in the battle against the Xorda. She and Geoffrey were also the first Mobians to encounter Sonic after his return from his year-long disappearance, or at least year long to the Mobians, where he saved them from being killed by a SWATbot taskforce. Sonic's rescue occurred only seconds after the two, having escaped Dr. Robotnik only to be caught again and granted a last request, had gotten married-over the years, their respect for each other had blossomed into love. Together, she and Geoffrey now head up the Secret Service from the top floor of the Kingdom of Acorn army headquarters in New Mobotropolis.


 * Hershey's name either comes from The Hershey Company, or from the name of a cat writer Ken Penders once owned.

Heavy and Bomb
''See main article for more details.

Created by Dr. Robotnik, Heavy and Bomb defected and worked briefly with the Chaotix before joining the Secret Service. However, they were eventually reprogrammed into being evil, thus removing them from the organization.

Smiley
A palace guard, known for his toothy grin. He does not have many speaking roles in the comic.

Colonel Sommersby
One of the senior members of King Acorn's former secret service roster. During the close of the Great war, the Colonel was assigned along Ian St. John (Father of Geoffrey) to safely escort Queen Alicia Acorn and Prince Elias Acorn to the royal compound on Angel Island in order to protect them from invading overlander forces. Before they could reach the island, Overlander Air forces attacked the royal craft and shot it down on the island's surface. Ian died instantly and the Queen was put in a coma. Disoriented, the Colonel was unable to find the crew or the royal family. Unknown to him, The Brotherhood of Guardians rescued Elias and put the Queen into Cryogenic freezing until recently. Years later after wandering the island, young Elias ran into the Colonel and later wound up at the compound. When new evidence reached King Acorn in Mobotropolis that Alicia and Elias were alive, he sent Geoffrey St. John and the Secret service to Angel Island to investigate. After dealing with the strange weather (Day of Fury), The servicemen broke into the compound where they met The Colonel and his wife, and Elias.

Valdez the Chameleon
A blue Chameleon and friend of Espio, Valdez was a member of the Secret Service who left for unknown reasons but was later rerecruited by Geoffrey St. John during his reorganization of the group.

Valdez's time with the Secret Service didn't last long: when the Mobians of the Kingdom of Acorn were driven once again from Robotropolis, he stayed behind to hold off the Shadowbots and was subsequently captured and Roboticized. Dr. Eggman then reprogrammed him, making him believe that his friends had betrayed him to his current fate, and was dispatched to his home community to enslave the native Chameleons. He later ended up battling his old friend Espio when the Chaotix member arrived to help his people. He has either been destroyed or restored to normal thanks to the Bem.


 * Current writer Ian Flynn has stated that he assumes the character to have been destroyed by Espio, but does not plan on revisiting the subject in the series.

Wombat Stu
See main article for more details.

Formerly a member of the Downunda Freedom Fighters, Stu was recruited into the Secret Service, but returned to his old group during Sonic's time in space.