See you all next year

Going on vacation and won't be back until January 3rd.  Wanted to get my review of TMNT New Animated Adventures #6 done before I left, but my schedule just didn't work out that way.  I'll tackle it when I get back.

Also, since I'm going to be away, I won't be able to moderate/approve comments until I get back, so don't freak if you leave a comment and it doesn't get posted right away (I don't check the internet while I'm on vacation).

See you all in 2014.  Have a Merry Christmas!

TMNT (IDW) #29

Publication date: December 18, 2013

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz

Script: Tom Waltz

Art: Ross Campbell

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

“Northampton, Part 1”

Summary:

As they pull onto a dirt road in the van, April and Casey discuss how things have been going.  Casey feels he’s getting better now that Don’s re-sewn his stitches and April thinks all their wounds can heal if they just keep out of New York City for a while.  Driving up to a barn on April’s old family farm, they wake the Turtles and tell them they’ve arrived at their temporary digs.

April explains that the farm has been in her family for years and that her parents moved there from Albany after her dad had his stroke.  Although the Turtles will have to lay low and can’t go near the farmhouse, they can stay in the barn until they’ve healed.  Raph tries to help Leo out of the van, but Leo freaks out.  He’s still having trouble getting over the mindbending the Shredder put him through as Dark Leo.

Raph notices movement in the nearby brush and pounces.  It’s Alopex, who insists that she isn’t looking for a fight.  Raph is about ready to throttle her when Leo violently stops him, exclaiming that Alopex is telling the truth.  Raph thinks that Leo only wants to protect her because of his residual Foot Clan brainwashing and the two begin fighting.  Splinter breaks them up and reminds them that Alopex saved him during his fight with the Shredder.  Alopex describes how the Shredder killed her family and that’s why she rebelled.  Knowing she had to leave the city as well, she hitched a ride on the roof of their van.

Raph says she’s lying again, as she’d fibbed about her history before.  Leo backs her up and the fight starts all over again.  Splinter breaks them up once more, except this time Leo tells “Yoshi” not to boss him around, as he is not his sensei, and storms off.  Alopex claims she was only looking for a ride, not help, and also storms off.

April and Casey drive up to the farmhouse and April introduces her boyfriend to her mom (Elizabeth).  Mrs. O'Neil invites them in so they can catch up with Mr. O'Neil (John).  April’s dad has been wheelchair-bound since his stroke, but Mrs. O'Neil promises that he’s getting a little better every day.  Mr. O'Neil is happy to meet Casey and is especially relieved to see his daughter, as he was afraid something might have happened to her after the explosion at Stockgen.  April hadn’t heard and asks to be filled in on the news.

After putting her husband to bed, April’s mom comes downstairs to talk to April about Stockgen (April’s dad had gotten her the internship there).  April says that she left Stockgen because she was suspicious that they were involved in illegal activity and offhandedly mentions “ooze”.  April’s mom reacts to the choice word and then tells April she has Startling Revelations about her Mysterious Past that will most assuredly Blow Her Mind.

Out in the woods, after dark, Leo sits near the lake and struggles with the images in his head.  He tries to seek answers from the spirit of Tang Shen, but is confused.  From the brush, Alopex silently watches him.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #28.  The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #30.

*Shredder murdered Alopex’s family in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #4: Alopex.  Alopex lied to Raph about her origins in TMNT Micro-Series #1: Raphael.

*In the Mirage comics (and 4Kids cartoon), it was Casey’s family who owned the farmhouse in Northampton.  April’s family owning it DOES have precedence in at least one previous incarnation, however: The first live-action TMNT movie.

*The events of the TMNT: Utrom Empire miniseries take place concurrently with the "Northampton" story arc.  The journal Donnie is seen reading at the end of this issue was discovered by him in TMNT: Utrom Empire #1.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Campbell, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, and Cover RI by Michael Dialynas.

Review:

The exile to Northampton is like the “Death of Gwen Stacy” for the TMNT franchise.  By that, I mean it’s that one big moment, that story so popular and important to the narrative and growth of the characters that practically every adaptation and reboot of the Ninja Turtles has wanted to do a version of it.  While the specifics don’t always line up, the basics remain the same: The Turtles get completely wrecked in a battle with the Foot Clan, one of them is seriously injured and they have to escape by the skin of their teeth to Northampton so they can lick their wounds and regroup for the comeback.

I think this is the fourth time we’ve done this song and dance, but as with Peter Parker’s love interest getting chucked off a bridge, it really IS a grand bit of storytelling that invites lots of pathos and introspection and serves as a gargantuan milestone for the narrative.  So even though we’ve been through this all before, it’s one of those moments in TMNT history we’re likely going to see many times more as the franchise reinvents itself.  And it isn’t so much that every incarnation wants to put their own spin on the moment, it’s whether or not they get the most out of it and make it count that we should be concerned with.

As I mentioned in the previous couple of reviews, the Turtles were basically becoming lost in the overflow of storylines in their ongoing series; reduced more to being tools to get the plot moving than individual characters who grow and change.  This “Northampton” arc looks to finally slow things down so we can get to know them again.  I’m really hoping it pays off and we get to spend some quality time with each member of the team.  Jeezuss, I hope this doesn’t turn into “The Emo Leo Show” and we wind up with four issues of a pouty Leo struggling with his feelings.  But that’s just me being a pessimistic twerp; I’m sorry.

Waltz (and Eastman and Curnow) are already doing things a little differently, not just with the owner of the farm, but the fact that it’s still in use by their family and it can’t serve as a glorified vacation resort for the Turtles (they’ve still got to hide).  It also looks like we’ll get to know April’s family a little bit, too, and that’s hardly ever happened before beyond Robyn and a very different version of her father in the Nick cartoon (he's named Kirby, not John, in that universe).  The ending narration from Mrs. O’Neil is sooooo stilted and melodramatic, awkwardly stretching out to fill a two-page montage.  Can you imagine if your parents started talking to you like that?  

Well, we ARE just getting to know Mrs. O’Neil.  Maybe April’s mom is just a drama queen?

The big surprise was Alopex tagging along.  I guess someone’s about to pull a Ninjara.  Though isn’t it funny how in the past, when Alopex was a villain and a member of the Foot, she was drawn to look ferocious and bestial and terrifying, but now that she’s indifferent/friendly with the protagonists, suddenly she looks totally adorable?  “Artist’s interpretation”, I know, but it is kind of weird to jump from Santolouco’s snarling “rip your throat out” escapee from The Howling directly into Campbell’s soulful-eyed “awwww wook at her widdle nose” fluffball, right at the point in the narrative when she seemingly switches sides.

I like her parachute pants, though.  Girl is set to pop ‘n lock.

Ross Campbell has been one of my faves in regards to IDW’s roster of artistic talent, but so far they’ve only busted him out on “special occasions”.  It’ll be great to see him handle a full-fledged arc.  My above cajoling about the cuteness of Alopex was really just me taking the piss; ALL of Ross Campbell’s characters look cuter than any other artist portrays them.  It’s just his style and I think it actually works in terms of transitioning from adorableness directly into bone-crunching action; really keeps you off guard.  This was a breather issue, so there isn’t a lot of action to speak of, though I did like the juvenile wrestling between Raph and Leo as they argue over Alopex’s allegiance.  He didn’t overdo it on the layouts and captured the moment quite well.

Overall, despite the sense of déjà vu, I’m not really bugged by seeing the exile to Northampton yet again.  I think it’s what comes after this moment that’ll really make the difference.  Are we going to get this time to see the characters AS characters again?  Is Leo’s angst going to be insufferable or palatable?  Has Alopex actually changed?  Will April’s mom continue to talk like she’s constantly narrating a movie trailer?

I’m sure we’ll find out and I hope it pays off.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Cripes, I just don’t see how Alopex can be a master of stealth with a tail twice the size of her whole body.  Or maybe it isn’t normally that poofy and it’s just really humid in Northampton”.)

TMNT: Kevin Eastman Cover Gallery #1

Publication date: December 18, 2013

Art: Kevin Eastman

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Contents:

Full-page reprints of all Cover Bs by Kevin Eastman from TMNT (IDW) #1 thru TMNT (IDW) #26.

Review:

IDW is notorious, NOTORIOUS, for their habit of glutting the market with variant covers.  Dozens and dozens of variant covers like 1992 was making a comeback.  It is insane.  

As an individual who doesn’t collect variant covers, however, I can’t say that its ever really bothered me.  I know it ticks off fans who want to collect “one of everything”, but jeez, I cannot afford to be that kind of fan.

But IDW’s a pretty cool group of dudes, so they’ve also begun releasing cover gallery collections priced the same as a regular issue.  I’ve picked up a few of these for some of my other IDW subscriptions and it’s exactly the kind of system for a person like me.  Alas, they don’t collect ALL the variant covers (this one is just themed around Eastman), but I can survive.

Nothing to grade; just thought I’d point this baby out since it might have slipped through the cracks with today’s two other TMNT releases.  Looking over Eastman’s B covers chronologically, it’s funny to see how much more, well, INTERESTING they get as time goes by.  For the first 4 or 5 issues, he really has nothing to say (partly because those issues were so decompressed and plot-less).  Once the series began to actually develop characters and stories and unique set pieces, suddenly his covers become livelier and escalate beyond bland pinups of the Turtles mugging the camera in awkward poses.

For those who want the variant covers but don’t want to bankrupt themselves actually buying them AS variant covers, then this collection should be your first stop.

Grade: N/A (as in, “Now if IDW plans on doing more of these Eastman-themed collections, I’ll have to ask the lady at my shop to put aside any cover in my box BUT the Eastman ones.  I just hate to be picky, though…”)

 

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #4

Publication date: February, 1994

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Neil Vokes

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Eric Vincent

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Four”

Summary:

Mr. Furious dukes it out with the alien werewolf only for the beast to back off once it sees his Free Masonry ring.  Being a Mason itself, the werewolf runs away.  The Mysterymen, the Turtles and Col. Blade eventually catch back up and ask Mr. Furious what the deal with the werewolf is.

Back at the Flying Wing, the Spleen, Bondoman and Mystic Hand are under siege from the spectral figures.  The spirits are blasting beams of ice at them, encasing the jet.  The Mysterymen flee into the jungle with the specters close behind.

At the ruins, the werewolf is desperately trying to communicate with the team via dance, but they can’t interpret him.  Don, Leo, Screwball and the flame-creature Sykes show up.  After a brief bit of exposition, Sykes has a chat with the werewolf in its native language.  The werewolf then devours Sykes and collapses.  Star Shark comes down from his lookout post and tells everyone that the Flying Wing is under attack.  Leaving the werewolf behind, the Turtles and the Mysterymen return to camp.

They reach the Flying Wing, but have no idea what happened.  The werewolf then catches up with them and explains everything… in English!  He says his name is Chontre Mac and he’s an alien from a planet that exists within the center of the Sun.  He says that there are a diverse number of races from that planet and all have the ability to absorb the minds of those they devour (hence how he was able to learn English by eating the flame-creature that ate Sykes).  Chontre says that long ago, his people came down to Earth to set up a colony and built this great city.  However, civil war erupted and most of his people retreated back to the Sun.  Chontre was chosen to sink the city deep into the Earth so that its technology and culture could be preserved, putting himself in cryogenic stasis so he could keep watch.

Chontre is happy to be awake again and, seeing that there are no more warring Sun people on Earth, feels that now is the time to share the technology of the lost city with humanity.  Suddenly, Mystic Hand’s disembodied hands float over and motion everyone into the jungle.  They find Mystic Hand and Bondoman frozen in cryogenic ice (which Chontre assures them will defrost to no ill effect in a day or two).  The Spleen, who fainted, wakes up and describes the ice-blasting specters.  Chontre says that the specters are the Eikers, the faction who incited the civil war.  When the city was unearthed, it sent a signal into space.  Responding to it, the Eikers traveled down from the Sun to regain the lost technology and invade the Earth.  The electromagnetic beam that has been shutting off all technology on Earth was a homing beam from their mother ship.  Chontre explains that the only way to stop the invasion is to re-sink the city so the Eikers have nothing to home in on.

Screwball then calls down from his lookout post that the Eikers are coming.  Chontre says that they’re an early scout patrol.  He urges the Mysterymen and the Turtles to lead the aliens to the nearby river where the additional humidity will react with their freezing powers and force them to take tangible form.  The plan works and with the Eikers finally solid, Col. Blade is able to kill them all with machinegun fire.

Chontre leads Col. Blade, the Professor and Mr. Furious back into the main hub of the ruined city where they found him in cryo-sleep.  Chontre mans the controls to re-sink the city, telling the others to leave so they don’t become trapped, too.  The controls malfunction and Chontre laments that the only way to re-sink the city now is for two individuals to man separate emergency controls simultaneously.  The Professor volunteers to stay behind, jumping at the chance to go into suspended animation and awaken centuries from now in a brave new world.

Blade and Furious escape the building just as it and the rest of the city sink back into the Earth.  Everyone’s electronics begin working again, proving that the Eikers have lost the signal and retreated from their invasion.  Col. Blade gives a salute, praising the selfless sacrifice of the Professor.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3.

*The Turtles will meet Flaming Carrot again (or appear in the same crowd as him, anyway) in Savage Dragon #41.

Review:

When it comes to Burden’s style of writing, it’s always a mystery as to what will be important to the plot and what is just a dumb throwaway joke.  Last issue, they made a big deal about Screwball’s pet shoelace Sherman surviving the fire-creature attack, but Sherman never appears again.  The Zeke’s mentions that the protoplasmic goop left behind by the extinguished fire-creatures smelled like Corn Flakes… an aside which proved to be foreshadowing once we learned that the fire-creatures were fused with the I-Team and the Zeke’s was in fact smelling what the I-Team had eaten before they in turn were eaten by the fire-creatures.  And in this issue, Mr. Furious and Chontre both share Free Masonry rings, which ends their battle as soon as it starts, but no further value is ever attributed to that connection.

It’s… just a mess.  I guess you could say it “keeps you on your toes”, as you never know which random asides will pay off in the end and which will go nowhere, but more often than not it all just amounts to a bunch of pointless references and droll gags.  I’m guessing the Free Masons were supposed to have been descended from the Sun people’s lost civilization?  That seems the likeliest explanation, but the connection is never solidified and considering all the other random bullshit going on in this miniseries, it could just as easily have been another stupid attempt at silly humor (like Chontre trying to communicate via dance).

The miniseries never knows what tone it wants to strike and it becomes really difficult to invest in anything.  When the characters are capable of cartoonishly pulling lemonade stands out of thin air, it’s hard to take any suspense in the action seriously because the surrounding scenes are so silly and absurd.  The ending wants us to feel the drama of the Professor’s sacrifice, but how can we when, again, everything else has been so goofy and self-aware?  It’s a tone deaf comic in terms of mood.

I’ll bring it up again, but I just don’t see why this miniseries begged to include the Ninja Turtles at all.  By this concluding chapter, they’ve become nothing more than crowd-filling bodies.  They contribute nothing to the resolution and scarcely offer any dialogue (or, at least, any dialogue that sounds unique to them).  For the umpteenth time, I’ll repeat that the Turtles could have been substituted by any other four members of the Mysterymen and it wouldn’t have changed this comic one little bit.  Hell, the cast was already bloated so much that you could remove the Turtles entirely and it would make no difference.  They are entirely superfluous to everything going on around them and are more like baggage than characters.

To be frank, Mirage’s offshoot material released to supplement their various ongoings were never very strong; lots of goofy oneshot Specials and the occasional miniseries for the Hell of it.  Turtle Soup and Plastron Café are probably the only limited series that are worth a look, and being anthologies, even those are dicey in their content.  This Flaming Carrot crossover is just another in that long tradition of “why did they even bother?”  Burden doesn’t make the most of his opportunity to work with the Turtles and the whole thing just leaves me feeling cold.  Vokes’s artwork is the only positive angle to this entire endeavor, but even he can’t salvage it.

Grade: F (as in, “Flaming Carrot… such a dull, lifeless, uninteresting character, Hollywood didn’t even include him in the movie based on his own fucking comics”.)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3

Publication date: January, 1994

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Neil Vokes

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Eric Vincent

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Three”

Summary:

In the clearing, the group is struggling to gun down the army of flame-men, but they’re running out of ammo.  Suddenly, flame-men reinforcements arrive via river, riding giant leaves.  After sinking a few, the Mysterymen and the Turtles realize that water can extinguish the flame-men.  After cannibalizing the fuel pump from the Flying Wing, they hose down the flame-men and send them into retreat.

In the aftermath, all that’s left of the extinguished flame-men is protoplasmic goop which the Professor describes as being like giant amoebas (and which the Zeke's describes as smelling like Corn Flakes).  The Shoveler and Star Shark, who were attacked by the flame-men, say that they weren’t burned but instead drained of energy, like they were being absorbed.  Screwball panics when he can’t find his pet shoelace Sherman, but it turns up in a bag of Fritos.  In the morning, Mystic Hand, Bondoman and the Spleen decide to stay behind and try to reassemble the Flying Wing while the others return to the I-Team camp and search for more clues.  Shortly after they leave, the Spleen sees something lurking in the woods and Mystic Hand goes to investigate.

Fiddling with the I-Team’s radio, the Professor determines that the electromagnetic static that brought down the Flying Wing is spreading out from the ruins and may soon envelope the whole world.  They also find Polaroids of the I-Team getting along with the flame-men and keeping them as pets.  Flaming Carrot presumes that once the I-Team ran out of things to feed them, the flame-men turned on them.  The group decides to head to the ancient ruins, leaving Screwball, Leo and Don behind to guard the camp.  Searching the tents, they find one of the flame-men sleeping on a cot.

At the ruins, Mikey recalls the dream he had about the ancient city and follows his memories to a hidden opening in one of the buildings.  At last inside the previously impenetrable buildings, Col. Blade orders Star Shark to stay and guard the door while they split into groups: He, the Professor, Raph and Mike will go in one direction while Flaming Carrot, Mr. Furious, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler go in the other.  Col. Blade’s group stumbles upon paydirt quickly, finding skeletons of strange creatures, albeit ones with gold fillings that imply a greater intelligence.

At the camp, the flame-man introduces himself as P.F.C. Layton Sykes of Anniston, Alabama.  He says that he was once a member of the previous investigation into the ancient ruins.  His team encountered the flame-men, who ate anything but plants.  When they ran out of food to feed them, the flame-men devoured him and his men.  They were absorbed into the flame-men who ate them, merging their consciousnesses.  Don asks if he remembers eating himself and, if so, then what do humans taste like?  Sykes says “like chicken”.

Back at the ruins, Col. Blade’s team finds a chamber with a hole blasted into it by a flamethrower (indicating the I-Team had been there).  Inside are hundreds of glowing eggs, each containing a flame-creature.  The Professor joyously announces that they must certainly be looking at beings from another planet.

And at the Flying Wing, Mystic Hand returns with news that he found nothing.  Suddenly, a trio of cloaked, spectral figures comes floating their way.

And back again at the ruins, Flaming Carrot’s team finds a huge pod with a glass lid.  Inside is what looks like a 9 foot-tall werewolf clad in a jumpsuit and boots.  Ignoring their better judgment, they open the pod and release the werewolf.  The monster chucks Flaming Carrot, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler out a window and into the sea.  Tearing a pipe off the wall, Mr. Furious charges the werewolf.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2.  The story concludes in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #4.

Review:

As I said last time, Neil Vokes’s pencils really do improve this miniseries and it’s at least not as much of a grind to get through as before.  He tries to put a lot of fluid motion and energy into his pages, even when the characters aren’t doing anything, and he succeeds in providing the characters with personality when the writing all but refuses to do so.  Vokes has a nice cartoony, squash-and-stretch style that lends to some manic expressions that befit the absurd goings on.  He’s a much better fit for the material than Lawson was, I’ll say again.

But aside from the art, it’s hard to believe a story about superheroes and mutants battling flame-monsters in a ruined city could be this boring.  A lot of it has to do with the excessive dialogue and narrative text that Burden, er, burdens the pages with.  Characters have to think about or announce what they’re doing and narration has to describe what we’re looking at as if we were blind.  I guess it’s supposed to be this faux Silver Age gimmick or something, but it slows everything down.  As do all the pointless, random jokes like Screwball’s pet shoelace, the Zeke’s smelling Corn Flakes in the protoplasmic goop and Donatello setting up a tired “tastes like chicken” gag. 

And did I mention that it takes the characters 8 pages to realize “water puts out fire”?  Because seriously.

So when I said earlier that this second half of the miniseries is less of a grind to get through, that doesn’t mean it still ISN’T a grind to get through.  Because it is.

Grade: D (as in, “Does anybody still find ‘tastes like chicken’ jokes funny?  Anybody?”)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2

Publication date: December, 1993

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Jim Lawson and Neil Vokes (pgs. 1, 23-28)

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Mary Woodring

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Two”

Summary:

As the Flying Wing zooms over the TMNT’s camp, Mr. Furious suddenly loses power on all the instruments.  He order all the Mysterymen to bail save for himself, Flaming Carrot and Bondoman, who stay behind to manually work the wings.  Once they glide far enough away from the camp (and the ancient ruins) the instruments begin working again.  Mr. Furious sets the Flying Wing down and, after reconvening with the Spleen and the Zeke’s, they decide to hoof it toward the camp.

Meanwhile, the Turtles and Col. Blade are pretty spooked after the buzzing their camp received from the strange plane.  The Turtles split up and journey into the jungle to check things out.  Raph winds up getting into a tussle with the Shoveler, who proceeds to trick him into jumping off a cliff.  Raph lands right next to Screwball, who panics and flies away on his rocket-boots.

Elsewhere, Donatello has a run-in with the Mystic Hand, who scares him off with his flying, disembodied hands.  Star Shark rolls into camp and meets up with Col. Blade.  Recognizing the Colonel as an American soldier, the Mysteryman explains everything.  Raphael, meanwhile, has begun trailing another green flame-man.  The flame-man escapes, but leads him to the Flying Wing.  Mr. Furious and the Zeke’s are about to open fire when Flaming Carrot stops them.  He and Raphael know each other and the two trade information.

Back at camp, all the Mysterymen have been rounded up and both groups brought to speed.  The Shoveler, taking watch, sees activity off in the distance.  Mr. Furious concocts a way to draw all the little green flame-men toward them so they can deal with them all at once.  They set the area with traps and drive the Flying Wing and all its weapons near a clearing.  They then throw all their green flares into a bonfire, hoping to attract the flame-men.  Meanwhile, Flaming Carrot opens a lemonade stand to serve all the thirsty flame-men.

The plan works and the flame-men converge on the bonfire, creating a rainbow in the night with their weird energies.  Michelangelo tries to scare them off with a flamethrower, but finds that by feeding flame-men mass quantities of fire, they only get bigger.  Luckily, shooting the flame-men in the “heart” still causes them to snuff out and the giant is destroyed.  

Col. Blade takes charge and hands out artillery to everyone, including the Turtles (Screwball, meanwhile, dresses like a character from McHale’s Navy because he’s just so silly).  However, it may not be enough as hundreds of flame-men storm the clearing with no signs of slowing down…

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #1.  The story continues in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3.

*Vokes was mistakenly not credited in this issue.

Review:

One of the anonymous comments for my review of last issue said that I pretty much repeated everything I wrote in my review for the first TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover.  And you know what?  They were right.

The problem is that there’s so little new material worth discussing between these crossovers.  Burden’s style of humor is bland and repetitive, his characters are bland and interchangeable and his plot is bland and underdeveloped.  Bland bland bland.  It’s hard to muster up new and exciting ways to describe the same ole shit.

And this second installment in the miniseries is definitely the same ole shit.  Everyone is boring and all the jokes are excruciatingly tiresome and stupid.  Ha ha ha.  Flaming Carrot opened up a lemonade stand.  Ha ha ha.  McHale’s Navy was a show that existed.

Just about the only improvement worth noting in this issue is the changeover in art.  Lawson was kind of phoning it in and his economical style was looking rushed and dull (he was doing TMNT Volume 2 at the same time, so his plate was probably a little full).  There’s no energy to any of his panels, which makes reading the groan-worthy story all the more tedious.  But then suddenly in the last handful of pages Neil Vokes picks up the baton and there is a WILD shift in art styles.  No attempt is made to harmonize their incongruous aesthetic approaches, just BAM!  Vokes takes over.

And the story becomes much more palatable.  All the same stupid jokes and cardboard characters are there, but Vokes at least breathes some life into them with his manic and fluid pencils.  What had been a really sleepy “action” scene when Lawson began drawing it suddenly turns into something with energy and pizzazz when Vokes takes the reins.  Does it save the issue?  No, but it at least reduces the pain.

Luckily, Vokes stays on for the remainder of the miniseries, so we’ve at least got that to look forward to.

Grade: D (as in, “Does anybody in any of Burden’s comics have a fucking personality?  Do those exist in his universe?”)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #1

Publication date: November, 1993

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and inks: Jim Lawson

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Mary Woodring

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part One”

Summary:

A super storm has recently ravaged the eastern coast of Central America.  The Turtles and Col. Blade are on their way to the decimated town of Santa Baloona to help the locals.  To get there, they’re travelling in a blimp they absconded with after a team-up adventure in which they defeated Mr. Cadaverous and his Blue Santas.

After fishing the cow from “Bonanza” out of a tree, they set down on the roof of the US Embassy and the Ambassador takes Col. Blade aside for a debriefing.  They meet with Professor Daub, an archeologist.  The Ambassador explains that a unit of the US Military called the I-Team went missing somewhere in the Abecero Peninsula and they need to be found.  Col. Blade reconvenes with the Turtles and says that they and Professor Daub are deploying immediately for a special mission.

At Mysterymen HQ, following a shrunken head/protein shake/ice cream incident, the team receives a top secret call to arms.  Apparently, thousands of years ago, there was a highly advanced, nigh-mythical city called Botaquaxal, hidden in the Abecero Peninsula.  It vanished somewhere around 948 AD and all attempted expeditions to locate it ended in tragedy, as the investigators all vanished.  Recently, a dentist bought an artifact at a flea market and after x-raying it, found "something".  That clue incited the Pentagon to send the I-Team into the Abecero Peninsula.  When the super storm hit, it caused an earthquake, revealing a lost city.  However, the I-Team’s last transmission wasn’t very hopeful, as the radioman screamed about flaming people burning everyone to death.

Flaming Carrot rallies the Mysterymen (Screwball, Bondoman, the Shoveler, Mystic Hand, Mr. Furious, Star Shark, the Zeke’s and the Spleen) and they take off in their aircraft, the Flying Wing (after donning sombreros suitable for a Central American vacation).  As the other Mysterymen take turns flying the Flying Wing, the Shoveler does some meteorological investigation.  He determines that the super storm didn’t follow any natural weather patterns but appears to have originated right from the Abecero Peninsula.

Via blimp, the Turtles, Col. Blade and the Professor find the I-Team’s campsite (but only after Raph wails on a saxophone he found in a locker).  They investigate and find no signs of life, save some meals that appear to have been suddenly abandoned.  The surrounding jungle appears likewise abandoned, without any traces of animals.  What they DO find are the personal effects of the I-Team (rings, watches, fillings) sitting atop small piles of ashes, indicating they were incinerated almost instantly. 

Searching, they eventually come across the unearthed city.  Oddly, all the ancient buildings appear to be made of a strange plastic substance with magnetic properties.  As Mikey skateboards the ruins, he spots a tower jutting out of the sea not far from the coast.  Spying through binoculars, Col. Blade notices equipment abandoned outside the entrance to the tower, indicating people had recently been there.

They decide to break for pizza and investigate the tower the next day.  Sleeping, Mikey has a strange dream about a prospering city, shadowy halls and a flaming man.  He’s awoken by Leo’s screaming.  Leo exclaims that while he was taking watch, a tiny man made of green flame attacked him.  Leo wasn’t lying, as the flaming man pops out of the bushes and attacks again.  Leo attempts to cut it in two, but his swords have no effect.  Col. Blade pulls out his gun and aims for what looks like a heart in the center of its chest.  Blade shoots the heart and the flaming man vanishes.  Professor Daub laments that they didn’t try to communicate with the creature.  Suddenly, Raph is startled and points to the sky as lights approach.

Turtle Tips:

*This story continues in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2.

*The Turtles last encountered the Flaming Carrot in Flaming Carrot (Vol. 1) #27.

*This issue featured an opening editorial by Michael Dooney explaining the origins of this miniseries.  Apparently, Burden came up with the idea while doing the first TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover.  It took several years to hammer out the final script, but apparently it was tossed around as two-part black-and-white miniseries, a giant sized annual and a 150-page graphic novel.  They eventually settled on the 4-issue color miniseries format.

Review:

So yeah, as I’ve confessed in the past, I’m really not much of a Flaming Carrot fan, so this 4-issue miniseries isn’t going to be easy for me to get through.  Bob Burden’s style of writing relies way too much on just being random for the sake of being random.  I’ve heard people call it “stream of consciousness” or “post modernism” and things like that, but to me it just reads like a game of Mad Libs and there’s nothing particularly clever or creative about that.  Raph playing the saxophone for two panels because it’s so random.  The cow from “Bonanza” makes a cameo because it’s so random.  Shrunken head in the protein shake because it’s so random.  The issue is just full of stuff like that and after 32 pages, it gets pretty tiresome.

There’s at least a stronger story behind this second TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover than their first team-up.  The fact that an at least semi-coherent plot is necessary to move the miniseries along, the narrative exposition overshadows much of the random nonsense, so it’s a bit easier to digest.

As with his last turn at writing the Ninja Turtles, Burden doesn’t appear to understand any of their individual personalities.  In fact, I don’t think he’s even aware that the Turtles HAVE individual personalities.  They all speak with interchangeable “cowabunga” and “radical, dude” dialogue and never display any of their talents or unique traits.  These are the Turtles you would see in merchandising on paper cups or bed sheets during the early ‘90s; vacuous corporate mascots spewing catchphrases and demonstrating no sense of characterization whatsoever.

It makes me wonder just why Burden even wanted to do these TMNT crossovers?  He clearly wasn’t impressed by the characters because he doesn’t treat the Turtles AS characters.  In fact, they’re all so bland and excruciatingly “wacky” that they could be substituted with any given member of the Mysterymen and it wouldn’t change a single thing about this comic.  I guess Burden just wanted the extra boost in sales having his name associated with the TMNT during “Turtlemania” would no doubt promise.  A lot of guest creators did that back in the day and their contributions can be a pain to sit through.  It was just easy money, back then.

This second TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover is extremely long and tedious and just not my cup of tea.  I know Burden has his fanbase, but no matter how I’ve tried, I just don’t see the appeal in his writing style.  It strikes me as being shamefully lazy.

Grade: D (as in, “Dude!  Radical!  Gnarly!  Cowabunga!  Now guess which of those catchphrases correspond to which Turtle”.)

 

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #42

Publication date: January, 2008

Script: Dan Berger

Artwork: Jim Lawson

Frontispiece: Michael Dooney

Lettering: Eric Talbot

Cover: Dan Berger and Dave White

“The Curious Case of Mr. Jones”

Summary:

Frontispiece: All four Turtles stand triumphantly atop the severed head of a gigantic robot.  One of them (Leo?  Raph?) waxes on about how the organic body is made up of 60% water and how “water and oil don’t mix”.  He considers all the robotic enemies they’ve faced in the past and figures the saying is very true.  In fact, their pal Casey Jones has had a few run ins with crazy robots on his own…

At an unknown facility, a pair of Government spooks arrive via helicopter with a man in handcuffs, wearing a sack over his head.  They take the prisoner to an interrogation room and remove the sack, revealing him to be Casey Jones.  Casey is livid about being apprehended by the Government and the spooks assure him that he is not in any trouble.  However, as a matter of national security, they insist that he disclose in detail the events of the past 24 hours.  Casey is uncooperative, at least until the spooks offer him $5,000 for his story.  Enticed, Casey tells them about what he and his friend “Raphatello” (“Raph” for short) encountered after dark last night…

While walking through the woods, Casey is intent on discussing which Olsen twin is the hottest (something Raph would rather not think about at his age).  Suddenly, a meteor crashes into the forest and they run over to investigate.  What they find in the smoking crater is a flying saucer of the George Adamski persuasion.  The saucer opens and out stomps an angry robot with an exhaust pipe on its head.  The robot immediately attacks them with its extending arms and laser eyes.

Casey puts on his hockey mask while Raph pulls out his sais and the two fight back.  After breaking their weapons on the robot’s impervious armor, they realize they may need a better strategy.  As the robot flings Raph into a pond, Casey comes up with an idea.  Grabbing a rock, Casey dodges the laser eyes, leaps into the air and slam-dunks the stone into the exhaust pipe on the robot’s head.

The robot begins spewing smoke out of its eyes and mouth.  Panicking, it runs back to its saucer and flies away.  Casey’s celebration is cut short, however, when he’s spotted by a Government helicopter…

And that brings us up to speed.  The spooks are pleased with Casey’s story and slip him a briefcase.  However, they want to know why he was so nonchalant when going face-to-face with an alien.  Casey rolls his eyes and insists that EVERYONE knows aliens are real, so what’s to be afraid of?  The spooks seem even more pleased with that response than the preceding story and give him a lift home on their helicopter.

The chopper drops Casey off on the roof of his apartment building.  Raph is waiting for him and wants to know what happened.  Casey tells Raph that movie rentals for the night are on him and displays the briefcase of cash.

Back at the unknown facility, the spooks reveal that they aren’t affiliated with the Government at all: They’re Utroms!  Thanks to Casey Jones’s testimony, they have determined that the Earthlings are ready for First Contact.  As an aside, Rogro compliments Glurin on his design of the robot.  Glurin thanks him and says he was inspired by Earth’s cartoons.

Turtle Tips:

*According to the opening editorial, this story takes place 3 weeks before TMNT (Vol. 4) #3, which would actually put it shortly before TMNT (Vol. 4) #1, considering how densely serialized those earlier Volume 4 issues were.

*The Utroms will initiate First Contact in TMNT (Vol. 4) #5.

*Chronologically, Glurin will appear again in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #18.

*This issue also featured a bonus pin-up, “Cats and Dogs” by Chris Herndon and Dan Berger.

Review:

You know, I really wish there were more of these light comedic issues of Tales of the TMNT Volume 2.  They’re a fun break from all the heavier storytelling, that’s for sure, and even though some of them fit into a larger overarching narrative (as this one foreshadows events in TMNT Volume 4), they’re still good standalone reading.  Moreso, I really like it when Lawson applies a more exaggerated, cartoony style to his characters.  As with “Spinal Tapped”, “The Curious Case…” is a good example of how much more energy and animation his pencils have to offer when he isn’t taking himself or the story too seriously.  The "skull and crossbones" dialogue boxes from the robot were a nice throwback to the Foot Super Soldiers from the Archie TMNT Adventures series (who also "talked" with such symbols).

I’ve only spoken to Berger a couple of times, but he’s always struck me as a guy of good humor (and patience), and you can see that attitude in most of the stories he’s written.  While he’s offered some of the darkest and most profound tales in the TMNT catalog, he’s also penned a number of the goofiest and most entertaining.  There’s fun to be had in Casey’s narration, as he fumbles with things like covering up who Raphael is (trying to come up with a “full name” and only managing to squish the other TMNT’s names together).

The actual fight with the robot is a brisk affair and the humor during that segment, as mentioned, is left up mostly to Lawson’s pencils.  Still, the trash talk that Casey and Raph lay down while fighting is surprisingly amusing, whereas that sort of stuff is usually bland and tiresome.  While they’re getting trashed by the robot, I think my favorite exchange is, “We may need a better plan!”  “Yeah – One with dental.”

There isn’t a whole lot else to talk about in this story.  It foreshadows the First Contact event that would define much of TMNT Volume 4 and, I think, marks the first chronological appearance of Glurin, whom we’ll see much of in the Volume 4 era (both in TMNT and in the Tales issues set during that timeframe).  I do wonder about Glurin’s decision to test out the robot on Casey Jones, of all people.  Surely he must have been aware that Casey doesn’t qualify as an “average” Earthling, at least when it comes to how he’d react to aliens and monsters and stuff.  But perhaps that was part of Glurin’s strategy all along; purposely choosing a test subject he’d know to be okay with the idea of aliens because it might speed along the decision to initiate First Contact.

Anyhow, this is a rather unassuming story and it’s comic relief, no doubt, but its humor is well staged and I think Lawson’s contemporary style is at its best when it isn’t taking itself seriously.

Grade: B (as in, “But I love it when Casey’s mask emotes like it’s his face; the old Fred Wolf cartoon used to do that”.)

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #15

Publication date: September, 2005

Plot: Steve Murphy, Eric Talbot, Jim Lawson, Peter Laird
Script: Steve Murphy

Pencils: Jim Lawson

Inks/letters: Eric Talbot

Frontispiece: Fernando Pinto

Letters page header: William Potter

Cover: Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot

“Hell’s Blacktop”

Summary:

Frontispiece: While dodging numerous ninja weaponry, Mikey considers how he’s never been a “car guy”.  He likes cars, but just as a way to get from point A to point B.  Casey, Raph and Don are huge car fanatics, though.  All this reminds him of the first time he drove cross-country on a road trip…

At a gas station in Colorado, Casey dotes over his beloved ’57 Chevy Bel Air (which had belonged to his dad before he inherited it).  Shadow comes out of the minimart and rejoins Casey and Mikey on their road trip.  As they continue moving, Shadow looks over the journal of her mother and, continuing the entries in her own words, laments that she never got to know her.  They eventually arrive at the cliff where Casey spread Gabrielle’s ashes.  Shadow finds some branches and builds a makeshift cross as a memorial for the mother she never knew.

Back on the road, Casey sees a guy on a ’72 Moto Guzzi V-7 Sport go flying past at 110.  Casey is impressed by the bike, though his passengers don’t share in the enthusiasm.  Shadow is lost in an issue of Fortean Times, a supernatural magazine.  This particular issue has a feature on highway apparitions.  Casey blows the idea off as superstition, while Mikey is interested to hear more.

They stop at a roadside diner and Casey and Shadow take a seat at the bar (after promising to bring Mikey back some grub, later).  A pair of local old timers recognize that the pair aren’t from around these parts and decide to warn them about Von Clutch.  They say Von Clutch is a ghost who races foolish folks for their souls and that he can’t be beat.  Casey has had enough of ghost stories and orders his food to go.

Later that night, beneath a full moon, Casey suddenly sees a woman standing in the middle of the road and swerves into a ditch to avoid her.  Shadow insists the woman had no head, but Casey nixes the idea.  The Chevy mysteriously won’t start back up again and Casey takes a look under the hood.  Meanwhile, Shadow walks off into the rocks to go pee.  After finishing up, she finds a disembodied skull half-buried in the dirt and brings it back to show Mikey.

Suddenly, they’re met by Von Clutch (a big-headed, bug-eyed greaser in a ’55 Ford) who challenges them to a race.  A gaggle of ghosts encircle the group (including the biker from earlier) and they all claim they lost to Von Clutch and now have to serve as his entourage for all eternity.  Von Clutch mocks Casey’s Chevy, which is all it takes to incite Casey to participate in the ghostly drag race.

As they speed down the highway, Von Clutch takes the lead and things look bad.  Shadow notices the woman in Von Clutch’s passenger seat (Darlin’) is the same headless woman from earlier.  Shadow asks Mikey to pass her the skull while Casey pulls up next to Von Clutch.  Shadow tosses the skull at Darlin’, who proceeds to fit it back onto her neck.  Darlin’ tells Von Clutch that now that her head has been restored, the curse is lifted and they can continue on their way to Heaven.  Von Clutch forfeits the race and drives off into the sky.  The other spirits thank Casey for freeing their souls and depart.

Casey tells Shadow that was good thinking and they all get back on the road.  Casey wishes Gabrielle could see how smart her daughter has grown.  From a cliff overlooking the highway, the spirit of Gabrielle watches as they drive off into the distance.

Turtle Tips:

*This story takes place toward the end of the Mirage “Volume 3” era and near the start of TMNT Volume 4, judging by the date in Shadow’s journal entry (May 10, 2001).

*Gabrielle (Shadow’s mom) died in TMNT (Vol. 1) #58 and Casey spread her ashes off the cliff in that same issue.

*To counter Casey’s skepticism, Shadow mentions the time she fought werewolves in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #7.

*The Turtles and Casey encountered the Mutato-Heads, strange extradimensional hot-rodders based on the art of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, in TMNT (Vol. 1) #30.  Von Clutch is likewise based on the art of Roth (and his name derived from hot-rodder Kenny "Von Dutch" Howard), but otherwise he and the Mutato-Heads share no further connections.

*The characters of Von Clutch and Darlin’ are owned by Funatix!, Inc., an intellectual property mill founded by Peter Laird and staffed with Mirage employees while otherwise not being an arm of Mirage.  According to the opening editorial, Von Clutch would appear in another Funatix! property called “The Howlers”.  Dunno if that ever panned out or not.

*This issue also featured a bonus comic, “Apocalypse Vow” by Murphy, Lawson and Talbot.

Review:

Well, it takes 18 pages to get to Von Clutch, 6 pages for the stakes of the race to be established, and then 4 pages for the actual race itself.  So yeah, 24 pages of buildup for 4 pages of action.  And the race ends in a sudden forfeit, too.  How unsatisfying can you get?

To be fair, there’s some good stuff in those 18 pages (EIGHTEEN PAGES) of setup.  Shadow visiting the cliff where Casey spread Gabrielle’s ashes and contemplating that she never knew her mother; that was some nicely poignant stuff.  Prior to this, we’d never gotten any scenes where Shadow thought about Gabrielle, so it’s sweet to see how she imagines what her mother might have been like and tries to develop a connection with a person she never knew.  Likewise, cliché as it is, the bit where Casey and Shadow visit the diner and get the lowdown on Von Clutch from a pair of old timers was appropriate mood setting.

It just… it boggles the mind how this stuff could take 18 pages.  Everything else is padded with inane conversations about gummi bears, Casey acting stupidly skeptical (when there’s no reason for him to be, given his experiences, other than Murphy needing SOMEONE in the cast to play the part), two pages of Shadow squatting and peeing because we needed to see that, and masturbatory moments where Lawson and Laird wallow in their self-indulgent boners for Moto Guzzi (their joint hard-on for that particular brand of crotch rocket is absolutely obnoxious.  Yes.  We get it.  Harleys suck and Guzzis are better.  NOBODY CARES).

I just can’t help but feel there was a much more economical way to tell this particular story without losing any of the substance (Shadow pondering what Gabrielle was like being the real heart of this tale).  Or at the very least, there must have been some other way to distribute the plot elements of this story so that the actual race isn’t truncated to a meager 4 pages.  It’s just not very well plotted at all.  And is there any excuse for that when the credit for “plot” belongs to four different people?

Also, if all this seems a little like déjà vu, then I guess that means you’ve read “Sky Highway” by Rick Veitch.  That was the story that first established Casey’s obsession with his Chevy and it also featured him in a high-speed battle against supernatural creatures inspired by the art of Big Daddy Roth.  “Hell’s Blacktop” dredges up Casey’s obsession with his car (which hadn’t been a factor since “City at War” used it as symbolism for his character growth) and once again pits him against knock-offs/parodies/homages (take your pick) of Big Daddy Roth monstrosities.  In a way, “Hell’s Blacktop” feels almost insultingly insincere.  You see, Rick Veitch was one of the only contributors to the Mirage TMNT (Vol. 1) “guest era” who outright refused to sign Eastman and Laird’s “mandatory retroactive work-for-hire contracts”.  As a result, Mirage (now Viacom) does not have the rights to reprint any of Veitch’s issues, at least not without having to pay him royalties (something they really, REALLY didn’t want to do).

So we get this thing: Superficially the same story (Casey obsesses over his Chevy, fights Roth-monsters), but with the caveat that Mirage owns it wholesale.  The opening editorial even includes a boastful paragraph about how Peter Laird, via Funatix!, owns these characters outright, nah nah nah. 

While I doubt there was all that much malice in the creation of this story, “Hell’s Blacktop” does somewhat feel like Mirage endeavoring to create a version of “Sky Highway” that wouldn’t require them to pay Veitch a thin dime.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  A year after Veitch created the character of Bloodsucker, Mirage employees created the identical character Wyrm save for one vital distinction between the two: Wyrm didn’t require royalty payments to Veitch.

Anyway, even if you divorce “Hell’s Blacktop” from “Sky Highway” in both story and real world controversy, it’s still not very good for all the reasons I discussed at the top of the review.  It has some intriguing ideas and at least one valuable moment to Shadow’s growth as a character, but spends the first 2/3 of the book wasting time for no discernible reason and then squanders the action because it ran out of room.

Grade: D (as in, “Don’t worry.  If you wanted more ramblings about the superiority of Moto Guzzis, TMNT Volume 4 is just around the corner!”)

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #6

Publication date: November, 2004

Plot: Steve Murphy

Script: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)

Art: Chris Allan

Letters: Eric Talbot

Frontispiece: Dan Berger

“Scars”

Summary:

Frontispiece: Sitting in a graveyard after dark, Cha Ocho peels an apple and thinks about how he’s tasted the fruit from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge… and found the flavor to be bitter.  He decides to tell a story to all the fools out there who haven’t had a taste, yet…

1984.  Chinatown.  Heading home from karate practice, a 9 year-old Cha Ocho is excited to show his mom the moves he just learned.  He leads her into an alley so he can have room to show off, which of course gets them cornered by a street gang.  Before the four muggers can kill them, Leonardo drops down from the rooftops and takes them out in 5 seconds.  Cha tells Leo he wants to be just like him when he grows up.  Before vanishing, Leo tells Cha “No you don’t”.

1998.  St. Thomas Church.  Cha, now a police officer, weds the love of his life, Kate.  Sometime after that, they’re down in the Times Square subway station, waiting for their train.  A perp comes running by the platform being tailed by two transit officers.  Cha decides to let the officers handle it.  Suddenly, the perp pulls out a gun, fires at the officers, misses, hits Kate and the impact sends her reeling off the platform, onto the tracks, where she’s promptly run over by a train.  The perp escapes.

1999.  The 17^th Precinct.  Cha is furious at the Police Chief for putting Kate’s murder in the cold case files.  The Chief tries to level with him, that there simply isn’t any forensic evidence or available suspects and that the force has to move on to other cases.  Cha demands to be put on the case to keep it going, but the Chief reminds him about conflict-of-interest rules; that he’s too close to the case to be involved in it.  Cha throws down his badge and quits the force in anger.

2000.  The Foot Clan training center in Brooklyn.  Cha passes his final exam and is initiated into the Clan by Karai.

2001.  The 17^th Precinct.  Using his newly acquired Foot Soldier training, Cha sneaks into the file room and leaves with the info on his wife’s case.  He’s stopped on the roof by Leonardo, who had a feeling the Foot Clan hadn’t gone legit like they claimed.  Cha recognizes Leo and tells the Turtle how he inspired him.  He then explains the whole story about why he’s stealing the file and Leo agrees to assist him.

Down in the lair, Cha and Leo look over the clues and come to the conclusion that Lawrence McKinney is the likeliest suspect, as he “fell off the face of the Earth” shortly after the time of the murder and was never able to be found for questioning.  Cha wants to hunt McKinney down like an animal and Splinter reminds him that he should consider whether he is out for vengeance or justice.  With Don working on a project, Mikey reading comics and Raph with a broken arm, Leo is left to accompany Cha on his task alone.

They do some sleuthing and clues lead them to the Dockside Bar, where McKinney is reported to hang out.  Cha puts his katana to a patron’s neck and demands answers.  The patron says that McKinney has been homeless ever since an incident a few years ago and hasn’t been the same.  Cha storms out, figuring the “incident” was his wife’s murder.  Leo reminds Cha to cool it, as he nearly killed the patron back there in his anger.

The pair search every homeless shelter in the city and they eventually come to the last on the list: St. Thomas Church.  Climbing the stairs, they find McKinney sleeping in a box and Cha immediately places his blade on the homeless man’s neck.  Cha reminds him of the murder and McKinney confesses.  Before Cha can kill him, Leo holds him back, allowing McKinney to run and hide in the church.  Leo tells Cha that killing the man would be dishonorable; against the Bushido code he swore to when he joined the Foot.  Cha smashes Leo in the mouth with the hilt of his sword and runs into the church.

Cha confronts McKinney on the altar.  McKinney pulls out a pocket knife and swears it was an accident; that he’s been living with the guilt of what he did all these years.  Cha promptly chops off McKinney’s hand and holds his sword up to his neck.  McKinney stutters a plea for forgiveness which Cha denies, decapitating McKinney.

Witnessing this, Leo tells Cha that he went too far; that he committed a dishonorable act.  Leo tells him that there is no honor in killing for vengeance.  Cha reminds Leo that he and his clan killed the Shredder, TWICE, as an act of vengeance on their own master’s behalf.  Leo counters by saying that their acts of vengeance only created a cycle of violence that got many innocent people killed.  Leo then lays down his swords and picks up McKinney’s pocket knife.  He tells Cha that he’s going to “teach him a lesson”.  The two fight and Leo counters all of Cha’s sword attacks with the dinky knife.  He then breaks Cha’s blade with the knife and slices a huge gash across Cha’s face.  Leo tells him that he’ll have to wear that “mark of shame” for the rest of his life and vanishes.

Sometime later, Cha reflects.  He considers how he used to hate Leo for what he did, but now he only pities him.  He pities the Turtle for living a repressed, suffocated life.  Trapped in the sewers, Leo can never experience the beauty of the surface world.  And trapped within his own outmoded dogma and self-righteousness, he isn’t able to see the world in anything beyond simple black and white.  Cha feels that Leo’s life is even lonelier than his.

Sitting down at Kate’s grave, Cha begins peeling an apple and starts to tell her a story about heroes and villains and those who fall somewhere in between…

Turtle Tips:

*This story takes place during the Mirage “Volume 3” era, very close to the beginning of TMNT Volume 4, given the date of 2001.

*Cha Ocho will forge a friendship with Raphael in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #28 and continue his rivalry with Leonardo in TMNT (Vol. 4) #6.

*The Turtles killed the Shredder in TMNT (Vol. 1) #1, again in TMNT (Vol. 1) #21, and their acts of vengeance eventually spiraled out of control into the “City at War”, beginning in TMNT (Vol. 1) #50.

*I don’t think we ever learn the circumstances behind Raphael’s broken arm.

*This issue also included a back-up story, “The Raisin'” by Muphy, Lawson and Talbot, and a bonus pin-up by Chris Herndon Dan Berger.

Review:

With the power of retrospect at our fingertips, just about everything involving Cha Ocho seems really, really embarrassing.

When Peter Laird introduced him in the pages of TMNT Volume 4, he seemed to think that he really had something with this character.  Cha Ocho was treated like he was sure to be the.  Next.  Big.  Thing.  He was going to be the breakout character of TMNT Volume 4 and Tales Volume 2 and become as famous an addition to the recurring stable of TMNT personalities as Baxter Stockman, Leatherhead and the Rat King.

Yeah, well, that didn’t happen.

Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) would introduce a lot of new characters, built up like they were a shoe-in for the.  Next.  Big.  Thing.  Characters like the Foot Mystic trio, the Mistress, Hamato Yoshi’s niece and so on.  But the reality is that introducing a character is the easy part.  Cultivating them into interesting personalities that readers would want to latch onto and care about for years to come?  That takes time and dedication.  Mirage’s staff had the time, but not so much the dedication.  At least, not to the new characters they were introducing in rapid succession with lots of trumpeting fanfare.  Cha Ocho is just another one of those discarded “next big thing” characters; excitedly introduced and then quickly forgotten.

So with that in mind, this issue here is an extended origin story for a character who will proceed to do absolutely, positively NOTHING in the future except glower in the background and sneer awkwardly at Leonardo.  I suppose what you’re better off doing is categorizing this story in the same vein as Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #46 and Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #65.  These are all stories that chronicle the lives of various members of the Foot Clan and how their antagonistic interactions with the Turtles have affected them.  These sorts of stories try to add a sense of humanity to the faceless villains by fleshing out their home lives and backgrounds.  So I would recommend reading “Scars” in that context and not as the overblown origin story to “The Sensational Character-Find of 2004”.

“Scars” is a better story than I remembered it being in the past, at least when it comes to the climax, as Cha and Leo trade lessons and morality nuggets back and forth.  From Leo’s point of view, he’s been there and done that and can say from experience that vengeance never solves anything, but that violence begets more violence.  Unfortunately, he’s a total dick about it, wrapping it up in monologues about honor and the Bushido (by the way, “Bushido” is not ancient scripture, but imperialist propaganda commissioned in the early 20^th century by the Japanese military to better indoctrinate nationalism and the glory of dying for one’s country into the population) and then scarring Cha with a “mark of shame” so he could think about what he’s done.  

While Leo may have meant well, he’s still projecting his own personal experiences onto another individual and rarely are two people’s situations entirely comparable.  And Leo can talk all day and night about “what he’s learned” over the previous two decades, but that doesn’t take away the fact that he’s killed countless scores of people, himself.  It’s hard to take exposition about the evils of killing seriously from a murderer.  And ANYWAY, Leo’s own example about the cycle of violence caused by vengeance killings doesn’t even hold up if you’ve actually read “City at War”.  Do you know how Leo solved his cycle of violence problems and earned that sweet Foot Clan peace treaty?  By killing and killing and killing until eventually he killed everyone that could cause shit for him.

He is NO moral high ground to be looking up to and has no business applying “marks of shame” to anybody.

Then there’s Cha, who kills a man as he surrenders and begs for forgiveness and swears that the murder he committed has haunted him ever since.  Yeah, that’s not so cool.  BUT, if McKinney had REALLY felt just awful about killing Kate, why didn’t he turn himself in during the 3 years since?  Dude had his chance to make things right and pay his dues.  This was just the consequences catching up to him.

I think the idea was that this was supposed to be a crossroads for Cha; he could have walked the path of a “hero” if he spared McKinney’s life or he could have transformed into a “villain” by seeking bloody vengeance.  Or, at least, that’s the black and white view Leo seems to use.  In his inner monologue at the end, Cha expresses that things just aren’t so conveniently black and white and though he killed the man who murdered his wife, that doesn’t necessarily make him a villain, either.

Now, what BOTHERS me is that all this is like a bad “What If” issue of Spider-Man.  Murphy (under his “Clarrain” pseudonym) doesn’t even try to hide the source of inspiration, with Cha deciding not to stop McKinney when he had the chance because of a “not my job” excuse and that selfish choice backfiring tragically.  But when Peter Parker tracked down the burglar who shot Uncle Ben, he chose to spare his life and become a hero.  When Cha Ocho tracked down the perp who shot Kate, he chose to decapitate him and become, I dunno, a Foot Soldier with personality or something.

It’s all a bit labored and confused and I’ve had plenty of discussions with other fans who came away with totally different interpretations of this story.  I think just by virtue that fans can talk about the issue and make cases for their various readings, that “Scars” is successful in its endeavor.  There’re shades of grey in both sides of the conflict and neither Cha nor Leo are wholly vilified or righteous in their actions.  Of course, what this really means is that we’ve got two jerks yelling at each other and you may not care if either of them are right or wrong because they’re both such douches.

As for everything else, we have Chris Allan artwork and that’s always a plus.  He seemed to get saddled with a lot of the lousier scripts during his contributions to Tales Volume 2 and that was sort of a shame.  And speaking of “lousy scripts”, Murphy was really struggling with the dialogue, here.  Cha is obnoxious in his slang and trash talk, saying things like, “I got more juice than Minute Maid and Tropicana combined!” and “I’m chilling.  I’m a regular Mr. Frosty”.  Yeesh.

“Scars” is… eeehhhh.  I remembered it being a lot worse than it actually was and the morality struggle between two deeply flawed yet arrogantly self-righteous individuals is interesting to read, even if you may not come out thinking either of them was “right”.  Great art from Chris Allan, so it’s got that going for it regardless of any other setbacks you may or may not detect.

Grade: C (as in, “Cha Ocho is just such a silly name.  Not Sgt. Bananas or Mondo Gecko levels of silly, but still pretty silly”.)