Originally published in: TMNT New Animated Adventures #11
Publication date: May 14, 2014
Story: Derek Fridolfs
Art: Dario Brizuela
Colors: Heather Breckel
Letters: Shawn Lee
Edits: Bobby Curnow
“Partners”
Summary:
Down in an alley, Michelangelo is reading an issue of
Weather Warlock. While attempting to
copy the title character’s signature “Terrible Tornado” attack, he accidentally
smashes the head of a Footbot that was sneaking up on him. Mikey spins out of control into the path of
an oncoming truck while the damaged Footbot reboots. Malfunctioning, the Footbot identifies Mikey
as “friend” and saves him from getting run over.
Imprinting Mikey as his leader, the Footbot proceeds to
follow him. Mikey realizes he can’t take
the Footbot home (not after what happened with Leatherhead), so he orders the
Footbot to stay in an abandoned water tower.
The next day, Mikey visits the Footbot with a longbox of
comics. He wants the Footbot to be his
new sidekick so they can fight crime.
The Footbot scans the comics and understands his orders. After getting some costumes, Mikey and the
Footbot become the superheroes “Captain Karate and Sparky”. The two gaudily clad do-gooders proceed to
fight crime all across the city; their exploits being relayed on TV for the
other Turtles to see.
A few nights later, on a rooftop, Captain Karate meets up
with the Turtles and reveals his secret identity to them. Naturally, they figured it out a long time
ago. They’re hesitant about Mikey
hanging with a Footbot when suddenly Karai and a unit of properly functioning
Footbots attack. Karai wants to reclaim
Sparky, as he’s Foot Clan property.
In the midst of battle, Spark saves the other three
Turtles from the evil Footbots. He sees
Karai about to stab Mikey in the back and leaps in front of the blade. Karai impales him and Sparky goes offline
from the damage. Enraged at the loss of
his sidekick and friend, Mikey chases Karai down and knocks her off the
rooftop. Rather than let her fall to her
death, he saves her, because that’s what heroes do. Karai calls him a fool and escapes.
Later, in the lair, Mikey confesses to Master Splinter
that he didn’t make much of a hero, having let his own sidekick fall in
battle. Splinter corrects him, saying
that through his example, he was able to teach a ruthless killing machine how to be a hero. Mikey, now more
enthusiastic than ever to “lead by example”, attempts to take command of the
TMNT’s sparring session. Instead, Raph
just pummels him.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT New Animated Adventures #10. The story continues in
“Cooking With Kraang”.
*The Footbots were first introduced in the season 2
episode “Follow the Leader”.
*Mikey references the time he brought Leatherhead back to
the lair in the season 1 episode “It Came From the Depths”.
Review:
Michelangelo’s love of superhero comics is something that’s
existed in practically every incarnation of the character. Michelangelo wanting to be a costumed
superhero, though… I think that was something the 4Kids cartoon introduced
(unless I’m forgetting one of the billion episodes of the Fred Wolf cartoon,
but I think only Donatello took on a costumed crime-fighter persona in that
show). It’s one of his more obnoxious
modern traits and the “Turtle Titan” stories were uniformly some of the worst
episodes of the 4Kids cartoon.
Fridolfs has a limited amount of space to work with, so
the superhero concept spans a whopping 3 pages; the careers of Captain Karate
and Sparky consisting of an introduction, a montage and then a televised
summary of their exploits. So in that
regard, the superhero-wannabe shtick is actually NOT the focus of this story
and doesn’t have the opportunity to get as irritating as any of the “Turtle
Titan” shit from the 4Kids show.
The real heart of “Partners” is Michelangelo befriending
(and very quickly losing) the malfunctioning Footbot named Sparky. The truncated length of the story does sort
of hurt the authenticity of their friendship, as we kind of gloss over their relationship. While I was rather glad the whole Captain
Karate bit was compressed into a montage, we really don’t get to see much of Mikey
and Sparky bonding; their emotional connection is to be taken on face value alone.
While you don’t really “feel it” when Sparky dies, I did
appreciate Splinter’s summary of the moral on the final page. Mikey, in his own way, was able to teach
honor to a robot that was programmed to kill.
Admittedly, he did so by damaging the robot and then ordering it to scan
a bunch of comic books, but it’s the lesson about setting a good example and
swaying even the most seemingly irredeemable foes to the side of good that
counts. This is a kid’s comic, after
all.
Grade: C (as in, “Come to think of it, is this the first
time we’ve ever seen any of the Nick Turtles with their bandanas off? Have they ever removed them in the cartoon?”)
