TMNT (IDW) #30

Publication date: January 29, 2014

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow and Tom Waltz

Script: Tom Waltz

Art: Ross Campbell

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

“Northampton, Part 2”

Summary:

Out in the barn, Mike is writing a letter to Woody, trying to explain his sudden disappearance and everything that’s gone down with his family.  Mike says they’re all going through a rough patch, especially Leo, and they’ve been having a hard time bouncing back.

Out by the creek, Alopex spies on the pensive Leo.  Raph sneaks up behind her and pulls her aside, warning her to stay away from his family.  Alopex explains that she feels a kinship with Leo, as they were both manipulated by the Shredder.  More so, she wanted to thank him for standing up for her earlier.  Lastly, she tells Raph that she wanted to try and help Leo through his dilemma, as she also knows the value of family since she lost hers.  As Alopex storms off, Raph appears to have second thoughts about his actions.

In their loft in the barn, Donnie changes the bandage on Splinter’s broken leg.  He tells his sensei that he feels the information on the Technodrome he’s uncovered in Professor Honeycutt’s journal is vital, but is frustrated that without any tech, he can’t do much with it.  Splinter, though, is miles away in thought and barely registers a word of what Don is saying.

Leo, meanwhile, is trapped in a nightmare, being chased by demonic versions of the Shredder and Karai.  The spirit of Tang Shen appears to him and drives the visions away.  Leo tells her that he’s still confused; his memories are hazy and he’s having trouble putting his head back together.  He knows that Splinter and the Turtles are his family, but they feel like strangers.  Tang Shen tells Leo that the path to recovery is before him and he need only to tread it slowly.  Leo asks her to stay, but she says she is needed elsewhere and drifts away.

Over in the farmhouse, April and Casey get the lowdown from Mrs. O’Neil.  April’s mom explains that her husband used to be a classified research employee at Stockgen, working on a substance called “ooze”.  After Mr. O’Neil was injured, Stockgen offered to foot all his bills, provide a pension and extend April an internship offer.  Having been an investigative journalist, these sorts of things tripped alarms in her head, but she didn’t want to risk her husband’s recovery by pursuing the issue.  Mrs. O’Neil then gives April her husband’s old laptop from when he worked for Stockgen.  She says she can’t make heads or tails of the scientific data stockpiled in it, but maybe April can crack it.

Out in the woods, Donnie wakes Leo from his dream.  Leo’s attitude has softened and he recognizes Donnie.  Leo tells Donnie about speaking with their mother in his dream and Donnie admits that after all they’ve been through, he’s become less skeptical about the supernatural.  He asks Leo to come back to the barn with him and help him out with the Technodrome research.  He’s been trying his best to put it all together, but doesn’t think he can pull it off.  Leo assures him that if anyone can figure it out, it’s him.

Meanwhile, Tang Shen appears to Splinter in his dreams.  Splinter is ashamed to be seen by her, as he’s no longer human, but Tang Shen is not disturbed by his appearance in the least.  Splinter tells her that he failed in his mission and that he has lost their eldest son.  Tang assures him that what he feels is confusion, not failure, and that Leonardo is still with them.  After telling him she loves him, Tang Shen vanishes and Splinter awakens.

Mikey puts the finishing touches on his letter to Woody, ending on the hopeful note that even if things are at their worst, his family is too tough to let it bring them down.  As a matter of fact, he has a surefire plan to bring everybody back together.

Mikey summarily starts a bonfire out in the woods and begins roasting weenies and marshmallows.  The smell draws the Turtles and Splinter from their various sulking places and they all gather around the fire as a family for the first time since they left New York.  Raph sees the silhouette of Alopex brooding alone in the woods and extends an offer to join them.  She accepts.

Unbeknownst to the happy family, in the skies above lurks falcon-mutant Koya.  She radios Karai and reports a confirmation of their target’s identities.  Karai tells her to standby for reinforcements.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #29. The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #31.

*The events of The X-Files/TMNT: Conspiracy #1 take place between this and next issue.

*Don found Professor Honeycutt’s journal in TMNT: UtromEmpire #1.

*Koya first appeared (as a regular falcon and pet of the Shredder’s) in TMNT (IDW) #25.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Campbell, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, and Cover RI by Andy Belanger.

Review:

This is essentially IDW’s take on the classic Mirage TMNT (Vol. 1) #11.  While the framing device is much the same, the narrative has been adapted to the unique situations all the characters are now in and how they’re each coping with this predicament.  It’s a classic TMNT story and if you don’t recognize it from the Mirage comics then you certainly recall its adaptation from the 1990 live-action movie.  I remarked last review that the “exile to Northampton” is an essential and iconic Ninja Turtles story, and the whole journal gimmick is a staple of that experience (though I don’t think the 4Kids cartoon utilized it in their adaptation, did they?).

We catch up with each character one at a time and that makes it pretty easy for me to categorize my thoughts for this review.  Ahhhh, convenience.

We’ll start with Leo.  I’m glad to see that he’s recovering from his pouty attitude and that the angry, confused, rebellious phase is passing quickly.  His arc during “City Fall” fell limp for me so if this aspect of the aftermath had been drawn out any longer, I probably would have started to lose interest.

Then there’s Alopex who seems to be on her way to becoming this comic’s Ninjara.  Her transition from enemy to ally has been much smoother than the other fox-woman’s, though I’m not all that sold on her kinship with Leo.  Hindsight is 20/20 and I feel like if the IDW creative team had had this plotted out in advance, then they really should have laid the seeds during “City Fall”.  Dark Leo was a member of the Foot Clan and fought alongside Alopex, but they never shared any dialogue or tender moments during that span of time.  Her sudden longing to befriend and understand Leonardo doesn’t stem from a relationship forged during the time they were both manipulated into working for the Shredder, but because he said “leave her alone” once and threw a tantrum.  It feels just a little shallow when the opportunity was there for it to be better reinforced.  Heck, even a flashback to Dark Leo and Alopex sharing a conversation during the midst of “City Fall” would go a long way.

Raph gets the short end of the stick in this one, as his whole narrative revolves around wanting to protect Leo from Alopex.  While it shows that even after their words last issue, Raph is still looking out for his brother’s welfare, the problem is that we don’t see him internalizing the situation in any other way; his angst is basically an extension of Leo’s.  But hey, there’s only so much page space.  Not even the great TMNT #11 was perfect; it cut out Splinter’s narrative completely.  As for Raph coming to terms with Alopex, I guess that’s a cue for all the ‘shippers out there to start their engines.  RaphxAlopex or LeoxAlopex?  

God almighty, I do not care.

Donatello, Splinter and Tang Shen I want to talk about together.  In the past, the Tang Shen dreams and visions have been left vague, having only begun after Leo was subjected to Kitsune’s mind-fuckery.  So they could very well have been all in his head.  With this issue, however, Waltz solidifies that it is, in fact, a spirit and not a hallucination (as she proceeds to cross from Leo’s dream to Splinter’s), putting to rest any doubts about the place for supernatural elements within this continuity.  And right after that’s established, guess what?  Donatello comes to terms with the existence of the supernatural and discards his previous skepticism.  Perfect timing in that regard, as now that we know spirits and such exist in this universe it would have been frustrating to see Donatello continue on with his skeptic routine.

April and Casey’s narrative was a lot of exposition that didn’t boil down to much content (April’s dad worked for Stockgen and Mrs. O’Neil was a reporter).  I am wondering how many more artifacts encrypted with vital info about the villains and their schemes these characters can collect, though.  Don just found Professor Honeycutt’s journal detailing the Technodrome project while April just received a laptop stuffed with Stockgen ooze data.  I’m guessing April and Donnie are going to pool their resources and figure out the whole Krang plot line, but it sure is lucky those characters both received convenient payloads of vital information at roughly the same time.  But then, it’s also a comic book so shut up, Mark.

And then there’s Mikey, who tied all the narratives together.  Michelangelo’s whole deal revolves around unbridled enthusiasm and indefatigable optimism, so I really enjoyed his "clever" plot to bring the whole family back together.  His narration starts out battered and worrisome, but he quickly turns it around at the end and reminds us why he’s so important to the group’s dynamic, even if a lot of folks find him obnoxious.

Also, new mutant henchwoman for the Foot to replace Alopex.  That didn’t take long.

Anyhow, this has been exactly the kind of catch-up with the characters I was looking forward to.  Ross Campbell boasts some more excellent pencils that fit the somber and introspective mood of this arc, but I have to give major props to series colorist Ronda Pattison.  Her work has been superb, particularly the nightmare/dream sequence Leonardo had, with those fierce blacks and reds on the nightmare followed by the soft, chalky look of the Tang Shen scene.  Some really pretty stuff.

Grade: B (as in, “But I cannot emphasize enough how much I don’t care which Turtle Alopex falls in love with”.)  

TMNT Special: The Maltese Turtle

Publication date: January, 1993

Story and art: Rich Hedden & Tom McWeeney

Colors: Guy Romano

“The Maltese Turtle”

Summary:

Frontispiece: Raphael, garbed as an old timey gumshoe, claims that the world can be full of sacks of manure falling from the sky.  You can try to avoid them, but sometimes you get hit, anyway.  In fact, all this talk of manure sacks reminds him of a story…

At the New York City Zoo, the Mayor unveils the latest exhibit: The exceedingly rare Maltese Turtle.  After dark, though, a pair of thieves make off with the Maltese Turtle (not before an impromptu game of football with the night security).

The next morning, Raphael reads about the theft in the newspaper.  Wanting to help a fellow reptile in need, Raph tries to rally his brothers and Splinter into action, but they ignore him.  Donning a trench coat and fedora, Raph decides to get to the bottom of the mystery on his own.

His first stop is City Hall, where the Mayor reads the ransom note from the Doltish Bros. (demanding “lots a money”).  Now knowing what name to ask around for, Raph begins searching every joint in the city.  After following all his leads and turning up nothing but dead ends, Raph is about ready to quit.  A nearby shoeshine boy, however, suggests he just look for the Doltish Bros. in the phonebook.  And wouldn’t you know it?  The address to their secret hideout on Pier 20 is right there in the Yellow Pages.

After dark, Raph peeks in at the old warehouse and sees Ma Doltish scolding her boys for stealing something as useless as a turtle.  After giving her sons a scolding, she storms off.  Raph takes the opportunity to barge in and attack, but the Brothers gang up on him.  He tricks them into freezing with a game of red light/green light and figures he’s got the Maltese Turtle in the bag.  That’s when Ma Doltish bonks him on the head with a rolling pin.

The Doltish Bros. fit Raph with a pair of cement tennis shoes and then chuck him off the pier.  Being a turtle, Raph has no trouble breathing underwater, but he’s still stuck.  Concentrating, he projects his consciousness out across the Astral Plane to send an SOS to Splinter.  After a brief stopover in the Batcave, Raph reaches the lair.  Unfortunately, Splinter misinterprets the tiny floating Raphael as a bug and squishes him.  Raph’s consciousness returns to his body and square one.

Inside the warehouse, the Doltish Bros. are watching a special news report on the Maltese Turtle.  Apparently it was discovered by Professor Noah Little during an expedition to the Island of Maltese.  The Turtle is said to be cursed by the vengeful Turtle God and will bring great misfortune to anyone who tries to possess it.  The Doltish Bros. begin to get nervous.

Meanwhile, out on the water, a fisherman snags Raphael with his hook.  He reels Raphael out of the cement anchor and his trench coat, then sends the Ninja Turtle flying with the backlash.  Raph crashes through the roof of the warehouse and lands in front of the Brothers.  Seeing Raph as a giant turtle for the first time, they mistake him for the Turtle God and run away scared.  Raph snickers at their stupidity, then sees the giant shadow of a turtle cast upon the wall.  Believing it to be the REAL Turtle God, Raph runs away screaming.  The shadow, of course, belongs to the Maltese Turtle.  Ma Doltish comes out of the kitchen to scold the Maltese Turtle for trying to escape, to which it responds by chomping down on her finger and judo-flipping her into submission.  And so the Maltese Turtle escapes all on its own.

Epilogue: Following this caper, the Doltish Bros. are sent to prison to do hard labor, Ma Doltish finds her true calling as a professional wrestler and the Maltese Turtle (at least Raph suspects) finds a new life as a Las Vegas stage act.  Raphael then links arms with the cast of the comic (as well as Eastman and Laird) and tells everyone that life is one big game show with lousy prizes.  He suggests we all stop trying to win as many points as possible and enjoy the ride, as we’ll all have to face that big game show host in the sky, someday.

Turtle Tips:

*This is the third and final installment in the TMNT Special series.  It was preceded by TMNT Special: The Haunted Pizza.

*The Hedden & McWeeney version of the Turtles previously appeared in TMNT (Vol. 1) #40.

Review:

Hedden & McWeeney get a lot of shit and they do deserve some of it.  “Spaced Out” is the most laborious grind to plow through in all of TMNT Volume 1.  That being said, they’re still excellent cartoonists with a great sense of layout, comic timing, kinetic energy and an eye for fitting in as many sight gags as possible per panel.  They’re GOOD at what they do… they're just best taken in small doses.

As with TMNT (Vol. 1) #34, “The Maltese Turtle” confines its story to a single one-shot.  As such, it’s much easier to digest than the three decompressed issues of “Spaced Out”.  The joke doesn’t wear itself out and the story lasts as long as it needs to.  Is it anywhere close to proper characterization for ANYBODY?  Absolutely not.  But as a weird, surreal one-off change of pace, it’s amusing in its novelty.

The basic story is pretty weak and it’s more a catalyst for the manic cartooning style of the duo, not a tale to get invested in.  Hedden & McWeeney resort to a lot of dull shtick that went stale 40 years ago, but it’s all in the visual execution of the gags that make them fun to read.  They have a MAD Magazine style in which they load each and every panel with as many non sequitur gags as possible and it can be fun to digest every page and search for all the Easter eggs.

At 42 pages (the prologue and the epilogue are printed on the interior cover pages), “The Maltese Turtle” doesn’t overstay its welcome.  It’s more amusing than it is funny, I think, but there’s no denying Hedden & McWeeney are good at what they do.  They weren’t exactly the best fit for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so even with this story safely quarantined to the TMNT Special series, some folks might be inclined to ignore it or eschew it.  Still, so far as Hedden & McWeeney stuff is concerned, it’s “not that bad”.  And that’s about as high a compliment as you’ll ever hear for their work on the title.

Grade: C (as in, “Can’t say I really laughed, but I will admit that their caricatures of Eastman and Laird are practically photo accurate”.)

The Ring of Death

Originally published in: Turtle Soup (Vol. 2) #3

Publication date: January, 1992

Story and art: Jeff “J.B.” Bonivert

Colors: Justin Hampton

“The Ring of Death”

Summary:

Prologue: Masked, armed and ready for action, Casey Jones prowls the rooftops.  He sees a gang lifting goods from a truck and drops in on them.  He fights his way through the punks with ease until a midget in a cape steps out and orders “Big Joe” to deal with the interloper.  A humongous sumo wrestled then lifts Casey over his head and piledrives him into unconsciousness.  The midget orders Big Joe to take Casey back to their hideout where he’ll be properly dealt with.

Not far away, the Turtles hear the sound of violence and rush to the scene.  They’ve missed the gang, but find Casey’s hockey stick and a trail of blood.  Concerned, they follow the trail to an old apartment building.  They scale the fire escape to the one room that’s lit and peek in.

Inside, the midget is about to execute Casey (who is tied to a chair) by injecting him with a “sushi overdose”.  The Turtles smash through the wall and confront the midget.  The midget declares himself the leader of a criminal organization called the Ring of Death and sends his punks to attack the Turtles.  They make short work of the punks, but then Big Joe shows up.  Donatello takes Joe on singlehandedly and lectures the sumo wrestler all the while.  Don informs Joe that size is nothing unless you have skill, endurance and courage.  With that said, he topples Big Joe.

The leader of the Ring says that he’s fatally embarrassed and allows the Turtles and Casey to leave without any struggle.  As the sun rises, the Turtles disappear back to the rooftops, leaving Casey to call the police.

Turtle Tips:

*J.B. Bonivert also produced the TMNT stories “The Purpose of Fear” and “Muscle & Faith”.

Review:

Well, this is the last of J.B. Bonivert’s TMNT comics for me to review and since I’ve already expressed my opinion of his art style, I won’t bore you by repeating myself.

Instead, I’ll talk about the story.  "The Ring of Death" is simple to the point of being stupid, lacking the introspective character focus of “The Purpose of Fear” or the decompressed adventure of “Muscle & Faith”.  Casey gets kidnapped by a gang, the Turtles save him, The End.  There’s one moment in the story where Donatello delivers a clumsy speech about discipline and courage, but it’s like I said: clumsy.  I suppose Bonivert felt the need to add a “lesson” to the end of the tale, but it only awkwardly ties into anything going on in the narrative (“brains over brawn” is a pretty tenuous association to make).

It’s a highly forgettable story that suffers from Bonivert’s usual shortcomings (particularly the dialogue, which is just a stream of awkward asides and prattle).  I’d say it’s the least enjoyable of Bonivert’s TMNT contributions, and I’m not his biggest fan to begin with.

Grade: F (as in, “For lack of a better description, I used 'midget' because Bonivert doesn't even give the guy a name.  How hard is it to quickly name drop an important character in the dialogue?”)

TMNT: Utrom Empire #1

Publication date: January 22, 2014

Writer: Paul Allor

Artist: Andy Kuhn

Colors: Bill Crabtree

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

The present.  Burnow Island.  As his head is hooked up to numerous probes in a laboratory, the Fugitoid (alias Chet Allen, alias Professor Honeycutt) reflects upon the family he lost at the hands of Krang and fantasizes about killing himself.  The human scientists working on downloading the Fugitoid’s data in order to complete the Technodrome decide to close shop early for the night, as a major storm is about to blow through.  In his office, General Krang orders other technicians to make sure the storm does no damage to the Technodrome project.  They assure him that everything has been accounted for.  Little do they know, Baxter Stockman is outside, fooling with a power box.

The past.  Prehistoric Earth.  A pair of Utroms take a DNA sample from a triceratops.  Many years later, on the planet Utrominon, General Krang throws a banquet for the Triceratons, the enforcers and “Fighting Lizards” of the Utrom army.  Emperor Quanin breaks up the festivities and asks his simpering son Krang what’s going on.  Krang explains that they have successfully conquered the D’Hoonib Empire and nullified the Praxoid Alliance, placing the Utrom Empire in a state of peace.

Some years after that, in the Molta VI Asteroid Belt, an Utrom expedition for more ooze is wiped out by a rebellion comprised of many alien races, including Neutrinos and Triceratons.  Back on Utrominon, Senior Member of the High Council Lorqa implores Emperor Quanin to cease his foolish expansion of the Utrom Empire.  They’ve spread out beyond their ability to functionally colonize, draining their homeworld of all its precious resources.  General Krang butts heads with Lorqa for disrespecting his father’s commands.  Quanin breaks up the argument and insists that so long as the citizens on Utrominon are ignorant of the situation and remain at peace, then nothing else matters.

The present.  Burnow Island.  Baxter’s sabotage causes the power to go out and he sneaks into the laboratory housing the Fugitoid.  He reactivates the Fugitoid, though he’s unaware that the Fugitoid and his former employee Chet Allen are one in the same.  Baxter asks the Fugitoid to help him betray and destroy General Krang.  The Fugitoid recalls having heard that Stockgen, Baxter’s life’s work, was destroyed not long ago.  He figures Baxter has lost everything and agrees to assist him.  Once free, the Fugitoid plans to fulfill his fantasy of self-destruction.

The past.  New Quanin City.  General Krang orders his Triceraton officer Zog to execute the children of the miners who briefly rebelled against him.  Suddenly, several ships appear in the sky and begin raining fire down upon the Utrom citizens.  Krang looks closer and sees that the invaders are Triceratons.  Zog attacks Krang and tells him that he brought this betrayal upon himself.  By spreading his Empire out so thin, he has doomed his own people, to say nothing of the countless alien races he ordered destroyed.  Krang calls the Triceratons ungrateful and fights back, insisting all he’s done was for the good of his people.  Zog defeats him, but rather than kill him, he tells Krang that he’ll be spared on the condition that he undo the mistakes of his father, Quanin, and end all aggression.

The present.  Northampton, Massachusetts.  In the barn, Donatello is going through some stuff April brought with her when they fled New York.  Michelangelo asks what he’s after and Donnie explains that when April was raiding Stockgen, she grabbed one of the Chet’s (Fugitoid's) notebooks.  Now that they’re able to catch their breath, he wants to give the notebook a read through.  Opening it up, Donnie finds nothing less than a series of designs labeled “Technodrome”.

Burnow Island.  Baxter leads the Fugitoid to the chamber housing all the Utroms in ooze stasis.  Baxter begins draining the ooze from the pods, killing the Utroms.  He tells the Fugitoid that he wants to take away what Krang is fighting for: His people.  By doing so, he’ll effectively “break” Krang.  Not only that, but he has his own plans on using the Technodrome for himself.  The Fugitoid momentarily considers letting Baxter go through with it, but having experienced the pain of losing his entire family himself, the Fugitoid refuses to let the Utroms be killed.  He punches Baxter in the back of the head and says that he has a plan to fix everything.

Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in TMNT: Utrom Empire #2.

*Chronologically, this miniseries takes place concurrently with the “Northampton” arc of the TMNT ongoing series.  This issue in particular takes place during TMNT (IDW) #29, as Donatello is shown reading the Fugitoid's notebook in that issue.

*The Fugitoid's family was killed in TMNT Micro-Series #8: Fugitoid and he was taken prisoner by General Krang in TMNT (IDW) #20.

*Stockgen was destroyed in TMNT (IDW) #26.

*Baxter’s machinations against General Krang were revealed in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #2: Baxter.

*Zog is originally a Mirage character first properly introduced in TMNT (Vol. 1) #19.

*Exactly WHY the Utroms decide to turn Earth dinosaurs into warriors will be revealed in TMNT: Turtles in Time #1.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Regular Cover by Kuhn, Cover RI by Kevin Eastman and Ronda Pattison, Subscription Cover by Nick Pitarra and Greg and Fake Petre.

Review:

It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve gotten an update on the whole Krang side of things.  If you’re reading these comics all chronologically, then there are 18 issues between the last Krang-related story and this one (23 if you elect to read “Utrom Empire” after “Northampton”).  It’s been a long time and I’m glad to see these plot lines rolling again.

Paul Allor constructs some wonderful character symmetry between our three leads: General Krang, Baxter Stockman and the Fugitoid.  The Fugitoid is someone who lost everything (his family) and desperately wants to end it all.  Baxter is someone who lost everything (his company) and desperately wants to seize power.  And Krang is someone who lost everything (his father's Empire) and desperately wants to recapture the glory of the past.  Their motivations all stem from a sense of loss, but those motivations drive them in different directions.

There’s also a smidgen of warmth or sympathy applied to characters like Krang and Quanin, who in all previous appearances have been nothing more than generic overlord-type villains.  The idea Allor presents is that all both characters want is what’s best for their people.  Yes, they’re cruel and psychotic, but they genuinely love their race and only have their best interests at heart (expanding the Empire in Quanin’s case, reigniting the Empire in Krang’s case).  But “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” as they say, and none of it justifies their actions.

Even the Triceratons, new to the IDW series, get a bit of a heart transplant.  Past incarnations have always portrayed them as a barbaric, warmongering race with only rare glimpses of Triceratons that DON’T want to rip people’s hearts out.  “Savage murderers” was pretty much their uniform characterization.  Zog, however, shows that he and his people crave freedom not just for themselves, but for all those flattened under the boot of the Utrom Empire.  Heck, he’s even generous enough to point out that the ruthlessness of the Empire was the fault of Krang and Quanin, not the Utrom people (to say nothing of sparing Krang’s life).  I especially appreciated that Allor chose Zog to be the one to deliver this speech, as Zog was one of the “good guy” Triceratons from the Mirage series (and 4Kids cartoon).

So yeah, we’re getting a better feel for characters and concepts that had previously been two-dimensional.  While Krang and Quanin aren’t exonerated from their actions, we can see that they aren’t blandly “evil”, either, with their motives brewing from a warped concept of altruism.

It also looks like we’re going to be getting a crash course in Utrom history with this series.  Lots of flashbacks, people.

I liked the new origin for the Triceratons, which explains why an alien race just HAPPENS to look like Earth triceratopses while also illustrating just how far back the Utroms’ awareness of Earth goes.  Loooooong before Feudal Japan, that’s for sure.

What’s a bit more confusing is trying to keep track of the Krang/Quanin chronology.  Between TMNT (IDW) #14, TMNT (IDW) #18, TMNT Micro-Series #8: Fugitoid, TMNT Villains Micro-Series #1: Krang, Secret History of the Foot Clan #4 and this, the timeline of the Utroms is a freakin’ puzzle.  It doesn’t help that the flashbacks from those various issues hop back and forth all over the timeline and it gets increasingly difficult to keep facts straight. 

For example, why is Krang so pleasant in the earliest flashbacks in this issue?  They have to take place after his Micro-Series, as he’s a General in these flashbacks and Quanin is an Emperor.  But if that’s the case, Krang should be the cruel monster he evolved into during the events of his Micro-Series, not the merciful party animal he was before the events of the Micro.  And was the Iron Demon Krang, Quanin or somebody else?  We’ve been dying to know that for a while, now.

Anyhow, all criticisms about confusing flashbacks aside, it was still a well-crafted introductory issue.  These characters have been stewing on the backburner for a while now and I’ve been anxious to check in with them again.  Allor does some solid work with the cast and throws an excellent curveball with the origin of the Triceratons.  Kuhn’s art is some of the strongest we’ve seen from him, nailing some moody layouts.

Grade: B (as in, “But when this mini is done, we may need a chart delineating all the Utrom flashbacks from the whole IDW series”.)

TMNT Special: The Haunted Pizza

Publication date: October, 1992

Story and art: Matt Howarth

“The Haunted Pizza”

Summary:

Sixty-five million years ago, the comet that will kill the dinosaurs enters Earth’s atmosphere.  Crashing into the planet, the “comet” turns out to be a prison pod containing the universe’s most heinous criminal: The fungus creature called Ooo-Zah.  Ooo-Zah had tried to foil the Big Bang at the dawn of creation and was imprisoned for untold eons by the saurian aliens called the Newts.  Now with a seething hatred toward all saurian life, Ooo-Zah possesses rocks to create a new body and then single-handedly kills every dinosaur.  However, before he can move onto the mammalian life, an earthquake buries him deep below the ground, sealing him away from his power source: Light.

Millions of years later, a cheese factory is built over Ooo-Zah’s tomb.  A single spore of his fungus manages to escape into the factory, where it mixes with a vat of cheese and is sealed into a tub.  That cheese is then taken to Gavin’s Pizza Restaurant in New York City.

Down in the lair, Leo, Raph and Mikey are enjoying some rough-housing and weapons practice while Splinter is out at the Jackie Chan movie marathon.  Annoyed by their antics, Donatello confiscates all their weapons and locks them in the closet.  Before his brothers can protest, April arrives with a freshly prepared pizza… from Gavin’s.

The hungry Turtles open up the box and the light reawakens Ooo-Zah.  The entity comes to life in the form of mozzarella and attacks with its many sticky tentacles, vowing to eliminate all “saurians”.  The Turtles and April attempt to fight back, but Ooo-Zah continues to grow and grow.  Worse yet, they have no weapons because Donatello locked them all in the closet.  Things look bad until Don notices that Ooo-Zah is hovering near the lamp.  He figures that Ooo-Zah needs light in order to stay active and smashes the bulb with a throwing star.

Ooo-Zah weakens in the darkness, giving the Turtles and opening to retrieve their swords from the closet.  Being ninja, they’re unaffected by the darkness and easily cut Ooo-Zah’s mozzarella body to ribbons.  April asks how they’re going to dispose of all the cheese and Donatello suggests they lock it in an old steamer trunk and bury it in the deepest, darkest sewer tunnel they can find. 

On their way to dispose of Ooo-Zah, Raph suggests they get a REAL pizza… just from a different restaurant.

Turtle Tips:

*This is the second installment in the TMNT Special series.  It was preceded by TMNT Special: “Times” Pipeline and will be followed by TMNT Special: The Maltese Turtle.

*Prior to this special, Howarth had contributed to the TMNT “guest era”, providing TMNT (Vol. 1) #41.

*This issue's cover is a spoof of a pin-up Howarth had published in the first printing of TMNT (Vol. 1) #3 back in 1985.

Review:

Hey, it's Matt Howarth!  He didn’t seem to contribute quite as much as the other participants during the “guest era”, which is a shame, as his style felt like a real change of pace amongst the other “silly” guest stories.  His Turtles are lanky and simplified, but the pared down aesthetic looked unique compared to everyone else, who had a tendency to “over draw” their comics.  And don’t let the word “simplified” fool you into thinking these pages look like a rush job.  Howarth uses a lot of lines in the background for emphasis and utilizes cross-hatching over block inking, so I imagine these pages took a while to pencil and even longer to ink.  It's a sort of "faux woodcut" style that's really unique; I like it.

The story is goofy, the conflict is simple and the resolution is obvious.  “The Haunted Pizza” is a very brisk adventure even at 32 pages and you’ll be through it in a handful of minutes.  In that regard it can be easy to forget about and the narrative doesn’t offer any of the introspection that Howarth worked into his previous tale, “Turtle Dreams”.  On the bright side, those legitimately annoying Post Bros. don’t make any cameo appearances.  So there’s that.

One aspect of this issue that can be a little confusing is that no Turtle has a signature weapon.  Rather, they all trade and swap weapons throughout the tale.  At the start, Leo uses a staff, Raph uses a sword and both Don and Mikey use nunchakus.  Then, at the end, everyone uses a sword except Raph, who uses his sais.  Or I think that was supposed to be Raph.  And therein lies the problem.  Without their signature weapons, you can’t tell which Turtle is which unless they’re addressed by name.  This IS a black and white comic, after all.

“The Haunted Pizza” isn’t an essential TMNT tale by any means and it’s probably something to save for the very last, if you’re out to collect all the Mirage comics.  But it isn’t what I’d call a bad comic, either; there’s nothing obnoxious or truly incompetent about it.  It’s just very forgettable.

TMNT Special: "Times" Pipeline

Publication date: September, 1992

Illustrated by: Mark Bode’

With characters by: Vaughn Bode’

Written by: Larry Todd

Colors by: Mark Bode’ and Bill Fitts

Dedicated to the memory of: Vaughn Bode’

“‘Times’ Pipeline”

Summary:

In the Time Tower, somewhere remote, the elderly worm-man 5 Ply is getting a lecture from his Doom Marble, warning him that his next payment to the bank is dangerously close to being past due.  Desperate for cash, 5 Ply uses his high-tech devices to transport his business cards across time and space.

Down in the lair, Donatello opens the TMNT’s mail box and amidst their various bills for sewage services, he finds the business card.  The other Turtles gather around as a hologram of 5 Ply appears from the card, offering "chrono adventure" for a nominal fee.  Thinking it’s a prank, the Turtles follow the instructions on the back of the card, bending it 3 times and saying “there’s no time like now”.

They find themselves suddenly teleported to the Time Tower’s waiting room.  5 Ply steps in to greet his new customers, but is frightened by their weapons.  He sics the Doom Marble on the Turtles which sends them running.  They hide in what they think is a vault, but is actually a “trans time dump port”.  The dump port activates, sending them and a payload of supplies across time and space to one of 5 Ply’s customers.

The Turtles wind up in a fortress with a weird side effect of the teleportation: Their beaks now have lizard-like flaps.  The fortress is under siege from flying lobsters called Fly Flowers.  The resident army (weird lizard people) are defending the fortress from the Fly Flowers with machineguns, though they’re low on ammo (they were expecting a shipment from their supplier).  The Turtles cut their way through the Fly Flowers and escape the fortress, disappearing into the dense jungle.

Camping out for the night, they discuss how they’re going to get home.  The business card trick isn’t working anymore and they suspect they need to be in close proximity to some of 5 Ply’s tech to jumpstart it again.  In the morning, they’re awoken by the sound of machines and squealing.  They see some of the lizard-people from the fortress capturing dinosaur-like creatures called Ground Pounders and funneling them through a series of meat grinders, which teleport the meat away to who-knows-where.

They help one of the Ground Pounders escape and it leads them back to the fortress, where they and several bird-like and frog-like soldiers are laying siege, trying to steal the supplies 5 Ply teleported in with the TMNT.  The soldiers at first don’t trust the Turtles until they see the enemy shooting at them, too.  One of the commanders agrees to take them back to camp and leads them to a river raft.  They use their trained Fly Flowers to take down the enemy helicopters and after navigating some rapids, they arrive safely at the camp.

The Turtles are met by a human woman named Rosie Radiator, leader of the resistance.  Rosie explains that she’s from the future and has rallied a group of locals to rebel against the aggressors of Fort Time Piper, who have also come from the future.  It seems the invaders intend to poach lifeforms from the past, grind them up and sell their meat to fast food restaurants in the future.  This, of course, is wreaking havoc with the timestream, so the People’s Liberation Organization of Nicky Poo (P.L.O.P.) has sent her to stop them.  The Turtles explain that they were teleported with that supply shipment and have been inside the fortress.  Rosie figures they can use that knowledge to their advantage and storm the fortress.  Leo, Don and Mike saddle up on some Fly Flowers, while Raph gets acquainted with an armored Ground Pounder.

The next morning, the Turtles on the Fly Flowers swoop in on the highest tower of the fortress and drop in.  They’re attacked by the hulking caveman Stump Foot, who proceeds to clean their clocks.  Things look bad until Raph arrives with his Ground Pounder, who plucks Stump Foot up and hurls him away.  The Turtles make their way through the fortress until they find the time transmat room.  Don can’t figure out the controls, which is bad, as the commanders of Fort Time Piper, Woofer and Groat Gladder, show up with a furious Stump Foot behind them.  The Turtles decide to give the business card one last try and it teleports them away in the nick of time.

They arrive back in the waiting room of the Time Tower, where 5 Ply appears before them.  5 Ply insists on payment for their “chrono adventure”.  The Turtles explain that they’re broke, so 5 Ply teleports them back home… where they land in April’s bathtub.

Epilogue: Rosie and her forces have taken the fortress and won the battle.  Rosie laments that she’ll never get to see the Turtles again, as they were excellent soldiers.  Suddenly, several Ground Pounders come stomping through wearing bandanas over their eyes and screaming “Cowabunga!”  Rosie feels less wistful, all of a sudden.

Turtle Tips:

*The next installment in the TMNT Special series would be TMNT Special: The Haunted Pizza.

*Prior to this, Mark Bode’ produced guest issues for TMNT in TMNT (Vol. 1) #18 and TMNT (Vol. 1) #32.  And before that, the TMNT guest starred in Bode’s comic Miami Mice #4.

*The Turtles reference having travelled through time before.  They did so in TMNT (Vol. 1) #8, Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 1) #7, TMNT (Vol. 1) #33, TMNT (Vol. 1) #46 and TMNT(Vol. 1) #47.

*They also reference a transmat and “the TCRI globsters”, which they dealt with in TMNT (Vol. 1) #4 and TMNT (Vol. 1) #7.

*This issue was dedicated to the memory of Mark Bode’s father and famous cartoonist Vaughn Bode’.  Kevin Eastman had previously expressed his respect for Vaughn Bode’s contributions to the medium in the short strip “Fun With Guns”.

*Just so everybody knows, Vaughn Bode's official cause of death was "autoerotic asphyxiation".  The man was truly an inspiration to us all.

Review:

Before I get into my review of “Times Pipline”: Some background.

Mirage was under criticism in the early ‘90s after subjecting their main Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book to the “guest era” (which I’ve talked about at length).  Compromising with their critics, Eastman and Laird restored the main TMNT ongoing series to its original continuity, promising no more non-canon guest stories.  However, to appease those that DID enjoy the weird, surreal guest issues, they initiated the TMNT Special series: Out-of-continuity one-shots from the same contributors who worked on the “guest era” of TMNT Vol. 1.

The “restored to continuity” TMNT ongoing continued for 18 more issues, while the TMNT Special series floundered after only 3 issues, which might give you an idea as to what the majority readership was more interested in.

“Times Pipeline” from Mark Bode’ was the first of the three TMNT Specials and man, is it ever a slog to get through.  Clocking in at 41 pages, this thing is so long it actually runs out of page space at the end.  The epilogue has to be printed on the inside of the back cover just to find some room!  This thing is long, yet doesn’t feel like it makes the most of its space.  Despite the generous length, the narrative is in a hurry to get from one place to the next and all important story elements are spewed out in awkward exposition rather than allowed to occur naturally.  It boils down to the Turtles running around from one zany predicament to another, making inane commentary all the while, with the actual plot elements necessary to tie it all together being thrown in as an afterthought.

I enjoy Mark Bode’s cartooning; he’s one of the better guest artists Mirage infrequently brought on back in the day, at least when it comes to these silly, surreal adventures.  His cartooning is great, but his storytelling and script-writing are another matter altogether.  I often wonder if he even has a script laid out before he works, or if he just keeps it all “in his head” as he goes along, page by page.  I’ve already talked about the poor pacing of this story and how it actually runs out of room at the end, which just screams “poor planning”. 

But then there’s his dialogue, which I have NEVER liked.  The commentary feels captioned into the art and rarely does anyone look or sound like they’re having an organic conversation.  Bode’ also suffers from what most of the guest contributors to TMNT suffered from back in the day, in that he doesn’t seem aware that the Turtles have unique voices or personalities.  All four Turtles talk in the same interchangeable slang and aside from Don trying to figure out the time transmat controls at the end, none of the characters display any, well, character.  So you end up with all the Turtles talking with these weird contractions and vulgarities, like Don saying “Eh?  What’s dis?” or “Quitchyer’ bitchin’!”

Bode’ tries to keep things energetic and weird and goofy, but it’s hard to feel any of those sensations when the lead characters are all so interchangeable and bland.

This special was dedicated to Mark Bode’s father, Vaughn Bode’.  I have no real experience with any of Vaughn Bode’s stuff, like “Cheech Wizard” or what have you.  I’ve seen the Ralph Bakshi flick “Wizards” several times and quite enjoy it, though I honestly don’t know how much of a hand Bode’ had in that movie beyond character designs or if it was even an adaptation of any of his work.  Still, I understand he was one of the more popular underground cartoonists of his day and many folks cite him as an inspiration.

The Turtles taking on “weird lizard-flaps” seems to have been a direct reference to Vaughn Bode’s art style (just superficially skimming his work, he used those “flaps” on quite a few characters).  It would have been a cute gesture, if only the TMNT would have stopped commenting on them throughout the length of the comic (again with that “captioned” dialogue).

So yeah, I’m not a big fan of this Special.  Mark Bode’s art is nice and this is probably the best coloring from Bill Fitts I’ve ever seen. That aside, it’s a real grind to read through.  Knowing how badly the TMNT Specials failed, I often get the feeling that the only reason people read these silly guest stories back in the day was because they were part of the ongoing and they "had" to.  Once these things separated from the main title, all interest in them apparently vanished..

Grade: D (as in, “Don’t know how many of these characters are taken directly from Vaughn Bode’s comics, and I just can’t be bothered to look it up”.)

TMNT New Animated Adventures #7

Publication date: January 15, 2014

Story: Brian Smith

Art: Chad Thomas

Colors: Heather Breckel

Letters: Shawn Lee

Edits: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

On a fire escape, Donnie and April are enjoying dinner together.  April asks why the other Turtles didn't show up and the Don explains that Leo is off training by himself and Raph and Mike are going to sneak into the movies together.  April goes down into the alley below and is confronted by a pair of Purple Dragons, whom she handily defeats.  No sooner does Don show up to give her a hand, Dogpound storms the scene.  April and Don make a break for it with Dogpound and the Purple Dragons in tow.

Down in the lair, Mikey reveals his scheme to get himself and Raph into “Legendary Fists of Steel 2”.  And that scheme involves drag.  Raph is hesitant, but as he really, REALLY wants to see the movie, he concedes to follow Mikey’s plan and puts on the dress.

On the rooftops, Leo is exercising when a throwing knife carrying a note whizzes past him.  It’s a challenge from Karai to keep up.  Leo spots her and sends his own reply, “tagging” her to try and keep up with him.  After a little runaround, they rest on the roof of the Argosy Theater.  Leo puts away his weapons and asks to have a serious chat with Karai.

Back in the alleys, Don and April attempt to hide in a dumpster, but Dogpound sniffs them out.  Realizing they need backup, Don leads April to the Argosy where they break in through the backdoor.  He tells April to find Mikey and Raph in the audience while he barricades the entrance.  Dogpound smashes through the door with ease and orders his Purple Dragons to raid the theater.  In the aisles, April spots Mikey and Raph (despite their disguises) and they rally against the Purple Dragons.

On the roof, Leo asks Karai that if there were no Foot Clan, does she think the two of them could be a team.  Karai ponders the suggestion for a moment, at least until Mikey comes crashing through the roof (having been flung by Dogpound).  Karai accuses Leo of trying to ambush her and dashes off.  Leo lets Karai go and instead chooses to help his brothers in the theater.

Leo immediately takes charge, and though the Purple Dragons are down, he knows that Dogpound is too strong for any of them to take in a head-on match.  He orders his brothers and April to distract Dogpound and keep him off balance, that way they can each strike and gradually whittle him down to size.  After a few decisive blows, Dogpound is out for the count.  As police sirens blare in the distance, the Turtles and April scram.

Down in the lair, Splinter greets his sons, but the Turtles are in no mood to talk about the evening they’ve had.  Splinter shrugs and sits down to watch “Legendary Fists of Steel 3” on TV.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT New Animated Adventures #6.  The story continues in TMNT New Animated Adventures #8.

*This issue was originally published with 2 variant covers: Regular Cover by Dario Brizuela, and Cover RI by Thomas.

Review:

For his first issue of New Animated Adventures, Brian Smith writes a pretty hectic tale with a nice gimmick (a “triptych”, I think it’s called).  Essentially, we start out with 3 separate narratives all themed around the concept of a “date”, though not a “real” date since Donnie has a one-sided crush on April, Raph and Mikey are brothers, and Leo and Karai are, like, "frienemies" or something.  The three narratives eventually converge at the end and everything comes together pretty well.

This was a big issue for villains, too.  It’s nice to see Dogpound treated like the hulking threat he was originally intended to be, whereas in his last appearance in New Animated Adventures he was defeated rather comically.  The cartoon treated him as this unstoppable force in his first few episodes, but quickly relegated him to buffoonery before the halfway point of season 1.  Smith recalls his more respectable portrayal from early in the series and Leo even points out that Dogpound is more than a match for all four Turtles combined and that they’ll need a strategy to stop him.  It’s not a GREAT strategy (they hit him one at a time until he falls over), but at least he isn’t treated like a total stooge.

Karai makes her debut in New Animated Adventures, running the same shtick she had in her first few season 1 appearances.  Smith kind of gets Karai’s chronology mixed up, though.  Mike mentions that Karai is Shredder’s daughter, but the Turtles didn’t learn that tidbit until the episode “Enemy of my Enemy”.  And the way they learned that was by trying to kill the Shredder and thus earning Karai’s hatred, eliminating the “friendly foe” relationship she and Leo had previously shared.  So either Karai and Leo shouldn’t be all buddy-buddy, or Mike shouldn’t know Karai’s parentage.

The other problem is that New Animated Adventures, as a supplement to the cartoon series, isn’t allowed to resolve any conflicts or character arcs from its source material.  So Leo trying to talk sense into Karai was doomed from the start, eliminating any tension of the subplot.

Chad Thomas, another newcomer to the title, takes on the art duties.  His style is looser and more cartoony than Brizuela’s or Archer’s and he employs a lot of the faux-anime sight gags that are so prevalent in the cartoon (which Brizuela and Archer have used sparingly, thus far).  You know, stuff like giant forehead veins and big sweat drops.  The gimmick is consistent with the show, though, so I’m not holding it against him.  Thomas draws perhaps the best April of the New Animated Adventures artists to date, I think.  He breaks model from her cartoon design, most importantly in regards to the shape of her head.  At the very least, she doesn’t look like some weird plastic doll.  Her feet are still humongous, but Thomas actually tries to shape them like feet, instead of those weird… hooves she’s got going on in her cartoon model.

Overall, while Karai’s inclusion might be problematic to the Continuity Police, it was refreshing to see Dogpound treated as a legitimate threat.  The three intersecting narratives made for a nice storytelling gimmick, too.  And while some of the gags were a little weak (I just don’t get why people think drag is so funny), I enjoyed seeing the Turtles throw melodramatic tantrums on the final page.  You know, like actual teenagers?

Grade: B- (as in, “Brian Smith must be British.  Those guys are obsessed with men dressed in women’s clothing”.)

The X-Files: Conspiracy #1

Publication date: January 15, 2014

Story: Paul Crilley

Art: John Stanisci

Colors: Steven Downer

Letters: Chris Mowry

Edits: Denton J. Tipton

Summary:

When conspiracy theorists and not-so-super sleuths the Lone Gunmen (Langley, Frohike and Byers) receive an encrypted file from C.E.R.N. (the large hadron collider) containing nothing but tabloid headlines, they decide to investigate the mystery.  The articles include supposed ghost-exterminators from New York City, reports of “manphibians” lurking about in the night, photos of robotic aliens that can change shape, and something called Skylogic Systems which doesn’t come up on any Google searches.  Even weirder, each paper is post dated from the future.

The Lone Gunmen take their findings to FBI Agents Mulder and Scully, who reveal that some of the articles about a killer virus tie into a murder scene they’ve been investigating.

Not long afterward, the Gunmen are attacked by ACTUAL gunmen (wearing business suits), who don’t like them poking around.  The Lone Gunmen go on the run, deciding to dig deeper into the conspiracy.

Turtle Tips:

*For the Turtles, the story continues in The X-Files/TMNT: Conspiracy #1.

*The X-Files: Conspiracy is a 6-issue crossover event linking together several of IDW’s licensed comic books with the X-Files.  Titles involved include Ghostbusters, TMNT, Transformers and The Crow (to be read in that order).  The one-shot tie-ins are bookended by a 2-issue miniseries, but the one-shots can never-the-less be read as standalones.

*This issue was originally published with 7 variant covers: Standard Cover by Miran Kim, RI Cover by Joe Corroney, Brian Miller and Hi-Fi Studios, RE Cover Hastings Exclusive by Carlos Valenzuela, and 4 glow-in-the-dark covers by Andrew Currie and Downer each featuring one of the four tie-in properties.

Review:

The annual IDW licensed property crossover is upon us!  Though the Ninja Turtles participated in 2012’s “Infestation 2” event, they skipped 2013’s “Mars Attacks” get-together (but that’s okay, because they'd already met the Martians in a “Mars Attacks” miniseries from the ‘90s).  For the sake of reminding everyone, IDW doesn’t handle its crossover/tie-in events the same way Marvel and DC does.  Each tie-in is wholly standalone and collecting the other titles to get the “bigger picture” is strictly optional.  I appreciate their consideration for my budget.

So far as this first issue in the bookending “Conspiracy” miniseries is concerned, Leonardo only appears in the splash page as a photo on one of the tabloids.  Unless you’re out to snag every last one-panel appearance of the Ninja Turtles, you can skip this comic without any fuss.

Grade: N/A (as in, “Now, I probably quit watching the X-Files somewhere around the first movie, but I thought the Lone Gunmen were dead?  I guess this looks like a job for Wikipedia…”)

Turtlemania Special #1

Originally published by: Metropolis and Robert Wilson

Publication date: 1986

Edited by: Robert Wilson

Cover: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

Cover color overlay: Don Orapallo

Contents:

*Turtletalk (A brief history of Eastman, Laird and Mirage, a brief peek at future projects, and a print run summary of Mirage publications)

*TMNT Pinup Gallery (Leonardo, Raphael, Leonardo again, Donatello, Leonardo yet again, Splinter, All 4 Turtles; art by Eastman and/or Laird)

*Corben TMNT Preview (2-page preview of “You Had To Be There”, by Eastman and Richard Corben)

*Rogues Gallery (Casey Jones pinup by Eastman)

*TMNT/Cerebus/Flaming Carrot Poster by Bob Burden (the Turtles, Flaming Carrot and a drunk Cerebus try to stop alien zombies with SPAM)

*Rogues Gallery (Pinups of the Shredder, Casey Jones: Crazy Man, Leonardo vs. the Shredder; art by Eastman and/or Laird)

*TMNT/Cerebus Preview (6-page preview of TMNT Vol. 1 #8)

*Donatello Preview (Sketch cover and 3-page preview of Donatello Microseries #1)

Turtle Tips:

*There are 3 versions of this issue: Regular/White cover (3,000 copies), Silver cover (100 copies, autographed), Gold cover (10 copies, autographed with original sketch).  Those Gold copies will cost you an arm and a leg (if you can find one).

*There was never a Turtlemania Special #2.

Review:

The Turtlemania Special is something a lot of folks out there own but I don’t really think appreciate (well, unless you own one of those Silver or Gold versions, in which case you appreciate it right to the bank).  By “appreciate”, I don’t so much mean the actual content of the special, but more so what it represents in the timeline of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

1986 was one year before the Fred Wolf cartoon and Playmates toyline turned the characters into a cultural phenomenon, but this special sort of marks the first spark of “Turtlemania” (as the title suggests).  Clearly, even before there was a TV show and boat-loads of merchandise, there was something about the Ninja Turtles that was catching peoples attentions; so much so that one individual (Robert Wilson) decided to self-publish a part-documentary/part-advertisement for the brand.  Not only that, but he got other indie comics names, such as Bob Burden and Dave Sim to lend either their art or their characters to the project.

TMNT was turning heads and catching on in a big way, and though what we recognize as Turtlemania in a pop culture sense was still a year off, I’d say it started right here.

That little history lesson out of the way, what about the content of the Turtlemania Special?  Well, much of it is dated to the point where some might find it “quaint” at best and “useless” at worst.  12 pages are dedicated to previewing comics that have been out for a decade and a half, now, leaving the thumbnails and rough pencils to be the only attraction for hardcore fans. 

The print run listing in the opening editorial is useful, at least as a first-hand source for that kind of information (though the official Mirage website has those numbers readily available and, well, they’re a first-hand source, too).  The editorial is more charming in that it offers quotes from a younger Eastman and Laird, back when they still had dreams of someday working for Marvel and DC (Laird says that he would like to work on DC’s The Demon, while Eastman pines to work on Marvel’s Daredevil).  There are other tidbits in there, like a working title for the Palladium TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG apparently having been “Turtlestrangeness”.

I guess that leaves the pinups.  Well, they’re neat!  Eastman and Laird art you may not have seen, though as pinups they’re perhaps a little bland; just the Turtles striking standard action poses.  I rather liked how Casey Jones was listed under the “Rogues Gallery” header alongside villains like the Shredder.  This was early enough in Casey’s life that his status as “friend or foe” was still up in the air (after his first appearance in Raphael Microseries #1 where he antagonizes Raph, but before his second appearance in TMNT Vol. 1 #10 where he joins the gang).

The Bob Burden poster is the usual Bob Burden/Flaming Carrot stuff.  Random nonsense that’s supposed to be funny, I guess.  But hey, I think it marks the first collaboration between Eastman, Laird and Burden (and the first official time Cerebus was seen alongside the Turtles, right?), so there’s that.

Anyhow, I’ve found myself fascinated with that little span of time between the TMNT’s debut in 1984 and their transformation into corporate mascots in 1987.  It was when the franchise was growing and branching out in strange ways, but still flying under the general public’s radar.  There’s a lot of neat stuff to dig up from that brief era, and while a lot of it may only attract the interest of Ninja Turtle history buffs, every tiny bit is a piece of history.