Publication date: November, 1992
Story: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Script: Jim Lawson and Peter Laird
Pencils: Jim Lawson
Inks: Matt Banning
Letters: Mary Kelleher
Tones: Eric Talbot
Cover: A.C. Farley
“City at War, Part 4 of 13”
Summary:
In the woods of Northampton, Splinter meditates and
attempts to focus his mind. Despite his
best efforts, though, he cannot concentrate and becomes frustrated.
In LA, April and Robyn return home from the
hairdressers. April feels ridiculous in her
new “contemporary” style, but Robyn thinks she looks fine. Looking around the filthy house, April starts
to insist that her sister needs to keep better care of her place. Robyn resents being told how to live her life
and gently tells April to drop it.
At Gabe’s trailer, Casey wakes up from a dream about
April to find his girlfriend in the bathroom, vomiting. Once she’s done, she reveals to Casey that
she’s four months pregnant. She didn’t
want to tell him because she was afraid he’d leave. Casey tells her that he’ll stay, not because
he feels sorry for her, but because he wants to.
Over in the hospital, the old man has been removed from
his body cast, but is still recovering.
In Northampton, Splinter ponders that his vision has been
obscured and meditation no longer brings the clarity it once did. He feels as though he’s wandering in the dark
with no purpose. Exiting the woods, he
finds himself at the entrance of an abandoned industrial complex.
Back in New York City, the Turtles, the Foot, the robots
and the police are in the midst of a chaotic battle. A Foot Elite Guard drops down from the
rooftops and begins slaughtering the enemy Foot Soldiers, the police and the
robots. The Turtles try to hold their
own, but can’t protect the police officers as the Foot Soldiers gun down their choppers with bazookas. The cops begin tear-gassing the street and
the Elite Guard disappears in a smoke bomb.
Leo gathers his brothers and tells them to disappear into the
alley. Along the way, he sees a young
bystander that was killed in the mayhem.
The Turtles regroup in an empty stairwell and try to wrap
their heads around what just happened.
Raph is overwhelmed and short for words.
Leo tells his brothers that even though they found the Foot like they’d
been trying to all these weeks, they accomplished absolutely nothing. Basically, they’re in way over their heads.
In Tokyo, at the HQ of the Japanese branch of the Foot,
an advisor tells his superior that the New York situation has reached crisis
proportions, showing her news footage of the chaos in the streets. The woman tells her advisor that it is time
to act.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 1) #52. The story continues in TMNT (Vol. 1) #54.
Review:
The Turtles finally find the trouble they’ve been looking
for and it’s not what they had in mind at all.
In the past, their solution to battling the Foot has always been
simple: Kill the Shredder. The
Shredder’s dead, the Foot are going crazy… Now what do they do? The Turtles set off a powder keg when they
defeated Shredder for the final time and they aren’t equipped with the means to
clean up their own mess. This issue is a
humbling experience for them, to say the least.
It’s always one of those annoying clichés of movies and
cartoons and comic books; that if you kill the leader, the bad guys are all
done for as a whole. Kill the Emperor
and suddenly the Galactic Empire is defeated (and shut up about your EU). Defeat the Red Skull and HYDRA is a goner. Take down Cobra Commander and Cobra is no
more. It’s as bad as having the secret
headquarters self destruct just because you’ve beaten the boss level.
Here, the Turtles learn that reality isn’t so simple.
I waxed on last time about how the Mirage Turtles aren’t
“heroes” or “crimefighters”, and this story illustrates a reason why they can’t be. The Turtles killed the
Shredder not because he was assassinating people or running protection rackets,
but because the Turtles owed a debt of honor to Master Yoshi. So far as they’re concerned, killing the
Shredder restored their sensei’s honor and cleared their debt. They go back to take down the Foot in “City
at War” not because they *have* to, but because they feel morally obligated to
clean up after themselves. And their attempts at doing that are a total disaster.
They don’t know where to look for the Foot, they don’t know what to do
when they find the Foot… They’re useless in this situation. And as Leo points out, they can’t even
protect innocent bystanders or the police.
If the Mirage Turtles *were* superheroes, they’d be the
worst ones ever.
As for everyone else, Casey’s decided to take
responsibility and help Gabe with her upcoming child, Splinter is dealing with
his newfound obsolescence, Karai’s about to roll up into New York and get shit
together, and April’s whining about her hair and a messy living room.
Goddammit, April.
Can you even TRY to be interesting?
As for the big fight, it’s a dozen pages of pure action
and Lawson lays it out like a champ. The
energy flows through the panels and the perspectives shift naturally to set up
the sequences and direct your eyes where they need to be. My favorite bit is when the Foot Soldier on
the roof with the bazooka gets gunned down by the police. The way the gunshots trail along the
ledge of the building before they hit him, then he keels over and his blood
spatters like raindrops down on the action below. It’s so hectic and chaotic, but the layouts
lead you through the action by the hand so the reading is intuitive. Really amazing sequence and one of the best
fights in the whole book.
Grade: A (as in, “And for the record, Robyn’s cat is
named Coolbeans. That’s the most
interesting part of April’s segment in this issue”.)
