Originally published in: Turtle Soup (Vol. 2) #4
Publication date: February, 1992
Story and art: Michael Dooney
Colors: Steve Lavigne
Lettering: Mary Kelleher
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Attack!!! Part 4”
Summary:
As the Ninja Turtles square off against the samurai trio,
Leo tells his brothers not to attack unless provoked. The samurai make the first move and charge with their swords drawn.
The Turtles attempt to hold the line, but the samurai
prove more skilled than the monsters they’d just faced. Thinking that the Turtles are “demons” and
that Henry is the “wizard” who summoned them, the lead samurai breaks past Don
and makes a move to hack Henry to pieces.
Panicking, Henry messes with the buttons on his gauntlet and sends the
samurai back just in the nick of time.
Leonardo has had *enough* and tells Don to take the
gauntlet from Henry and figure it out by himself. Henry and Betti are forced to stand far away while Don labors over the device.
After some time, he figures out that it’s programmed in binary and
punches in the return coordinates. Henry
and Betti apologize for all the trouble and return to their dimension and time.
With time now “unfrozen”, the Turtles put their disguises
back on and head out for their long-delayed dinner. Returning to his lab, Henry apologizes to
Betti for all the trouble. Betti, on the
other hand, thanks him for the best date of her life and gives him a big kiss.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles Attack!!! Part 3.
Review:
So what happened to that struthiomimus that didn’t get
sent back to the past? Leo points out
that “the little one” got away. I guess
somewhere in the Mirage TMNT universe, a dinosaur is roaming the hills of
Massachusetts, stealing eggs and getting confused for a featherless ostrich.
The samurai battle is disappointingly condensed in this
chapter of the story, only really lasting 6 panels. As a result, the concluding installment of “Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles Attack!!!” is less exciting than what came before. I kind of wonder if this was originally
conceived as another standalone issue of the “guest era” of TMNT Vol. 1, but
got shuffled off to Turtle Soup once Vol. 1 reestablished an ongoing
continuity.
Had it been a full-length issue, we might have gotten
longer fights and maybe some stronger characterization for Henry and
Betti. As a serial, “Turtles Attack” has
to sacrifice story for a pair of impressive two-page splashes at the beginning of
each chapter. And with each chapter only
being 6 pages, you lose 2 of them to the title and credits alone.
On the other hand, those splash pages were very pretty
and it’s hard to knock getting lavish Michael Dooney art on any occasion.
While the resolution is pretty rushed (Don just figures
it out because he’s Donatello and he can master time and space manipulation
equipment when the plot calls for it), I did get a good laugh out of Leo losing his temper. He basically puts Henry and
Betti in a timeout and the Turtles stand between them and the gauntlet to
prevent any further mishaps.
Anyway, “Turtles Attack!!!” is one of the better reasons
to pick up the second volume of Turtle Soup.
As the ongoing serial within the series, I wouldn’t call it “thrilling”
reading, but the story provides opportunity for Dooney to draw a variety of
cool enemies to pit the Turtles against, and that’s hardly a bad thing.
Grade: I (as in, “I do kind of hate it when Don’s tech
abilities conform to whatever the plot needs them to be; from building blimps to
vans to guns to time machines. You know,
they all work on the same basic principles, right?”)
