Originally published in: TMNT New Animated Adventures #13
Publication date: July 23, 2014
Story: Landry Q. Walker
Art: David Alvarez
Colors: Heather Breckel
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
“Lesson Learned”
Summary:
In the dojo, Raph is lifting an excess amount of weights
and Splinter warns him not to overexert himself. Right on cue, Raph throws out his left shoulder. Splinter grounds him, telling him that it is
his own fault for pursuing brawn over brains and that he must stay in the lair
until he heals.
Later that night, the other Turtles go out on patrol and
Raph wanders off down the sewer tunnels to sulk. He’s suddenly attacked by a pack of
mousers, but handily trashes them even with one arm. Unfortunately, their digging causes a cave-in,
trapping Raph in the tunnel. He tries to
send a signal to his brothers on his T-phone, but the damaged device shorts
out. With no choice, Raph has to think
his way out of this predicament.
Grabbing one of the decapitated mouser heads, he fits it
over his right fist and uses its hinged jaw and powerful teeth to break through
the solid rock. The other Turtles,
following his partial T-phone signal, eventually find him after he’s dug his way
through the rubble.
Later, at the dojo, Raphael explains to Splinter how he
used his brains to get out of the cave-in.
Splinter tells him that all he did was find a new way to punch his way
out of a problem, but he’s impressed with his son’s ingenuity regardless. Unfortunately, Raph also disobeyed him by
leaving the lair, so Splinter double-grounds him. Raph protests until Splinter pinches his
shoulder, causing the Turtle to pass out from the pain.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from “April’s Way”. The story continues in TMNT New Animated Adventures #14.
*The Mousers first appeared in the season 1 episode “Mousers
Attack!”
Review:
Like “April’s Way”, this is another story with an overt
message to be delivered, making for a very education-oriented issue of New
Animated Adventures. That aside, it was
fun to see the mousers again, as in nearly all universes they tend to vanish
into the ether after they’re introduced.
What REALLY rocked about this story was the art from
David Alvarez. His style is really fluid
and expressive. The characters are
constantly in motion and seen from more dynamic, perspective-enhanced angles
that really makes his stuff pop. Yeah,
he uses the “anime” reaction faces I don’t like, but to be fair he’s just keeping in
tune with the cartoon (which uses them too).
Hopefully we’ll see more of this guy.
Grade: B (as in, “But years of playing TMNT games on the
NES left me with the impression that the mousers were a bigger deal than they
ever were in the cartoons or comics”.)
