Publication date: October 2006
Story: Steve Murphy
Art: Steve Rolston
Letters: Eric Talbot
Frontispiece: Andy MacDonald
“Shanghaied”
Summary:
Frontispiece: In an alley somewhere, Raphael is doing
battle with a giant praying mantis-man.
He says he hates a lot of things, especially aliens that have no right
messing with Earth. One thing he LOVES,
however, is a cold beer. That reminds
him of a story…
At Wally’s, a bar that serves both Earthlings and aliens,
Raphael is enjoying a drink when he notices the guy next to him looks
familiar. He strikes up a conversation
with him and it turns out the barfly is Cha Ocho, the Foot Soldier Leonardo scarred
to “make a point”. Raph asks Cha if he’s
still with the Foot Clan and Cha says yeah, but that he hasn’t been called into
work for a while. Raph asks the
bartender, Cookie, to bring them both a couple of boilermakers.
Cookie steps into the backroom and is gone for a while,
then returns with the drinks. As soon as
Raph and Cha imbibe them, though, they pass out. “Cookie” then carries the two drunks, as well
as the unconscious body of the real Cookie, to a trap door. “Cookie” turns out to be a robot using a
holographic disguise. The robot then
binds Raph and Cha and loads them onto a conveyer built, carrying them through
a series of tunnels toward a spaceship.
Raph and Cha come to, but only after they’ve been brought
into the ship. They break their bonds
and begin attacking the robots. Seeing
the hatch closing, Raph jams it with a sai so they can escape. Unfortunately, the spaceship (which was
disguised as an abandoned tenement down the street) has already begun
takeoff. The two leap from the ship and
manage to tumble down into a pile of trash.
As they recover, they ponder whether the people and
aliens that were kidnapped will be used for slave labor or food. Limping out of the garbage, they both agree
they need a stiff drink after that caper.
They decide not to go back to Wally’s, though.
Turtle Tips:
*As Cha Ocho says he hasn’t done any work for the Foot
Clan in a while, this story likely takes place during the 6 month time gap in
TMNT (Vol. 4) #5.
*Leonardo scarred Cha Ocho’s face in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #6. Ocho will return in TMNT (Vol. 4) #6.
*Raphael’s friendship with Cha Ocho will continue into
the future, as seen in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #69.
*This issue also featured a bonus story, “Channeling”
by Fernando Pinto.
Review:
This is a really short tale, not so much because of
length (22 pages) but because it reads FAST. Rolston lays the pages out with large, “widescreen” panels that span the
entire width of the page and you’ll rarely encounter more than four panels at a
time. He and Murphy also make use of
extended silences which, again, makes the reading
experience fly by.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. I’ve complained about decompression before,
in stories like “Donatello: The Brain Thief”, but the difference here is that
this is a one-off scenario and not an extended narrative. And the “fly by the seat of your pants” story
works well with the hasty panel work, as the pages whisk by. Yeah, it only took me 5 minutes to read, but I
found this is one of those Tales of the TMNT issues I really remember.
It’s something of a sequel to “Scars” in that,
chronologically, this is our second glimpse of Cha Ocho. I wasn’t too kind in my appraisal of “Scars”
and I had a bone to pick with Ocho. That
bone, though, had more to do with the fact that he was so heavily built up and
then nobody did anything with him afterward; he was all hype. “Shanghaied” is one of the few stories to
actually try and follow through on the promises from “Scars” and it gives us a
glimmer of the character Ocho could have been if the writers had felt compelled
to develop him beyond an origin.
The idea present here is that Ocho hates Leonardo… so
naturally he and Raphael get along swimmingly.
It’s an interesting exploration of both their characters, as neither
seems to hold any animosity toward the other despite their allegiances. Ocho’s hatred of Leo doesn’t extend to Raph
and likewise Raph doesn’t want to pummel Ocho just for being Foot. It’s a levelheaded look at the characters,
who are both known for being impulsive and letting their anger get the better
of them.
And, again, it all winds up being an almost-completely
discarded concept. The idea that Leo and
Ocho are bitter rivals but Raph and Ocho are drinking buddies never got utilized
beyond this tale. “Dark Shadows” is the
only story, I think, that ever references Raph and Ocho’s friendship again.
The overall conflict, the robots harvesting Earthlings
(and aliens visiting Earth), is neat because it’s one of those moments where
the bad guys aren’t fleshed out or given motivations or defeated. Raph and Ocho stumble into their trap, escape
by the skin of their teeth and just move on with their lives. They don’t play the heroes or anything like
that. It’s very different from the usual
stuff, making it rather light reading, but also unique. In terms of the chronology, I like to think
this happens during the time gap early in Volume 4 (because of Ocho’s statement
about his employment frequency). The
idea that these people-harvesters immediately descend upon a new planet
contacted by the Utroms shows how Earth attracts the best and worst of the
alien cultures via First Contact.
“Shanghaied” is a pretty good tale, if a very short and
sweet one. It’s one of the few to try
and live up to Cha Ocho’s hype and if we’d had more of these he might not have
been such an embarrassment. It
definitely stands out in the Tales of the TMNT canon and is worth a look.
Grade: B+ (as in, “But those robots kinda reminded me of
big versions of the robots Gyro Gearloose used on DuckTales”.)
