Publication date: September, 2008
Plot: Ryan Brown and Tristan Jones
Script: Tristan Jones
Art: Paul Harmon
Letters: Eric Talbot
Cover: Paul Harmon and Steve Lavigne
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney
“World’s Deadliest”
Summary:
Frontispiece: Sitting atop a stump in a moonlit swamp as the
Turtles lurk in the background, Leatherhead ponders the many different kinds of
monsters. For instance, many are not
what they seem on the surface, but in fact, they’re actually worse. Leatherhead decides it’s time for a story…
On a salvage run down in the sewers, Donatello and
Leatherhead are suddenly attacked by a gang using high-tech capture
weaponry. Don is hit by a tazer and
taken down for the count, while the armored leader of the gang, Razorback,
knocks Leatherhead out with a tranq. Tossing Leatherhead onto a load lifter, they decide to leave Don behind
as they weren’t paid to capture him. Don
comes to and follows in secret, watching them load Leatherhead onto a
helicopter marked with “Martech” corporate symbols.
Back at the lair, Don and the Turtles do some
sleuthing. They learn that the
helicopter belongs to the Martech weapons plant based in Australia. Tracking some air traffic, Don learns that
the helicopter will be connecting with a flight at JFK headed for
Melbourne. The Turtles decide to hitch a
ride to Australia and rescue Leatherhead.
At the Australian compound, Razorback loads a bunyip into
a holding cell. He’s called by the
mysterious boss of the organization, a man with cybernetic limbs, who asks for
a progress report. Razorback says that
with the procurement of Leatherhead and the Mothman, all the cryptids have been
secured. They’ve also captured all the
human subjects his employer requested.
The boss tells Razorback to prep all the cryptids for the imminent show.
Sneaking off the cargo plane, the Turtles find themselves
skulking around a heavily guarded compound on the isolated island of Hobb’s
Gate. Sneaking into a command center,
they take a look at a security monitor and see a group of notorious mercenaries
and assassins gathered in a room. Mikey
takes a commlink and heads through the vents to eavesdrop on the proceedings.
Inside the big room, a voice comes over an intercom,
telling the mercenaries that they’ve been collected to participate in a most
dangerous game. There are weapons
scattered all over the island, as well as some of the most vicious monsters
from all over the world. The game won’t
end until there’s only a single survivor left.
The Jersey Devil is then released into the room and the mercenaries all
scatter.
Outside, the Turtles are spotted. Don and Leo draw the attention of the guards
while Raph heads through the vents to find Mikey. Entering the large room, he’s attacked by the
Jersey Devil. Mikey knocks the beast out
with a sack full of rocks and the two make a break for it.
In the nearby swamps, Leo and Don are caught off guard by
one of the mercenaries and Leo takes a shotgun blast to the shell. Before the mercenary can unload another
round, he’s pounced on and devoured by a chupacabra.
At the commander center, Razorback observes the monitors,
trying to keep the show running without interference. He sees the Turtles, and realizing they’ll mess up the gambling odds, he decides to call the boss. Out in the swamp, one of the mercenaries
attempts to get an old Jeep started when he’s shot in the back by the boss of
the game… a cybernetically enhanced Jack Marlin. Marlin gets the call from Razorback and isn’t
happy.
Elsewhere, Leo and Don have their hands full with a
lumbering bunyip. Leo slices toward its
ear and lops off a weird mechanical device.
The bunyip appears to come to its senses and scampers off. Don inspects the device and finds it to be
some sort of neural override. Leo then
gets a call from Mikey on the commlink.
He and Raph have just tangled with the Mothman and are now at a large
tower. Leo says he sees the tower from
his location and that he and Don will rendezvous with them there.
Investigating the facility, they find a Sasquatch laid
out on an operating table, soon to have a neural override device placed on
it. Don looks through some computer
files and learns that the entire “game” is being broadcast over the internet
for the purposes of gambling. Marlin then
appears on a ledge above them, with Razorback and his men holding Leatherhead
at bay. Marlin explains that he survived
the tumble he took into the underground river during their last encounter, but
had to have his limbs replaced with cybernetic prosthetics. He tells them that Leatherhead has been
fitted with a neural override device, which keeps the monsters from attacking
him (and thus ensuring that he wins the thoroughly rigged game). He then unleashes Leatherhead on the
Turtles. As his brothers deal with the
rampaging beast, Don works some computer magic and shuts down ALL the neural
overrides on the island. The Turtles and
Leatherhead then race to stop Marlin from escaping.
On the roof, they catch him and Razorback about to board
a helicopter. Marlin opens fire on
Leatherhead and nicks his right eye. Razorback
and his men, meanwhile, are taken down by a group of Interpol authorities who
have arrived late to the party.
Leatherhead subdues Marlin and is about to kill him. The Turtles beg him not to, so rather than
kill the man with his own hands, he hurls him off the roof and into the
swamp. Marlin is promptly attacked and
dragged beneath the murk by a bunch of hungry bunyips.
The Interpol agents tranq Leatherhead and the leader, Emil
Tendaji, approaches the Turtles. The
Turtles remember him from their previous encounter with Marlin and Emil says
that his agency works hard to keep endangered “cryptids” like Leatherhead safe
from outside harm. He promises that all
the surviving mercenaries on the island will be captured and that the Turtles
and Leatherhead will be returned to New York.
As they all board the Interpol helicopter and fly off, the bunyips
below chew with dissatisfaction on some cybernetic limbs.
Turtle Tips:
*The story continues in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #63.
*Chronologically, I’d say that the Turtles last met
Leatherhead in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #23.
*Marlin and Officer Emil were last seen in Tales of the TMNT(Vol. 1) #6.
*Razorback will return in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #61.
*This issue also contained a back-up story, “Threads” by
Ryan Brown and Doug Brammer, and a bonus pin-up, “Wanna Race?” by Jim Lawson.
Review:
Ever read one of those comics that’s so good, as soon as
you finish it, you flip back to the start and you read it again? Well, that’s basically how I felt about “World’s
Deadliest” when I first picked it up. It’s
probably the single most re-read issue of Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) for me, as
a matter of fact.
The team of Tristan Jones and Paul Harmon had previously
proven their worth on Tales of the TMNT #36 and the fan support they received
was practically instantaneous. Even I
sent in an e-mail to Dan Berger, saying I wanted to see more of these two. Knowing how flakey the Mirage editors were
when it came to creators and storylines in the second volume of Tales, sending
in e-mails to rally support was pretty much the only thing you could do to try
and ensure that the best talent came back or the best stories got proper
endings (and even that didn’t work, sometimes).
Though it took fourteen issues, we finally got them back and it was well worth
the wait.
“World’s Deadliest” is sort of an antithesis to the
previous issue Jones and Harmon had worked on, which was a gritty, “realistic”
Turtle story full of cop drama and a sobering, ground level perspective. “World’s Deadliest”, on the other hand, is a
bombastic summer blockbuster filled with cyborgs and monsters and a ridiculous
premise that perfectly facilitates the explosive story. While the setup is very simple (a parody of
“The Most Dangerous Game” but with cryptids), it proves that any idea can
either sink or float based on the talent of the writer. Jones wrings the maximum amount of excitement
out of this one and Harmon does the ambitious scope of the script total
justice.
I’ve probably said it before, but Harmon’s black and
white style reminds me heavily of something I’d have seen in the heyday of
Creepy or Eerie. It’s dark, it’s
dynamic, it’s spooky and it’s just really damn cool. Leatherhead hasn’t looked this downright
ferocious and intimidating since Steve Bissette drew him for a bonus pin-up in
Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 1) #6. It’s a
nice counterpoint to the “brainy” Leatherhead who often got more page time in
Mirage than his man-eating alter ego.
There is, of course, one glaring error on page 11, where all 4 Turtles
are seen together when Mikey is supposed to be in the vent. But by the time you get to the stunning
reveal of the Jersey Devil at the very bottom of that page, you’re liable to
completely forget about the art flub.
And the wrap-around art cover really took me back to the
old TMNT (Vol. 1) issues, too.
So far as the continuity of the issue goes, it’s a bit
weird. Leatherhead gets his right eye
shot out, seemingly as a means to explain why he was missing an eye in TMNT(Vol. 1) #45… So I originally thought this was supposed to be set between his
first two appearances. But that doesn’t
really work, as Leatherhead is missing his left eye in TMNT #45. I think it’s better to set this story after
Berger’s “Leatherhead trilogy”, where the mutagen boosters given to Leatherhead
by the Illuminated Utroms granted him an accelerated healing factor (his right
eye is healed again by Tales #63, anyway).
Really, though, I’m just thinking about this shit too
hard.
As a “cryptid”, Leatherhead certainly fits right in, as
he was inspired by the old urban legend of alligators in the New York sewers. As for the other cryptids, I was kind of
disappointed by the sparse selection (only Sasquatch, Mothman, chupacabra, the
Jersey Devil and some bunyips), but Jones got as much mileage as possible out
of all of them (save Sasquatch, I guess).
Being an Australian-set story, it only makes sense that the bunyips get
the most page time and I enjoyed seeing a rather overlooked creature of legend
receive a spotlight.
If you look at Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) as a “pick and
choose” series, and you’re only after the cream of the crop, then make #50 a
priority. The story is fun, the art is
lavish and the Michael Dooney frontispiece is amazing.
Grade: A (as in, “Although with all the giant spiders,
great white sharks and venomous koalas, I imagine most Australians live ‘World’s
Deadliest’ every single day of their life”.)
