TMNT Adventures #55

Publication date: April, 1994

Story/edits: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)

Pencils: Chris Allan

Inks: Jon D’Agostino

Inks (pages 12-14): Eric Talbot

Letters: Gary Fields

Colors: Barry Grossman

Weather: V. Gorelick

Cover: Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot

“Terracide, Part One of Three”

Summary:

Chapter One: Fire in the Sky

Over the ocean, Dead-Eye flies his hovercraft, shrieking about history belonging to those who create it. Inside a nearby cargo plane, the Turtles, Ninjara and Splinter rest up on their return from Israel. Ninjara tries to assure Mikey that his blindness will clear up in a few days, but he’s still in the dumps. Suddenly, an energy bolt strikes the plane and it goes down into the water. Dead-Eye laughs, victoriously.

Chapter Two: The Mutanimals are Dead!

Having just returned from the future to check up on the Mutanimals, future-Raph and future-Don find their friends slaughtered. They’re shocked, as the Mutanimals weren’t supposed to die until much later, meaning that someone is changing history. Suddenly, Slash emerges from the waves, remembering the Turtles (rather, their younger selves) from his previous battle with them and mistakes them for the killers of his friends. Slash pounces and ruthlessly defeats both future-Turtles. He is about to deliver the killing blow when Candy Fine, Mondo Gecko’s girlfriend, intervenes. She explains how the Gang of Four killed the Mutanimals after an attack from Scul and Bean. Slash relents and helps the grieving Candy bury her friends.

Chapter Three: Ashes to Ashes…

As Candy and Slash grieve, future-Raph asks future-Don if their coming back in time might have affected history and led to the deaths of their friends. Future-Don is certain that they’d done nothing wrong, as he remembered from his youth that future-Don helped the Mutanimals build their base and nothing bad came of it. He’s positive that someone is screwing with the time stream.

Leaving behind Mondo’s grave, Candy and Slash take a ride on Man Ray’s jet, the Strato-Ray, intent on returning home to New York. As future-Don pilots the jet, he realizes that Man Ray never even got a chance to test it out. Remembering that today was the day they took a cargo plane back from their first battle with Animus, future-Raph suggests they buzz the plane and startle their younger selves. Listening to air traffic control, however, they learn that their plane went down and the pilot and Michelangelo were picked up by the Coast Guard (something else that wasn’t supposed to happen).

Beating the Coast Guard to the rest of the wreckage, they find their younger selves, Ninjara and Splinter clinging to the debris. Candy and Slash help them inside the Strato-Ray and they take off before the Coast Guard arrives. The Turtles are excited to see their future selves, but their reunion comes with grim news: the Mutanimals are dead. The Turtles are shocked to hear this, and future-Don lands the Strato-Ray on a nearby sandbar so they can formulate a plan to rescue Mikey.

As soon as they disembark, however, the winged, cigar-chomping figure of Null rises from the ocean (in a speedo, unfortunately). Null vows to end the world, starting with them. Revealing that he orchestrated the deaths of the Mutanimals, he orders the Gang of Four to kill the Turtles and their friends in the same fashion.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Adventures #54. The story continues in TMNT Adventures #56.

*Slash references his battle with the (younger) Turtles from TMNT Adventures #25.

*Man Ray’s jet, the Strato-Ray, was another discarded vehicle design from the aborted Mighty Mutanimals animated series (although there, it was called the "Sea Ray" and may have been a sub).

*Null last appeared in TMNT Adventures #39.


Review:

“Megadeath” was the nauseating manure that nourished the stunning blossom that is “Terracide” (laid that on pretty thick, yeesh).

For as mean-spirited the conception and badly executed the final product “Megadeath” was, there’s no denying that “Terracide” did everything it could to make lemonade out of the lemons it wound up with. This was an ambitious and shockingly dark tale, built from several older plot threads and accelerating TMNT Adventures from a kid’s book that dabbled in grown up subjects to… well…

This is heavy, Doc.

Null is THE villain of TMNT Adventures. Forget Krang, forget the Shredder, forget Armaggon; forget them all. All the greatest and most daring storylines of the series were centered around this guy and he never disappointed. It often surprises me how fans tend to forget him entirely. In all the conversations I see online regarding what villains fans want to see transitioned into other universes or continuity mediums, you’ll get the usual suspects like Krang and Agent Bishop and even Hun, but Null tends to wade around the bottom of the barrel alongside, I dunno, the Dragon Lord from “Next Mutation”. And when fans think of the “best of TMNT Adventures”, they invariably resort to “The Future Shark Trilogy”. But what about the Mighty Mutanimals miniseries? “Divided we Fall”? Or, on topic, “Terracide”? All superb stories, each better than the last. All starring Null as the feature villain.

People ask me what TMNT villain I would like to see transitioned into a new comic or cartoon and I say “Null”. Of course, they respond with “Who?” and then I sigh.

In a way, I can understand the necessity for “Megadeath”. Murphy (Clarrain) needed a means to show that “the stakes have been raised” and now even characters established as early as the fifth issue of the series were suddenly mortal and could have their ticket punched at any moment. I felt it was done for shock value of the lowest common denominator, but it was shock value that served an important narrative function which paid off for the readers invested in the material. As I said in an earlier review, “the ends justified the means”

Now that long-standing characters were getting bumped off by a villain competent and cruel enough to successfully kill his enemies, you’re suddenly left wondering just how far this book was willing to go. Contrary to being the “arch nemesis” of the Turtles, Shredder never killed a damn one of his foes and most of his defeats were purely comical, even in this book (when last seen, he was vanquished by a random flood). Null was beaten twice by the joint efforts of the Turtles and the Mutanimals. So what does he do? He starts killing them. He doesn’t try to kill them. He kills them.

Right then and there, you know that Null isn’t like the other villains to appear in this book. He doesn’t shake his fist in defeat, swearing to “get them next time”. When he comes back, he takes his enemies out in strategic, efficient fashion. No elaborate, time-delay death traps. No long monologues before the fatal blow. Just ambush and slaughter.

While this sort of thing has been driven into the ground in Marvel/DC comics (killing a character is shorthand for “shit just got real”), this was new territory for TMNT Adventures and not something expected of a children’s book. And I think that’s why it has more genuine weight to it than “Jean Grey is dead. Again. Big deal.”

What’s even better about this issue alone is the build-up of tension. The Turtles’ plane has been shot down, someone’s mucking with history, the Mutanimals are dead, Slash is crazy, Mikey’s been abducted by the Coast Guard and Null’s back with a vengeance. That is a LOT of conflict to take-in in 28 pages, but Murphy paces it out well and the trouble begins at a low simmer and builds to a frothing boil by the end.

Allan’s art is grand and it’s great to see him take another swing at Slash. If you go back to the original “Slash trilogy”, that was when Allan first started on the book and hadn’t refined his style, especially for the Turtles, and everyone looks kinda fugly. By this point, though, he’d gotten his look down to a science and Slash is awesome as all Hell, thanks to it. Talbot’s inking doesn’t complement Allan’s style very well, and at a glance I almost mistook the flashback pages he inked for Jim Lawson art. I get the reason for it, so that the flashback would share the same texture as “Megadeath”, but I’d much rather see Allan’s take on the events unmolested than altered to look like Lawson’s.

Page 6 is incredibly grim; the corpses of the Mutanimals littering the beach, with their eyes open in blank stares, smoke rising from their wounds as they soak in puddles of their own blood. Yikes, dude. Apparently, Archie’s editorial refused to let the blood be red and Grossman was forced to make it black. While the logistics of black blood is stupid, I can understand the reasoning behind it; huge puddles of red gore would have just put things over the top for this children’s comic.

Anyway, “Terracide” is a great storyline spawned from a terrible one. Regardless, I felt the tradeoff was worth it. This first chapter alone was a great piece of storytelling with a lot of heart, action and memorable characters, both good and evil.

Grade: A- (as in, “And because you all got so upset with my Furrlough reviews, this one’s for you, furries…”)

Alright, things are back to normal

You've probably noticed the lack of regular updates for the past few months, with only reviews of the new releases being published here on TMNT Entity. The fact of the matter is that my obligations between finishing my degree and my full time job just absorbed too much of my free time.

However, I've finished all my classes and now I'll be able to update TMNT Entity on a regular basis, just like during the good ole days! So expect plenty of reviews of classic issues from Mirage and Archie, as well as whatever new stuff IDW pumps out.

And I'll even get back to translating the Super Turtles Vol. 3 manga which I had to put on hold, too (about a quarter of the way through with it, already).

So lots of Turtles stuff comin' up! Thanks for sticking with the site during the down time!

TMNT (IDW) #9

Publication date: April 25, 2012
Story: Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Dan Duncan
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Chris Mowry
Editor: Bobby Curnow

"Shadows of the Past, Part 1"

Summary:

Down in the lair, April does her level best to make sense of the TMNT’s origin as well as the part she played in the whole thing. Unfortunately, the Turtles don’t have time to let her get up to speed at her own pace, as they need to find Splinter and fast. Don inspects the Mouser remote and recognizes it as the same tech he encountered when Baxter Stockman tried to nab him at the Expo. They decide that Stockgen is the best place to go. Mikey wonders about the ninja that Leo fault, but he brushes them off as another matter for another day. The Turtles then turn to April and ask if she can use her inside knowledge as an intern for Stockgen to get them into the high security area. She promises to try.

At Stockgen, Hob enjoys toying with the bound and caged Splinter while Chet nervously takes a phone call from Baxter Stockman-himself. Calling from his limo, Stockman tells Chet and Hob not to operate on the specimen until he and his guests arrive. Knowing he’s on thin ice, Stockman assures General Krang (and his two Stone Warriors) that everything is going according to plan.

Outside Stockgen, April leads the Turtles and Casey to the least-guarded entrance. April offers to stand watch while the five of them go inside and rescue Splinter (much to Leo’s disapproval). As for the "getting inside" part, Don has that covered. Repairing a Mouser, Don uses the remote to cause it to break into the security control room and run amok. As the guards flee in terror, the Turtles and Casey sneak in. Taking out some more cameras and guards, the Turtles work their way to the basement where Splinter is being held. However, before they can rescue their father, they must first endure a Boss Battle! A giant laser-spewing Mouser guards the door, but it’s no match for the rage issues of Casey and Raph, who total it in record time.

Opening the vaulted door, they find Splinter’s cage smashed, the rat missing and both Chet and Hob knocked out on the floor. As Chet comes to, Leo interrogates him, demanding to know where Splinter is. Chet explains that other ninja broke in and kidnapped him.

Elsewhere, in some secret chamber, Splinter’s blindfold is removed by the female ninja named Karai. Karai introduces his kidnappers as the Foot Clan and orders Splinter to show respect to her grandfather: Master Shredder.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Microseries #4: Leonardo. The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #10.

*Don references the device Stockman used to track him from TMNT Microseries #3: Donatello.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Duncan and Pattison, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, and Cover RI by Ethan Nicolle and Noah Maas.


Review:

Counting the Microseries and the Infestation II miniseries, it took 15 issues for IDW’s TMNT series to get to the Shredder. That’s like, the antithesis of Mirage’s TMNT. Or something.

But what’s important now is that we’ve finally got the Shredder. And everything is right with the world.

If there’s one constant of the TMNT multiverse, it’s that Splinter gets kidnapped at the beginning of a series. He was kidnapped in the first season of the Fred Wolf cartoon, in the first two issues of the Mirage comic, in the first issue of the Image comic, in the first season of the 4Kids cartoon… That freakin’ geriatric rat just can’t take care of himself! I felt the banter between Splinter and Hob fell a bit short of, well, anything meaningful. Just Hob mocking him and Splinter swearing that his sons will, like, totally be there to rescue him. Aaaaaany minute, now.

I was sort of hoping for a reprise of Splinter’s earlier dialogue with Hob at the beginning of the series, trying to urge Hob away from the darker path he’s following. I mean, why does he hate Splinter? Because he gouged his eye out while protecting his sons? Because he’s a cat and Splinter’s a rat? Hob’s lust for vengeance is as shallow as a kiddy pool and it would be gratifying to see Splinter reach him and lead him away from his path to self-destruction. Or at least try. But really, I just think anything would have been better than, “Gonna cut you up!” “No you’re not! My kids’ll save me!” “Nuh uh!” “Yuh huh!”

Aside from that bit of pissing and moaning on my part, I dug most everything else in this installment. I like this April, I really do. I made a snarky joke earlier about an “antithesis to Mirage”, and while I only half-meant it when I chided the gradual introduction of the Shredder, I actually do mean it when I say that IDW’s April is the exact opposite of Mirage’s. And in the best way.

If you read my reviews of the earliest issues of Mirage’s TMNT, you’ll find that I’m pretty brutal in my evaluation of their April. Honestly, she’s just terrible; a simpering do-nothing that curls up in a fetal position and cries because she’s so useless and oh God how I hate her. I suppose you could say that every version of April outside of the Mirage comic is the antithesis of Mirage-April, as every other version of April has at least been an adventurous, take-charge character to varying degrees. But IDW’s April is a bit different. She’s a cowering victim in all of one issue; her first appearance. Following that, she immediately takes action to better herself and make sure it never happens again. So by this point in the story, she’s not about to sit at home crying while the boys have fun. And her standing watch outside Stockgen has more to do with her having less experience in actual combat than the others, not because she’s some useless girl.

I’m glad that April’s finally been folded in with the main cast of the book, as that means we’ll be getting to see more of her. And I definitely want to see more of this April.

The giant Mouser was neat, but kind of corny, too; like a video game boss. In fact, I was tempted to call it “Mother Mouser”, like the enemies from the TMNT games on the NES, but relented when I saw the sketch design named it “giant Mouser”. Hmph.

Lastly, we have the Foot Clan. Karai popping up was a big surprise, as I hadn’t expected to see her of all characters this early in the narrative. She claims to be the granddaughter of the Shredder, so it looks like her familial relationship with him from the 4Kids series has been imported (she had no relation to the Shredder in the Mirage comics). I’m all for it, as I found 4Kids Karai to actually be more interesting than Mirage Karai, mostly due to her blood-ties with the Shredder conflicting with her sense of ethics and honor. Mirage Karai was great in “City at War”, but after that she hardly ever did anything of interest.

As for the Shredder… Well, he sure looks badass, doesn’t he? We got spoiled on Duncan’s design a while back when the image of issue #10’s cover was released online, but it’s still pretty sweet. We still don’t know for sure if he’s the scar-faced Foot Soldier, but I’m anticipating some sort of twist when it comes to Shredder’s identity. And anyway, if the Shredder is Karai’s grandfather… then who is her father?

As always, I’m chomping at the bit to find this stuff out.

Grade: B- (as in, “But Old Hob should really stop buying his pants at the same joint as Bruce Banner”.)

TMNT Micro-Series #4: Leonardo

Publication date: April 18, 2012

Script: Brian Lynch
Art: Ross Campbell
Colors: Jay Fotos
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow


Summary:

Old Hob has kidnapped Splinter. Leonardo orders his brothers to split up and scour the city in search of their father. Leo decides to start his search at Stockgen labs and see what he can dig up. Crossing a construction site, he’s suddenly attacked by a swarm of Foot Soldiers. Recognizing them, Leo defends himself and tries to force answers from the ninja. As he battles, Leo is struck by brief glimpses back to his life as a human child in Feudal Japan, particularly of his mother, Tang Shen.



The numbers grow out of hand and Leo decides to lure the Foot Soldiers into a boarded up building and whittle them down from there. The plan works until an unexpected variable, a homeless woman, shows up on the scene. Distracted by the woman, as he doesn’t want the Foot Soldiers to kill her, Leo gets bogged down by enemies. A sudden memory of his mother’s death at the hands of the Foot Clan revives his strength and he fights his way free. Collapsing a portion of the ceiling, he drives the Foot Soldiers into retreat and allows the homeless woman to escape.



Leo races to the rooftop in the pouring rain and is approached by a single Foot Soldier: a scar-faced man with arm gauntlets. Leo takes the Foot Soldier on in a one-on-one battle, but despite his best efforts, cannot best the ninja. Telling Leo that he’s unimpressed, the scar-faced Foot Soldier hurls the Turtle off the roof and into a dumpster.



Later, Leo returns to the lair to reconvene with his brothers, Casey and April. Leo tells them what has happened (save his humiliating defeat) and his brothers ponder just how many factions out there want them dead. Mikey asks what they do next and Leo simply tells them that they keep on fighting, as he will never allow another family member to be lost ever again.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #8. The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #9.

*According to editor Bobby Curnow, the Foot Soldier seen at the end of TMNT Micro-Series: Raphael #1 was not intended to be the same character as the scar-faced Foot Soldier seen in this issue. However, his identity can be interpretted as such by readers without affecting the storyline.

*The reason the scar-faced ninja chose to test Leonardo will be revealed in TMNT (IDW) #14.

*This story was originally published with 5 variant covers: Cover A by David Peterson, Cover B by Campbell, Cover RI-A sketch variant by Peterson, Cover RI-B reprint of original Leonardo (microseries) #1 cover by Peter Laird, and Cover RE by Matt Slay.


Review:

This issue was all action. Not that that’s a bad thing.

TMNT Microseries #4: Leonardo makes an effort to recapture the running Leo vs. Foot battle of the original Leonardo (microseries) #1, but I think it’s best not to actively compare the two stories. A few years back, I ranked the original Leo/Foot battle as the greatest TMNT moment of all time and it is, perhaps, the greatest single issue of TMNT published by Mirage. So trying to compare this new issue with the original is somewhat unfair, and really, it’s more respectful to judge this story on its own merits and not as a side-by-side with a previous tale.

Picking up exactly where TMNT (IDW) #8 left off, this issue gives us something we’ve been waiting quite a long while for: the Turtles fighting the Foot. Or a Turtle fighting the Foot, anyway. We don’t get many answers to any questions from the ongoing series in this installment, as it’s really just a running battle for twenty pages, but that isn’t to say the story is necessarily shallow, either.

The idea that Leo is the only one of his brothers to have any real memory of their past life makes a lot of sense; he was the oldest, after all. And for those still unsure about the new origin, I think stories like this prove that the reincarnation angle adds a lot of heart to the mythology. Leo’s flashbacks of Tang Shen can be rather heartbreaking, as he recalls her bathing him, tucking him in and finally dying at the hands of the Foot. That last part, in particular, helps to fuel his emotions during the battle and it’s a struggle for him to keep from going over the edge. While I said that this issue was all action, there’s some heavy back story woven in-between said action that lend it some considerable weight.

As a first encounter with the Foot, it both delivers and, I’m afraid, falls short of my expectations. Early on, Leo remarks that the Foot Soldiers aren’t good enough to beat him and he breezes through them rather handily. They begin to overpower him through sheer numbers, but he overcomes that in the end, too. This only succeeds in making the Foot Soldiers look like a bunch of chumps. And while it’s perfectly natural for the Foot to become that in later stories, as the Turtles improve their skills, I’m of the opinion that making them ineffective fodder right out of the gate only serves to diminish their threat level. Even the 4Kids cartoon made it a point in its first episode to show that the Foot were quite skilled and hard to keep down (though naturally they became cardboard targets by later episodes, but back to my point; they shouldn’t be cardboard targets from the get-go).

Of course, that sort of changes at the climax, as the familiar scar-faced Foot Soldier slaps Leo around like it ain’t no thang and quite literally tosses him in the garbage. I think we all have a pretty good idea of who scar-face is going to turn out to be, and while the fight scene does a great job of further establishing his threat-level and personality, it still doesn’t make up for how easily Leo punked all the other Foot Soldiers on their first encounter.

Now, I have one particular problem with the running battle seen in this issue and it isn’t a matter of art or storytelling, but the fact that at no point does Leo ever draw blood. In fact, we never see his blade connecting with any body part. So the question remains: Just how did he beat all those Foot Soldiers if he didn’t stab a single one of them? Did he hit them all in the head with the handle of his katana? We see the blade tear fabric, but again, we see no evidence of damage. There’s a panel where he’s swinging his katana in a circular tornado motion and the surrounding Foot Soldiers all fall backward, but again, no slash marks. It just looks like he’s blowing them away with a shockwave, not cutting them.

IDW has stated that the Turtles have a “no kill” policy, at least at the moment, and while I understand their reasoning for this (when they actually DO end up taking a life in this series, it’ll carry a major impact), the setbacks of that policy can clearly be seen in the logistics of this battle. Leo beats an entire unit of Foot Soldiers single-handedly without killing a single one and, by all visual evidence, not even giving them a scraped knee. Once again, this goes back to my earlier critique: These Foot Soldiers must really, really SUCK.

Ross Campbell struts his stuff on art duties this issue and I’ve been a follower of his for a while. He’s posted quite a bit of TMNT fan art over the years and I imagine that acted as his portfolio to IDW to get this gig. Couldn’t have happened to a better artist, honestly, as he really knocks this one out of the park. He takes a different approach to drawing certain features of the Turtles than many other artists; my favorite of which are the smaller eyes and the thicker bandanas. Lots of artists like to give the Turtles these huge saucers for eyes and have the bandanas conform to a cartoonish brow, and while that approach certainly offers lively expressions, it’s still kind of goofy. Campbell’s Turtles have this menacing look that I really dig and I love that the bandanas look like actually big ole strips of fabric tied around their eyes instead of colorful paint applied in a ring around their noggins. His inking, which is heavy on the shadow, is also mighty attractive.

At a few points I felt that he didn’t really convey a strong enough sense of motion, at least when it came to swinging weapons and how they impact. The first panel on page 4 where the Foot Soldier and Leo cross swords looks a little clumsy, as does the later scene where Leo is on the ground with his head tucked in his shell and a nunchaku is supposed to be flogging him while it mostly just looks like its resting on his skull. In that regard, I think Campbell might have been better off employing some more exaggerated motion/speed lines or blur/smear effects to get the sensation of a fast-moving object across to the audience. Not a deal-breaker by any stretch, but just my observation of the art.

In conclusion, I really dug Campbell’s art and Lynch’s script did some great work in making the audience understand how much emotional power the reincarnation angle brings to the table. And the showdown with “scar-face” was pretty great. Unfortunately, the lack of, well, violence actually brings the whole thing down. Not because I’m some juvenile sadist that wants to see nothing but blood and guts, but because the idea of Leo defeating a massive swarm of Foot Soldiers without inflicting any physical damage just takes me right out of the experience. And, well, it makes the Foot Soldiers look like a bunch of jokes, which is NOT the best way to introduce them.

That aside, it was still a fast and furious issue with plenty of good stuff to offer.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Campbell once drew ‘Critters’ fan art. Movie-Raphael probably doesn’t approve, but I sure do”.)