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”.)
