Originally published in: Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #20
Publication date: February, 2006
Plot: Jake Black, Steve Murphy, Peter Laird
Script: Jake Black and Steve Murphy
Art: Fernando Pinto
Letters: Eric Talbot
“The Rippling”
Summary:
In New York Harbor near Liberty Island, the Turtles are
out kayaking. Mikey is distracted by a
weird glow he sees beneath the surface of the water and dives down to
investigate. He follows the glow to an
underwater cave and finds that it’s coming from a huge egg. Mikey reaches out to grab the egg.
Suddenly, he finds himself in a dry cave. He takes a stroll and enters a subterranean
city populated by anthropomorphic turtles.
A female turtle, addressing Mikey as the “Lost One”, tells him that he
has finally come home. Mikey is welcomed
by a parade and proceeds to party and feast.
Back on the surface, the other Turtles are getting worried,
as Mikey has been under way too long.
Raph and Leo dive down to find him.
Leo spots Mikey floating unconscious in the cave and grabs him. Raph is about to follow Leo when he notices
something glowing in the cave. He
investigates and finds the glow is coming from a skull. The glow illuminates the cave, revealing
thousands of dead bodies. Raph panics
and swims back to the surface.
Upon surfacing, Raph sees all of New York has been
destroyed and the island of Manhattan flooded.
Before he can figure things out, a shark fin begins surging his
way. It’s not a shark, though, but a
humongous, monstrous fish that swallows Raph in a single gulp.
Raph awakens with a slap to the face from Don, who has
rescued him from the cave. Both Mike and
Raph relate their stories to Leo and Don, though neither can agree on the
source of the glow. Leo decides to
meditate and clear his mind before going to see for himself.
Diving down to the cave, he sees that the glow is coming
from a Conquistador helmet. Leo touches
the helmet and a vision is projected into his mind. He sees the priest of an ancient civilization
punishing a Conquistador for his many evils. The priest binds the Conquistador’s soul to
his helmet for all eternity. The voice
of the Conquistador then speaks to Leo, begging to be destroyed. Leo draws his katana and destroys the
helmet. There’s a minor explosion and
Leo resurfaces.
Leo tells his brothers what happened; that the cursed
helmet made those who touched it see their innermost longings and revel in them
until they drowned. Don suggests that
perhaps Leo didn’t actually destroy the helmet and that it might not have been
a helmet at all; that whatever it was may have made Leo think he destroyed it
because that was his innermost longing.
Leo brushes off the suggestion, claiming that the object is no longer a
threat, whatever the case.
Later, off the coast of Ethiopia, a trio of fishermen worry
that if they don’t catch something soon, their village will starve. One of the fishermen, wearing a cross around
his neck, notices a glow beneath the waves.
He dives down and finds a large cross jutting out of the seabed. He touches it and suddenly finds himself
surrounded by schools of fish…
Turtle Tips:
*Personally, I would place this story during the
“Mirage Volume 3” era of the series, but it could really take place almost
anywhere.
Review:
This story was slightly reminiscent of an old short
published in Quest for Dreams Lost #1.
It had similar trappings: the Turtles dive down beneath the water to
find a mystical artifact and are troubled by horrible monsters. But beyond those superficial similarities,
the two stories hold nothing else in common and “The Rippling” is far and away
the better of the two.
At 14 pages, “The Rippling” is pretty meaty for what’s
considered a short. It could easily have
been expanded another 10 pages and been a full issue, and I somewhat lament
that it wasn’t. I’d like to have seen
Don’s vision, at least (he sort of gets the shaft, being the only Turtle not to
succumb to the glowing object).
While not especially “deep”, the story illustrates a
solid understanding of each Turtle and their innermost desires. Mike yearns to be accepted by society, Raph would enjoy living in a world of
violence, and Leo desperately wants to be the hero who ultimately vanquishes
evil to save the day. It’s a nice crash
course in the characters, though again, it would have benefited from being a
full issue so we could spend more time in each fantasy.
Aside from making the Turtles look a little on the rotund
side, Fernando Pinto offers up some good pencils. They’re a bit swirly and strange, but that’s
entirely fitting of the story and its reality-bending plot device. At one point, Raph describes the monster that
attacks him in his fantasy as “fish-Don”, even though the monster isn’t drawn
to look anything like a grotesque version of Donatello. I wonder if there was some miscommunication
between the writers and the artist (with three plotters and two scripters, I
can imagine).
Anyhow, if “The Rippling” is guilty of anything, it’s
that it deserved to be a full issue. As
a short, though, it’s still satisfying and with a nice twist ending, to boot.
Grade: B (as in, “But jeez, don’t they have it bad enough
in Ethiopia?”)
