Originally published in: TMNT Magazine (Panini) #10
Publication date: January, 9 – February 5, 2014
Script: Landry Walker
Art: Cosmo White
Colours: Jason Cardy
Colour assist: James Stayte
Letters: Alex Foot
“Number One Fan”
Summary:
It’s the 20th anniversary screening of the
live-action “Space Heroes: The Motion Picture” and Leonardo has camped out on a
rooftop overlooking the theater. He
intends to watch all the aged cast members as they exit their limos and enter
the theater and completely nerd the hell out.
Tragically, his evening of fanboy idol worship is ruined when Baxter
Stockman shows up wearing his StockmanPod armor.
Leo and Baxter start going at it and Leo asks exactly why
Baxter hates “Space Heroes” enough to want to ruin the screening. Baxter reveals that he doesn’t hate “Space
Heroes”, he LOVES “Space Heroes”. He’s
just upset that he wasn’t able to get tickets before they sold out. In fact, Baxter even states that he’s the
Number One Fan of the franchise… a claim Leo immediately contests. Baxter then challenges Leo to a “Space Heroes
Trivia Contest… of DOOM!”
The two super-dorks begin trading vicious blows,
punctuating each attack with a suitably obscure “Space Heroes” trivia
question. Both fanboys parry the attacks
AND answer the questions without missing a beat. Meanwhile, on the ground, the fans waiting in
line for the screening see “a green alien” battling “a giant robot”. They laugh at the two wannabe “Space Heroes”
nerds, who they think got the events of “Space Heroes: The Motion Picture” mixed up with
“Space Heroes III”. Pffft. Posers.
The battle wages on for hours until both Leo and Baxter
collapse, completely exhausted. Baxter
concedes that maybe, just maybe, Leo qualifies as a “true fan”. Suddenly, it dawns on them just how long
they’ve been fighting and they realize the screening is over and done
with. Leonardo missed his chance to see
the cast in real life and Baxter missed his chance to ruin the festivities.
Baxter quotes a line from the TV series about “space
revenge” and then blasts off on his rocket boots, continuing to declare himself
the winner and Number One Fan. Not
looking where he’s going, Baxter crashes into a billboard. Leo shakes his head, delivers
a quote from episode 93 and declares the game over.
Turtle Tips:
*This story follows TMNT Magazine (Panini) #9. The next story in sequence is “The Art of Camouflage”.
Review:
This is the most inspired and entertaining comic based on
the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon I’ve read so far; IDW’s and Panini’s output
combined. Walker’s script is one of
those “it’s so crazy, it just might work” scenarios and guess what? It totally works.
Leonardo’s affection for “Space Heroes” has been one of
the best gimmicks to come out of the Nick cartoon and one Panini so far has had
no trouble in mining for humor. Walker
goes all out with this story, as the traditionally milquetoast leader in blue competes
for Alpha Nerd status against Poindexter Stockman. It’s basically what would happen if an
internet message board argument could be waged with super powers and it is
gloriously ridiculous.
And there’s this great underlying subtext to the story,
too. I hate it when fanboys play the “no
true fan…” card and try to be exclusionary with their hobby/obsession. It’s not helping anybody and to outsiders it
just looks like you’re “coming in first at the Special Olympics”, as they
say. It’s embarrassing. More than that, it sucks all the joy out of
the media they profess to love and turns it into a bitter competition. Walker encapsulates that
outcome so well, as both Leo and Baxter miss out of the screening because they
couldn’t stop measuring their nerd-boners.
When you compete for Alpha Nerd, nobody wins.
And there are lots of great little gags thrown in, as
Walker gets each character’s voice and reaction down flawlessly. Baxter tries to launch into one of his sob
stories about his childhood and Leo snaps him out of it because jeez, we only
have 7 pages. As they do battle, their
trivia answers get less and less detailed as they become more enraged with one
another, creating this great sense of escalation to the action. And man, I just love that bit where the crowd
looks up, sees them fighting and then laughs Leo and Baxter off as “posers” because they
seemingly got their cosplay wrong.
Cosmo White returns to the art duties and I love how dynamic and epic he makes
the action sequences look. He stages the battle like this is another “fate of the world” kind of
situation (melodramatic lightning bolts flashing in the background, intense angles
of perspective, etc), when in reality it’s just two dorks trading minutia back
and forth. It really adds to the comedy
of the whole thing.
So yeah. Best
story Panini has published so far and, well, it’s actually more fun than any of
the IDW issues I’ve read so far, too (and I’ve liked those quite a bit, don’t
get me wrong). Excellent work all
around.
Grade: A (as in, “Alpha Nerds are just Beta Males”.)
