Publication date: September, 1990
Story and art: Rich Hedden and Tom McWeeney
“Toitle Anxiety”
Summary:
In an abandoned warehouse, a goon named Joey is being
worked over by some mobster thugs. Joey’s boss,
his Uncle Guido, wants to know what Joey did with his delivery van. Joey tries to explain that while he was
making the delivery, he was hijacked by four giant turtles carrying weapons who
beat him up and stole the van. Guido isn’t
buying the story and once again demands to know where his van is.
Suddenly, the van crashes through the side of the
warehouse and the Ninja Turtles attack the thugs. At the sight of the Turtles, Guido has a
heart attack and his (very large) dead body collapses onto the badly beaten
Joey. In the scuffle, the warehouse
catches on fire and the flames loom closer and closer to several drums of
fuel. The Turtles pull the battered Joey
out of the warehouse just before it explodes and leave him for the police. As the cops take him away, Joey insists that
it was all the work of turtles. The cops
think he’s nuts.
Sometime later, Joey has been incarcerated in an asylum,
being looked over by Dr. Fritz.
Joey now sees everyone as giant anthropomorphic turtles and has
completely lost his marbles.
Once Dr. Fritz goes home for the evening, though, Joey overpowers the
orderlies and escapes from the asylum.
Seeing everyone in the city as a giant turtle, Joey
starts going mad and causing a scene.
Some cops try to calm him down, but he sees it as turtles attacking
him. Joey escapes from the cops via the
sewer systems and decides to give the turtles a war. He knocks over a Soldier of Discount military
surplus store and arms himself to the teeth.
Later, Dr. Fritz appears on “Tough Talk” with Tom Hype to
discuss the rampant killings and acts of violence perpetrated by “The
Turtlenator”, otherwise known as Joey.
Dr. Fritz suggests that Joey’s psychosis could be rooted in an unhappy
childhood, though the true cause of his mental disorder is unknown.
Down in the sewer lair, the Ninja Turtles are watching
the report. Splinter suggests they be on
their guard, as he fears “The Turtlenator” has been using the sewers to evade
capture. Leo thinks it’s silly to worry,
as there’s no way anyone could find their hidden lair. Suddenly, one of the walls explodes and Joey
comes charging into the lair. He’s about
to gun down Leo when Raph stabs him in the back with one sai and disarms him
with the other. Joey counters with a
pair of knives, which Leo breaks with his katana. Mike and Don then kick Joey into the rubble.
With the television still on, Splinter overhears Dr.
Fritz suggesting that Joey sees all living things as turtles. Joey grabs Splinter and puts a gun to his
head. Splinter then tells his sons to
stand down and welcome their “brother”.
Joey doesn’t understand, so Splinter suggests he look in a mirror. Seeing himself as a turtle, Joey puts his
handgun in his mouth and commits suicide.
As the Turtles help Splinter to his feet and survey the
damage, Tom Hype promises that in tomorrow’s episode they’ll discuss the rash
of mysterious turtle sightings and then wishes his audience a good night.
Turtle Tips:
*Having been published during the Vol. 1 “guest era”,
this issue is not a part of Mirage TMNT continuity “proper”.
Review:
For all the crap I give Rich Hedden and Tom McWeeney’s contributions
to TMNT Vol. 1… This issue was actually pretty good. In fact, it’s one of the better installments
in the “guest era” that adopts a sillier tone (though this one can get pretty
dark, too).
I honestly don’t know what happened between “Toitle
Anxiety” and “Spaced Out” that made Hedden and McWeeney suddenly suck so
much. The art style and storytelling
structure between the two stories is very different, so maybe Hedden had more
to do with “Toitle Anxiety” and McWeeney had more to do with “Spaced Out”, or
maybe McWeeney had more to do with “Toitle Anxiety” and Hedden had more to do
with “Spaced Out”. I don’t know. All I DO know is that “Toitle Anxiety” is
surprisingly enjoyable while “Spaced Out” is the ultimate low of TMNT Vol. 1.
But I’ll save my vitriol for “Spaced Out” once I get
there (and I’m not looking forward to getting there). “Toitle Anxiety” is a brisk, but
well-structured one-shot with some very elaborate art that, again, looks very
different from what you probably think of when you picture “Hedden &
McWeeney” art.
While the story follows Joey exclusively (the narrative
is shown from his perspective from nearly start to finish) and the Turtles take
kind of a back seat, this isn’t the same sort of problem as TMNT (Vol. 1) #23
or TMNT (Vol. 1) #29. In those stories,
the Turtles were sidelined during the narrative so the issue could focus on the
guest creator's “awesome original character”, serving as little more than a back
door introduction for their own creator-owned spin-off series. Joey is different. His story begins and ends in this issue and
it is inextricably linked to the Turtles, whether they get a lot of pagetime or
not. Stories like the aforementioned “Totally
Hacked!” and “Men of Shadow” suffer because the Turtles become guest stars in
their own book. But with “Toitle Anxiety”,
the impression the Turtles leave on the lead character is ever-present and
drives his actions; the TMNT are still at the heart of the narrative.
“Toitle Anxiety” can probably best be described as “bipolar”. It utilizes goofy and cartoony art aesthetics
here and there (rats are constantly observing the story and reacting like
audience members) and yet the overall story is quite dark. The book opens with a man (Joey), bloodied
and beaten. A fat guy has a heart
attack. “The Turtlenator” proceeds to
gun down crowds of innocent people, with the aftermath being shown in a
sobering, realistic light. When Joey
attacks the sewer lair, there is no humor to the battle and the Turtles are
fighting for their lives. And, of
course, that ending is rather brutal.
And yet all this grimness is punctuated by Joey screaming
about how he hates “toitles” even more than brussel sprouts, silly cartoon
effects like twirling stars and elastic facial expressions, a satirical sense
of humor present in the “Tough Talk” segments and all the goofy “turtle people”
populating New York via Joey’s hallucinations.
While I don’t really think the humor and the drama
blended quite so well, it does make for a very bizarre sort of comic that
stands out amongst other installments in the Vol. 1 guest era.
And what really helps “Toitle Anxiety” is that there is a
focused narrative from beginning to end.
No stream-of-consciousness “ran-dumb” bull crap like in their “Spaced
Out” arc, but a coherent and competent story.
The overall tone dabbles in extremes (as Kevin Eastman points out in his
introduction), and while I don’t think the plot provides as much social
commentary as it thinks it does, it’s just a solid one-shot story. It was very much a pleasant surprise to have
enjoyed “Toitle Anxiety” this much, as I’ve always viewed the names “Hedden
& McWeeney” as a veritable Seal of Crap.
Grade: B (as in, “But unfortunately, they’d never produce
anything this enjoyable ever again”.)
