Publication date: May, 2008
Script: Dan Berger
Pencils: Jim Lawson
Inks: Gary Fields, Dan Berger, Michael Dooney and Jim
Lawson
Letters: Eric Talbot
Cover: Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot
Frontispiece: Michael Dooney
“Temps”
Summary:
Frontispiece: Charging up a steel girder, the Turtles
face a massive swarm of Foot Soldiers.
Leading the charge, Donatello contemplates why he and his brothers are
locked in combat with the hordes of faceless ninja. Then he also wonders why they are locked in
combat with himself and his brothers.
Donatello decides that it’s time for a story…
April’s just returned home to New York and decides to
stop by her favorite coffee shop, the Daily Buzz. Inside, she orders the usual from her
favorite barista, Tomi. Tomi’s little
brother, Jiro, idolizes his sibling and wants to grow up to be as good as he is
with the guitar. Tomi tells Jiro he
won’t get any more lessons if he misses school and sends the kid on his
way. April asks Tomi how things have been
since his father was killed by a local gang and Tomi admits that times have
been tough. However, he says that he’s
found a new job and today is his last day as a barista. April wishes Tomi luck and heads on her way.
At the water tower HQ, Donatello tells his brothers that
the tracking sensors he put in place a while ago are getting signals from Foot
Clan activity. The Turtles decide to
head to the source of the signals. Raph
wants some serious action, but Leo reminds him that they’re only on a recon
mission.
Tomi stops by his mother’s place and tells her that he’s
going to need his father’s equipment for the initiation. Tomi’s mother is against her son following in
his father’s footsteps and urges him to give up the “family tradition” and
focus on his music. Tomi promises her
that he’ll be alright.
On a rooftop, the Turtles have the Foot’s meeting place
scoped out and Donatello labors to set up his surveillance gear. Raph, bored, is getting anxious and agitated.
Before his brother leaves, Jiro asks if Tomi can tell him
all about the cool initiation when he gets back and Tomi promises to let him
know in the morning. Tomi dons a Foot
Soldier uniform and heads to the rooftop where the initiation is taking place. The Foot Soldier in charge points to the
Turtles on another rooftop, unaware of them, and says that their initiation
will be an ambush on their mutant foes.
On the other rooftop, Don is listening in on the Foot
meeting and trying to translate the Japanese.
He gets as far as “initiation” when the Foot Soldiers launch their sneak
attack. The battle between the Turtles
and the Foot goes as it usually does, with the Turtles making quips and
knocking the ninja off their feet. Tomi
is hesitant to strike with his sword, but after a few commands from his
superior, decides to take Raph on. Raph
effortlessly dodges Tomi’s attack and then sticks him in the gut with his
sai. More Foot Soldiers arrive and the
Turtles retreat with a well-placed smoke bomb.
The Foot take an accounting and find only one casualty:
Tomi. The Foot Soldier in charge tells
the new recruits that they have passed their initiation and that they will one
day achieve vengeance for their fallen comrade.
At her apartment the next morning, Tomi’s mother answers a
knock at the door and the Foot Soldiers deliver Tomi’s corpse. They tell her that he died with honor just as
his father had. Tomi’s mother breaks
down crying while Jiro promises her that he will get the guys who murdered his
brother.
Turtle Tips:
*This issue takes place during TMNT (Vol. 1) #56. It occurs after April’s storyline (where her
father dies and she returns to New York) but before the Turtles’ storyline
(where Karai destroys the water tower).
*For those who have read TMNT (Vol. 1) #56, you likely
recall that the water tower was destroyed before April found out her dad had
died. Keep in mind that, as illustrated
in TMNT (Vol. 1) #51, the ongoing storylines running throughout “City at War”
do not happen concurrently. It seems
counterintuitive to place the story during TMNT #56, I know, but it’s the only
way April’s and the TMNT’s timelines can intersect for the events of this issue
to take place.
*This issue also contained a bonus pin-up, “The Hole” by
Mark Martin.
Review:
“Temps” is a story with a concept and a moral I could
really applaud if, well, it hadn’t been published in a Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles comic.
Essentially, the lesson learned in this issue is “an eye
for an eye leaves everyone blind”; that vengeance and honor killings are a
vicious cycle that inevitably leads to self-destruction. Giving an identity and a righteous motivation
to a faceless Foot Soldier is a great way to get that message across, as it
reminds us that these disposable henchmen all have families who love them and
presumably an unfortunate string of circumstances that lead them to join the
Foot. I love the way the ending battle
is played, as the Turtles deliver their usual droll quips and knock down the
Foot Soldiers with minimal effort. It’s
one thing to kill a guy, but it’s another to laugh in his face as you do it… Especially after we just watched him kiss his
mother good bye and promise to see his little brother in the morning. Yeah, the Turtles are killing in self
defense, but do they have to be such dicks about it?
The problem I have with the moral is that the entire
origin of the TMNT is founded on vengeance and honor killings. “Temps” tries to show us the fruitlessness of
revenge, but we’re more frequently encouraged to root for the Turtles when they
go on an honor killing spree. They
killed Oroku Saki to defend the honor of a man they never even knew because
their master wanted vengeance. But Oroku
Saki killed Hamato Yoshi because he wanted revenge for the death of his older brother. So what makes the TMNT’s honor killing more
righteous than Oroku Saki’s? And what
makes their blood debt more reasonable than Tomi’s? He wants to restore the honor of his fallen
father by carrying on in his footsteps, after all.
The difference is that when the Turtles do it, everything
works out because they’re the protagonists.
But when Tomi or Oroku Saki or anybody else does it, they’re wrong and on
the path of self-destruction. So is the
lesson “don’t seek vengeance unless you’re absolutely sure that you deserve it
more than the other guy?” EVERYBODY who
seeks revenge feels a righteous sense of entitlement; that they deserve
it. The only reason the Turtles get away
with it is because they’re the stars of the comic book and they have plot
armor.
Much of the set up for Tomi also reads as being pretty
labored. The exposition at the coffee
shop is rough, as Tomi basically gives us the Reader’s Digest version of
his life story as April feeds him awkward solicitations for more back
story. And speaking of April, I really
don’t think she needed to be in this issue.
I suppose having the Turtles slay an acquaintance of a friend of theirs
adds another layer to the tragedy, but it felt like Berger had to jump through
some narrative hoops to shoehorn her into the story. I think we could have gotten a more sincere
look at Tomi’s family life if we’d just followed him around for an afternoon as
he interacts with his mom and brother. I’d
have preferred that over Tomi standing in a coffee shop TELLING us how he
interacts with his mom and brother.
Berger would make a second attempt at telling this kind
of story, and do a much better job of it, in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2)#65. In that one, a Foot Mystic is at
the end of his rope and essentially only going after the Turtles to save the
lives of his family held hostage. It
forgoes the stilted morality play about the cycle of vengeance while still
giving us a tragic and insightful look into the life of a Foot lackey. Mirage TMNT stories that condemn honor
killings and blood debts just don’t work given that the entire series rests on
the foundation of a successful act of vengeance. Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #6 is an even more
frustrating example of this, as the Turtles themselves try to take the high
ground and explain why honor killing is wrong and it’s a lot of black pots and
kettles.
Grade: C (as in, “Can’t say the four man inking team
really paid off, either”)
