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”.)
