TMNT (Vol. 2) #2

Publication date: December, 1993

Story and pencils: Jim Lawson

Inks: Jason Temujin Minor

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Eric Vincent

Cover: Peter Laird

“Winds of Change”

Summary:

In the basement of Casey and April’s apartment building, the Turtles are loafing about in their cramped room.  Raphael finally cracks under the tedium and declares that he’s moving out.  Leonardo and Mike take his statement in stride, knowing that they’ve all reached a crossroads in their lives.

At a DARPA (Defense and Research Projects Administration) facility in the Southwest, two guards stand nervously outside of a heavily locked and fortified lab.  Apparently, there’s a new scientist in there who has been experimenting with dead bodies.  They hear a gunshot inside the lab and go in to investigate.  Both guards are shot dead by an automated sentry gun.  The mysterious scientist takes an access card from one of the corpses and uses it to override all entry into the DARPA facility, placing the building on lockdown.

At the farm in Northampton, Don is doing some yardwork out front when he sees a car coming.  He ducks behind some rocks to hide, but the people in the car see him take cover.  They don’t pry, however, and tell him that they just want to leave some literature on his doorstep.  After they’ve left, Don gets up to see what they placed on the doorstep.  It’s just a religious pamphlet.

On the rooftops of New York, Leonardo is going for an exercise run.  He feels like all his brothers are beginning to drift apart and wonders what the true cause is.  Is it that without Splinter, they’ve no guiding force keeping them together?  Or is it because now that the Foot Clan are no longer a problem, they’ve no common enemy forcing them to band together?  Or are they each just going through a point in their lives where they need to seek answers alone?

Suddenly, Leo hears gunshots and catches a car performing a driveby.  He leaps down onto the hood of the car as it accelerates and thrusts his sword into the engine.  The car swerves out of control and crashes into a lamppost, sending Leo flying toward a chain-link fence and the driver (who had fired the shots) smashing through the windshield.  Leo gets to his feet and retreats to the rooftops.  He returns to the scene of the crime and finds that the kid being shot at has died.  Leo sits down and ponders if anything in life is supposed to make sense.  He wants to believe that there’s some force creating order in the universe and that everything is not just mindless chaos.  However, his faith waivers and he wonders if he only thinks that because he himself is a “leader”.  But with his brothers separating, what is he a leader of, now?

At the DARPA lab, the mysterious scientist shaves his head over a utility sink.  He then takes a red marker and draws a dotted line around the crown of his skull.  The scientist then takes one final look at his face in the mirror.  It’s Baxter Stockman.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 2) #1.  The story continues in TMNT (Vol. 2) #3.

*Baxter Stockman last appeared in TMNT (Vol. 1) #2.

*This issue contained a back-up comic, “I.M.P. part 2 of 3” by Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot.

Review:

TMNT Vol. 2 tackles a lot of fascinating issues beginning with this installment, showing just how deeply Jim Lawson gets these characters.  More than just an artist, he proves throughout Vol. 2 to be a very cerebral author.  It’s a shame his writing credits for the TMNT are rather slim.

When “City at War” wrapped up, I mentioned that it felt like a true conclusion.  If you took TMNT Vol. 1, the Microseries and Tales of the TMNT Vol. 1 together, you would have a complete, fully contained narrative with a beginning, a middle, an end and practically no loose threads to speak of.  With the Turtles finally coming to terms with the Foot Clan and fulfilling the destiny that was set before them ever since they were mutated, their story was pretty much over.

Except life goes on and even though they finally resolved the major overarching conflict since their series first began, they still have the rest of their lives to get through.  What Lawson tackles here is the question of “what now?”  Where do the Turtles go from here, now that all the common bonds that previously kept them together have dissolved?  They’re free to do whatever the hell they want, yet none of them can think of a damn thing.

In a way, this approach ties into their ages, too.  By now, they’re no longer kids but young adults.  “City at War” was their high school graduation.  And now that they aren’t kids anymore, their father no longer dictates the direction of their lives and they’re free to select their own path… Where do they go and what do they do? 

The obvious answer is to separate and find out for themselves.  In regards to the idea of the Turtles going their own ways, I felt it was an especially inspired choice to put the primary focus of the issue on Leonardo.  “Leonardo leads”.  That’s… basically it.  That’s his whole personality and his whole shtick.  He’s the leader.  So naturally, he has the most to lose if the Turtles all go their separate ways.  His whole identity was wrapped up in being the leader, so what does he become when he has no one to lead?  Seeing Leo cope with this anxiety was pretty compelling stuff, especially as he wonders just what it was that truly kept their family together in the first place.

Then, of course, there’s the return of Baxter Stockman.  In his original appearance, he was little more than a one-shot, one-dimensional villain.  As soon as he was defeated, no one ever expected to hear from him again.  But here he is, after quite the extended absence.  I do wonder what prompted Lawson (or Eastman and Laird, since they co-plotted Vol. 2) to resurrect the villain after such a long time.  One might think it was to meet fan demand, as Baxter was a recurring villain in the Fred Wolf TMNT cartoon and gained more "mainstream" popularity, but the Mirage comic was usually pretty resistant to incorporating anything from the cartoon, so I’m not so sure I buy that theory.  The reality is likely that Lawson probably felt there was another story to tell with Baxter and brought him back.

Whatever the case may be, he’s a lot more interesting this go around than in his first appearance.  Likewise, the Baxter Stockman arc of Vol. 2 is the arc I remember best, as I enjoyed it much more than the DARPA stuff the volume ended on.

Grade: B+ (as in, “By the way, Jason Temujin Minor’s inks and Eric Vincent’s colors look really good.  For some reason, I remembered not liking them the first time around”.)

TMNT (Vol. 2) #1

Publication date: October, 1993

Story and pencils: Jim Lawson

Inks: Jason Temujin Minor

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Mary Woodring

Cover: A.C. Farley

“Memories of the Future”

Summary:

Splinter lays dead against a wall, having been beaten to death by a Mutant Turtle, who hovers menacingly over him with a bloody fist.

At the cave in Northampton, Splinter awakens from his dream.  Donatello, leg still in a cast, brings him his morning tea.  Splinter says that they must go to the torri and meditate, as he had a troubling vision during the night.  The pair journey to the torri and do so, though Don seems nervous.

In his meditation, Don sees an older version of himself hiking across the hills of Japan.  He looks over a small village with Mt. Fuji in the distance.  Suddenly, a flying car zooms over his head and the shock awakens Don from his vision.  Don tells Splinter of what he saw.  Splinter says that what he saw was the village of Chihaya; Splinter’s birth place.  Don asks why he would travel there and Splinter explains, “…to bury me.”

In New York City, Casey passes out in front of the tube, having eaten too much pizza.  Suddenly, he’s accosted by Dark Casey.  Dark Casey mocks him, saying that he took Gabrielle from him and that he’s coming for Shadow, next.  Casey awakens in a fright and rushes to Shadow’s nursery.  He finds her sleeping soundly in her crib.

He has a talk with April and tells her about his dream.  Incidentally, she also had a strange dream.  In it, she was being chased through the sewers by the Mousers again.  Except this time, instead of being saved by the Turtles, she was saved by Baxter Stockman (who had strange tubes and wires coming out of his head).  They both agree to blame their nightmares on the pizza.

Down in the sewer, Raph thinks he hears something.  He sees a rat tightrope walking over a deep abyss.  Raph cruelly snaps the rope, causing the rat to fall to its doom.  Suddenly, the rope turns into the tail of a giant monster rat.  The monster rat attacks Raph and smashes him through a wall.

Leonardo sees Raph’s unconscious body come crashing through the wall of the room he’s in.  However, he can’t help his brother as he’s strapped to a table.  A Triceraton and an alien prop Raph up onto a table as well and attach all sorts of strange devices to him. Leo struggles as the alien looms over him with a syringe.  Leo blacks out.

Out of the blackness come several goofy creator credits, scrolling like the end credits of a TV show.  The credits end with the logo of the program’s production company: Michaelangelo Productions. 

Mike awakens from his dream, having fallen asleep in front of the television.  He turns the TV off.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 1) #62.  The story continues in TMNT (Vol. 2) #2.

*Splinter’s death will occur in TMNT (Vol. 4) #10 and his funeral will be held in TMNT (Vol. 4) #11.  The events in those issues are completely incongruous with how the events are depicted in Donatello’s and Splinter’s dreams.  How they relate to one another is unknown.

*In regards to Casey’s dream, “Dark Casey” previously appeared in TMNT (Vol. 1) #58.  He will appear again in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #31.

*Baxter Stockman sent the Mousers to kill April in TMNT (Vol. 1) #2.  Her dream of encountering Baxter again, in a strange new form, will come to pass in TMNT (Vol. 2) #6.

*Leo’s dream of Raph being taken hostage and strapped to a table in a lab will come to pass in TMNT (Vol. 2) #8.

*Raphael’s dream is harder to decipher.  He dreams of betraying a rat, only to have it return as a monster and attack him.  This could be interpreted as him betraying Master Splinter and suffering the consequences for his actions.  Whether this vague premonition comes to pass is debatable.  In TMNT (Vol. 3) #16, Raph battles a mad Splinter on the Astral Plane and stabs him with his sai.  TMNT Vol. 3, however, was retconned from Mirage canon by TMNT Vol. 4.

*Raphael will dream about betraying and killing Splinter again in TMNT (Vol. 4) #16.

*Likewise, the purpose of Mike’s dream is not so clear.  He seems to be dreaming of fulfilling some creative goal in his life.  He was previously shown taking an interest in writing in TMNT (Vol. 1) #17.  He’ll be shown having pursued that dream to the point of getting his work published in TMNT (Vol. 3) #6.  But, again, TMNT Vol. 3 was later retconned from continuity.

*This issue was originally published with a back-up story, “I.M.P. part 1 of 2” by Jim Lawson and Eric Talbot.

Review:

Oh boy.  This issue.  Let’s just get through these one at a time.

First off is the joint vision shared between Splinter and Donatello, showing Splinter being killed by an unknown Turtle and an older Don taking his body to Japan to be buried.  I think of all the dreams, this one fascinated and intrigued fans the most.  A Turtle killing Splinter?  The future?  Tell me more!

When Splinter eventually does die in Vol. 4, it appears to be of natural causes.  And rather than buried, he’s cremated on a funeral pyre in Central Park.  So what’s up with the premonition in this issue?  Good question.  Don is seen at Splinter’s funeral either doing something to Splinter’s body or taking something from it before the cremation.  The choice of Don specifically to be the one messing with Splinter’s remains may have been a deliberate callback to this issue.  The extent of that scene in TMNT (Vol. 4) #11 remains unclear, as the volume has been on indefinite hiatus.

Of course, visions aren’t always to be interpreted literally.  The Turtle killing Splinter could instead represent a betrayal.  Raphael’s nightmare would seem to further that idea, as Raph kills a rat and in turn is killed by a giant, vengeful rat.  When TMNT Vol. 3 (the Image series) was written, it was the canon continuation of Vol. 2 (Laird didn’t strike it from the record until he began Vol. 4), and I wonder if the entire “Vampire Splinter” arc was written with this bit of foreshadowing in mind.  In that story, Splinter “betrays” the Turtles by being mutated into a rabid vampire bat by Lord Komodo.  Raphael, in turn, “betrays” Splinter and “kills” him on the Astral Plane while doing battle.  By “killing” him, though, Raph ends up saving him and restoring his body and spirit to its original state.  Raph also “betrays” Splinter by joining the Foot Clan in that volume, too.

Of course, with Vol. 3 no longer being a part of continuity, at least from Laird and Mirage’s point of view (you’re free to make up your own minds about canon), whether or not that interpretation “counts” as the fulfillment of the premonition is debatable.  Really, Raph “betrays” his brothers and sensei every other issue he’s in by going against orders and fighting with them and being an unbearable prick.  So you could honestly interpret just about any of those future occurrences as fulfillment of the vision.

Most of the other dreams and their outcomes are more obvious and relate to later storylines that develop in Vol. 2.  Baxter comes back as a cyborg and infects April with a nanobot virus (a storyline that won’t see development until Vol. 4).  How that can be interpreted as him “helping” her is questionable.  During Vol. 4, though, it was April’s infection with Baxter’s nanobots that led to her discovering her true origins in TMNT (Vol. 4) #22.  So I suppose Baxter “helped” her learn about the true nature of her conception.

Likewise, Leo’s dream relates to a future storyline in Vol. 2.  Raph gets captured by a Government agency that imprisons and dissects aliens.  Leo and the others team up with a Triceraton and other aliens to free him, etc.  Of course, Raph is shown being experimented on by the aliens and not Government spooks, so it’s a bit muddled, but aren’t dreams always that way?

Casey’s dream is more of a callback to the dream he had during “City at War”, in which Dark Casey first appears and takes Gabrielle away from him.  It seems to imply that something terrible is about to happen to Shadow and that Casey will lose her forever.  Again, Vol. 3 may have run with this bit of foreshadowing, as Shadow is kidnapped in TMNT (Vol. 3) #6 and Casey spirals back into alcoholism in his despair.  But, AGAIN, “blah blah blah canon blah blah blah retcon blah blah blah”.  Dark Casey’s eventual return in Tales of the TMNT #31 can be interpreted as this vision being fulfilled, too, though a bit more literally than what I think was intended (Dark Casey is more a harbinger of doom and loss than an actual physical adversary to be fought, as he turns out to be in Tales #31).

Then… there’s Mike’s dream.

Mike dreams about having his own television production company and it’s a one page “gag”.  Hard to decipher something like that.  But in the past, Mike was shown taking an interest in writing and, once more from the top, Vol. 3 ran with that character thread and turned him into a published author.  So the production company credits could be seen as a vision of Mike’s future in the high profile media arts.

Sigh.  Do I even have to say it?  “Vol. 3 was retconned so all that stuff about him getting published doesn’t count, etc etc”.  So then where does that leave this premonition in the tapestry of what supposedly “does” count?

Well, all these dreams seem to anticipate something very negative: Loss, betrayal, death, world-shattering revelations and so on.  …Except Mikey’s.  He gets his own production company.  Good for him!  But yeah, “one of these things is not like the others”.

Rather, the dream could be interpreted as Mikey being shown what COULD be if he were able to pursue his dreams of creating art for the masses.  However, due to being a “freak”, he can never stand in the spotlight and follow that dream and the vision is merely taunting him.  If you look at him on the final page, he seems to be either groggy or depressed.  If you interpret it as the latter, clearly the dream left him with a sad, empty feeling.  If Vol. 3 is removed from the continuity and Mikey is never shown pursuing his dream of creating art for others, then the premonition never comes to pass and that hurts him more than anything else.

It’s really hard to say.  If anything, this issue just made me think about the Image series all the more and realize how, intentionally or otherwise, it really carried on a lot of threads foreshadowed in this story.  From a personal, biased standpoint, I like to include Vol. 3 in the Mirage continuity contrary to editorial statements that say otherwise (and the two-issue Vol. 3 finale helps to reinstate it as part of the overall tapestry, but that’s another conversation).  If you take Vol. 3 into account, then a lot of these visions come to pass.  If you don’t, then many of these visions never seem to go anywhere.

Whatever the case, and however you choose to interpret these dreams (not saying mine are absolutely right), this is a good one for discussion.  It’s especially fun to go back and rediscover AFTER you’ve read everything published since, as it causes you to reevaluate various stories you may otherwise have never given a second thought to.

Grade: B (as in, “By the way, that’s an awesome A.C. Farley cover, too”.)

TMNT (IDW) #21

Publication date: April 24, 2013

Story: Kevin Eastman

Script: Tom Waltz

Art: Kevin Eastman

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

"City Fall - Prologue"

Summary:

On the rooftops of New York City, the Turtles are finishing up their training and preparing to go home.  Overlooking the city, they discuss the sudden upsurge in violent activity beyond what the Big Apple’s used to.  A foreboding feeling washes over them.  Suddenly, a mysterious, masked stranger leaps down between them and begins laying into them all.  The masked stranger won’t identify himself, but easily counters all of the TMNT’s moves, shattering Don’s bo staff in the skirmish.  He tells them that the old rat in the church has taught them poorly and vanishes with a smoke bomb.  The Turtles, fearing he knows too much, give chase.

They find the masked stranger a short distance away, sitting peacefully on a rooftop.  Leo warns them that it’s a trap, but Raph rushes in, anyway.  Using savate and parkour styles, he trounces the Turtles yet again and escapes into the sewers.

Presuming home turf advantage, the Turtles expect to make short work of the masked stranger in the sewers.  They’re wrong, though, as the enemy sneaks up on them and, using the wing chun style, catches them all off guard and deftly counters their moves.  Raph accuses him of being in league with the Foot Clan, but the masked stranger denies affiliation with either the Foot or the Savate.  He then says that by besting the students, he’s earned the right to face their master in his dojo and races off to the church lair.

The Turtles find the masked stranger awaiting them in the graveyard by the church.  The stranger throws them each a bo staff and promises to fight them with nothing but his own staff.  Leo attempts to use his swords in the battle, but the stranger breaks them.  He then proceeds to disarm and take down each Turtle.  The stranger breaks into the church, but the Turtles won’t stay down and follow him.  They try cornering him, but the stranger just smacks them aside AGAIN.

Don, having had enough of being humiliated, faces the masked stranger one-on-one in a bo staff duel.  Don explains that the staff the stranger broke was a gift from his father and master.  He then disarms the stranger.  The other Turtles rally and the stranger calls it quits.  He then takes off his mask, revealing… Master Splinter.

Splinter congratulates his sons on their performance and apologizes for the deception.  He explains that there is something happening in the city and it is leading to big trouble on the horizon.  Splinter tells them that they must all be ready for the unexpected if they are to survive what is to come.

In Japan, Dr. Miller leads the Shredder, Karai and a unit of Foot Soldiers to an old, secluded mansion.  He promises Shredder that his research has proven conclusively that “it” is in this location.  The Foot Soldiers dig beneath the house and eventually find a casket.  They open it to find the body of Kitsune, perfectly preserved in ooze.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #20.  The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #22.

*The Turtles last met the Savate Ninja in TMNT Annual 2012.

*Dr. Miller joined the Foot Clan and was tasked with locating Kitsune’s resting place in TMNT: The Secret History of the Foot Clan#4.

*This issue was originally published with 6 variant covers: Regular Cover by Eastman and Pattison, Rover RI by Dean Haspiel and Allen Passalaqua, Subscription Variant by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RE Jetpack Exclusive by Eastman, Cover RE Dynamic Forces Exclusive by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RE Ottawa ComiCon Exclusive by Andy Kuhn and Daniel “PeZ” Lopez.

Review:

With the “Krang War” behind us, we move into IDW’s next big arc: “City Fall”.  The name itself summons memories and feelings attached to the celebrated Mirage “City at War” arc, which might set it up for undo comparison.  “City at War” was, after all, one of the crowning achievements of the original Mirage run.

But let’s try to be fair and not succumb to our baser instincts that demand we compare the two arcs.  It won’t be easy, but we can do it if we try.

This arc seems to have been foreshadowed as far back as TMNT (IDW) #6, when the dying Savate ninja warned of a war looming on the horizon that will engulf the whole city.  We’ve had ample time for the aggressions needed to incite that war to percolate and I look forward to learning just which spark sets off the “City Fall” powder keg.  Was it the hierarchy shakeup within the Savate organization that occurred in TMNT Annual 2012?  Was it the brazen operations conducted by the Foot in Secret History of the Foot Clan?  Was it the Purple Dragons stepping away from crime and toward community watch in TMNT (IDW) #11?  Was it all these things combined?  We’ll have to wait and see.

But the point is that the escalating crime and violence in New York City isn’t some sudden plot point fabricated at the beginning of this issue to facilitate the “City Fall” arc.  As you can see, all these aspects of the New York City underworld present in the IDW comic from the start have been leading somewhere (presumably here).  The Turtles are only just now starting to notice that things are really beginning to take a turn for the worse.  The way the Turtles stare out over the city and comment on the intangible sensation of dread was just a little too trite, but to Waltz’s credit he fought off any urges to include cliché lines like, “There’s a war down there”.  So hey, good on him.

I suppose my problem with the issue is that it’s rather repetitive.  The masked stranger beats the Turtles up, mocks them, runs away and then we wash and repeat three more times.  The suspense comes from the “mystery” behind the masked stranger, but one glance at his familiar mutant posture should spell out his identity right from the start.  Waltz and Eastman attempt to maintain the secret by having the stranger speak in a way incongruent with how Splinter talks (making lots of puns, dropping oneliners and pulling pranks), but rather than make the reveal seem less obvious, it instead feels really awkward.  Does this mean that Splinter can talk like a cackling, pun-spewing douche whenever he feels like it, but only puts on the guise of a mild, reserved sensei for appearances?  Or is “theater acting” a ninja skill that Splinter also mastered back in the day?

Also, with this issue coming directly after Secret History of the Foot Clan, it really didn’t take Dr. Miller long to find Kitsune’s body, did it?  “Hey, you’re hired.  Find her body.”  “Okay!  Here it is!”  “That’s some good work.”

This is the first full issue of Kevin Eastman’s IDW work to be colored and Pattison proves to be a great complement.  Eastman’s pencils and inks are “classic” and having a modern colorist attached runs the risk of completely altering the atmosphere of his work (the modern colorizations of “Fun with Guns” and Raphael (microseries) #1 seen in TMNT 25th are especially guilty of this).  Pattison, though, provides colors that are perfectly fitting and don’t try to overshadow Eastman’s lines.  For another example of the opposite, look at Cam Kennedy’s older Star Wars work, such as “Dark Empire” or “Boba Fett: Death, Lies and Treachery”.  Then look at his modern work in “Boba Fett: Sacrifice” and “Boba Fett: Agent of Doom”.  So much of the look and feel we associate with Cam Kennedy’s Star Wars comics is inextricably tied to that older style of coloring.  Modern coloring techniques with all their heavy photoshop filters and effects just completely change that atmosphere and quality to the point where you might not even recognize the latter works as Kennedy’s. 

So once again, I can’t say enough good things about Pattison’s more laid back approach to coloring seen in IDW’s TMNT book.  It complements the pencils rather than try to drown them in a sea of lens flares and smear techniques.

Overall, I found this one to be a bit of a dull read.  It hinges on a major reveal that’s plainly telegraphed from the start.  What’s left is an issue-long fight sequence that quite frankly grows tiresome as it cycles through the same shtick four or five times.  Kevin Eastman’s art is always a pleasure, Pattison makes it look great in color and there’s certainly a sense of build-up for the big “City Fall” arc, but the storytelling execution in this one just left me a bit underwhelmed.

Grade: C (as in, “Can’t say I was very surprised that the issue was one long, running battle.  Long, running battles are basically Kevin Eastman’s thing,”)

Rockin' Rollin' Miner Ants (feat. the TMNT)

Originally published in: TMNT (Vol. 1) #40

Publication date: October, 1991

Story and art: Ben Crayford and Mike Libby

“Rockin’ Rollin’ Miner Ants” (feat. the TMNT)

Summary:

Using a picnic and some pizza, the villain Scorn sets a trap for his arch foes, the Rockin’ Rollin’ Miner Ants, as well as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The two teams take the bait and as soon as they’re in range a trap door opens, plummeting all ten of them into a pit.

The Ant named Whiz attempts to use his super speed to race up the side of the pit, but Scorn has greased the walls and he tumbles back down.  Scorn then activates hydraulic presses to crush the do-gooders.  The Ant named Figure uses his superior intellect to realize that ants can lift fifty times their body weight and tells his teammates to hold the walls at bay. 

As the Ant named TNT holds the walls by himself, the Turtles and the Ants escape the pit (then lift TNT out a moment before he’s squished).  Undeterred, Scorn unleashes the beetle mutant Blister to destroy the Turtles and the Ants.  The two teams handily defeat Blister and Scorn escapes in his rocket ship.  The Ants then hurl the defeated Blister after the rocket and I think it might have exploded or something?  I can’t tell.  This art’s really bad.

Anyway, the Turtles and the Ants promise to get together again sometime.

Turtle Tips:

*The Rockin’ Rollin’ Miner Ants went on to have their own 4-issue miniseries published by Fate Comics.  Rockin’ Rollin’ Miner Ants #3 featured bonus pin-ups by Kevin Eastman.

Review:

Jeez, what can I say about this thing? 

Just that it's extremely amateurish.  The art is something a middle schooler would draw and the story is something an elementary schooler would write.  It’s not a matter of “stylistic choice”, either.  The characters can’t stay on model between panels, the perspective is always off, the layouts are simplistic and the balloon-like musculature and lack of stable composition just really, REALLY makes this thing look like it was drawn by children.  And that story… C’mon, just read it.  That’s the kind of TMNT comic you probably doodled on notebook paper when you were 8.

But the reality is that the creators of this comic weren’t children.  And the Rockin’ Rollin’ Miner Ants even got a 4-issue miniseries.  Go figure.

Grade: F (as in, “For what it’s worth, they didn’t ink and tone the comic with crayons.  So it’s got that goin’ for it”.)

TMNT (Vol. 1) #40

Publication date: October, 1991

Story and Art: Riche Hedden and Tom McWeeney

Cover color: Guy Romano

“Spaced Out!  Part 3”

Summary:

As Eastman and Laird introduce the story, Bessy and the bull she fell in love with last issue share a romantic evening together.

Back in Simpletown, the pickup carrying Raph, Jethro and the two aliens crashes through the barricade and scatters the townspeople.  Raph and Jethro are ejected through the windshield and into the safety of a nearby comic shop, while the aliens start firing their lasers at everyone in hopes of world domination.  Their rayguns break, though, and they’re attacked by the townspeople.  Raph has a crisis of conscience, wondering if the aliens are worth saving considering all the trouble they’ve caused.  However, he realizes that sales will plummet if they die (yeah right) and decides to save them.  Raph bores all the townspeople to sleep with a dissertation on man’s capacity for good vs. man’s capacity for violence, then grabs the aliens and hightails it out of town in the pickup.

They find the US Government airlifting the flying saucer away and covertly follow.  They’re eventually led to a top secret base and sneak in.  Meanwhile, Colonel Bullmoose welcomes President Bush to the base and shows him to where the “aliens” (the Old McDonalds and their dog) are being held.  The sinister Professor Eggbert is tormenting the old timers in the guise of an interrogation.  Raph and the real aliens watch from the air vents, but the squeak of a rat scares them all out into the room with the military.  Colonel Bullmoose shows his true colors, begging the “alien crocodile” Raph to eat the President first.  Professor Eggbert, in turn, bumps into his own torture machine and is electrocuted.

President Bush surrenders and promises to give the aliens fuel for their flying saucer.  While he cannot surrender the Earth to the aliens, he does give them to the deed to Idaho.  Satisfied with Idaho, the aliens pile into the flying saucer with Raph and zoom off.

Finally realizing he doesn’t know their names, Raph asks the aliens what they’re called.  They say that they’re “Nim” and “Rod”.  With the sun rising and the adventure over, Raph tells Nim and Rod to say hi to all their friends at the frat for him.  Nim and Rod reveal that they’re the only two members of the frat and the whole adventure was pointless.  Before Raph can strangle them, Nim and Rod beam him back down to his bedroom in the Northampton farmhouse.

Exhausted, Raph attempts to get some long overdue shuteye.  Splinter barges in and whacks him on the head with his staff, telling Raph it’s his turn to milk Bessy this morning.  Raph suddenly realizes he forgot all about Bessy.

At the McDonald farm back in Simpletown, Bessy and the bull watch the sunrise and smoke some cigarettes, having finished what I can only presume was a night of satisfying bovine intercourse.  Nim and Rod weep for such a happy ending.  Fans weep for the $8.25 they wasted on these three issues.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 1) #39.  The Hedden/McWeeney incarnation of the Turtles would make one more appearance in TMNT Special: The Maltese Turtle.

*Having been published during the TMNT (Vol. 1) “guest era”, this issue is not a part of the Mirage TMNT continuity “proper”.

*This issue also contained a bonus comic, “Rockin’ Rollin’Miner Ants (feat. The TMNT)” by Ben Crayford and Mike Libby.

Review:

If my “reviews” for the last two installments in this trilogy haven't tipped you off, I am NOT a fan of “Spaced Out”.  Really, though, I just didn’t think each of these issues deserved an individual review as I’d only be repeating the same things over and over again, so it’s better to get it all done in one.

Look, I liked TMNT #34.  It was an enjoyable oneshot story.  But whatever happened to Hedden & McWeeney between TMNT #34 and the “Spaced Out” arc, it was definitely a change for the worse.  Their style is now unabashedly silly and surreal and their ideal mode of storytelling is the crutch of all lesser indie comics creators: “Stream-of-consciousness ran-dumb bullshit”.  “Spaced Out” is nothing but a string of goofy, unfunny jokes discharged in rapidfire succession with no point or direction.  It’s just one insipid gag after another until they’ve filled three issues.

And I suppose that’s the real travesty of Hedden & McWeeney’s “Spaced Out” arc.  It’s three fucking issues.

I mean, there are a handful of amusing visual gags in this arc.  No knee-slappers, to be sure, but a couple panels that made me smirk.  Unfortunately, all the “A material” is spread out between agonizing stretches of corny gags and inane running jokes, none of which are even remotely clever, much less legitimately funny.  If Hedden & McWeeney had shrunk the storyline down into a single oneshot issue, “Spaced Out” might not have been so bad.  Even if a reader didn’t find the “A material” amusing, it would have only been one issue and that’s pretty harmless, all things considered.  But no.  They decompressed this shit out to three meandering, miserable issues and it just doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to stop.

A part of me feels guilty about ragging on Hedden & McWeeney like this, not just because I enjoyed their first TMNT guest story, but because the pair are sincerely GOOD cartoonists.  It’s not just the zany and unique style they employ, but all the fundamentals of good cartooning can be found in their art; from the layouts to the sensation of motion to the use of perspective.  These guys KNOW what they’re doing and they’re GOOD at it.

They just aren’t very funny.

At any rate, while I'm not it's biggest fan, I certainly prefer this weird, surreal style to Tom McWeeney’s current artwork.  He’s adopted a woefully generic “manga” look and it just reeks of insincerity and pandering to contemporary trends.  Observe:

So as you can see, my problem really isn’t with the artwork or even the silliness.  That’s all well and good.  My problem with “Spaced Out” is that instead of getting one potentially humorous issue, we got three painfully unfunny issues that drag and drag and drag.  There’s nothing more uncomfortable than watching a joke absolutely fucking DIE, but the comedians don’t realize it and just stretch it out for what feels like an eternity.  I can only imagine what it must have been like for TMNT readers back in ’91, having to suffer through four months of THIS (to add insult to injury, Hedden & McWeeney ran late and August had to be skipped without a book).

I regard “Spaced Out” as the ultimate low of the Mirage TMNT comic book history.  And to this day, whenever I think of the Vol. 1 “guest era”, I think of THIS comic.  And it gives me unpleasant chills.

Grade: Triple F (“For all three issues, since I didn’t grade the last two until now”.)

 

TMNT (Vol. 1) #39

Publication date: September, 1991

Art and Story: Rich Hedden and Tom McWeeney

“Spaced Out! Part 2”

Summary:

At a farm 10 miles outside of Simpletown, the Old McDonalds are watching a game of nude volleyball on TV when the flying saucer crashes into one of their fields.  Raph, Bessy and the aliens come stumbling out of the ship.  While Bessy hooks up with a nearby bull and Raph attempts to get his bearings, the aliens begin their invasion of Earth, one scarecrow at a time.

At the White House, President Bush gets a call from Colonel Bullmoose that the flying saucer has been tracked to a farm outside of Simpletown and that he’s moving in with all his forces.

Meanwhile, Raph figures that they can get some fuel for the saucer in town, though they’ll need a ride.  Raph steals some clothes off Mrs. McDonald’s laundry line and she reports the “alien” theft to the Sheriff of Simpletown.  The Sheriff panics and calls a town meeting, urging all the residents to prepare for an alien invasion.

Back at the farm in Northampton, Splinter’s rest keeps getting disturbed by the other three Ninja Turtles and their raunchy dream of a female reptile giving a striptease.  Splinter sends his astral projection to invade the dream of the TMNT, telling them to remember their ninja training and think celibate thoughts.  Splinter then pulls the female reptile into his dream for some kinky fun.

Raph, now dragged up in the clothes he pulled off the laundry line, flags down a pickup truck by showing his ankle.  He gets a ride from the gruesome Jethro Hogbreath, while the two aliens sneak into the truck bed.

Back at the Old McDonald farm, the elderly couple and their dog creep into the flying saucer to investigate.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, this joke is stupid and nobody under 50 would even get it.

Back in the pickup truck, Jethro tries to get fresh with Raph, so Raph socks him in the face.  This causes the truck to go racing out of control.

Meanwhile, back in the stone age, ha ha ha what a clever running gag.

Back at the flying saucer, the Old McDonalds come trudging out in disappointment, having found no aliens.  Colonel Bullmoose and the army awaits them, though, mistaking the old timers and their dog for the aliens.

Meanwhile, back at Mirage Studios, Eastman and Laird fight over who had the stupid idea of hiring Hedden and McWeeney.

And back in Simpletown, the Sheriff and the locals have barricaded the main road from the highway.  They see Jethro’s truck speeding toward them and open fire (not because it’s full of aliens, but because none of them like Jethro).  Raph and Jethro, meanwhile, flip out as the two aliens (one working the wheel and the other working the pedals) gun it straight toward the barricade and all the townspeople.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 1) #38.  The story concludes in TMNT (Vol. 1) #40.

*Having been published during the TMNT (Vol. 1) “guest era”, this issue is not part of the Mirage TMNT continuity “proper”.

Review:

It’s still not over.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #38

Publication date: July, 1991

Story and Art: Rich Hedden and Tom McWeeney

“Spaced Out!  Part 1”

Summary:

At a top secret space observation station in New Mexico, an employee (Mitchell) notices a meteor careening toward Earth.  He alerts his boss (Mr. Holms), but it turns out to be nothing but mayo on the radar screen.  Everyone relaxes until another blip shows up on the screen.  This time, it’s an alien spacecraft.  Panicking, Mr. Holms calls President Bush while all the other employees start drinking and frolicking and preparing for the end times.   President Bush asks where the flying saucer is headed and Mr. Holms tells him “Nothampton”.

At the farm in Northampton, Raph is up late eating pizza and watching an Ernest Borgnine marathon.  The combination gives him indigestion, so remembering antacid advice from Splinter, he decides to get some warm milk.  The carton’s empty, though, so he heads out back to milk some from Bessy herself.  The flying saucer zooms over the farm and the two aliens mistake Raph and Bessy for a pair of typical Earthlings undergoing a mating ritual.  The aliens beam Raph and Bessy onboard their saucer and zip away.  Meanwhile, the other three Ninja Turtles are none the wiser, as they’re all sleeping peacefully and enjoying a raunchy dream about a female reptile.

Mr. Holms finds himself relieved of command at the observation station, replaced by Colonel Buford Bullmoose, who wants to destroy the aliens.

Speaking of which, the two miniscule aliens have Raph and Bessy strapped to a table and intend to wipe their brains.  They have trouble operating the machinery, though, and accidentally set Raph free.  Raph is about to clobber them when the aliens begin weeping.  Raph takes pitty on them.

Back on the farm, everyone’s still sleeping.  And back at the observation station, Colonel Bullmoose rallies the fighter jets to attack the flying saucer.  Mr. Holms, though, thinks Bullmoose might be overeacting and blowing Earth’s chance at making contact with a higher intelligence.

Inside said flying saucer, Raph is lounging around in a Jacuzzi with the two aliens.  They say they’re from the planet Mirage and that they have to conquer Earth in order to join a college fraternity.  Raph asks them how much time they have and the aliens say one Earth night.  Suddenly, the fighter jets attack and the two diminutive aliens are woefully ill-prepared to fight back.  They manage to find the gas pedal and outrun the fighter jets, but doing so uses up all their fuel reserves.  As Raph does cartoonish wild takes, the flying saucer plummets toward Earth.

Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in TMNT (Vol. 1) #39.

*Having been published during the TMNT Vol. 1 “guest era”, this issue is not a part of the Mirage TMNT continuity “proper”.

*The farm in Northampton is described as “The O’Neil Farm”.  While it was the property of the O’Neil family in the first live action TMNT film, in the Mirage comics, the farm belongs to the Jones family.  Then again, they also misspell “Northampton” as “North Hampton” and “O’Neil” as “O’Niel” in the same sentence, so competency wasn’t really Hedden & McWeeney’s strong suit.

Review?

No.

Please?

No.

TMNT (Fred Wolf) Season 3 Part 5 Review

Reviewed another batch of TMNT season 3 episodes for Adventures in Poor Taste.

TMNT (1987) season 3 part 5 review.

In this selection of episodes, we get Casey Jones's funniest appearance, the introduction of throwaway love interest character Lotus Blossom, a clip show with an origin for the Foot Clan that would later get retconned by the same writer, a Rat King cameo, the return of the Punk Frogs and the first appearance of Cajun Leatherhead!  All that and a shit ton of those toyline vehicles and accessories that were introduced in earlier episodes for no reason finally serve a purpose.  Continuity?  Perhaps.

All in all, I think the second half of season 3 is already proving to be more interesting than the first half.

TMNT Villains Micro-Series #1: Krang

Publication date: April 17, 2013

Script: Joshua Williamson

Art: Mike Henderson

Colors: Ian Herring

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

On Burnow Island, a Rock Soldier is informed by a guard of the dead Utrom left behind after a female ninja broke in and emptied the ooze from its pod.  The Rock Soldier interrupts Krang (who is recuperating from his recent battle on Neutrino), much to the General’s fury.  Krang is further infuriated by the news of the stolen ooze.  The Rock Soldier attempts to help Krang into his robot body without being ordered to and Krang slaps his hands away.  Krang ponders to himself that the Rock Soldier thinks of him as weak and needs to be reminded of his place…

Many years ago.  Krang is a spoiled, bloated sack of tentacles sitting in his palace on Utrominon, barking orders at servants.  His father, General Quanin, enters his chamber and looks upon his son’s dependency with disgust.  Krang asks if he can attend his father’s upcoming war council and Quanin denies him the privilege, as he considers his son to be worthless.

At the council, Quanin learns that the cyborg Traxus, an old enemy of his, has taken control of a prison complex on the hostile world of Morbus.  Quanin decides that a commando team of Utroms will perform a sneak attack from the swamps and take Traxus by surprise.  Krang, listening in on the council, decides to stow away on the drop ship and prove his worth in battle.

The drop ship lands on Morbus , but as the Utrom commandos disembark, their Commander steps on a landmine and sets off an ambush plotted by Traxus, who had anticipated Quanin’s strategy.  All the Utrom commandos are killed in the ambush save Krang, who slinks away after his robot body is destroyed.

Knowing that Morbus is a toxic hellhole, Krang struggles at first to survive in the wild, being preyed upon by a giant lizard as well as other assorted creatures.  However, as the days pass, he grows stronger and discovers he has a knack for survival and utter brutality.  Eventually, he determines that he is ready to conquer and rule.  Taming one of the giant, killer lizards, he launches a direct assault on Traxus’s prison stronghold.

Krang rides straight into Traxus’s chamber and demands that Traxus surrender or die.  Traxus’s right hand men, Tragg and Granitor, offer to take Krang down for him, but Traxus wishes to squash Quanin’s son by himself.  Krang has the lizard spit acid into Traxus’s eyes.  Krang then leaps from the lizard’s back, wraps his tentacles around Traxus’s neck and proceeds to stab him to death with a crude spear.  Observing this display of strength, Tragg and Granitor offer Krang their allegiance, as it is the way of their people to bow to any higher authority that usurps command through sheer strength.  With Traxus dead and Tragg and Granitor at his side, Krang recruits or kills all the remaining prisoners and conquers Morbus.

Later, Quanin arrives and see’s Krang’s success for himself.  Not only has Krang conquered the planet, but he has transformed Traxus's cyborg corpse into his new robot body.  Quanin addresses Krang as his son and Krang finally has the satisfaction of having earned the respect he so craved.

Back in the present, Krang snaps out of his flashback.  The Rock Soldier bows his head, apologizes for trying to help Krang without being ordered and says he’s willing to accept any punishment.  Krang tells the Rock Soldier not to be afraid and asks him politely to help him into his robot body.  As soon as he bends down, however, Krang attacks and kills him with nothing but his tentacles.  Slinking across the floor, Krang pities any who would look upon him and assume him feeble and helpless.

Turtle Tips:

*This issue takes place after TMNT (IDW) #20.

*Karai killed the sleeping Utrom and stole the ooze from its pod in TMNT (IDW) #19.

*Krang’s robot body was damaged in TMNT (IDW) #20.

*Morbus was originally introduced in Archie’s TMNT Adventures #13 as the planet Krang was banished to after his defeat.

*This issue was originally published with 4 variant covers: Regular cover by Tyler Walpole, Cover RI by Henderson and Herring, Cover RE for Dynamic Forces by Henderson, and Cover RE Jetpack exclusive by Kevin Eastman.

Review:

Krang: A character I love, though I really don’t know why.

Well, that’s not true; I know exactly why I like Krang.  Sure, he was a comedy relief oaf in a silly bald muscle-man suit that talked like Catherine Hepburn, but it was his back story that intrigued me above all else.  In the old Fred Wolf cartoon, he was a warlord out to conquer entire dimensions (not just planets, not just a universe, but DIMENSIONS) and, when finally captured, was deemed so dangerous that he had to have his brain removed from his body to dilute his potential menace.  And even after being reduced to a singular organ and banished to another world without any resources, he STILL managed to stage a comeback and become a threat once again (well, “threat” might be a debatable description, but you get the idea).

All the pieces for a truly great villain were there, but the sappy comedy nature of the old Fred Wolf TMNT cartoon meant that the writers could never really use those pieces to their fullest potential.  Even the Archie TMNT Adventures comic, which routinely dabbled in heavier storylines, wound up squandering Krang as a character by removing him from the series in its early years.

So when Krang was first introduced into the IDW TMNT universe way back in TMNT (IDW) #1, I had a pretty good feeling that we’d finally be getting a Krang that lived up to the basic potential of his back story.  And yep, Krang’s been pretty great so far.  But now being an Utrom instead of a disembodied brain, and having never been banished from Dimension X, he needed an update to that back story.

This first installment in the TMNT Villain Microseries doesn’t disappoint, as it begs the question “is Krang still a threat outside his robot body”?  That query is basically the heart of this story, as we learn that Krang is no pathetic slimeball even when separated from his weapons and technology.

In a way, IDW’s Krang feels like a fusion of the original Krang and the 4Kids Utrom Shredder named Ch’rell.  One of the things I liked so much about Ch’Rell’s portrayal in the 4Kids cartoon was that even when removed from his Shredder body, he lost none of his confidence or capacity for fucking shit up.  The first thing he did in “Secret Origins, part 3” after exiting his body was to attack Raph and nearly suffocate him.  In “Turtles Forever”, once revived by the Fred Wolf Shredder and Krang, he proceeded to jack them up until they were finally able to knock him out (with some effort).  Whereas the original Krang was routinely portrayed as helpless and pitiable without his  robot body, Ch’rell was deadly with or without it.  So in many respects, Ch’rell was an important stepping stone in the evolution of Krang as a character.

What amused me most about this script is that author Joshua Williamson basically took Green Arrow’s origin but recast the part with Krang.  If you aren’t familiar with Green Arrow, he was a millionaire playboy named Oliver Queen who was a spoiled and helpless piece of uppercrust trash.  Then he got stranded on an uncharted island and had to learn to survive and grow strong.  Or, at least, that used to be his origin.  I dunno what his deal is in the “New 52” or whatever DC is calling their half-assed rebooted universe.  But anyway, whereas Green Arrow used his newly developed survival skills to help others, Krang instead uses them to conquer and destroy.  Because he’s a villain, you know.

In that regard, Krang’s origin may be a story outline you’ve experienced before.  Whether it was in the form of Green Arrow or not, “spoiled jerk learns to survive and rely on himself after being stranded in an inhospitable wasteland” isn’t a very new scenario.  Still, Williamson casts Krang in the role well and on a metatextual level it illustrates an evolution from the whiney, helpless Krang of the Fred Wolf cartoon, to the ruthless, threatening Ch’rell-like Krang of the IDW series.  And as a bonus, we get the origins for Tragg and Granitor, too (though does IDW’s insistence on spelling it “Tragg” instead of “Traag” bother anybody else?  No?  Okay, sorry I even mentioned it).

Not to sell Williamson short, but I get the impression that writing this story was the comparatively “easy part”.  The “hard part”, making a pink ball of tentacles look like a threatening monster of the wild, fell on artist Mike Henderson.  I’ll admit that when Krang first starts to go feral and attack wild animals with tiny wooden spears, I couldn’t help but smirk.  I mean, c’mon.  I’m only human, here.  And yet, the more I saw of Krang strangling his prey and relentlessly stabbing them with pointy sticks and leaping down from the treetops with a look of killer instinct on his face… the more I started to buy it. 

Okay, it’s like this… have you ever seen the old B-movie “Fiend Without a Face”?  Of course you haven’t.  But basically, the movie is about tentacled alien brains from another dimension that come to Earth and start killing people.  They start out as invisible, but even after being revealed in all their unconvincing stop-motion glory, they still proceed to kill people with the same effectiveness.  They do so by leaping down from a vantage point, wrapping their tentacles around their victim’s neck so that they can’t be loosened or removed and then stick a proboscis into the person’s brainstem, liquefying their grey matter and sucking it out like a milkshake.  So yeah, after seeing “Fiend Without a Face”, I could buy a tentacled brain being able to kill things 10 times its size.

…Or “Alien”.  It’s like the facehuggers from “Alien”.  There.  Why didn’t I just say that to begin with?  “Fiend Without a Face”… the Hell was I thinking…

Anyway, to get back on topic, the art is good and Henderson deserves some extra consideration for making a bodiless Krang look like a genuine threat and selling the idea that he could kill vicious predators with nothing but a pointy stick.  Even Ch’rell’s stints outside of his Shredder body in 4Kids were played for humor, regardless of his effectiveness against his enemies.  As an epilogue to the “Krang War” story arc, where artist Ben Bates drew Krang looking a bit cartoony and funny (though I enjoyed his take, don’t get me wrong), Henderson’s psycho Krang serves as a sobering reminder that the Utrom General is NOT comedy relief and very much a deadly foe.

Grade: B (as in, “But I had to go back and change this snide little grading gimmick text because I originally thought the scar-faced Utrom Commander was Ch'rell but it turns out he wasn't so HAHAHA JOKE'S ON ME”.)

TMNT (Vol. 1) #41

 

Publication date: November, 1991

Story and art: Matt Howarth

“Turtle Dreams”

Summary:

Having just foiled an invasion of the Party-Headed Platypus People of Proxima Five, Leonardo is bushed.  He collapses in the living room of the sewer lair and goes to sleep.

In his dream, Leo envisions himself as the big man on the high school campus, adored by girls and worshipped by all.  In algebra class, though, he finds his dream getting really boring.  Leo tries to spice things up with some surfing, but the teacher (Mr. Math) promptly brings him back to “reality”.  Mr. Math then asks Leo to solve the equation on the board, but Leo can’t do it.  The teacher transforms into a monster and attacks the class.  Mr. Math attempts to eat a girl named Melissa, but she happens to be Leonardo’s crush.  Leo takes his sword and slays Mr. Math, much to the swooning of his classmates.  Leo chills out in his seat, at least until the substitute arrives: A t-rex named Miss Gnarl who threatens to eat anyone who fails her pop quiz.

Leo slumbers on, finding that some dreams are impossible to control.

Raph, meanwhile, has overdosed on comic books and conked out.

In his dream, Raph is on an alien planet looking for evildoers to punish.  He finds the two worst evildoers of them all just standing around: Ron and Russ Post.  Raph accosts them and Russ bails, though Ron is happy to give Raph a challenge.  Using his reality-warping powers, Ron produces guns out of thin air, turns his fists into concrete and takes all of Raph’s sai stabs to no ill-effect.  Raph realizes that Ron is a worthy opponent who cannot be beaten and is thus giving him the fight of his life.

Raph sleeps with a huge grin on his face, hoping his dream will last forever.

Don has just eaten an entire bag of cheese cookies and passed out on the couch.

In his dream, Don recalls how the Government captured him, his brothers and Splinter and locked them in a secret facility.  Their file was then sold to a Hollywood producer who created a cartoon about them: "Mutant Ninja Teenage Turtles".  It became a smash hit and the Turtles became icons.  Eventually, budget cuts caused the Turtles and Splinter to be released, but they found that they could not adapt to life now that they’d become celebrities.  Every time they try to thwart a crime, they’re mobbed by fans.  Eventually, they become couch potatoes and grow morbidly obese.

Don wakes up from his nightmare in a cold sweat.

Splinter meditates and uses his dream to further his enlightenment.

In his dream, Splinter sits at a fancy restaurant with three guests: Akira Kagemusha (a legendary Japanese shadow warrior), Albert Einstein and Alfred Hitchcock.  Together, the quartet discuss the works of Edmund Husserl, Jean Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Splinter continues his meditation, growing wiser all the while.

Mike, particularly bushed after thwarting the Platypus invasion, dozes off while listening to rock music.

In his dream, Mike is a musician performing a rock concert to an adoring crowd.  Suddenly, the evil Dr. Vox and his Fogeymen attack, determined to destroy all sinful rock ‘n roll music.  Mike defeats the Fogeymen, but finds that he cannot touch Dr. Vox, as Vox has a forcefield made of public opinion protecting him.  Vox claims that so long as the majority rule is on his side, no one can touch him.  The crowd disagrees and rushes to voting booths.  Casting their votes FOR the continued existence of rock ‘n roll, Dr. Vox finds himself suddenly powerless and unable to continue fighting Mike.

Mike awakens suddenly from his dream, confused, but hoping he can fall back asleep and finish his concert.

Turtle Tips:

*Having been published during the TMNT Vol. 1 “guest era”, this issue is not part of the Mirage TMNT continuity “proper”.

*Ron Post and Russ Post, who appear in Raph’s dream, were the stars of Howarth’s creator-owned comic book series, Those Annoying Post Bros.

*There was no such person as “Akira Kagemusha”.  The name is a play on the film “Kagemusha” which was directed by Akira Kurosawa.

*Howarth would go on to produce one more TMNT issue, TMNT Special: The Haunted Pizza.

*This issue should not be confused with another story titled “Turtle Dreams” which appeared in Turtle Soup (Vol. 1) #1.

*This issue also contained a 1-page bonus comic by Howarth featuring Ron Post advertising Howarth’s various self-publication exploits.

Review:

If you didn’t like “the Turtles have weird dreams one after the other” plot device this time around, they’ll take another stab at it with TMNT (Vol. 2) #1.

Anyway, Matt Howarth’s “Turtle Dreams” is an interesting experiment and one of the few “surreal” installments of the Mirage guest era I felt used that effect to its benefit.  Howarth takes us into the heads of each character and we get to see their true heart’s desires or their deepest fears as they might perceive them.

I think Leo’s segment was my favorite overall, as it showed a very unique side of Leo not often explored.  As the leader of the team, he has to be the milquetoast spoilsport that can never have any fun.  Here, in his imagination, we see that Leo dreams of popularity, getting the girl and making friends as a “normal” teenager.  I thought that bit of introspection on Howarth’s part was GREAT and this is one of my favorite Leonardo stories, regardless of whether it “counts” or not.  In the real world, Leo’s position as commander and all the crushing responsibilities that come with it prevents him from relaxing or maybe even following his inner ambitions.  But in his dreams he’s free to be what he never can be and that’s “big man on campus”, loved and appreciated by all.

And kudos on Howarth for remembering that the Turtles are teenagers.  Even Eastman and Laird seemed to forget that part of the title after a couple issues.

The other segments don’t all fair as well as Leo’s, I’m afraid.

Raph never struck me as being a comic book nut; that’s always been more of Mikey’s thing.  Still, I enjoyed his reaction to his dream; fighting a never-ending battle against an unbeatable opponent brings him veritable ecstasy.  That’s Raph all over.

The problem with his segment is that it’s one big advertisement for Howarth’s “Those Annoying Post Bros” comic and he sure isn’t subtle about it.  All during the battle Raph is fawning over how awesome and amazing Ron Post is; the greatest warrior he has ever fought and no one can compare.  I’ve never read Howarth’s Post Bros comic, but after reading this issue I refuse to do so out of protest.

Don’s nightmare is a great bait ‘n switch on his inner fears.  It starts out with him and his brothers getting captured and experimented on by the Government, big shock, but then it quickly turns into a meta-textual look at the TMNT franchise going mainstream with a kid-friendly cartoon.  Suddenly, Don’s greatest fear is that he can no longer be a legitimate crime fighter and will wind up squandering his future in obscurity, growing fat.  It really pulls the rug out from under you as you read it and it’s easily my second favorite segment in this issue behind Leo’s.

Splinter dreams about intellectual discussions with dead eggheads.  Big whoop.

Lastly is Mike’s, which I have to confess was a bit of a dud.  It turns into a preachy story about how sinister public officials can be destroyed if everyone does their part to “rock the vote”.  Yeah.  That’s right.  “Rock the vote”.

Does MTV even run that corny ad campaign, anymore?

It’s a tongue-in-cheek public service announcement, for sure, as Mr. Vox is a goofy villain that feels like he should be in an animated Captain Crunch commercial, trying to turn your cereal soggy.  Still, the whole story revolves around delivering a trite message and it’s not a solid note to end the issue on.

Well, that’s not true.  The issue ACTUALLY ends on a one page comic where Ron Post tells everyone how they can order comics from Howarth himself for cover price plus shipping and handling.  If Howarth is anything, he’s a shameless self-promoter.

But the shameless self-promotion and cheesy “rock the vote” message aside, “Turtle Dreams” is surprisingly deep.  Not all the segments are winners, but when Howarth hits a chord, he hits it hard.  Leo’s fantasy really makes you think twice about the character and almost feel sorry for him; he can NEVER be the person he truly wants to be and can only live that life out in his dreams.  Don’s, meanwhile, is some great commentary that perhaps works better on a Fourth Wall level, but can still be applied to the character in-universe.  The other segments aren’t as strong, but Howarth’s simplified yet energetic art makes them fun to read, regardless.

So yeah.  “Turtle Dreams” was kind of the surprise hit of the Vol. 1 guest era for me.  Weird.

Grade: B (as in, “But for all my insulting the Post Bros comic, apparently it ran for a pretty long time across three or four different publishers”.)