Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew

Originally published in: Turtle Soup #1 (special)

Story and art by: Stan Sakai

Summary:

While going for a training run, Leo suddenly finds himself falling through an endless void. Leo suspects that he’s suffering after effects from his recent encounter with Renet and Lord Simltaneous. Leo eventually finds himself in what appears to be feudal Japan. Before he can ponder his whereabouts too thoroughly, Leo is besieged by a gang of “rough and tough outlaw ronin” who just happen to be anthropomorphic animals. They attack Leo in order to steal his money and a massive brawl follows.

Not far away, the rabbit bodyguard Miyamoto Usagi is once again pestered by the Neko-Ninja Clan, who intend to take their foe out once and for all. A battle ensues, naturally.

As Leo fights the ronin and Usagi fights the Neko-Ninja, their paths eventually cross. With all their opponents wiped out, both Leo and Usagi mistake one-another for an enemy. As they charge each other, Leo vanishes into thin air, leaving Usagi to smash headfirst into a tree (shouting his distaste for all ninja to the Heavens). Leo, meanwhile, reappears in April’s apartment in New York, where he crashes headfirst into his brothers. Leo tries to explain that he was fighting a rabbit, but no one will believe him.


Turtle Tips:

*Leo met Renet in TMNT (Vol. 1) #8.

*Leo will meet Usagi a second time in “The Crossing”.

*These Usagi Yojimbo crossovers will be acknowledged as Mirage canon in TMNT (Vol. 4) #30.

*This is the first ever crossover between the Ninja Turtles and Miyamoto Usagi. The crossovers would eventually spread to the Fred Wolf cartoon series, the Playmates toyline and the 2003 4Kids cartoon.


Review:

I have to confess that I haven’t read nearly as many Usagi Yojimbo comics as I should. I have absolutely no excuse to get myself off the hook for this. The series is almost completely episodic, meaning every issue is a perfect jumping-on point for new readers. I do indeed own a handful of them, in no particular order spanning the numerous volumes and publishers from the decades the series has been in print, but I just don’t feel like I’ve really given the series the dedicated read-through it obviously deserves.

I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read and I like Miyamoto Usagi as a character. His appearances in the cartoons were always a lot of fun (the 4Kids series more-so than the Fred Wolf series) and I’ve owned both the 80s and 2003 versions of the Playmates Usagi action figure (though Space Usagi always eluded me). I just need to grab some of those graphic novels and devote an entire afternoon to em.

That being said, I do happen to own all six TMNT crossover issues and they actually manage to succeed in telling a pretty offbeat and compelling storyline (culminating in the three-part “Shades of Green” story arc). This first crossover, published in the tribute special “Turtle Soup”, is modest enough. Six pages that amount to little more than the two characters appearing in the same shot. Sakai’s charming art style is in full form, with “Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew” hitting upon all the usual Usagi Yojimbo tropes (I’ve only read a dozen issues total and I already know em all). You know, like cute little confused dinosaurs and characters having skull and cross-bone thought bubbles when they die. That sort of stuff.

The story unfortunately ends just before Leo and Usagi can throw down, but at six pages, what were you expecting? Future installments in the “story arc” (if you can really call this collection of guest strips a “story arc”) would eventually give the people what they want. The "kindred spirits" angle in regards to Leo and Usagi is given a subtle start with this story, as Leo’s and Usagi’s battles mirror one another. I have to say, though, that the idea of them being two peas in a pod was only ever really done justice in the 4Kids cartoon series. But then, you know; this “story arc” is comprised of three guest strips and a three-part crossover in the Usagi Yojimbo comic. You can’t expect too much.

All in all, though I enjoyed maybe half of the contents in the original Turtle Soup special, this little six-page crossover has always been my favorite. It sure as Hell beat the other crossover in the book, “Showdown”, where the Turtles met C.A. Stormon’s Blazing Tales Varmints. Christ…

Grade: B (as in, “But why does Sakai have to make death so adorable in his comics?”)

Turtle Soup #1 (special)

Originally published: September, 1987

Contents:

*“Turtle Dreams”
*“Pesticide”
*“Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew”
*“The Howl”
*“Showdown”
*“Apparition”
*“You’re in the Army Now”
*“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”

Turtle Tips:

*This issue also contained bonus pin-ups by Gary Morita, Jim Lawson, Ryan Brown, Michael Cogliandro, Kevin Eastman, Michael Dooney, Peter Laird and Steve Bissette.

*This special eventually spawned the four issue Turtle Soup miniseries as well as the (not completely Turtle-centric) Plastron Café miniseries.

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #64

Date published: November 18, 2009

Script: Tristan Jones
Pencils: Jim Lawson
Inks: Steve Lavigne
Letters: Dan Berger
Cover: Jim Lawson & Steve Lavigne
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney

“The Burning Man”

Summary:

Frontispiece: While battling a demonic dragon, Raph puts the term “ugly” into perspective for the readers.

Down in the sewer lair, Michelangelo is receiving another verbal spanking from Leonardo over something he did a week ago. Luckily for Mikey, he has mastered the art of tuning his overbearing brother out. As it happens, the top floor of a building in Chinatown got blown out and a weird cursed “burning man” appeared and fought Mikey out in the open in front of cameras. Raph’s off the hook since he got doused with a hallucinogen, Don’s out because he has a technical excuse to weasel himself out of blame for every occasion, so that leaves Mikey. Mikey, however, thinks Leo should be blaming himself.

Story as he tells it: the rogue Foot cell that Leo’s been tracking apparently targeted a rare vase. Leo and Mike gave chase in some sort of awesome action sequence that, meh, let’s just skim over. As Lin attempted to spirit the vase away in a Foot chopper, Leo struck her in the arm with a shuriken, causing her to drop and shatter the vase, releasing the “burning man” within.

Some research was in order, but Leo’s patrolling, Don’s net-surfing and Mike’s Lucky Charms-munching yielded nothing. But the Ninja Turtles being the Ninja Turtles, they found other stuff to do to pass the time. While Leo was busy fighting Lin and her Foot cell, Don was busy getting pummeled by Hun and Raph was busy wetting the bed thanks to the drug he got hit with by the voodoo Rastafarian dude, Mike was the only one available to fight the “burning man” when he resurfaced in Chinatown. So Mikey donned a disguise (a hoody and Groucho glasses) and sprang into action. The “burning man” was after some philanthropist named Li Xiao Yao for some reason, so Mike scared the villain off with a fire hose.

Back in the sewers, Mike reconvened with Don and told him what he saw. Turns out, the “burning man” was a spirit trapped in an urn by an ancient Chinese symbol that Don still couldn’t decipher, so he sent Mike back up top to shadow Li Xiao Yao. Once the top floor of his building exploded, Mike ran to investigate and found the “burning man” attacking Yao. Don then chimed in over their comm, saying that Leo has reported back from his battle with the Foot cell. He found the commanding spell to get rid of the “burning man”, but he’d have to speak to Yao first. So as Yao had words with Don, Mike got knocked off the building. By the time Mike pulled himself up, he found Yao and the “burning man” trading energy blasts. After striking the “burning man” in the head with his nunchuku, Yao was able to disintegrate the distracted spirit.

So with the story told, Mike assures us that everything was completely Leo’s fault because he broke the urn in the first place. The only thing Mike CAN take responsibility for is the parking ticket on April’s van.

Elsewhere, Yao steps out of his limo. He's worried that the Turtles and the Foot might be aware of the Ring of Xiaolong, which is what he used to destroy the “burning man”, so he brands them all enemies. He decides that the Turtles are the greater threat since they killed Oroku Saki and since “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he figures he ought to ally himself with the Foot cell. So Yao finds himself sitting at a conference table with King Cobra, Lin, Hun, a blonde chick and a middle-aged dude deciding how to bring New York to its knees.


Turtle Tips:

*This issue is continued from Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #61.

*King Cobra first appeared in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #59.

*Lin first appeared in Tales of the TMNT #36.

*Hun first appeared in Tales of the TMNT #56.

*The Turtles killed Oroku Saki in TMNT (Vol. 1) #1 and his clone in TMNT (Vol. 1) #21.

*Author Tristan Jones revealed the identities of the as-yet-unnamed people at the villain conference on the last page as: King Cobra's personal aide, lawyer and City Hall insider (blonde woman) and a Mafia boss (middle-aged guy). Additionally, the Rastafarian voodoo guy was a drug dealing albino Hatian known as The Baron.

*Due to the cancellation of Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) and Viacom’s subsequent buy-out of the Ninja Turtles franchise, there are currently no plans to continue or conclude Tristan Jones’s “Gang Wars” story arc. Bummer.

*This issue also included a bonus pin-up, “Attack!” by Fernando Leon Gonzalez and Ryan Brown.

Review:

Well, the best on-going storyline Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) has offered in recent years has come to an abrupt, unresolved non-conclusion thanks to the cancellation of the title and the Viacom buy-out. A tragedy, in all honesty, since I dare say that this was my favorite installment in the entire story arc so far.

Mike has always been my least favorite of the Turtles in pretty much all their incarnations. But true to the concept of “no bad characters, only bad writers”, Tristan Jones has managed to craft one of the best Mikey-centric stories I’ve ever read. Far too often, writers tend to relegate Mike to the dreaded “comedy relief” position where, depending on how bad the writer is, he often slides into obnoxious mascot territory alongside the likes of Slimer, Orko and Snarf. I understand that comedy relief characters can be very hard to write. They have to be funny and provide levity, but not be overbearing. And somewhere along the lines, it was decided that comedy relief entities had to be utterly useless, too (because watching them screw everything up all the time is hilarious!).

Mikey is constantly treading that razor’s edge, depending on whose penning him. Jones, mercifully, found a way to implement Mikey in a comical manner without making him annoying, overbearing or intellectually offensive. What we have here is quite possibly the most hilarious “inside look” at the Turtles’ relationship the book has ever given us, at least from Mikey’s point of view, giving us his perspective on the other characters, but also giving us a well-rounded look at his very own positive and negative qualities. I feel like I’m overanalyzing with that last sentence, but it’s true.

Mikey can’t take shit seriously. We know that. That’s a fundamental of his character. So here we see him brushing off Leo’s scolding, rolling his eyes at Don’s nerd babble and reveling in Raph’s defeat. Mike’s carefree attitude is often what leads to him being intolerable, but Jones utilizes it perfectly, with a good dash of perspective behind it. Yeah, he doesn’t take things seriously, but he also has a good excuse as to why something or other isn’t his fault and feeds it to us with a healthy dose of comedy.

This issue just illustrates a tremendous understanding of each Turtle on a fundamental level by Jones that’s nothing short of impressive. Just the page where Mike describes how each other Turtle always has an excuse to get themselves out of trouble (Leo’s ego is too big, Don can always come up with a mathematical equation to get himself off the hook and Raph is so hotheaded it’d be like blaming a retarded kid for starting a fire), thus leaving Mikey to hold the bag all the time because he’s the “carefree one that never takes things seriously”. You sort of get a feeling that there’s a kind of burden that comes with being the comedy relief character.

Of course, the best part of the issue has to be Mike’s warped cartoon interpretations of his brothers and the events. Don looking like a Coke bottle-wearing poindexter, Leo as a lame Batman-wannabe and the Stick Figure Theater presentation of Leo and Mike’s battle with the Foot cell are just a few of the highlights. All punctuated with Mikey’s goofy commentary and some funny “you know he’s making this up” word bubbles. Even ignoring all that introspective crap about the Turtles’ personalities I was just yammering on about like a nut, this issue is just plain funny. And that’s reason enough to pick it up.

But there’s a downside to this wonderful story. It’s the last one from this arc we’re going to be getting. It’s fun, it’s hilarious, but it only slightly advances the “Gang Wars” plot and ends with a pretty slick cliffhanger. A cliffhanger we may never see resolved, too. Of course, there’s a slim chance that Viacom might license the Turtles out to another publisher like Dark Horse or (god forbid) IDW, but in order to get this story properly resolved they’d have to hire Jones back on AND continue the original Mirage continuity without rebooting. And that’s…a whole lot of variables.

As it stands, much like “Change of Power”, it’s frustrating that we’ll never see such a cool story arc properly resolved, especially after investing five issues in it. On the other hand, it went out perhaps not with a “bang” but with a really, really fun story. So that’s cool, too.

Grade: A (as in, “And for once, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I loved Lawson’s work on this issue, batting around the different cartoony art styles and what have you. His style just really worked with this script”.)

TMNT (Vol. 1) #45

Originally Published: March, 1992

Artist/Writer: Dan Berger
Letterer: Rob Caswell
Tones: Ryan Brown
“Other stuff”: Dan Berger
Publishers: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Publishing Director: Deborah Toffoli
Editorial Director: Michael Dooney
Publishing Assistant: Dorothy Sloan

“Leatherhead Too”

Summary:

In a trash-strewn alley (dressed with Metallica and Sepultura posters! Woo!), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once again beat the snot out of a horde of Foot Soldiers. Ever since Leo killed the clone Shredder, the Foot Clan has been sloppy and disorganized. Yet somehow their crimes have been increasing steadily, becoming what the media have called the “Ninja Uprising”. The Turtles came back to New York from Northampton to check up on it and have been fighting the pathetic leftovers of the Foot ever since.

A unit of four gaudily-clad Foot Soldiers (Croaker, Wen, Gei and Szefchek) manage to escape death or capture and flee into the sewers. Croaker decides that the best place for them to hide is in the Turtles’ old lair, which he claims the Foot Clan drove them out of years ago (suuuure they did). Along the way, Croaker laments that without the Shredder to guide them, the Foot Clan has really been sucking and wishes for a powerful new leader.

Upon breaking into the sewer lair, they’re greeted by the rampaging one-eyed Leatherhead. Leatherhead trounces all of them, but Croaker begs for mercy, allowing Leatherhead to regain his composure. Apparently, ever since he moved into the old lair, he has been trying to build a new Transmat so that he can rejoin his friends, the Utroms, on their homeworld. He asks the Foot Soldiers to help him finish his device, as his claws cannot perform the delicate craftsmanship required. Croaker, seeing Leatherhead as a potential new leader, agrees to help. Hours pass and with the work nearly done, Leatherhead leaves to a storage room to get the last components, weeping with joy that he can finally go home.

Back up top, the Turtles finish tying up the Foot Soldiers and decide to go crash with Leatherhead at their old pad. Once they arrive, though, they find the Foot Soldiers standing around and prepare to finish them off. Luckily for the Foot Soldiers, Leatherhead bursts in and prevents the fight, explaining the situation to the Turtles. The Turtles agree to help finish the Transmat alongside the reluctant Foot Soldiers and get to work. As they get lost in their work, no one notices Croaker remove a single chip (he wants Leatherhead to stick around and lead the Foot).

With the device completed, Leatherhead bids a tearful goodbye and climbs onto the platform. Don flips the switch, but instead of teleporting Leatherhead to the Utrom homeworld, the Transmat just explodes around him. Leatherhead freaks the Hell out and decides that both the Turtles and the Foot Soldiers have betrayed him. He begins wailing on all eight of them, but then decides that he’d rather plot a more gruesome vengeance and runs off, swearing to get even with them some day.

As Leatherhead sulks all alone in the sewers, the Turtles head to a rooftop and remark that although they are alone in the world, they at least have each other. Meanwhile, Leatherhead has no one.

Turtle Tips:

*A letter at the beginning of this issue from Eastman and Laird establishes that, beginning with this issue, TMNT would be done completely in-house at Mirage, with no more guest artists and writers and no more out of continuity stories.

*The opening pages are an homage to TMNT (Vol. 1) #1.

*Leo killed the clone Shredder in TMNT (Vol. 1) #21. The TMNT have fought the sloppy and disorganized remains of the Foot Clan repeatedly since then, in stories such as “Digital Webbing Presents”, “Challenges: Raphael” and “Kung Fu Theater”.

*The “Ninja Uprising” will reach a head in the “City at War” arc, beginning in TMNT (Vol. 1) #50.

*One of the Foot Soldiers remarks that the Foot Clan had driven the TMNT from the sewers. That event only occurred within the first TMNT live action film. In the comics, they were initially driven from the sewers by Baxter Stockman’s mousers in TMNT (Vol. 1) #2.

*The TMNT last met Leatherhead and gave him the keys to their old sewer lair in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 1) #6.

*This storyline will continue in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #8.

*The full deal on the Foot Soldier (Croaker, Wen, Gei and Szefchek) will be revealed in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #34.

Review:

TMNT (Vol. 1) #45 is an important “milestone” issue in a number of ways. Firstly, as per the letter published on the inside cover, it marks the editorial turning point of the series. No more guest artists and writers, no more goofy out-of-continuity stories, just straight-up gritty ninja action akin to the first couple dozen issues of the series. As such, the story begins with a fitting homage to the first three pages of TMNT (Vol. 1) #1. The change was certainly welcomed from me, as I was getting kind of sick of all the really silly non-canon stuff. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of quality stories came out of that era (Michael Zulli’s “Soul’s Winter” trilogy, for instance), but the bad outweighed the good by a wide margin. Even worse, it’s hard to tell just which stories from that era are to be considered canon. Taking things back in-house was a wise move on Mirage’s part.

This issue also marks the first full-on writer and artist credit for Mirage staffer and all-around nice guy, Dan Berger. He stumbles in a few places with his first major contribution (prior to this, he was an inker on various TMNT projects like the daily comic strip and the Archie TMNT Adventures series), but Berger still hands in a great TMNT issue. Story-wise, I suppose my only complaint is the glaring error in regards to the Foot Clan driving the TMNT out of their old sewer lair, an event which only occurred in the first live action TMNT movie, not in the comics. I contacted Berger about this a couple years ago and instead of telling me to piss off, he actually took the time to craft an awesome “Marvel no-prize” style explanation:

Howdy Mark,

Well, it's been quite awhile since I wrote that, so I have no idea what I was thinking then - more than likely I just screwed up. But in the old Marvel Bullpen tradition, here's my no-prize style workaround:

The line:"The freaks used to call this cesspool 'home' before we drove them out. Now it's our only refuge."

Refers to the sewers as a whole as being the Turtles' home. It's not specifically referencing their old lair.

The "before drove them out" bit refers to the TMNT fleeing NYC to go to Northampton (in issue #10) - not specifically fleeing the lair.

Why Croaker and Wen are familiar with the old lair itself could be because they discovered it while Leatherhead wasn't home and they assumed it was abandoned.

Very thin, I know - but it's a workaround for those that want one. I don't know if it would win me a no-prize, though.

Thanks for writing!

Cheers!


Berger’s art has a bit more of an edge to it than we’re used to from him, but still looks like his distinctive TMNT daily strip style. Just with scarier teeth. His elements of cartoony humor are still present, with goofy reactions (Leatherhead getting caught in the explosion is anything but serious) and some funny sight gags (as Leatherhead searches for the microchips in his storage room, he finds them in a box labeled “In here”). The result is a bit more bi-polar than his later efforts, but still a fun fusion of the goofier and grittier sides of the Ninja Turtles.

Leatherhead’s reaction at the end was a little…abrupt and resolved fairly quickly (“Ah, just let him go. We can’t go after him, anyway. It’s the end of the issue”). Thankfully, the thread eventually got followed up on in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #8, begining a trilogy of stories spawned from this issue. They read together surprisingly well, even if each issue is separated by a wide gulf of years.

Perhaps most importantly, this issue begins building up toward “City at War”, one of the most (and arguably THE most) epic Turtles stories ever published. I’ve remarked on this in my reviews for stories like “Digital Webbing Presents”, but I loved how the Foot Clan were reduced to a disorganized mess following the death of the clone Shredder and were constantly shown being handed embarrassing defeats, often by only a single Turtle. It actually builds toward the inevitable “City at War” arc quite well, where all that Foot stuff comes to a head.

All in all, this issue isn’t perfect. There’s a major continuity guff in there and the story ends too abruptly, but it’s still a fun Leatherhead tale that eventually kicked off a pretty good story arc that ran in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2). I’d recommend it.

Grade: B- (as in, “But maybe you four Foot Soldiers wouldn’t have such a hard time finding a new master if you stopped wearing those really gay outfits”).