Originally published by: Dark Horse Comics
Publication date: April 1991
Art and story: Bob Burden
Assisted by: Roxanne Starr, Joe Pruett and Dave Newton
“Dark City…”
Summary:
Frontispiece: Leaping across the rooftops, the Flaming
Carrot introduces us to his new sidekick… a weird green turtle-man (actually
Raphael). Carrot has plans to turn him
into a topflight Mysteryman…
Down in the sewer lair, Leonardo, Michelangelo and
Donatello are busy childishly arguing over chores and what-not. April comes storming out of the kitchen and
scolds them, asking the teenagers to start acting like adults. Raphael, meanwhile, has his nose in a book,
trying to figure out what it means to be an “adult”. Knowing that he won’t learn in anything in
the lair, he decides to go to the surface and watch some adults in action.
Prowling the streets, he witnesses adults engaged in
prattling, inane conversation and wonders if he even wants to become an
adult. But just as Raph starts to think
all adults are boring, he spots one with a giant flaming carrot for a head. Intrigued, Raph stalks the weird-o (the Flaming Carrot, naturally), who
breaks up a fistfight and pulls a weed out of a windowsill (then puts it back
when he remembers that plants create vital oxygen). The Flaming Carrot’s “sense eyes” detect Raph’s
presence and the Carrot leads Raph on a chase, eventually turning the
tables and stalking the confused Turtle.
Trying to find the Carrot, Raph instead finds a
suspicious-looking man sitting on a rooftop.
The man’s hand falls off (and he quickly reattaches it) and Raph,
intrigued, infiltrates the man’s apartment.
Inside, he finds it to be nothing but empty space filled with boxes of
junk. The man comes inside and Raph
hides behind some crates. The man finds
a sai that Raph dropped and extends his eyes out of his sockets to inspect the
weapon. Suddenly, another man looking
identical to him knocks at the door. The
pair greet each other, speaking strange gibberish and proceed to get drunk on
cans of Sprite. As they play a record of
old folk songs, they begin dancing with blow up dolls… seriously creeping Raph
out.
A paper airplane then draws the pair's attention and Raph
looks to see who threw it. The Flaming
Carrot stands at the window and quietly motions for Raph to sneak away to
safety. The weird-os notice Raph,
however, and zap him with a raygun.
Before he can come to, they set him under a device called a “memory
vortex” that gives Raph amnesia. The two
men leave and the Carrot sneaks inside to help Raph. Unfortunately, he gets bored and falls
asleep. When he wakes up, though, he
wheels Raph out in a wheelbarrow and takes him to Mysterymen Secret Hideout
#28.
Flaming Carrot tells Raph that he’s a member of the
Mysterymen, a group of B-grade superheroes not good enough for the Avengers or
the Justice League. They’ve left Iron
City and come to New York in order to track down the Vile Brotherhood. Raph, meanwhile, has no memory of who he is. Carrot asks him if he’d like to become a
superhero and Raph readily accepts the offer.
Carrot fashions him a costume out of a bread sack and gives him some
plungers for weapons and a utility belt made from old Band-Aid tins. Thus, Raph becomes the Dark Avenger.
The Carrot and the Dark Avenger then go looking for
crimes to thwart and stumble across a pair of hooligans fishing for alligators in
the sewer… with kittens as the bait. They beat the thugs up and rescue the kittens.
The Carrot leaves his calling card (stuffing the orifices of the
unconscious thugs with carrots) and the two superheroes leave to return the
kitties to their owners.
Down in the lair, the other Turtles wonder where the heck
Raph has gotten to…
Turtle Tips:
*The story continues in Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1)
#26.
*The “Bob Speaks” editorial in this issue describes this
as a two-issue story arc. It is, in
fact, a three-issue arc.
*According to the “Bob Speaks” editorial, Burden had
originally only envisioned a single TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover, but after
numerous rewrites, decided to split the story into two; one published by Dark
Horse and a second published by Mirage.
*This issue also contained a “What is this Flaming
Carrot” comic strip by Burden, two free Dark Horse Comics trading cards, and a back
cover pin-up of the discarded cover for Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #2, also by
Burden.
Review:
The Flaming Carrot.
Now there’s an indie comic from back in the day I could never quite get
into.
When it came to outrageous superhero parody comics, I was
more a fan of "The Tick" (or, more specifically, the awesome cartoon series) and
Flaming Carrot never really drew me in.
I enjoyed the movie, “Mystery Men”, well-enough… albeit, it somehow
managed to be a Flaming Carrot movie that didn’t include Flaming Carrot
(according to the Q&A on the DVD, they omitted the star of the comic
because execs thought he’d look “too bizarre” on screen). I just don’t have any attachment to the
Flaming Carrot and I can’t manufacture one no matter how hard I try.
Reading the old comics for the first time, they tend to
not be very… well, funny. Burden relies too
heavily on “lol so random” attempts at humor which are about as clever as a
game of Mad Libs. I think that’s one of
the reasons why I always preferred the Tick, as it was full of silliness and
absurdity, but never used randomness as a substitute for actual jokes.
Storywise, I felt Mikey would have been better
suited for this sort of plot, as he’s the comic book nut, not Raph. Raphael wandering off alone to ponder the
meaning of adulthood felt a little strangely introspective for the character,
and again, might have been a better fit for Mikey (as in, say, the other
Turtles chide him for being immature so that causes him to go looking for the
definition of maturity, etc).
Burden’s art is better than his writing and I love his
panel layouts. The style is very classy
and reminiscent of old Golden Age comics.
I can’t think of much else to say about this first
chapter in the arc. I’m sorry if I’ve
disappointed any of you Flaming Carrot fans out there, it’s just that the book
isn’t really my thing.
Grade: C (as in, “Can you believe I actually remember
Wizard magazine’s Flaming Carrot casting call, where they suggested he be played
by Robin Williams?”)
