TMNT Entity

Publication date: August 28, 2013

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz

Script: Tom Waltz

Layouts: Kevin Eastman

Art: Mateus Santolouco

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee and Tom Long

Editor: Bobby Curnow

“City Fall, Part Four”

Summary:

At a warehouse, Karai ferrets out a gang of Savate ninja. The Savate feel they have the upper hand, but it was all an act so that Dark Leo could ambush the Frenchmen. Karai wants to kill the field leader, but Leo insists she let him return to his boss, Victor, with the warning to stay out of the Shredder’s way.

At the hospital, Casey and April receive a status update from Don and Mike (via Skype). Casey is blown away by the idea that Leo has switched sides, but Don tells him there’s a lot of that going around, as Hob and Slash seem to be getting buddy-buddy with them, lately. After the call ends, Casey confesses to April that he feels useless sitting in his hospital bed, missing all the action. April tells him that she’s just happy to know he’s safe and the two finally share a kiss.

In the alleys outside the Skara Brae, Raph shakes down the hobos Timmy Two-Shoes and Kanada. He remembers them from the whole briefcase incident and demands they give him the scoop on everything going down in the underworld scene. Timmy says that there’s a major power struggle in action and it goes all the way up the ladder.

Elsewhere, Victor and the Savate crush a unit of Foot Soldiers. Victor is approached by the Italian Marcello, who says the Families have called an emergency conference. Victor has a sit down with Antonio, the head of the Italian Families. Antonio says he’s concerned about Victor’s confrontational approach to dealing with the Foot Clan and that it’s causing them all trouble. Marcello speaks out of turn, causing Victor to kill him and tell the families they can either be predators or prey.

At Foot HQ, Leo and Karai deliver news of their successful ambush to the Shredder and Kitsune. Karai is incensed to learn that it was Leo’s decision to use her as bait to lure out the Savate and she questions Leo’s qualifications for Chunin, as he once again shied away from killing. Shredder silences Karai and then dismisses them both. Before leaving, Leo looks at Shredder and Kitsune and has a brief vision of Hamato Yoshi and Tang Shen. Once they leave, Shredder tells Kitsune he is concerned that maintaining his "no kill" order to Leo will only stunt his effectiveness as Chunin. Kitsune warns Shredder that Leo’s grip on his past life still remains and that forcing him to kill may break their hold on him. A Foot Soldier delivers a message from Victor: A severed hand with the note “WAR” on it. Karai warns Kitsune that the time to keep Leo on a leash is running short.

At the Jones household, Casey’s dad thinks about the trouble his son is in and how useless he’s been as a father. He declares “No more!” then tears off his shirt, revealing a tattoo of a purple dragon.

At a safe house (marked with the same purple dragon symbol), Splinter has a pow wow with Old Hob. He says that he will consider joining with Hob’s mutant gang, but only under the condition that Hob help return Leo to sanity. Hob accepts, though under a condition of his own: Splinter must complete a mission for him as a show of good faith.

Prowling the streets, Raph interrogates crooked Detectives Miller and Corbin, demanding they tell him where the Foot Clan resides. Raph is pulled away by Don and Mikey, who have had enough of Raph’s tortured loner act. Raph confesses that he feels responsible for Leo’s predicament, but his brothers tell him that this is no way to get things resolved. They decide to work together on a plan.

Elsewhere, Shredder and Leo monitor Savate headquarters for their decisive strike. Shredder orders Leo to fight alongside him, demoting Karai and Alopex to the secondary unit. Alopex whines to Karai that being reduced to back-up is demeaning. Karai informs her not to overestimate her value, but that a secondary strategy is never a bad thing to have...

As she says this, in a secret lab somewhere, two thugs are transformed into a mutant warthog and a mutant rhino. And they couldn’t be happier about it.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #24. The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #26.

*Timmy Two-Shoes, Kanada and Detectives Miller and Corbin last appeared in TMNT Annual 2012, which is also when the whole “brief case thing” that Raph references went down.

*This issue was originally published with 5 variant covers: Cover A by Santolouco, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RI by Mark Buckingham and Charlie Kirchoff, Cover RE for Jetpack by Eastman and Cover RE Jetpack with Michelangelo bandana.

Review:

Whew! That was a lot to take in, wasn’t it? There’s a strange flow to the narrative of “City Fall”, as we drift from segments that are loaded with story and narrative progression, and then into segments that are all action and spectacle. Toss in the vital interlude chapters in the form of the Villain Micros and you’ve got an arc that moves at a disorienting pace. It’s not a terrible structure, as it keeps you on your toes, but it certainly feels rather spastic.

The fourth chapter is all about moving things along and only here, at the halfway point, do we finally get to see the gang war come into play. This thing has been simmering since as far back as TMNT #6; nearly twenty issues ago. It’s gratifying to finally see the plot thread come into relevance, but yikes that was a long wait. Still, it’s comforting to know the writing/editing team behind IDW’s TMNT have had such a far-reaching game plan since Day One. We live in a time where creative teams are swapped out every 6 issues and the “grand scheme” approach has become a relic of a bygone era. So knowing that this was all planned out two years in advance is impressive. Just, you know. It can be a bit of a nerve-grinder to read a plot thread in one issue and then have to wait 20 issues for it to bear fruit.

The Savate ninja are finally taking center stage and man, they had better live up to the hype. All they’ve been utilized for so far was comedy relief in the 2012 Annual. I enjoyed that story, but as a first impression, it made the Savate out to be woefully ineffectual criminals. Having been placed under new management since we last suffered them, however, I expect they won’t be rendered in such humorous capacity again. I suppose it’s a side effect from leaving a plot point to boil for two years, but it's a gamble; you build a lot of hype and if you fail to deliver, the whole thing could blow up in your face. If the Savate don’t satisfy 20 issues worth of build-up, well, that’s two years of plotting and two years of reader expectation down the drain.

But before we get all doomy and gloomy in here, the “Krang War” arc was much the same. General Krang was introduced in TMNT #1 and it wasn't until TMNT #17 that his arc came to a head. And I loved it. The build-up was long and excruciating, but the end result was a satisfying read that met my expectations. No reason the same can’t happen for the Savate, so let’s wait and see what happens (and if you've been reading this comic, waiting is something you ought to be an expert at by now).

Karai is still pouting about rank and respect, and it’s gotten to the point where that’s all she’s been doing for I don’t know how long. “Grandpaaaaa why don’t you appreciate my accomplishments!?” “Grandpaaaaaa why do you like Leonardo more than me!?” “Grandpaaaaaawhy can’t I be second in command!?” “Grandpaaaaaaaa!!”

Jeez, put a lid on it, you big crybaby.

I remarked in my review for the Karai Villain Micro that she lacks a personality beyond being resentful and entitled, so I’m really hoping “City Fall” is where Karai finally grows as a character. The editor’s remarks in the letters column assures us she’ll be a major player in the second half and we’re already seeing her handiwork at the end of this issue, so I’m content to presume big things await her.

And oh yeah, now there’s a cliffhanger splash page if I ever saw one. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Bebop and Rocksteady since they first cameod (as humans) in the Raph Micro almost two years ago. Again, their development has been another long simmering plot point, but one that’s finally come to fruition. I don’t want to talk about them too much until they’ve finally done something in this series, but man, I can’t wait until they do.

All these paragraphs and I’ve yet to remark on the Turtles. With so much going on, the non-Leo TMNT kind of fall into the cracks of this issue. Don and Mikey are reduced to giving Casey and April status updates and reigning in Raph’s renegade act. The end result is that they decide to work together to get Leo back, an obvious conclusion I would have thought they’d have been able to come to without making a big production about it. Really, Raph’s rebelling just serves to remind readers that the surplus of characters introduced in the 2012 Annual still exist.

Anyhow, to wrap things up (I haven’t even bothered with developments like Casey and April locking lips, Splinter and Hob playing odd couple, the Purple Dragon foreshadowing or Shredder revealing that he ordered Leo not to kill anybody), after last issue’s lack of story, this issue just unloads the plot developments on you. But I’m digging seeing all these long stewing storylines finally pay off, so hey, bring em on.

Grade: B- (as in, “But the editor’s note at the end said Pizzaface is never gonna happen. I am disappointed beyond the realm of consolation”.)

In past installments of Awesome Turtles Pictures, we looked at some character evolutions, such as how "Terrorpin the Terrible" became Tokka, or how Baxter Stockman got fused with a character called "The Fly" to become Baxter-Fly. Today, we're going to look at how some toy design pitches evolved into the recognizable characters we ended up getting.

First up is Peter Laird's initial sketch for "rhino mutant". Guess who he wound up becoming?

So yes, contrary to popular belief, Eastman and Laird did do the original design and creative work for Fred Wolf/Playmates characters such as Bebop and Rocksteady (think about that next time you accuse them of hating the Fred Wolf/Playmates characters and concepts). Interestingly, a LOT of these action figure pitch sketches I've got stored away are credited to Peter Laird; I'm having a hard time finding any by Kevin Eastman. Seems either Laird pitched a lot more toys than Eastman did, or Eastman simply hasn't shared his sketches online like Laird has.

Here's another one labeled simply "duck". This guy dropped the flight suit, put on a bomber jacket and became Ace Duck by the time his toy was molded (though in the case of the Archie comics, he dropped the flight suit and slipped on a revealing speedo, but the less said about that the better).

Here's a character named "Scalien". His robotic exoskeleton brace giving him mechanical limbs reminds me a bit of Fishface from the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon and toyline. Being a mutant cobra, however, he may be a predecessor to the Playmates character Scale Tail, who dropped the robotic limbs in exchage for, like, snake limbs. On a snake. That 80s toyline was weird, man.

These next two sketches are for a character called "The Unknown" (love the name), who is described as being a failed attempt to combine two animals into a single mutation. He wound up evolving into Mutagen Man, who it seems will be making a comeback in the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon.

Some wild stuff. And those are the ones that actually MADE it to the shelves in some form or another. Believe it or not, but there were design pitches considered too weird for the 80s toyline.

Publication date: November, 2003

Written by: Peter David

Pencils by: Lesean Thomas

Inks: Erik Sander

Colors: Shaun Curtis, Rob Ruffolo, Ramil Sunga, Winter Bell

Flats: Kenny Li

Letters: Matt Moylan

VP/Editor in Chief: Roger Lee

President: Pat Lee

Cover: Lesean Thomas, Erik Sander, Rob Ruffolo

“Bend it Like Turtles”

Summary:

While in Central Park, teenage martial artist Dheeraj protects his crush Jaya from a gang called the Thoogs. He wins the day, but unfortunately for Dheeraj, it’s all just a dream. April wakes him up, telling him that he’s helped enough around the antique shop for one day. Dheeraj tells April good night and heads home. After he leaves, Leo steps out of the shadows and asks April about him. April says that Dheeraj is a good kid who gets straight-As and is a black belt. Leo fears that good kids like him often wind up dead in this city.

Down the street, Dheeraj sees Jaya being bullied by several Thoogs. Dheeraj comes to her rescue and tells the Thoogs to leave her alone. The lumbering Heramba intimidates Dheeraj and he freezes in the middle of the fight. Dheeraj is pummeled and the Thoogs only leave after a nearby shop owner (Mr. Chen) calls the police. Jaya tries to help Dheeraj up, but he refuses her and hobbles away in shame.

He makes it back to the Second Time Around shop and April helps him up into her apartment to rest. Once Dheeraj gets his head together, Leo reveals himself to the teen. Leo tells Dheeraj that having knowledge of the martial arts is meaningless if you lack confidence. He tells Dheeraj that he’s going to stab him with his sword unless he does something about it. Leo swings his blade and Dheeraj manages to instinctively kick it from the Turtle’s hand. Leo compliments Dheeraj’s move, but warns him not to get overconfident, as his opponent may have a second blade (as Leo puts his second sword up to Dheeraj’s neck).

The next day, Jaya is talking to Mr. Chen when they’re both approached by the Thoogs. The Thoogs aren’t happy that Chen called the police and they want to send a message. Suddenly, Dheeraj arrives and tells the Thoogs to leave. Heramba steps up to him and Dheeraj begins to get jittery. He spots Leo on a rooftop watching him and regains his confidence. Dheeraj takes out the Thoogs with ease and they run away.

Later, Leo tells Splinter of what he taught Dheeraj and is confident that Dheeraj’s troubles are over. Splinter scolds Leonardo, saying that such troubles are rarely resolved so easily. Indeed, as elsewhere, the Thoog leader tells his underlings that they’re going to offer membership to Dheeraj. And if Dheeraj should refuse, they’ll kill him.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Dreamwave) #5. The series concludes in TMNT (Dreamwave) #7.

*In the letters column, Matt Moylan claims that this issue contained a special foldout poster for “T4: The Turtlenator”. That poster was actually included in the previous issue, as this issue contains a Transformers Armada poster.

Review:

People often say that the Dreamwave TMNT comic improved once it “came into its own” and began featuring original stories, but then I read shit like “Bend it Like Turtles” and wonder what they’re talking about. For whatever reason, Peter David’s idea for a TMNT comic was to do an anthology not about the Ninja Turtles, but about the people whose lives they’ve made an impact on (be it intentionally or accidentally). While that’s certainly an unorthodox approach, the end result is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic that isn’t about the freakin’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s about everyone BUT the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When the Dreamwave series began as adaptations of the 4Kids cartoon shown from different POVs, you could almost forgive the approach, but even with free reign to tell any kind of story he wants, David STILL eschews telling stories focused on the Turtles.

And I just don’t care about these brand new characters David is introducing. Dheeraj is so incredibly bland. A straight-A student with a black belt in martial arts and a heart of gold whose only weakness is that he’s just too nice… Oh yeah, what a fascinating character. Truly enthralling. And of course, Leonardo teaches him to overcome his one character defect in this story, so by the end of the comic he’s absolutely perfect. How boring can you get?

And jeez, I’m sick of whining about Lesean Thomas’s terrible art. Instead, here are some selections.

Way to stay on model between panels, April. Also, Dheeraj can see in two directions at once. Is that a ninja move?

Behold! Lesean Thomas: Master of the ctrl+c ctrl+v maneuver! And it would be nice if he’d settle on a shape for April’s eyes before penciling the issue instead of experimenting with every variety from panel to panel.

Scale? What the fuck is scale? Either that or Dheeraj is 2 feet tall. Or maybe Heramba is 15 feet tall? I sure as hell can’t tell.

God dammit, he even draws the PIZZA separately in his tablet and then pastes it onto the characters? Can Thomas actually draw people holding stuff or not? And, again, what is up with April’s eyes?

I’m not sure what cards Lesean Thomas played to get into the industry, but this stuff is Amateur Hour, plain and simple.

Everything about the Dreamwave comic is bad. Except for the fact that it’s almost over.

Grade: F (as in, “For maximum hilarity, check out the Dreamwave Mega Man comic advertised in the back of this issue. It’s the second worst Astro Boy adaptation ever created!”)

Publication date: December, 2003

Written by: Peter David

Pencils by: Lesean Thomas

Inks: Erik Sander

Colors: Stuart Ng, Jong-im Lee, Sigmund Torre

Flats: Kenny Li

Letters: Matt Moylan

VP/Editor in Chief: Roger Lee

President: Pat Lee

Cover: Skottie Young

“Kali Flower”

Summary:

Outside the Second Time Around shop, Dheeraj and Jaya are having a makeout session. April interrupts them, as it’s time for Dheeraj to get to work. Inside, Dheeraj brings up the Turtles within earshot of customers and April pulls him aside for a little chat. She tells him that their existence must remain a secret, and if he respects the Turtles, he’ll keep his mouth shut.

That night, in the alleys, Casey Jones and Leonardo bust up some punks. Leo asks Casey what he knows about the Thoogs and Casey says that they’re a weird gang of pseudo-cultists, out to resurrect ancient gods. Casey tells Leo where he can find their hideout (an old theater), then hops on his motorcycle and leaves. Leo heads to the roof where he’s met by his brothers. The other Turtles insist on helping him deal with the Thoogs and Leo reluctantly accepts the offer. Together, all four Turtles pile into the Sewer Sled and head to the theater.

Elsewhere, Dheeraj arrives at his family’s apartment only to be greeted by Mangesh, the leader of the Thoogs. Mangesh explains that the Thoogs have taken Jaya hostage and if Dheeraj doesn’t join up with them, they’ll kill her. Dheeraj agrees to join their gang and Mangesh tells him to meet up with the Thoogs at midnight at the old theater.

The Turtles arrive at the theater through the rear entrance and spot the Thoogs on stage. Jaya is tied up and they’re performing a ritual to summon Kali. Leonardo thinks and realizes that just beating the Thoogs up won’t be enough to stop them from tormenting Dheeraj; they need to scare the punks straight. Donatello looks around at the leftover theater props and figures he can work something out.

Dheeraj makes it to the theater and attempts to hoist Jaya up to the catwalk by her ropes. He’s spotted and Mangesh prepares to kill their sacrifice. Suddenly, a giant robed, four-armed figure wielding swords and sais appears on stage. Its Leonardo disguised as Kali, of course. Using the booming audio equipment, Mikey tells the Thoogs that Kali is outraged at their impudence. He swears to swears to destroy all the Thoogs for bothering him with their foolish ritual. On cue, Don shuts off the lights and the Turtles beat down all the Thoogs. Mangesh attempts to flee, but is knocked out by Dheeraj. “Kali” vanishes and Dheeraj and Jaya leave together.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Dreamwave) #6.

*The script for issue #8 as well as some of the pencils were completed before the series was abruptly cancelled. Some of the pencils can be seen in Dreamwave’s TMNT Vol. 2 trade paperback.

*Contrary to popular belief, the cancellation of Dreamwave’s TMNT comic had NOTHING to do with Dreamwave’s bankruptcy. Dreamwave closed down in 2005, almost two years after this series was canned. The Dreamwave TMNT comic was cancelled because it sucked, end of story.

Review:

This has to have been the absolute WORST string of TMNT comics I have ever read. Every issue ranged from bad to terrible, with boring stories, boring characters, incompetent pacing and incompetent art. There is nothing redeeming about Dreamwave’s Ninja Turtles comic; it’s only saving grace is that you can get each issue for a quarter, I suppose.

This final issue (which wasn’t meant to be the final issue) finishes up Dheeraj’s storyline, as the Turtles find a way to keep the Thoogs off his back. Hey, remember when the Turtles used to fight bad guys like the Shredder? Apparently, that stuff is dullsville, man. Episodic tales where the Turtles teach valuable life lessons to inner city children, THAT’S where it’s at!

Dheeraj is as obnoxiously milquetoast a character as ever. Needless to say, he hasn’t the charisma to carry a two-issue story arc. I wonder if David had plans to keep him around as a major supporting character in the series? I’m grateful the comic didn’t last long enough for me to find out.

Apparently, the next issue would have begun a story arc called “T4: The Turtlenator” which the comic had been advertising for a few months. The solicit says that Baxter Stockman’s Mouser mainframe would have gained sentience and, angered that the Turtles “killed” her “children”, seek revenge by building a robotic doppelganger called the Turtlenator. The ads even call out that it’s featuring the enemy from the 2003 Konami TMNT video game, trying to make some sort of tie-in with it. Wasn’t the evil robot called the Turtlebot in the Konami game? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. While the teasers for the Turtles fighting the Turtlenator may have looked promising, let’s not kid ourselves. The issues would have suffered from all the same scripting and art problems that plagued the entire run of the Dreamwave series. It may not have been as boring as three straight issues of the Turtles helping kids deal with “real life” problems, but it would have been terrible in its own unique sort of ways, I’m sure.

As for the art in this issue, I’m tired of pointing out all the same fundamental problems. Instead, I’d just like to mention how hilarious it is that this issue had FOUR colorists and they STILL got bandana colors wrong on a couple pages. All that and Matt Moylan screws up the lettering, assigning the wrong dialogue to the wrong Turtle. And he’s the guy in charge of Udon Studios, now? Can’t say I’m surprised. It takes some powerful incompetence to spend ten years publishing Street Fighter comics that won’t sell.

Anyway, I’m just glad to have this dark cloud lifted from over my head. I’ll never have to read these fucking things ever again.

Grade: F (as in, “Finally. I can live again”.)

I've spent most of these Awesome Turtle Picture features looking back at the classics. It's time to highlight one of my favorite pieces of recent TMNT art. Ross Campbell's variant cover for TMNT (IDW) #16 featuring Slash:

Man, I love it.

Campbell renders Slash in his more classic design rather than the Tokka-esque appearance Slash sports in the IDW comics. I've got to say, I like this look quite a bit more (not that I don't dig his Tokka-look, either).

It's a superb composition that fluidly encapsulates all the distinct personalities of each Turtle in a single image. Mikey is spastically hanging on for dear life, Raph is angrily stabbing away, Don is strategically trying to strike where he thinks Slash might be vulnerable and Leo is calmly and coolly poising for a decisive blow. The circle of white light in the background frames the characters so they aren't lost in a black mess while also establishing the sewer tunnel setting. The shuriken sticking out of Slash's body along with all the debris on the ground give the impression that this battle has been going on for a while. And to top it all off, Slash has his binky. Aww.

Just an all-around great piece of work.

But not Campbell's best piece of work. That honor goes to his Critters fanart:

Because holy shit someone actually took the time out of their day to draw Critters fanart I can't believe it.

Originally published in: Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #9

Publication date: March, 2005

Plot: Sonia Murphy

Script: Steve Murphy

Art: Steph Dumais

Letters: Eric Talbot

“Community Service”

Summary:

Talking to a class full of teenage ruffians, Casey lets them know that he used to run with a “gang” of his own until he cleaned up his act. Casey tells them about how he and “four brothers” used to pick fights with the Foot Clan, who were real dangerous back in the day.

Furthermore, Casey insists that fighting in real life is nothing like in the movies. You can get hurt really bad or worse, you could lose your life altogether. He asks the students what that would leave them with.

The students unanimously agree that they’d be left with nothing. Casey reminds them that at the moment, they have everything: Namely, their whole futures to look forward to.

Turtle Tips:

*Given Casey’s lesson, this story would take place after his retirement from the vigilante life. Personally, considering how the Foot Clan’s glory days are treated like a thing long past, I’d place it during the Mirage “Volume 3” era.

Review:

For some reason, this little 5-page vignette is one of the few from Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 that really stuck in my memory. I mean, on the surface, it doesn’t seem very special, but I think it holds an important place in the narrative of Casey’s life.

"Shades of Gray" and “City at War” offered a compelling reason for Casey to give up the vigilante lifestyle; and save for a few relapses under extreme circumstances, he never returned to it (until Vol. 4, but that’s in the future). What I like about “Community Service” is that it illustrates how much Casey has grown as an adult. Running around alleys and beating up thugs with hockey sticks wasn’t the solution, but even though he’s given up being a vigilante, Casey hasn’t given up on his inner drive to help the less fortunate and put an end to street crime. Here, he’s taking a preemptive strike against gang violence by trying to steer youths in the right direction before they make a huge mistake. He still cares, but he’s found a better way. Again, it’s a pleasant reminder that Casey is no longer the thuggish 20-something out for the thrill of spilling blood, but has outgrown that personality and put it behind him.

It’s a small reminder, but we need it every once in a while.

The script was written by Steve Murphy (based on a plot by Sonia Murphy), but Murphy weirdly messes with Casey’s speech pattern in ways he never has before. Casey's constantly dropping “dats” and “wuz” and “dese” and “dis”, and while he’s never been the most eloquent individual, the phonetic stylizing is little much. Again, it’s not something Murphy’s ever really done with Casey (at least, not in such excess), making me wonder if Sonia Murphy actually wrote the script, too.

Dumais’s pencils have an enjoyably stylized quality to them. They’re perhaps a little on the flat side, which can make reading the hectic and crazy layouts a challenge, but they work well for a 5-page short. From the context of the story, the first 4 pages are Casey’s memories, so the wildly exaggerated tone makes sense. Once we get to the classroom in the final page, the composition takes a 2-point perspective and looks much more down to Earth and readable. So I appreciate the method Dumais used.

“Community Service” isn’t going to go down in TMNT history or anything and may get lost in the mix of other, more exciting and action-driven back-up strips, but I think it serves a subtle yet vital purpose. Take it and drop it somewhere during your Mirage read-through, preferably between TMNT Vol. 2 and TMNT Vol. 4. You’ll get a better sense of Casey’s growth as a person and he’ll feel all the more fully realized for it.

Grade: B (as in, “But maybe you shouldn’t bring that mask to show off, Casey. Your alter ego is still kind of wanted for the murder of a teenager, you know”.)

Publication date: March, 2005

Story and art: Jim Lawson

Letters: Eric Talbot

Frontispiece: A.C. Farley

Letters page art: Dave White

Cover: Lawson and Talbot

“The Path”

Summary:

Frontispiece:

Sitting in a library and gripping a pair of nunchakus, Splinter addresses an unseen individual. He asks if they know the difference between strength and cold-heartedness. He warns of the dangers of following a broken heart and wonders what paths they will take. He decides to tell a story…

Meditating, Splinter has a vision of death.

In the apartment in New York, the Turtles lounge around the living room. Klunk slips through a loose screen on the window and hops down into the alley. Raph tells Mikey to go get Klunk before he gets in another fight with the alley cat, but Mike just shrugs it off and continues watching TV. Down in the alley, Lilly the bag lady sees Klunk. Having three cats herself, she calls to Klunk. Klunk runs away into the street and right in the path of an oncoming car. The driver swerves to miss Klunk, but hits him with his fender.

The Turtles run to the window and see the accident. The driver is angrily yelling on his cell phone about a cat causing him to swerve and hit a lamp post. Mike sees Lilly run over to Klunk’s injured body and carry him away. Angry and scared, Mike quickly puts on a coat and hat and leaves the apartment.

Mike stops Lilly and demands Klunk back. He shoves her over and grabs his pet. Klunk is bleeding and will be dead soon. Mike panics and wants to get Klunk to a vet, but it looks like it's too late. Lilly tells Mike that Thomas, who lives by the river, can save Klunk’s life. Reluctantly, Mike follows her.

They reach a shack on the river and Thomas, the magic man, comes out to inspect Klunk. He tells Mike that he can save Klunk, but only in exchange for a comparable life: another cat’s. Mike leaves Klunk with Thomas and runs away to find another cat. Looking around alleys and rooftops, Mike begins to panic, not sure what he should do. Suddenly, he remembers…

A week ago. Splinter takes Mike for a walk down the sewer tunnels to have a serious talk. Splinter says that he recently had a vision of death and it was attached to Mike. He tells Mike that his love and compassion is one of his greatest assets, but that it’s also his greatest weakness. Splinter warns Mike that his enemies will not share in his sense of morality and that he must learn to steel himself so that he can make the hard decisions.

The present. Mike returns to Thomas with a stray cat. He gives Thomas the cat, saying that it’s nothing but an alley cat that lives behind their apartment. Thomas asks if Michelangelo is sure that he wants to exchange Klunk’s life for this stray’s and Mike assures Thomas that “nobody loves it”. As soon as he says those words, Mike realizes that what he’s doing is wrong. He tells Thomas to let the stray go. Mike then takes Klunk and hugs him as he dies. As Mike leaves, the stray follows him. Looking on, Thomas tells Lilly that the stray was not a comparable life.

Later, back at the apartment, Mike asks Splinter for a talk. Mike tells his sensei what happened and laments that Splinter was right; he was faced with a hard choice and he wasn’t able to work up the nerve to do it. Splinter tells Mike that he walks two paths; that of compassion and that of a warrior. Splinter feels that he has much to learn from Michelangelo.

The Turtles then interrupt and ask Mike to join them in the alley. They show Mike the stray whom Klunk had been fighting with and whom he almost sacrificed to Thomas. The stray turns out to have been a mama and has just had a litter of kittens. Even more, they’re Klunk’s kittens. Mike picks one of them up and cradles it in his arms.

Turtle Tips:

*Thematically, “A Klunk Adventure” is an excellent short to read directly before this issue.

*This issue was originally published with a back up story, “Community Service” by Sonia Murphy and Steph Dumais.

Review:

Oh Klunk. Introduced way back in Michelangelo (microseries) #1, that little kitty has been around since almost the very beginning. Klunk’s always been there in the background, hanging out, but it’s amazing all the stuff he’s lived through. The Foot burning down April’s place, an exile to Northampton, Government spooks ransacking April and Casey’s apartment… And in the end, it was a car that did him in.

For the animal lover (such as myself; we’ve always owned cats and dogs in my family), this is a tear-jerker. You never realized how much you cared about Klunk until he gets hit by that car and Mike has to say goodbye. But as much as Klunk is the centerpiece of “The Path”, the story is really a character study on Michelangelo. And in that regard, this is one of the best Mikey spotlight issues ever written.

We all see Michelangelo as the “party dude” and the kid-appeal character; the friendly and marketable one. He’s also the comic relief, usually the first to screw up and the least skilled of all the TMNT. It can be pretty annoying and I’ve written my share of reviews summing up how much he can get on my nerves. But there’s a reason he’s like that. Michelangelo doesn’t want to be a warrior. He doesn’t want to spend his whole life fighting. The cartoons (and some of the comics) like to play this angle up as his being irresponsible or lazy; he’d rather be partying or playing video games than practicing and studying. But “The Path” offers a different angle on Mikey’s attitude. He doesn’t want to fight because he doesn’t want to hurt people. He doesn’t have the heart to make the tough choices; he’s a softy.

Yeah, I know, I know. This runs rather at odds with how Michelangelo is portrayed in action-oriented ensemble stories, where he’s bashing Foot Soldiers to death with a smile and a quip. Heck, TMNT(Vol. 1) #1 has Mikey swearing a blood oath to Splinter to kill his arch nemesis for him. But Mikey’s a character who has grown and changed over the course of the series. By TMNT Vol. 4, he takes on the mundane occupation of tour guide for alien diplomats and loves it because he gets to meet new people and have fun and socialize. Mikey has grown as a character and so have the priorities of this book; the more simplistic, gritty and ultraviolent characterizations aren’t enough anymore.

And in regards to Splinter forcing Mikey to swear a blood oath, even he’s growing as a character and learning the error of his ways. At the start of the issue (and by start, I mean the frontispiece, as this is one of those rare frontispieces that actually ties into the following story), Splinter addresses what he perceives as a weakness in Mike’s character; that if he is to be a warrior, he cannot be so soft. When push comes to shove, he’ll have to toughen up and make a difficult decision, even if it hurts. At the end of the issue, though, Splinter realizes that he was wrong; that HE was the one pushing Mike to be a warrior, disregarding his son’s own set of values. If Michelangelo had “steeled himself” and made that hard decision in his own self interest, he’d have actually made a terrible mistake. It’s a humbling experience for Splinter (and you know how much I love those) and he concedes that his son’s compassion isn’t a weakness, but a strength, and that he’s free to walk his own path in life.

And the moment where Michelangelo makes that choice is a beautiful bit of storytelling on Lawson’s part. It’s a sequence where the decompression really works. Michelangelo says “nobody loves it” and then silently realizes what it is he just said. Then he has to make the decision to let Klunk die, and god, the look on Klunk’s little kitty face as he stares back up at Mikey and dies, it’s just so well done. If you’ve ever had to go through the pain of putting a pet to sleep, you know exactly how Mikey is feeling right there; the guilt and helplessness and sorrow. The scene really hits all the chords; just excellent work from Lawson.

In the end, though, there’s a message that life goes on. The cat Mike spares turns out to have been carrying Klunk’s litter and Mikey ends up adopting one (I don’t think it ever gets a name, but the kitty will show up throughout Vol. 4). It’s a bittersweet end, as Klunk is gone, but he’s left behind a legacy. It’s that same feeling you get after you’ve said farewell to your pet and adopted a new one; that lingering sense of loss combined with that newfound sense of joy.

“The Path” is a vital tale when it comes to understanding who Michelangelo is at his very center. He’s just a sweet, soft-hearted guy who doesn’t have it in him to so much as kill a stray cat, but that doesn’t make him a weak individual, either. That compassion is his strength, allowing him to go in a direction completely different from where his brothers are headed.

Grade: A (as in, “Although his jokes are still stupid and he gets on my nerves, but at least we know why”.)

Publication date: September 11, 2013

Written by: Mike Costa and Ben Epstein

Art: Mike Henderson

Colors: Ian Herring

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

Attending an AA meeting, Arnold Jones lets the group know how far he’s come since he hit rock bottom a month ago. He decides to tell them the whole story, from beginning to end...

Arnold says that as a youth, he ran with the Purple Dragon gang, where he bleached his hair blonde, got a massive tattoo and was known by the nickname “Atilla the Hun” because of his mountainous size and prodigious strength. Eventually, though, he met a girl who convinced him to discard the Dragons and go straight. They got married and had a son named Casey. However, after his wife died from cancer, Arnold began hitting the bottle and then hitting his son. Eventually, he laments, that he lost his son altogether and, while his boy was away, he was stabbed and placed in intensive care.

After leaving the hospital in disgrace, Arnold hits the Skara Brae, owned by his friend Brooklyn S. Bridge. Brooklyn buys him a drink and starts reminiscing about the good ole days, when they ran with the Purple Dragons. Brooklyn tells Arnold about his daughter, Angel, and how she’s turning the Dragons around into a community watch group. Not happy with this turn of events, Arnold sets the drink down without embibing it and leaves.

On the way home, he’s pummeled by Dark Leo, who tells him that his master wants a word with him. Arnold recognizes Leo as one of the freaks his son hangs around with and, without much choice, accompanies Leo to see the Shredder. Shredder tells Arnold that he knows about his son’s injury. He asks him how, once his son recovers, will he pay for the extensive hospital bills? Shredder offers Arnold a chance: Become Hun again, take back control of the Purple Dragons and work for him. Arnold thinks he’s too old and soft to ever be Hun again, but Shredder shows him some mutagen which he says will return him to the peak of his former physical and mental faculties and then some. Arnold picks up the vile of mutagen and agrees to Shredder’s offer.

Now a walking mountain of muscle again, and no longer in a state of perpetual inebriation, Arnold dyes is hair blonde, dons a jacket showing off his Dragon colors and takes back his identity as Hun. He then tracks the Dragons down and confronts them, challenging Angel for leadership. The Dragons gang up on him, but he beats them down with ease. He tells Angel that he’ll spare her on the condition that she doesn’t breathe a word of his new “employment” to Casey, Brooklyn or anybody else. Angel concedes. The Dragons then swear loyalty to Hun.

From there, Hun and the Dragons take on the underworld, knocking heads with mobsters and even the Savate, all the while paying a cut to the Foot Clan. With his “act together”, Hun goes to see Casey in the hospital. Casey isn’t impressed with his new look (assuming his father has taken to steroids in the absence of alcohol), but Hun promises Casey that things are going to be different. He wants them to be a family again and expresses his willingness to work long and hard to regain his son’s trust. Hun then places a gift on Casey’s bed and says that when he’s feeling up to it, he’d like him to join the "family business". After Hun leaves, Casey opens the gift and finds it’s a new hockey mask.

Back at the AA meeting, Hun finishes his story about how he “cleaned up”, “got a new job” and “made amends”. The rest of the group members give him a standing ovation.

Turtle Tips:

*This issue takes place between TMNT (IDW) #25 and TMNT (IDW) #26.

*This issue was originally published with two variant covers: Regular Cover by Tyler Walpole and Cover RI by Henderson.

Review:

So Hun is Casey’s dad, hm? Now there’s a thought…

It was implied in the 4Kids cartoon (and made expressly clear in the Mirage comic version) that Hun was responsible for the death of Casey’s father. Here, authors Costa and Epstein take the same concept but make it a bit less literal. Whatever was left of Arnold Jones is essentially killed in this issue, as the Hun persona attains dominance. Casey’s father was already a withered husk of his former self, but now he’s essentially gone for good. And Hun’s the guy who “killed” him.

It strikes that great balance of familiar with different that IDW has been doing so well since they started the book. All the pieces are still there and much of the end result is the same, but the execution is fresh enough to set it apart from past interpretations.

The delivery of the story, too, had a great feel to it. The AA meeting naturally works with Arnold Jones’s past as an alcoholic, but moreso, it shows how he interprets his return to being Hun as an overall character improvement. He’s quit drinking, he’s gotten a job, he’s cleaned up his act, he’s working hard to make amends with his son and all in all he’s feeling better, looking better and doing better than he ever did as Arnold Jones the drunk… except, you know. All that stuff where he kills people and takes their money and delivers it to an international syndicate of assassins. But again, that’s one of the reasons the AA meeting works so well, because it allows Arnold/Hun to strategically phrase all of his accomplishments as a step in the right direction, much to the approval of his peers. He really does seem like a better person, even if he’s actually much worse.

But there is a downside to this whole turn of events and it’s that, well… Just where the heck did all this come from, exactly?

There’s a lot of potential in this new plot twist, but it feels like an inspiration that came rather late in the game. Like one of the folks at IDW woke up in the middle of the night with the epiphany, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if…” And here we are. It’s a great curveball and, if you’ve managed to avoid spoilers in solicits and previews, it may even have taken you completely by surprise. But part of the reason it likely took you by surprise is that it doesn’t feel so much like an organic change.

The writers have to jump through some hoops to justify not just transforming Arnold into Hun, but making it seem like he was Hun all along. Some of it feels mostly natural, like using the mutagen/ooze/whatever to basically return Arnold to the prime of his youth (that’s the stuff that’s kept Shredder and Kitsune alive all these centuries, after all). Some of it is a bit of a stretch, like how Hun was apparently such a hugely successful gang leader in his old days that even Shredder knows of him and orchestrated Casey’s injury just to get Hun out of retirement and on the payroll. And some of it is just plain silly, like having to come up with an excuse for Arnold to have black hair and Hun to have blonde hair.

I don’t have backstage passes at IDW, so I can’t say for certain if Arnold Jones was envisioned to be Hun from Day One or not. But reading this issue, it does feel a bit like there’s some mildly desperate retconning going on to turn one character into another and claim it was always that way. All things considered, if that was the situation, I’d say the team did it as well as could be done.

Now, on another subject, I do have to wonder what Shredder’s been thinking, lately. He’s estranged Karai by demoting and demeaning her to the point where she’s begun to resent him and maybe working behind his back. He’s made an enemy of Alopex, who now secretly plots revenge against him. He’s made his arch enemy’s son, Leo, his second in command; with Dark Leo’s loyalty depending on how long his brainwashing can hold out. And now he’s put Hun in charge of running his gang rackets, hoping that maybe Hun won’t find out that he was the one who put his son in the hospital.

Does this seem… kinda… not very smart? Anybody? If Karai decides she’s sick of Shredder’s shit, Alopex decides to make her move, Dark Leo’s brainwashing wears off and Hun learns that his boss was the one who stabbed his son… Shredder’s not gonna have many friends left to get his back.

All in all, I liked this issue even if the revelation didn’t feel entirely natural. The framing device was nicely tailored to the character and it finally feels like payoff in regards to the narrative of Casey’s dad; I was wondering just where they were going to take him, if anyplace. And with Hun now rising as a big player, it also means that Casey can finally get off the sidelines and maybe taking a proactive, starring role in some future stories. That’s something to look forward to, for sure.

Grade: C+ (as in, but instead of starting a sentence with the grade letter, I’m just gonna paraphrase The Simpsons)

“Hello, my name is Arnold Jones and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Mr. Jones, this is a Girl Scouts meeting.”

“Is it? Or is it that you girls can’t admit that you have a problem?”

After getting a few requests, I decided to carry on with reviewing the Fred Wolf Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from 1987. Here, I make my way into the quality-challenged fourth season, which is even more of a slog than season 3. Luckily, the episodes improve once I get out of the syndicated batch and into the CBS batch... but I ain't there yet.

Check out my review of TMNT (1987) Season 4, Part 1 at Adventures in Poor Taste.

I know I said I'd start reviewing the 2012 Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon and I wasn't lying. I'll be doing that one, too! My Nick TMNT reviews will be published over at Mind of the Geek (while my Fred Wolf TMNT reviews will be at AiPT, as always). I'll be doing season 1 in batches, but I'll also be keeping up with season 2 as it airs, devoting full reviews to each individual episode.

So by the looks of it, I've got my comic reviews here at TMNT Entity, my Fred Wolf reviews over at Adventures in Poor Taste, my upcoming Nickelodeon reviews over at Mind of the Geek, and my manga translations over at the Optical Internet Translation Gang (and chapter 3 of the TMNT III adaptation is coming soon, I swear!). Looks like I won't be writing anything but Ninja Turtles stuff for the foreseeable future. Hey, it's always nice to be wanted!

Originally published in: Turtle Soup (Vol. 2) #3

Publication date: January, 1992

Story and art: Rick McCollum

Inks: Tom Anderson

Colors: Mary Woodring

“Bearing the Burden”

Summary:

Raphael practices with his sai, willfully embracing the upcoming challenge. Though many of the Shredder’s goons have fallen before his weapons, they cannot help him in what is to come; he must overcome the challenge alone. Luckily, that’s just the way Raphael likes it.

Leonardo inspects his swords, pensively awaiting what comes next. He understands steel and the skill to use it, having bested high-tech aliens with his simple blades. However, his weapon will be useless in this next encounter and he stoically accepts this reality.

Donatello meditates with his bo staff. In the past, its range has been like a shield to him, deflecting many attacks… even protecting him from dinosaurs. However, his staff won’t be able to save him from what’s about to happen. In fact, no one can save him.

Michelangelo wields his nunchakus, thinking about how his graceful form always ends in brutish results: clobbering his enemies. He would rather avoid hurting others and shirk the responsibility of being a warrior, but he knows he has no choice. He must walk into the impending danger willingly and without protection... though he'd much rather fight Savanti Romero again than deal with what lies ahead.

Down in the sewer lair, the Turtles begrudgingly gather in Splinter’s “clinic”, whining that they don’t want to get their shots. Splinter warns them that shell fungus could prove fatal if they aren’t inoculated. Filling his syringe, he tells them to “bear the burden” and bend over.

Turtle Tips:

*Raphael fought the Shredder and his goons in TMNT (Vol.1) #1 and TMNT (Vol. 1) #21. Leonardo fought high tech aliens in TMNT (Vol. 1) #4. Donatello fought dinosaurs in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 1) #7. Michelangelo fought Savanti Romero in TMNT(Vol. 1) #8 and Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 1) #7.

Review:

McCollum and Anderson: Two of Mirage’s guest creators who understood the Turtles so well, they provide one of the most introspective character breakdowns in what is essentially a comedy relief short.

The primary theme in most McCollum/Anderson stories is the Turtles and how they relate to both the world of Nature and the world of Man, as they walk the line between the two. Most of these were pretty dramatic fare, like “Twilight of the Ring”. So with that in mind, “Bearing the Burden” is a rather effective fake-out, as it opens with some pretty melodramatic prose and ends on a silly gag.

The theme of the Man/Nature is still in there, as Splinter tells them at the end that if they wish to live like Men, then they must “bear the burden”, but the inclusion is almost satirical. It reads like McCollum and Anderson poking fun at their own overdone messages and character dissections.

Those aforementioned character dissections that encompass the first 4 pages of this 5-page short are apt and concise, regardless of how the story ends. They nicely relate how the Turtles feel about their chosen weapon, deftly explaining how their personalities influenced their choice of gear. It’s surprisingly loaded for just four pages, but not necessarily overwritten, either. The sequence is really rather impressive and doesn’t feel like it’s reaching too hard to find connections between the Turtles and their tools.

I was especially fond of how they viewed Mikey and his nunchakus. Mikey is a jokester who likes to show off, but when push comes to shove, he has to mean business. The ‘chakus, in that regard, are flashy and dynamic to look at… but in the end, you’re just clubbing people over the head with them. More than that, the text mentions how Mikey would really rather not fight at all, but reluctantly walks the path of a warrior. Again, they relate this attitude back to the nunchakus, as the whirling and twirling can be enough to intimidate a foe and avoid conflict, but can be deadly if the challenge is pressed.

Again, for what sounds like a throwaway gag comic on the surface, this shit’s pretty deep!

And of course there’s McCollum’s art and Anderson’s inks to tie the whole thing up. Their art always has an aura of class to it that I find really attractive. Just look at Mikey’s page, as he stands above the steam grate, posing with his nunchakus. Great stuff. Mary Woodring’s colors are a nice fit, too. I find her coloring efforts here more appropriate than those of Peter Laird (who colored the McCollum/Anderson short “Snapper”), as she forgoes the distracting photoshop effects. Incidentally, Jim Woodring colored the McCollum/Anderson short “The Ring”. I’m assuming the two Woodrings were related in some way? They both handled McCollum/Anderson’s work well, whatever the case.

Grade: A (as in, “Although I wonder where Splinter got those needles? I mean, he IS in a New York City sewer, after all. They’re probably rather plentiful, down there…”)

Tamed by success
The Turtles lost their savage edge
Greed is dead
It's a new breed
Carved from the streets
Concrete fists batter alien flesh
One. On. ONE.
As power joins forces with rage
Ripping through fear
And no one sheds a tear
For mutilated mutants
Giant warriors crushed by street-tough Turtles
Who have shed soft shells for a hard dose of reality
Konami's Tournament Fighters

Well holy shit, don't try to oversell it or anything.

Publication date: September 18, 2013

Story: Scott Tipton and David Tipton

Script: Scott Tipton, David Tipton, Kenny Byerly

Art: Dario Brizuela

Colors: Heather Breckel

Letters: Shawn Lee

Edits: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

Down in the lair, Michelangelo is inflicting a zombie movie marathon upon his brothers. The others get bored and go to bed, but Mikey decides to stay up all night watching. By about 3am, however, he starts freaking himself out and decides to go skateboarding rather than sleep. While grinding rails in the back alleys, Mikey sees hordes of shadowy zombies shambling through the streets. Terrified, Mikey flees back to the lair and tells his brothers. They think he just imagined them, but Splinter insists they all get out of bed and investigate (as a lesson in vigilance, of course).

Observing from the rooftops, the Turtles are shocked to discover that Mikey was right. However, Donatello notices that the “zombies” aren’t so much the undead as they are an army of sleepwalkers. More than that, they’re all carrying purloined high-tech equipment back to the Sleep Research Institute. They scale the building and peek in through the skylight. Inside, they spot a group of Kraangdroids directing the sleepwalkers to build a giant machine with the stolen equipment. The machine, once activated, will turn every New Yorker into a “zombie” slave. The Turtles see a pair of Kraangdroids carry a scientist off, saying that her assistance is no longer needed, and they decide to intercede.

In a back office, the Kraang are about to execute the scientist when the Turtles bash them to pieces. The scientist introduces herself as Dr. Annie Sloane and says that the Kraang forced her to build the machine. They ask if there’s a way to stop it and she gives them a thumb drive that can free all the zombies and then destroy the equipment.

Thumb drive in hand, the Turtles burst into the lab and take on the Kraang. The zombies all attack and the Turtles don’t want to hurt them, as they’re all just mind-controlled civilians. Unfortunately, the zombies keep getting in the way of their fight with the Kraangdroids, severely slowing the Turtles down. Mike sees an opening and tells Donnie to toss him the thumb drive. Donnie doesn’t want to risk putting the thumb drive in Michelangelo’s hands, but Leo reminds him that Mikey was right about the zombies when they wouldn’t trust him, so maybe they should give him the benefit of the doubt. Don tosses Mikey the thumb drive and he inserts it into the machine.

The machine begins to go haywire and all the zombies are freed. Dr. Sloane then directs all the people out of the building before the machine explodes. The Turtles escape just in the nick of time as the whole thing detonates.

Down in the sewer, Leo, Don and Raph tell Splinter he was right to send them to investigate. Splinter corrects them, saying that the only thing he was right about was trusting in Mikey. Speaking of Mikey, the Turtles wonder where he’s run off to. They find him in the living room, getting ready for a vampire movie marathon.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT New Animated Adventures #2. The story continues in TMNT New Animated Adventures #4.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Regular Cover by Brizuela, Cover RI by Tanya Roberts, and Cover RE Montreal ComicCon Exclusive by Adam Archer.

Review:

Man, trying to find room for all those rambling, redundant, ponderous Kraang dialogues must be murder on a letterer. So good on Shawn Lee for getting it all in there without looking distracting.

Anyhow, this was a pretty simple done-in-one story, but I was impressed to find how smoothly it flowed considering it was scripted by three people. Usually an excess of creators leads to a “too many cooks” situation, but the whole thing read very well and the story held together from beginning to end. Yeah, it suffered from some cornball clichés, but I’ll give them credit for putting the convenient self destruct program in a USB stick instead of at the mercy of a big red button conspicuously attached to the side of the Doomsday Device.

This was a Mikey spotlight and like a lot of Mikey spotlights in the cartoon shows, it suffers from trying to make an argument to support the continued inclusion of “the comedy relief character”. You know that kind of story: Where all the useful characters shake their heads at how stupid the comedy relief character is, but in the end the comedy relief character does good and saves the day, leaving the other characters to realize they were wrong. Snarf had stories like that, Slimer had stories like that, Orko had stories like that and Mikey has had plenty of stories like that.

Admittedly, this comic doesn’t do it as transparently and avoids the worst artifact of the cliché: having the comedy relief character cause the trouble in the first place. I hate that. Because when they resolve the conflict at the end, it doesn’t mean they’re a hero, it just means that they’re moderately competent enough to clean up their own messes. But again, this story avoids that drawback, so it earns a few bonus points in my book. On a personal note, I don’t think you should ever have to “redeem” or "make a case for" your comedy relief character; because if you feel compelled to do so, then you were clearly handling them wrong from the very beginning. And why do comedy relief characters have to be blundering screw-ups, anyway? Just because a character is funny doesn’t mean they have to be useless. I haven’t really gotten that vibe quite so much from Nickelodeon Mikey yet, I’m just getting that opinion out there is all.

Even though the story was fairly simple, the Tiptons and Byerly speckle it with some funny gags and witty banter. I think it’s this approach which has made New Animated Adventures feel so authentic in relation to the Nickelodeon cartoon. The Nick series also uses a lot of basic, simple, episodic stories, but spices them up with really strong humor and characters, proving that just because something is a familiar plot cliché, that doesn’t mean it can’t still feel fresh and fun in the execution. In regards to this issue, I got a chuckle out of Raph tossing the Kraang aliens in the filing cabinet as well as all the zombie movie jargon dotting everyone’s dialogue. Everything from Donnie lecturing on the classical voodoo interpretation of zombies (see, “White Zombie”, “The Serpent and the Rainbow”) to Raph whining that he prefers modern running zombies (see, the “Dawn of the Dead” remake or the faux-zombies of “28 Days Later”) to everyone sighing at how slow and easily avoidable the shambling Romero-type Zombie is (see, er, all the Romero zombie movies… except “Land of the Dead” and “Diary of the Dead” because those blew).

So far as stories with the moral “Mikey’s not useless, we swear” are concerned, this was one of the better attempts and handles him pretty well. A very basic, run of the mill story, but the execution is what elevates the whole package.

Grade: B- (as in, “But last issue had Leo boring everyone with a Space Heroes marathon and this issue has Mikey boring everyone with a zombie movie marathon. Will next issue have Donnie boring everyone with a National Geographic marathon?”)

Publication date: September, 2006

Story and art: Jim Lawson

Lettering: Erik Swanson

“Blind Sight, Part Four”

Summary:

The Daimyo summons Leo to his throne room and admonishes him for losing his swords. Leo is impertinent, claiming that they’re just swords and don’t really matter. The Daimyo says that Leo is a swordsman, so what use is he without any swords? Leo has no answer. The Daimyo banishes Leo from the village, threatening to kill his wife and daughter if he ever returns.

As Leo makes his way through the forest, he tries to remind himself that all this is just a vision. Leo is frustrated that he still can’t decipher what any of it means. Suddenly, he sees the peasant he saved the previous day. The peasant motions for Leo to watch his back and Leo dodges just as a ninja drops down on him. Leo and the ninja fight and Leo defeats her. The ninja reveals herself to be Yumi, Leo’s daughter. She explains that she was ordered by the Daimyo to slay Leo, but planned to kill herself rather than betray her father. However, she wanted to know what fighting her father was like, even if just for a moment. Leo tells Yumi to return home and watch over her mother, as he needs to have words with the Daimyo. Before she leaves, Yumi asks how Leo know she was coming. Leo says that the peasant warned him, but Yumi claims there was never anybody there.

After dark, Leo approaches the Daimyo in his courtyard. The Daimyo begins telling Leo the tales he’s heard in the village: That Leo was the son of a kappa and was cast out by his father. Kubira, rat god of the Zodiac, adopted Leo on the condition that one day Leo would kill his father and take his treasure for Kubira. And so Kubira trained Leo and gave him a pair of magic swords. However, when the time came, Leo could not kill his father. In anger, Kubira banished Leo to Earth where he has lived among Men ever since.

Leo asks if all this was about stealing his swords. The Daimyo, producing the stolen swords, claims that they were crafted from pure rage and can attract enemies to their blades (hence Leo’s berserker in the field the other day). He thinks he can be invincible with the swords under his command. Leo tells the Daimyo that he’s a fool; that he cannot control the swords. Leo understands that the swords were made for killing and that he feared that’s all he was good for, as well. However, Leo has realized that the swords are just a part of who he is and only he can control them.

The Daimyo attacks with the swords, but Leo dodges. The two fight their way into the throne room. In the chaos, the Daimyo knocks over a statue of Kubira, which in turn knocks over a torch. The whole room is instantly engulfed in flame and Leo is trapped. The peasant from earlier appears from the flames and motions for Leo to follow him. He leads Leo through a hidden passage and the two escape the inferno.

Resting, Leo finally recognizes the peasant. He is the old bum who the rogue Foot Soldier tricked him into killing. The bum asks Leo if he’s really sure that he was the one who actually killed him? The bum tells Leo to recall the moment as vividly as possible. Leo rewinds back and remembers thrusting his sword between the bum’s ribs and piercing his heart, but what he DOESN’T remember is the sound of the bum breathing. It finally occurs to Leo that the bum was dead before he stabbed him. The rogue Foot Soldier killed the bum and substituted his corpse at the last moment, tricking Leo into thinking he was the murderer. In his grief, Leo subconsciously kept himself from regaining his eyesight even after the poison wore off.

Leo suddenly awakens from his vision in Splinter’s chamber. He finds that his eyesight has returned. Leo thanks Splinter and tells him that during his vision he met someone named Kubira, who could be Splinter’s long-lost relative. Splinter is pleased with the news. After Leo leaves, Splinter mumbles that Kubira is grateful to Leo for returning his magic swords.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Tales of Leonardo: Blind Sight #3.

*It is strongly implied by the Daimyo that the "magic swords" he stole from Leonardo were made by Sengo Muramasa. Muramasa was a famous swordsmith from the Muromachi period who has since fallen into popular legend in Japan, with many believing his blades to have been cursed. The Daimyo placing the sword in a river and watching the leaves get cut as they drift against the blade's edge is a direct adaptation of a Muramasa legend. Likewise, Muramasa blades were said to drive their owners to bloodlust and could not be sheathed until they had drawn blood. Most likely a coincidence, but the Turtles encountered a Muramasa blade in the fourth chapter of the Mutant Turtles Gaiden manga.

Review:

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #5 was a perfect standalone story. Leo fights a battle and loses. Badly. He is soundly humbled and learns a lesson that he cannot always control every outcome and, quite frankly, isn’t as fucking perfect as he thinks he is.

Excellent. One of the best Leonardo stories ever written.

Tales of Leonardo: Blind Sight is four consecutive issues of driving that damn lesson home; making it as blunt and in-your-face as verbally possible, spelling every metaphor out in big bold letters and holding the reader’s hand every step of the way. What was a concise, meaningful done-in-one is dragged out and decompressed to the point where every issue I felt like what Lawson was REALLY trying to say was, “Do you get it yet? Huh? Huh? Do you? Do you?”

Yes, you’re very clever. Just, please, give US a little credit, too. We can put this stuff together on our own and draw thematic conclusions without a neon billboard summarizing the morality for us.

The series of vision quests Leo embarks upon each teach him something new about himself. They start out subtle enough, with the first one illustrating how Leo sees himself. The second vision pours it on a little thick, with a mystical creature spelling out the dichotomy of Man vs. Nature that Leo represents. And this third and final vision just beats you over the freakin’ skull with the message about control, complete with Leo orating a deconstructive essay about the themes of “Blind Sight”. Jeez, writing deconstructive essays about the themes of Ninja Turtles comics is MY job! It’s no fun when the damn comic does the work FOR me!

To give “Blind Sight” some credit, the vision quests are actually pretty exciting and each is radically different from the others. I can’t accuse “Blind Sight” of being boring, at any rate. Painfully obvious in its metaphor, sure, but not boring.

I could forgive all of the above, though. I really could. Yeah, it’s very on-the-nose about things, but seeing Leo on an autopsy slab, in a visually exciting silhouette style once again or fighting samurai in Feudal Japan… it’s some pretty cool stuff.

What I CAN’T forgive is that fucking ending that exonerates Leo of all guilt and completely contradicts the damn message Lawson was trying to staple to our fucky fuck fucking foreheads for four issues! Ffffff!

Okay, so Leo thought he killed the bum. In his guilt over lacking the control to discern innocent from enemy, he subconsciously refused to allow his eyesight back and gave up. As is plainly stated in every chapter of “Blind Sight”, the entire lesson Leo goes on these quests to learn is that he cannot control everything. There are forces beyond him that he has no power over. All he can do is try his best, accept the consequences of his failures and control what he can.

Fine. Great lesson. I can roll with that.

But then the big reveal that Leo is guiltless, that the rogue Foot Soldier killed the bum and framed Leo, just completely annihilates the message. What we learn is that Leo’s control actually WAS good enough; that he didn’t kill anybody. Yes, he was tricked into thinking he was the murderer, but after some reflection, he promptly concludes, “NOPE!”

When Leo snaps out of it and wakes up with his eyesight back, it doesn’t feel like he overcame his malady by learning any lessons about control and imperfection. It feels like he was cured by realizing, “It turns out I was perfect ALL ALONG! I never needed to learn ANYTHING!”

Leo killing the bum had great resonance. He made a huge mistake and learned that despite all his training and preaching to his brothers about discipline, even HE screws up from time to time… and not in little ways, either. If you wanted Leo to be humbled and learn a lesson about being in control, then there it is. By taking away that mistake which was the catalyst for this entire arc, it completely undoes the whole thing. Leo went on this quest of self discovery because he made a mistake. But if you take away that mistake, then it turns out he was okay all along and none of what he learned really applied at all… Because he was always perfect.

“Blind Sight” is a mediocre story arc that ends on such a colossally foolish note that you feel like you’ve completely wasted your time. Leonardo doesn’t learn a god damn THING. And neither do YOU.

Grade: F (as in, “For Pete’s sake, this entire miniseries was supposed to deflate Leo’s ego, but all it does is reinforce his superiority complex in the final seconds. GAHHHH!”)

Originally published by: Panini Magazines

Publication date: May, 2013

Contents:

*“Takeout”

*“Chasing Shadows”

Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #2.

*These comics take place within the universe of the Nickelodeon TMNT animated series. How they fit or IF they fit between episodes is anybody’s guess.

*The “How It All Began” intro page is featured in every issue of the magazine, so I'm only gonna cover it in the first review.

*These Panini reviews only cover the comic strip content. Nickelodeon TMNT is a full magazine and each issue features games, puzzles, sweepstakes and other content.

*Thus far, these comics from Panini have only been published in the UK and other parts of Europe. None have been printed in the United States.

Originally published in: Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #1

Publication date: May, 2013

Story: Ed Caruana

Script: John-Paul Bove

Pencils: Ryan J. Neal

Colours: Jason Cardy

Letters: Alex Foot

“Takeout”

Summary:

How It All Began: While leaving a pet shop with four baby turtles, exiled ninja master Hamato Yoshi accidentally stumbled upon a pair of strange men trading a canister of ooze. There was a fight and in the confusion, the canister broke, spilling its contents onto Yoshi and his turtles. Yoshi was mutated into a rat while his turtles were mutated into anthropomorphs. He fled to the sewers with his new sons and trained them in the art of ninjutsu. And so…

The Turtles are on their way home with a large stack of pies from Mancini’s Pizza. Donatello hurries his brothers along, stating that they only have nine minutes before the pizzas fall below “optimum temperature”.

Unfortunately, their trip home is sidetracked when Michelangelo elects to help a stranded kitty down from a window ledge. The Turtles are about to continue on their way when they hear a woman scream. They round the corner and find a little old lady being robbed by muggers. The Turtles scare the muggers off and Leonardo returns the old lady’s purse (which she promptly beats him over the head with for being a “giant lizard”).

Time is running out as the pizzas are rapidly cooling and the Turtles are about to slide down the manhole when they hear an explosion. This time it’s the Purple Dragons, setting fire to an electronics store. The Turtles beat the snot out of the Dragons (pawning off their load of pizza boxes onto Mikey with each attack). Eventually they take them all down and stash them in a dumpster until the police arrive.

The Turtles think they’re home free, but just as Mikey starts crawling down the manhole, a truck comes zooming down the street. Mikey ducks in time to save his head, but not the pizzas, which the truck runs over.

Down in the sewers, the Turtles relate the events to Splinter. Splinter praises them for putting the needs of others before their own desires. However, he suggests that in the future, they seek wisdom from an ancient scroll. Leo unfurls the “ancient scroll” which turns out to be a delivery menu from Mancini’s Pizza.

Turtle Tips:

*The next story in publication sequence is “Chasing Shadows”.

*Page 11, the truck that destroys the pizzas is modeled after Optimus Prime from the live action Transformers films. Panini used to publish Transformers comics back in the 2000s, but has since lost the license to Titan.

Review:

For the record, I’d like to thank “Enscripture” of the Technodrome Forums for hooking me up with these comics. I’m American, if you haven’t guessed, so the Panini magazines aren’t so easy to come by for me.

In case anyone is confused, these Nick TMNT comics published in Europe by Panini are NOT the same as the Nick TMNT comics published in America by IDW. The TMNT New Animated Adventures series is an entirely different book. From what I understand, IDW was able to get a license to publish their original TMNT comics in Europe (through… Titan, maybe? I’m not sure). However, Panini Magazines had already secured a license to publish TMNT comics based on the Nickelodeon animated series in European markets some months before. As a result, IDW cannot publish TMNT New Animated Adventures in European territories.

At least, that’s how it is at the moment. IDW and Panini may eventually work things out down the line. I’d kind of like to see some synergy between the Panini and IDW Nick TMNT comics and maybe both titles could share their content back and forth. Hey, it’s not unheard of. The Marvel UK Real Ghostbusters comic used to reprint issues from the American Real Ghostbusters comic published by NOW (usually broken up across issues, since UK comic content is slimmer). And likewise, when NOW was running late, they’d reprint strips from the Marvel UK Real Ghostbusters comic as filler (usually 3 strips per issue, since American comics are longer).

The reason I’d like to see cooperation between the two publishers is because I think BOTH of their Nick TMNT comics are pretty good and I wouldn’t want either side of the Atlantic to be deprived of any of them.

These Panini comics run at different lengths depending on the issue. Sometimes there are two short strips and sometimes there’s a double-length comic. The variety is nice and I appreciate the freedom the writers have to only say as much as they want to rather than feel obligated to pad out a full 22 pages.

Both the Panini and IDW comics suffer from the same unavoidable setback of having to take place “between” episodes of the currently running animated series. As such, the adventures have to be… not “small time”, but they certainly can’t be definitive. If the Turtles fight a villain from the show, he or she has to be left in pretty much the same position as where they found them so as not to disrupt the continuity of the cartoon. Likewise, there isn’t really any room for story arcs in these comics, because they’re tiptoeing around cartoon storylines which the writers don’t even know the specifics of.

In a way, I actually kind of like this limitation placed on the Panini and IDW Nick TMNT comics. They’re solid, fun, done-in-one stories and in this day and age, there just aren’t enough comics like that. In an industry polluted by Bendis-style decompression, it’s nice to have an episodic book every now and again.

Anyhow, despite my appreciation for these comics, this introductory chapter is a little unassuming. Not a bad tale, though that droll comedy relief ending felt like it was missing a trumpet going “Mwa Mwa Mwa Mwaaaaaaaa”. This is the first issue (and only the first story in the first issue) and writers Caruana and Bove are just getting their feet wet.

One thing Panini seems to be getting right that IDW isn’t: Leonardo. Nick’s Leo is the most entertaining incarnation of the character in franchise history and he’s great. IDW’s Leo hasn’t really had any of his goofy “Space Heroes” wannabe outbursts yet, while Panini’s Leo has his moment in this first issue (giving a corny speech as he returns the purse to the old lady, only to get thwacked). It’s a little thing, I know, but now that we’ve finally got a Leonardo with a freakin’ personality, it’d be nice if the IDW writers would be kind enough to use it. Panini’s writers establish their understanding of the cast concisely and convincingly in just this 6-page short, which is impressive and satisfying.

And I’m really digging Neal’s pencils and Cardy’s colo(u)rs. The work from Brizuela and Breckel over at IDW has been nice, but these two have a way of going off-model, but not toooff-model. I like Brizuela, make no mistake, but his adherence to the Nick cartoon designs can be a little problematic (his April looks like a plastic doll, for instance). Neal’s Turtles break model for emphasis and don’t feel quite so static in expression or pose. His layouts can be a little erratic, but there’s a whole lot of energy to his work that’s very cool. Cardy’s colors seem flatter and brighter than Breckel’s, and while I think I prefer Breckel’s pallet overall, Cardy still does good work and the characters really pop.

Anyhow, these comics were a pleasant surprise. I’m about 6 issues behind on em, so I’ll be having some fun catching up. Hopefully, if all the rights and distribution issues between IDW and Panini are resolved, we can have a transatlantic Nickelodeon TMNT comic exchange. They’re both good stuff.

Grade: B (as in, “But because the comic cannot risk contradicting the cartoon, Mike missed an obvious opportunity to adopt Klunk”)

Originally published in: Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #1

Publication date: May, 2013

Script: Landry Walker and Ed Caruana

Pencils: Ryan J. Neal

Colours: Jason Cardy

Letters: Alex Foot

“Chasing Shadows”

Review:

Down in the sewer lair, Donnie comes rushing to see April with great news. He’s been scanning for energy spikes from Kraang tech (“Krenergy” as Mikey calls it) and says he found one. It’s a long shot, but it may clue them into where April’s dad has been taken.

The Turtles and April crash a Kraang warehouse. Leo and Raph take on the Kraangdroids while April, Donnie and Mikey search for clues. Well, April and Donnie do. Mikey gets thrown into a filing cabinet and gets a papercut (which April dutifully heals with her First Aid kit). Once all the Kraangdroids have been felled, Donnie laments that he couldn’t find any leads. Mikey begins cursing the paper which cut him and Leo notices that it has an address to a TCRI shipping facility. The Turtles and April decide to follow the lead.

At the facility, they begin browsing through all the shipping containers. They spot one which looks like a makeshift prison (with barred windows and massive locks). Mikey and Donnie crack it open and step inside, but instead of finding April’s dad, they’re reunited with Spider Bytez. They slam the door shut before the arachnid can spit acid at them. Donnie theorizes that the Kraang must have him locked up for tests.

Raph spots another container that looks like a prison and the Turtles try their luck again. It’s empty, but a small device that belonged to April’s dad was left on the floor. April says her dad designed it and that it’s part of a two-piece gadget. The other half is still with her dad and the device left behind can track it.

They follow the signal to a Kraang stronghold. Leo wants to do some recon, but Raph brashly plows through the Kraangdroids guarding the gates. All they find inside is an empty interrogation facility and the other half of the tracking device, discovered and discarded by the Kraang.

Later, down in the lair, Leo valiantly promises April that he and his men will not rest until her father has been rescued and evil has been vanquished. April breaks out laughing, having recognized Leo’s canned speech from an episode of “Space Heroes”. April tells Leo that even though she misses her dad, she’s grateful that she isn’t totally alone; she has them. Mikey, skateboarding, crashes into Don, holding a stack of papers, and is subjected to yet another papercut. April unpacks her First Aid kit and tells the Turtles that they’re lucky to have her, too.

Turtle Tips:

*This story was published alongside “Takeout”. The series continues in Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #2.

Review:

“Chasing Shadows” is a victim of the setback I mentioned in my last Panini review: That these comics cannot advance any storylines in fear of contradicting the unknown future of the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon. Still, from the getgo there’s a self-awareness to this comic that the investigation won’t lead to anything more than a dead end. The thing is titled “Chasing Shadows”, after all.

Walker and Caruana have thus far been really good at capturing the voices of the characters. Mikey and Donnie are at the forefront in this issue and their banter feels really sincere and natural. Not just Mikey’s habit of dramatically naming everything, but Donnie’s manner of passively humoring Mikey’s suggestions, too. And again, Leo channels the attitude of his hammy “Space Heroes” idol and it’s a great little moment. The “Space Heroes” stuff is best utilized in small doses, lest it get obnoxious, and so far the Panini comic has been wise enough to limit Leo to just one brief cornball outburst per story.

Even though I really don’t care much for Spider Bytez, his cameo was well executed; a quick little surprise that ends as soon as it begins. He doesn’t stick around long enough for that stupid design to get on my nerves. Although, I’ll admit that I’m curious to see how well the writers might be at capturing Lewis Black’s voice.

April, despite being the focal point of this issue, sort of plays second fiddle and hangs around while the boys do all the rough stuff. I take it April’s more-or-less helplessness indicates this story takes place earlier in the first season than TMNT New Animated Adventures #1, where she’s already getting the hang of her kunoichi training.

Artist Ryan J. Neal draws a good April, by the way. Brizuela’s April over at IDW adheres too closely to the animation model, which looks like a mannequin (or an action figure, I suppose is a more appropriate comparison). Neal’s April is more angular and expressive and just livelier overall. She may not really do a whole lot in this story, but at least she never stops the momentum dead by looking like a statue.

Grade: B (as in, “But those massive blocky feet of hers are still all sorts of crazy”)

Publication date: June, 2013

Script: John-Paul Bove and Ed Caruana

Art: Jack Lawrence

Colours: Jason Cardy

Letters: Alex Foot

“What Goes Up…”

Summary:

Up on the rooftops, Leo is taking his brothers for the usual practice run. They’re all sick of running along the same rooftops every night and Mikey suggests they spice it up: First one to the highest rooftop wins. The Turtles accept the challenge and proceed to one-up each other with higher and higher climbs. At the top of one roof, however, they find everything covered in dense flora.

The Turtles contemplate who would landscape the roof of a building into a thick jungle and their question is soon answered: Snakeweed! The mutant plant proceeds to trounce them for invading his territory. The Turtles attempt to slice his vines, but aren’t making any progress. Leo suggests they contain him and Raph drops a giant container of concrete on top of the villain. Unfortunately, it’s “Enhanced Fertilizer Concrete” (hence how Snakeweed was able to cultivate a garden on a rooftop) and it only makes Snakeweed more powerful.

The Turtles wonder if things could get any worse, which of course they do. A thunderstorm suddenly rolls in and the fresh rain combined with the fertilizer causes Snakeweed to grow to giant proportions. Mikey dubs him Super-Snakeweed before getting smashed with a humongous claw.

Donnie suggests that they can use Super-Snakeweed’s height against him, but they have to get him to the tallest location they can find. The Turtles reignite the roof race and lure Super-Snakeweed from his garden. Using a vine, they scale a nearby skyscraper, with the evil mutant hot on their heels. Once they reach the roof, Donnie tells his brothers to discard all their weapons. Reluctantly, they cooperate.

Super-Snakeweed arrives on the roof and taunts the Turtles for surrendering by seizing their discarded weapons… their metalweapons. Thanks to his height and the addition of metal conductors, Super-Snakeweed immediately attracts a bolt of lightning, which reduces him to ash. A job well done, Mikey suggests a “reverse roof race” down to the street for some pizza. As the Turtles leave, they fail to notice a sprout popping out of the pile of ash.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #1. The story continues in Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #3.

*Coincidentally, just two months after this issue was published, IDW’s TMNT New Animated Adventures #2would similarly end with Snakeweed being defeated by a bolt of lightning.

Review:

Man, Snakeweed isn’t really much of a villain, is he? I went on about my unimpressed opinion of him in my TMNT New Animated Adventures #2 review, so I won’t repeat myself. But yeah, he’s kind of lame.

Heck, in this story I’d argue that he isn’t even a villain at all. He has no evil scheme of any kind. And outside of maybe some zoning laws or lacking a landscaping permit, he’s not even committing any crimes. Basically, the Turtles stumble into his home and start beating him up. This issue came out only a couple months before IDW tried their hand at a Snakeweed story and the two don’t compare favorably. Snakeweed actually has a diabolical plan that the Turtles have to thwart over in the IDW story. In this Panini comic, he’s just sort of an angry neighbor the Turtles torment. The fact that both comics end with Snakeweed getting defeated the same way is a strange coincidence, though.

Still, while the Panini Snakeweed comic lacks the “epic save the world” stuff of the IDW Snakeweed comic, I will admit that the brisker, more comedic take sets it apart from its American contemporary. Bove and Caruana work in some fun sight gags (such as the thought-bubble fantasies that bookend the story) and, as before, they have a good handle on the voices of the characters. And it's not their fault Snakeweed is such a boring villain that spouts generic dialogue along the lines of, "Raarrgghhh! I'll destroy you, Turtles!".

Jack Lawrence covers art duties in this time around. Looking over the issues that have been released so far, unlike IDW, Panini doesn’t stick to a single artist for the title and seems content to cycle through a rotating staff of talent. The artists they employ are actually fairly consistent with each other, at least from what I’ve been able to tell, and I can’t say any stand out as substantially better than the others. Solid layouts, expressions and so on. I think the consistent coloring from Cordy probably helps hold it all together.

This double-length adventure didn’t impress me as much as the two shorts from the previous issue. I think they probably should have used the extended length to develop a stronger story. Still, it is interesting to compare the IDW and Panini Snakeweed stories, which came out only a couple months apart and both follow the same germ of a plot: “Snakeweed grows a jungle in New York, the Turtles stop him with a bolt of lightning”. Both are superficially the same, but execute the ideas in completely different ways. For my money’s worth, I prefer IDW’s effort, but Panini’s isn’t without its charm, either.

Grade: C (as in, “Can’t anyone think of a DIFFERENT way to kill Snakeweed for a change?”)

Publication date: July, 2013

Script: Ed Caruana

Art: Jack Lawrence

Colours: Jason Cardy

Colour assist: James Stayte

Letters: Alex Foot

“The Need for Speed!”

Summary:

Down in the lair, Donnie receives a video chat from April. She says “I love you” before the chat cuts off. Donnie, in his eagerness to accept April’s reciprocated affections, immediately orders flowers to be sent to April with the note, “I love you, too”. After placing the order, the chat line comes back on and April finishes her sentence, “I Love You Like a Blister is definitely the best album by the Squashed Wombats”. Donnie proceeds to freak the heck out and attempts to cancel the flowers, only to find the delivery service closed for the night. With no other options at hand, Donnie hops into his buggy to stop the delivery before it can reach April.

The other Turtles tag along to help, though Donnie insists he can resolve this embarrassing problem on his own. As they near the delivery van, they stumble upon a robbery. The Kraang have knocked over a facility called Space Tech and made off with some goods in their van. Much to Donnie’s dismay, the Turtles stray from their course and pursue the Kraang.

Setting the buggies to “auto-drive”, the Turtles board the roof of the van and try to stop the drivers. The Kraangdroids climb up top and do battle, all the while Donatello panics that they need to wrap things up quickly. Mikey manages to get into the bed of the van and begins looking for whatever the Kraang stole.

Donnie, in his haste, blocks the windshield and the Kraangdroid driving accidentally swerves through an alley (catching a clothesline full of women’s garments in the process). Eventually, Mikey finds the box labeled “top secret” and the Turtles bail just as the Kraangdroids drive the van straight into a wall. Donnie is pleased to get back to chasing the delivery van, but is unaware that his buggy took some damage and is leaking gas. The other Turtles notice and decide to lend their bro a hand, whether he wants them to or not.

Sighting the van pulling up to April’s building, Donnie figures he has everything on lockdown... But then his buggy putters out a block from victory, leaving him no chance to stop the deliveryman before he reaches the door. The deliveryman is amount to mount the stoop when he's suddenly intercepted by Mikey in drag (the garments taken from the clothesline), claiming to be April O’Neil. Disgusted, the deliveryman hands over the flowers, asks for no confirmation of receipt and gets out of there.

Donnie arrives in time to find that his brothers saved his skin (and reputation with April). Grateful, he tells them all he loves them. Raph rolls his eyes, urging Donnie not to throw that phrase around so lightly anymore.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #2. The story continues in Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #4.

*Since April is shown to still be living in her apartment and not hiding out in the sewer lair, that would indicate the issues so far have taken place before the episode "The Alien Agenda".

Review:

Now this one was just great. It honestly felt like had the action and plot devices (such as the Space Tech package) been expanded upon a little, it could have easily made a solid episode of the TV series. The entire story flows really smoothly; a stupid mistake that gets the action rolling, a standard “wrong place, wrong time” coincidence that ramps up the suspense, and a funny comedy beat ending that feels natural to the story and not like a tacked on zinger. There’s even a “lesson” in the whole thing, about trusting your family/friends even in the most embarrassing of situations, but it isn’t laid on thick or spelled out for the reader.

The whole thing just read really well. As usual, Caruana has a firm grip on the voices of the characters and all their quips and outbursts sound like something you’d hear in the cartoon. Even the redundant speech pattern of the Kraangdroids is successfully mined for humor, which for some reason I never get tired of.

I suppose if anything feels like a speedbump in the story flow it’s the aforementioned plot device; the package from Space Tech. Really, it doesn’t matter so much what it is, just that the Kraang are after it so it can’t be good news. And the heart of the story was Donnie’s haste to catch the delivery van, so a lengthy diversion with the Space Tech thingy would have just eaten up what limited page space this comic has. Like I said, if this had been a full episode (or even a full comic; these strips are short), then yeah, the Space Techthingamajig would need to have been fleshed out. But for a short story that moves at a breakneck pace, we got all the necessary info we needed.

Probably my favorite of the Panini stories so far. Solid art from Lawrence, too, who does a great job imparting the sense of high speed and panic in his layouts and character expressions.

Grade: B+ (as in, “But no, Donnie, you really DON’T stand a chance. Not with THOSE teeth, anyway”.)

Originally published by: Panini Magazines

Publication date: August, 2013

Contents:

*“Daydream”

*“Taken”

Turtle Tips:

*These stories are continued from Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #3. The story continues in Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #5.

Originally published in: Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #4

Publication date: August, 2013

Script: Landry Walker

Script Editor: Ed Caruana

Art: Cosmo White

Colours: Jason Cardy

Colour assist: James Stayte

Letters: Alex Foot

“Daydream”

Summary:

Having just enjoyed a wonderful dream, Michelangelo relates the story to his brothers. He tells them that in his dream, a pelican martial arts master taught him a powerful new special move (before being taken away by the King of Dinosaurs on his flying saucer). The other Turtles tells Mikey now is not the time to be talking about dreams… as they’re currently on a rooftop battling Dogpound and a horde of Foot Soldiers.

Mikey is undeterred and insists that the special move the pelican taught him in his dream could save the day. Dogpound promptly hammers Mikey into the concrete. Leo tells everyone to focus and charge Dogpound all at once. Dogpound easily trounces the other three Turtles.

That’s when Mikey strikes with The Kick of the Pelican… the move he learned in his dream. The powerful kick sends Dogpound flying backward, knocking over the entire unit of Foot Soldiers.

The fight over, the Turtles ask Mikey where he learned that sweet kick. He reminds them for the millionth time that it was in a dream. In fact, he begins lecturing them that they should pay more attention to their dreams; they might learn something. Raph tells Mikey he actually learned a sweet move in one of his own dreams, recently: The Fist of the Turtle. Mikey is impressed and asks him to demonstrate. Raph does so by cramming Mikey headfirst into an airduct.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #3. The next story in publication sequence is “Taken”.

Review:

Dogpound finally shows up in a Nick TMNT comic (as of right now, he STILL hasn’t appeared in the IDW TMNT New Animated Adventures series). Unfortunately, he’s kind of reduced to a poor man’s Bebop and/or Rocksteady, getting humorously clobbered by Michelangelo of all characters. Of course, this was just a 6-page comedy strip, so it’s to be expected.

“Daydream” is probably the lesser of the two short strips published in Nickelodeon TMNT #4, at least so far as the story and punchline are concerned. In terms of art, though, it’s the clear winner. All the Panini artists thus far have been good and have a consistency between them I appreciate, but looking at them more thoroughly, some really do prove to be better than others.

Cosmo White does a great job on this strip, particularly when it comes to character expressions. While I don’t much care for the “Mikey with his tongue hanging out” thing that for some reason won’t fucking go away, the characters are all heavily emotive. Their faces might prove a bit too malleable for some, but I really like heavily expressive art so long as it doesn’t make its strokes too broad. Nice layouts, too; the splash page covering the Pelican Kick was nicely done.

Grade: C (as in, “Could the Turtles actually call the police after defeating the mutants and Foot Soldiers for a change instead of just walking away and getting a pizza? It might help them out in the long run”)

TMNT (IDW) #25

Awesome Turtle Picture #24

TMNT (Dreamwave) #6

TMNT (Dreamwave) #7

Awesome Turtle Picture #25

Community Service

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #9

TMNT Villains Micro-Series #6: Hun

TMNT (1987) Season 4, Part 1: Review

Bearing the Burden

So what genre of music is this, anyway? Or is it just free verse poetry?

TMNT New Animated Adventures #3

Tales of Leonardo: Blind Sight #4

Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #1

Takeout

Chasing Shadows

Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #2

Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #3

Nickelodeon TMNT (Panini) #4

Daydream