Road Hogs

Originally printed: 1986

Originally published by: Palladium Books

Originally published in: After the Bomb Book Two: Road Hogs (supplement to TMNT & Other Strangeness)

Writer/Artist: Uncredited


Summary:

In the distant future, the Earth has been ravaged by nuclear wars. The radiation has mutated once normal animals into humanoid creatures who have since become the planet’s dominant species.

In the ruins of a city, a ruthless biker gang called the Road Hogs come across three turtle farmers working in a rice paddy. They send two of their men (an elephant and a rat) to gather info from the farmers regarding their defenses. The three turtles (a guy, a scar-faced guy and a girl) are happy to talk to the passers-by and tell them that all the guns are safely locked away in the temple so they can’t harm anyone. Overjoyed, the pair of Road Hogs return to their cronies with this info in hand.

Meanwhile, the three turtles throw off their farmer garb and race back to the temple, their plan now set in motion. They change into their ninja outfits and take their weapons off the rack (decorated with a poster of the legendary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The non-scarred guy goes to alert their mysterious, hooded turtle Sensei, who in his “advanced age”, initially mistakes his student for “Mike”. The Sensei snaps out of it and tells his students to work quickly and prepare for battle. Along with the local farmers, the turtle ninja begin preparing traps for the return of the Road Hogs.

Elsewhere, the leader of the Road Hogs (an armadillo) is warned by the rat that the farmers they talked with had the hands of warriors, and they are likely walking into a trap. The armadillo is not concerned and orders his men to advance, anyway.

Several of the Road Hogs enter the village and find a number of farmers sitting around a table. They attack, only to discover the “farmers” to be dummies. The table then proceeds to explode, killing the Road Hogs, as the farmers look on in joy and satisfaction (from behind a statue of a mutant turtle, no less).

At the temple, the armadillo and his cronies (the rat, a human and a pig) are inside, looking for any strays to shoot. They are met by the trio of turtle ninja: the non-scarred male carrying a sickle and chain, the scarred male carrying a spear and several shuriken, and the female boasting a katana. They fight, with the female taking out the rat, the scarred one taking out the human and the non-scarred one taking out the pig. The armadillo, however, is tougher than his cohorts, and takes down all three turtle ninja with a bike chain. He is then approached by the hooded Sensei and whips his chain at the old codger. The Sensei blocks with a pair of sai, revealing himself to be Raphael. After a brief tussle, he stabs the armadillo through the back and kills him. Finished, Raph then walks away, asking “Mike” to clean up the mess for him as his trio of turtle ninja recover.


Turtle Tips:

*Due to Raph having both eyes (and to say nothing of the setting), this story likely doesn’t take place in the future timeline of the Mirage continuity.

*To date, this story has never been reprinted anywhere, making it one of the rarer short strips.


Review:

I’m not a fan of tabletop gaming. I have nothing against those who pursue it as a hobby, it just isn’t my thing. I mean, I did try it once. I played “Rifts” with a few of my friends back in high school, if I recall correctly. But I just couldn’t get into it.

So with that in mind, the TMNT tabletop RPG books released by Palladium in the 1980s have never been on my list of material to track down and collect. As it turns out, several of the books contained short comic strips. Some of those strips, such as “Terror by Transmat”, were reprinted in collections like “Shell Shock”, but others were not. “Road Hogs” was one of those, and I likely never would have known it existed if Andrew NDB from the Technodrome Forums hadn’t been generous enough to shoot some scans my way (thanks, man!).

The story follows the theme of the book, and doesn’t appear to work with the continuity of the Mirage comics, as it was established there that Raph loses an eye at some point (he tends to lose an eye in most every other continuity, too). So the story is just a fun little non-canon adventure, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The creative team are uncredited, so I can’t say who the artist and writer were. I’m sure some folks out there have some guesses, since the Mirage team was pretty tight-knit and each artist had his own unique style, but I can’t really pinpoint any one person matter-of-factly. Regardless, it sports that dark and gritty Mirage texture while maintaining the indy feel. The turtle ninja all look a fair bit different from the Ninja Turtles, having rather pronounced beaks and a lack of cartoonish facial features to enhance emoting. If it wasn’t for the “lipstick”, I wouldn’t have known the girl turtle was a girl, honestly.

I dig the idea of a senile old Raph training a crew of new turtle ninja and it’s something I’d certainly like to have seen more of. But, well, such is the nature of one-off back-up strips. And besides, this was for an RPG guide, so I imagine the point was that you were supposed to come up with your own unique adventures involving these new turtle ninja. That’s how that shit works, right?

If I had one complaint, it’s that none of the new turtle ninja are addressed by name. I don’t know if there’s any material in the guide book identifying them with individual monikers, since I don’t own the thing, but just having their names shouted out in passing would have been nice. Their individual weapons were a nice touch, though scar-face getting stuck with a plain-ole spear was a little weak. C’mon, there’s gotta be more exciting ninja weapons out there than that.

“Road Hogs” is one of those Ninja Turtles back-up strips that may be lost to the annals of time. The likelihood of Mirage ever reprinting it is slim, and maybe even slimmer since it has no bearing on the Mirage canon. Still, it’s a fun little tale providing a glimpse at an alternate future where Raph has gone senile, but can still kick some ass.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Could they have picked a better name for their biker gang, since the Road Hog’s only sported one pig as a member?”)

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #59

Staff:

Originally printed: June 17, 2009

Script: Tristan Jones
Art: Paul Harmon
Layouts: Tristan Jones & Paul Harmon
Letters: Eric Talbot
Cover: Paul Harmon & Steve Lavigne
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney

“Expose’”

Summary:

Frontispiece: Leonardo is fighting a horde of Foot Ninja while simultaneously dodging arrow fire. He recalls how Splinter taught him about actions and reactions and relates it to his own life. His acts of vengeance upon the Foot have trapped him in a web of retaliation and he ponders how long it will take to escape, or if he’ll even escape at all.

Following Hun’s attack on the Jones family, Casey, April and Shadow have gone into hiding at the Northampton farmhouse.

At the news offices of The Bullet, the editor (Charles) is chewing out his journalist, Lauren Stanton. Her investigation into the recent precinct fire and its ties to an organized crime syndicate called the Foot Clan as well as with corrupt police officers, has been getting her and her editor into a whole lot of trouble (the death threat kind). Much to Lauren’s chagrin, she is reassigned to cover the recent release of Hunter ‘Hun’ Mason.

Lauren storms out and throws a tantrum, horrifying all in her path. After settling into her cubicle, she’s approached by her buddy, Stan, who has some photos to deliver. They were taken from the precinct fire, showcasing Lin, Foot Ninja and several awkwardly shaped “people” in heavy, concealing clothing. Now off the story, Lauren casts them aside as useless and focuses on her new project. She asks Stan to help her dig up some info on Hun, and after a little bit of browsing on the computer, he comes up with a photo of Hun taken at the Snake Pitt Club in Harlem. Lauren decides to infiltrate the club, but Stan warns her it’s a death wish, as the place is owned by a guy named King Cobra, and he’s bad news (he could’ve just said “White girl in Harlem after dark” and made the same point, though). Naturally, Lauren goes anyway.

Lauren arrives at the Snake Pitt all dolled up and is let in, no questions asked. She cases the joint, noticing corrupt cops, like Simon Lord and Steven Welsh, bumping shoulders with known thugs, like Big Little and his homies. Unknown to her, King Cobra is watching her every move.

She eventually spots Hun and sneaks into the back access hallways. In the kitchen, a business deal between the Foot Loyalists, represented by Lin, and the Purple Dragons, represented by Hun, is going down. Lin regrets that her boss could not greet Hun in-person, while Hun ponders why Lin even bothered to help him get out of jail in the first place. Amid such discussions is talk about a weapons shipment showing up tomorrow night for pick-up at a “meat place” down by the docks.

Lauren snaps a photo with her camera-phone, but bumps into a mop and bucket on the way out. She’s caught and dragged out into the alley to explain herself to King Cobra. The snake-faced villain IDs her, leaving Hun to order her execution. As the head honchos leave, the thugs move in for the kill. Suddenly, the Turtles arrive! As they beat some sense into the hoods, Mikey drags Lauren away some place safe (a rooftop), then rejoins the fray.

Back at the office, Lauren finds most of the photo files on her camera to have been corrupted. One works, however, and she instantly recognizes Lin from the photos she’d taken at the precinct fire. Lauren spills the beans to Stan, realizing that the precinct fire and the business with Hun are all related. She and Stan then embark on multiple fact-finding missions. Lauren attempts to interview Detective Paul Whitmire about the strange “creatures” seen at the precinct fire, but gets nowhere. His reaction, combined with the fact that “four giant turtles” are mentioned nowhere in the unregistered superhero files of the city, leaves her to realize that they’re being protected by Whitmire. Meanwhile, Stan hunts down all the info on Lin Koyobashi, enlightening Lauren on her connection to the Foot Clan. Lauren then heads out to Don’s Meat Packing Plant down by the docks to watch the arms deal go down.

She gets more than she bargained for, as the Turtles once again arrive on the scene. As Leo, Don and Raph take on the thugs, Mike carries Lauren to safety yet again. He commandeers her camera-phone and sends her away, leaving her with nothing to show for her struggles.

Back at the office, Stan delivers a package to Lauren. It contains her camera, sans photographs, and a note. Mikey regrets having to take her pictures but wishes her the best. Lauren is intrigued.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #56.

*This story will be continued in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #61.

*The Precinct fire and all the events there-in happened in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #36, the first part of this story arc.

*This issue also featured a bonus pin-up, “Samhain Showdown”, by Fernando Leon Gonzalez and Ryan Brown.


Review:

Jones and Harmon are at it again! Their hardboiled take on the Ninja Turtles universe continues onward at breakneck speed with this latest installment in the storyline. I’ve read varying levels of reception for this grittier take on the TMNT universe, though even those that don’t particularly care for it don’t seem to outwardly hate it, with the majority of feedback being pretty positive. Those who aren’t this storyline’s biggest fans may be pleased even less with this installment, due to it focusing primarily on human characters instead of the Turtles, but those who have been adoring the saga, well, you’re in for a treat.

If the summary didn’t spell it out for you, this story is told from the perspective of Lauren, giving us an outsider’s point of view on all this craziness. While true, she does spend much of the issue uncovering facts we, as readers, have long been well aware of, she also manages to unearth lots of tidbits that are news even to us. Because hey, she’s a journalist. That’s what they’re paid for. It’s paced out quite well, with some very snappy dialogue that helps you fall-in with the character, adapting to the real-world perspective. That way, when the giant monster turtles with melee weapons start dropping down from the sky on Page 14, you somewhat share in Lauren’s complete “What the @#&*!?” reaction. Even though we’ve all seen the Turtles a million times before, we’re seeing them for the first time through Lauren’s eyes, and the whole thing’s pulled off rather well.

The story is, admittedly, some pretty complicated stuff. This third chapter introduces even more characters to keep track of, and if you haven’t read issues #36 and #56 recently (or god help you, at all), you’re doomed to be lost. Thankfully, Berger and Jones saw fit to include a refresher course on the storyline in the opening editorial, so as long as you read that, you should get along just fine. And since this issue makes it a point to bring up all the characters and their ties to one-another, the savvier readers out there shouldn’t be left with much to ponder, anyway.

While Lin has been running around getting business done since issue #36, Detectives Miller and Whitemire haven’t had much opportunity to make themselves useful since their introduction. I’m hoping they step up as characters in the next installment, as they’re starting to fade into the background a bit. Meanwhile, the new baddy, King Cobra, is given a chance to strut his stuff. His main appeal is primarily a visual one, looking cool as he does with that creepy snake-face (Mask? Mutation? I dunno). He doesn’t really have much effect on this issue’s story outside of owning a nightclub, but he’s gifted with some entertaining lines, so he ranks above a throw-away character.

If my grandfather were still alive, I imagine he’d say that Paul Harmon’s artwork is “the bee’s knees”. Though, in retrospect, I don’t think he ever talked like that. The guy fought in, like, nine different wars and only ate what he could kill, so I can’t see those words coming out of his mouth. But I still think he’d like it. Harmon’s dark, gloomy and muddy style suits this type of storytelling like a glove and makes for some serious visual excitement. The fight scenes are up close and brutal, though know when to take a step back in order to remind us we’re watching everything from Lauren’s point of view, not the guys in the middle of the brawl. If I have one quibble, I suppose it’s that I didn’t find Lauren all that attractive-looking. She’s supposed to be able to step right into an exclusive nightclub on her ravishing looks alone, but I just didn’t see it.

Tales of the TMNT hasn’t had a lot of multi-issue story arcs to speak of, but of the few we’ve received, this has been turning out to be my favorite. It’s a nice antithesis to the more “Saturday Morning Cartoon”-styled adventures we tend to get saddled with, placing the Turtles in a very real environment with just the right touch of impossible characters and situations to make it all feel right.

Grade: A (as in, “All Lauren needs is a yellow jumpsuit and we’ll be good to go”.)

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #58

Staff:

Originally printed: May 20, 2009

Plot: Steve Murphy and Ryan Brown
Script: Steve Murphy
Art: Dario Brizuela
Lettering: Eric Talbot
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney
Front cover: Dario Brizuela and Steve Lavigne
Back cover: Fernando Leon Gonzalez

“All Tomorrow’s Yesterdays”

Summary:

Frontispiece: Leonardo recalls some of the batshit crazy creatures he has met in his many adventures, both good and evil, as he, his brothers and a very young Shadow get better acquainted with Cudley the Cowlick.

Down on Earth, the Turtles, the Utrom Glurin and Casey are tracing the whereabouts of the Utromi Preservi, who had stolen a cosmic stigmatifier monitor from his lab, and find they’ve gone to Alpha Centauri. Since the Preservi had also stolen a powerful crystal shard from Moo Mesa in their last encounter, the group decides to split up. Leo, Don and Glurin take a spaceship and go to Alpha Centauri while Mike, Raph and Casey cross dimensions with Don’s gridshift remote and warn the C.O.W. Boys over in Moo Mesa. Many cow puns ensue.

Upon reaching Moo Mesa, the guys find the place completely abandoned, save the local saloon (naturally). Leo and the others arrive safely in Alpha Centauri, only to discover the fleet of Preservi cruisers too focused on their bizarre work to even notice them. One of the Preservi flies into a weird singularity and launches a missile containing the shard from Moo Mesa. A few seconds later, he returns from the singularity…dead. He was successful in his endeavor, though, and out of the singularity comes a gigantic sarcophagus: the sarcophagus of the Space Vampire (apparently). They intend to use its power for themselves. Or something.

Back at the saloon in Moo Mesa, Mike, Raph and Casey are engaging in a good ole fashioned brawl with such nasties as Saddle Sore and Boot Hill Buzzard, among others, as Lily Bovine watches on with little amusement. However, the C.O.W. Boys (Marshal Moo Montana, the Dakota Dude and the Cowlarado Kid) quickly arrive and break up the act.

Back in space, the Preservi have noticed Leo and the rest and open fire, destroying their ship. The trio bail out in their spacesuits just as the sarcophagus of the Space Vampire opens up, unleashing Galactose (who looks like a not-so-subtle cross between Galactus, Annihilus and a bat), who now wields the power of the magic shard.

Back in Moo Mesa, the Turtles are in the middle of explaining what’s happening to the C.O.W. Boys when the cave where the muta-crystal is buried begins to glow like crazy. They arrive at the cave to investigate.

Back in space, Galactose has added the shard to his “Chaos Scepter” and is draining the life from all the Preservi. He then turns his attention to the Turtles and fires, but luckily for them, Cudley the Cowlick arrives at the last second and whisks them away from the danger. Inside Cudley’s mouth, the Turtles are reunited with Ola of the Una, who somehow isn’t dead. Ola explains that he has survived because he still has a purpose and it involves the shards of the muta-crystals and their profound link to one-another.

As he explains this, Galactose begins to drain the life from a nearby planet: Earth. When Galactose feeds, he becomes capable of tearing open the space-time continuum, granting him access to parallel versions of the world he’s devouring. With the power of the shard, Galactose also has a clear path back to Moo Mesa for further nourishment. Cudley takes them to Moo Mesa where they reunite with the other Turtles, Casey and the C.O.W. Boys. Unfortunately, the muta-crystal is glowing because it is drawing Galactose near. The guys escape the cave just as it collapses, only to find Moo Mesa crumbling to pieces thanks to Galactose.

As reality shatters to pieces, the Turtles see versions of themselves from all across the multiverse: very awkwardly drawn versions of themselves (from TMNT (Vol. 1) #1), themselves in wacky wrestling costumes battling Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady (from TMNT Adventures #7), the Mighty Mutanimals (from, uh, The Mighty Mutanimals) and a sharp-looking version of themselves with pupils visible through their bandanas (presumably from the 2007 Imagi TMNT film). Thinking fast, Don takes the gridshift remote, adjusts it and zaps himself, his brothers, Casey and Glurin away...leaving the C.O.W. Boys to die. Nice.

We’re taken back in time, to when Don, Raph, Ola and the C.O.W. Boys failed to stop the Preservi from stealing the shard from the muta-crystal. Suddenly, Leo, Mike, Glurin and the NYPD Xenosquad arrive from the future and take down the Preservi with their laser guns, then trap them in a force field. The day saved, Leo explains to past Don that his future invention, the gridshift remote, allowed them to travel through time and save the day. The Xenosquad then return to their time and dimension with the Preservi as Cudley takes Ola back to his home world to die. As the Turtles bid their goodbyes to the C.O.W. Boys, a rightfully confused Raph asks Casey what future they will be returning to and whether their future selves will be there. Casey says he doesn’t know, but all he cares about is thanking Don for making sure they have a future to return to.

Meanwhile, out in space, the sarcophagus of the Space Vampire remains undisturbed, having never been opened.


Turtle Tips:

*The TMNT last met the C.O.W. Boys, Ola and Cudley the Cowlick in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #52.

*The Utromi Preservi were first introduced in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #6.

*This issue also featured a bonus TMNT/C.O.W. Boys pin-up by Fernando Leon Gonzalez (in addition to his back cover).


Review:

And so the four-part TMNT/C.O.W. Boys crossover comes to its conclusion. As you may or may not know, I’m very fond of the actual multi-issue story arcs that exist in Tales, as there are far too few of them. This one, however, never really hit it off with me. I didn’t like the C.O.W. Boys cartoon when I was a kid and wasn’t one of the eight people who read the original comic book series, so I just don’t have any inherent love for the characters or their universe. This issue in particular hardly includes them at all, with them making mostly token appearances and not contributing to the plot in any significant way whatsoever. I mean, the Cowlerado Kid gets only two lines of dialogue in the whole thing! They’re just so superfluous to the story, at least as far as this concluding chapter is concerned.

What this story does do, however, is establish that the TMNT exist in a multiverse, somewhat tying all their alternate versions from other media together and, at least in theory, opening up the door for future crossovers. I mean, I doubt we’ll ever see a TMNT: The Next Mutation crossover in any of these comics, but I guess it’s soothing to know the possibility exists (or maybe it isn’t so soothing). Oddly, the collage of alternate reality versions of the TMNT includes a glimpse of TMNT (Vol. 1) #1 which, last time I checked, took place in the same continuity as the one these Turtles come from (the Mirage continuity). I guess…just…try not to think about it.

The time jump confused me terribly at first. All four Turtles skip through time on page 31, yet only Mike and Leo come back (and with a bunch of weird characters, too). I had to read it over and over to really get it, but I guess only those two came back so that two Dons and Raphs wouldn’t be together at the same time. Shit, I don’t know. Time travel gives me a migraine.

Then there’s Galactose and the onslaught of horrible, horrible barnyard puns. All these C.O.W. Boys crossovers have been polluted with them and you can really tell Murphy’s running out of steam by this point. That three-legged dog joke was a crime against nature. Then there’s Galactose, that oddball parody of Marvel Comics’ Galactus, that just came out of freakin’ nowhere. Why randomly parody a cosmic Marvel Comics villain in a crossover about talking animals in the Wild West? Hell if I know. I got the feeling the overtly goofy tone of the story was meant to invoke nostalgia for the often lighthearted TMNT Adventures series, but that may be a bit of a stretch.

On the bright side, we’ve got Dario Brizuela’s excellent artwork to feast upon. I’ve always loved his rendition of the Turtles, with their oh-so expressive eye slits. His version of Cudley is horribly adorable, I’m sad to confess. Or at least as adorable as a severed cow head can be, anyway. His digital shading is excellent and there are some very impressive moments, particularly the big brawl at the saloon. One oddity, though, is Page 15, which is just the bottom half of the last panel of Page 14, blown up to fit an entire page. I imagine this was done in order to allow for the two-page spreads on pages 16-17 and 28-29. Still, they could have done something a little more remarkable than…that.

Overall, this arc has been all over the place. I actually enjoyed it more when it was just a cheesy gratuitous crossover and not a cosmic epic. This last installment faltered pretty badly, shuffling the C.O.W. Boys off to the background and throwing in some partly incomprehensible time travel mumbo jumbo, all for the sake of a cheap “Hey, remember those other TMNT cartoons and comics?” gimmick. Brizuela’s art is a treat, but it can only do so much.

Grade: D+ (as in, “Dario’s Cudley is adorable. Dooney’s Cudley is creeeeeeepy!”)

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