Publication date: April, 1990
Story, pencils and inks: Rick Veitch
Letters: Mary Kelleher
“Sky Highway”
Summary:
Cruising in his Road Runner, the hideous Quake-Butt gnaws
his steering wheel as he’s joined by the other members of the Mutato-Heads. The group's poet, Diddy Wah Daddy, pulls up in
his cramped European job and the metal-faced maniac, Rusty Dusty, breezes by in
his hot rod. They’re then met by their
leader, Bone Ugly, a motorcyclist swinging his skull on a meat hook. Now together, they merge onto the Sky Highway
(an endless maze of loops and lanes that sprawl in all directions, defying gravity) and begin
causing massive pileups, killing as many other drivers as possible. Tired of their rides, they decide to take the
nearest exit to another dimension and pick up something more exhilarating.
In the wilderness of Northampton, Casey parks his Chevy
at the base of a hill and he and the Turtles break for lunch. Suddenly, a flash of light illuminates the
road and the Mutato-Heads come driving out.
They’re impressed with the ’57 Bel-Air and Rusty Dusty immediately
hotwires it. Before Casey can catch up
with them, the joyriders take off with his beloved car. Raph leaps down and clings to the roof as the
Mutato-Heads disappear back into the dimensional on ramp. As Casey rants and raves about his car, the
Turtles are quick to hijack the vehicles the thieves left behind. Leo takes the Road Runner, Don takes the
motorcycle, Mike takes the hot rod and Casey is left with the indignity of the
European K-car. They enter the Sky
Highway and immediately get lost in the enormous mixing bowl.
As the Mutato-Heads sideswipe some motorists, the
jostling shakes Raph, who falls over the side of the overpass and lands into
the passenger seat of a passing convertible.
The convertible is being driven by a freakishly proportioned
woman named Hildegaard Rail, who doesn’t seem to mind Raph’s company. Raph asks where they are and she says Valhalla,
as it’s nothing but endless stretches of road with no speed limits whatsoever.
Elsewhere, the Turtles are caught in a traffic jam. Don’s cycle stalls and Mike’s hot rod
overheats, forcing them to pile into Leo’s Road Runner. Casey, meanwhile, has ditched his car
completely and begun standing in the middle of the road, screaming like a
lunatic. The Mutato-Heads send several
cars falling down on them from the road above, narrowly missing Casey and
tearing the roof off of the Road Runner.
The Turtles pull Casey into their vehicle and chase after the
Mutato-Heads.
Meanwhile, Raph asks Hildegaard how she wound up on the
Sky Highway. She says that she was
driving down the Autobahn one day and was transported here in a beam of
light. The longer she stays, the more “beautiful”
she becomes; an effect the Sky Highway has on all its occupants. Raph realizes he and his brothers need to get
out of the place quickly, before they all turn into hideous motor-maniacs like
everybody else.
Leo finally catches up with the Mutato-Heads and pulls up
behind them. Raph spots them from his
overpass and, after an unwanted kiss goodbye from Hildegaard, leaps down into
the backseat of the Chevy. Casey is
still ranting about his car and Raph suspects the worst. Taking off Casey’s mask, he sees that his
friend has mutated into a monster. They
decide that time is of the essence if they’re to restore Casey, so Leo pulls up
next to the Chevy and, thanks to an oil slick, accidentally sends both cars
flying over the side of the overpass.
Luckily, they both happen to land on the dimensional exit
and are safely teleported to a parking lot in rural Boston. Casey is back to normal, though he’d still
like to have a word with the guys who stole his car. The Turtles approach the Chevy, open the door
and find that the Mutato-Heads have been returned to their human forms. They apologize and swear that it was the Sky
Highway that made them go crazy. Casey
decides not to beat them to a pulp and just wants to go home. The Turtles all pile into the Chevy and they
head out for some dinner.
The four humans take a seat in the beat-up Road Runner
and head back to their old lives before the Sky Highway sucked them up. They talk about mundane things like being an
accountant and a lit major and driving Ford Escorts and such. As they crawl through a 55 MPH stretch of
highway, they all begin to get anxious and realize that they miss the speed and
freedom of the Sky Highway. They enter
the dimensional on ramp and return to the Sky Highway, transforming back into
the Mutato-Heads.
Turtle Tips:
*According to Peter Laird, all issues published between
TMNT (Vol. 1) #21 and TMNT (Vol. 1) #45, with the exceptions of TMNT #27 and
TMNT #28, are non-canon as they were produced by guest creators. Regardless, there is nothing present in this
story to contradict Mirage continuity, so feel free to determine for yourself
whether it “counts” or not.
*The Turtles and Casey will encounter hot-rodding supernatural creatures
inspired by Big Daddy Roth again in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #15.
Review:
I spent most of my life in Springfield, Virginia, home of
the world famous Springfield Interchange (AKA the Mixing Bowl). Being right at the edge of the Beltway, we
have the worst traffic next to New York City and Los Angeles, respectfully, and
I quickly grew to dread commuting. It is
a heart attack-inducing combination of gridlock, stop-and-go, crazy people trying to kill you and hectic worry
as you try to cross 8 lanes to get to your exit before you miss it and have to
map out an entirely new strategy and get back around. With a million different ways to go North,
South, East and West, and ALWAYS under construction with seemingly new traffic
patterns emerging every single day, it is a brutal maze and I'll have nightmares about it for as long as I live.
“Sky Highway” is a story that I’ve always connected with
because I feel like I’ve lived it every day of my life, at least until I moved
to Little Rock last summer.
Unfortunately, were I a character in this story, I wouldn’t be one of
the Mutato-Heads ruling the road, I’d be one of the hapless nobodies trying to
navigate the labyrinth of off ramps, on ramps, exits and detours, trying
desperately to find a way out. The story
taps into my fucking phobia and even after leaving Springfield behind, I still find
myself wary of using the highway for anything (even though the highway here in
Little Rock is far more intuitive and manageable).
Like all of Veitch’s other TMNT stories, this one flaunts
a horror vibe, not just in the supernatural setting, but with his nasty
renderings of the deformed Mutato-Heads.
They’re definitely designed in homage to the work of Big Daddy Roth,
albeit more monstrous and horrifying than even his goony style. Quake-Butt’s ever-present inner monologue
tends to make the story feel dense with text, but his use of
description sets a great mood and lets you better feel and appreciate the mad
rush of adrenaline that leads to all denizens of the Sky Highway becoming speed
junkies.
Ultimately, the adventure feels rather “small time”, so
to speak. When you stop and think about
it, the Turtles and Casey aren’t after anything bigger than their stolen car
and once they get it back, they’re happy to go about their business. There’s a brief discussion at the end about
all the people still trapped on the Sky Highway, but Leo brushes it off as
their simply being victims of a natural calamity akin to an earthquake or a
flood. “Out of our hands”,
essentially. From that perspective, it
probably wouldn’t have made for a very good episode of any of the cartoons, as
the Turtles aren’t particularly heroic.
They just want their wheels back.
You might feel a little unsatisfied by the conclusion, as
it’s just a random trip through an insane dimension that ends as abruptly as it
began. There’s no payoff to speak of nor
any sense of accomplishment, just the characters left wondering, “…So what the
fuck was THAT all about?”
What makes “Sky Highway” for me isn’t so much the story,
but the way the package is presented.
The Mutato-Heads are damn creepy, but I found the nightmarish landscape
of an inescapable mixing bowl to be far more terrifying. Veitch’s pencils and inks are lovely and he
renders each classic car in minute detail.
I’m not a car guy, but I think anyone with a passing interest in motor
vehicles would get a kick out of this story.
“Sky Highway” is a weird one and your mileage may vary,
but it appeals to me as I grew up in one of the most congested hellholes of the
United States. If anything, get it for
Veitch’s wonderful artwork.
Grade: B+ (as in, “Between this, Kolchak the Night Stalker
and The Real Ghostbusters, headless motorcyclists sure were popular”.)
