Publication date: February, 2003
Writing, lettering, inking, toning: Peter Laird
Layouts, penciling: Jim Lawson
Inking: Eric Talbot
Cover painting: Michael Dooney
Production assistance: Dan Berger
Summary:
Robyn, Don and Dr. Klynor arrive at the grave of Robyn’s
and April’s parents to collect a DNA sample.
After doing so, Don suggests they pay the O’Neils a moment of respect
for desecrating their graves.
In Northampton, a mysterious man on a motorcycle races
through the streets, carrying a package.
He’s familiar with the town and is grateful to be back. He arrives at Stainless Steve Steel’s farmhouse
and takes off his helmet, revealing himself to be Mr. Braunze. Steve greets him, as apparently they’re old
friends, and he thanks him for coming out and for bringing the item of precise
specifications.
Braunze greets Metalhead and Splinter (though his mental
powers can’t get very far through Splinter’s psychic defenses) before sitting
down with Jay. He tells Jay that he’s an
excellent judge of character and asks him to repeat his story once more from
the top.
At the Utrom moon island, Casey, Raph and Mikey are
blowing off some steam in the gym. Mikey
notices that Cha Ocho is keeping a watchful eye on Leo, who is practicing with
bokken. Ocho approaches Leo and
challenges him to a sparring match and Leo accepts. The two duel with their bokken, but as soon
as Leo starts to get the upper hand, Ocho resorts to fisticuffs. Leo responds in kind and eventually defeats
Ocho. He tells Ocho that he’s skilled
but, pointing to the scar on his face, reminds him that he’s overconfident.
Before things can escalate further, Karai steps in and
reprimands Ocho for his shameful behavior.
As she leaves, she tells Casey that she hopes April will make a full
recovery.
Back at the farmhouse, Braunze concludes that Jay’s
telling the truth. Satisfied with Jay’s
character, Braunze decides to finish the interrogation and hypnotizes Jay. Jay awakens later in the woods with what
looks like his intact rifle. All he
remembers is going out to do some hiking and target practice and decides to
head home. Watching in secret, Steve
compliments Braunze on the exact replica of Jay’s rifle that he brought with
him.
At the moon island, Casey, Robyn and the Turtles gather
in April’s hospital room to hear the DNA results from the Fugitoid and Klynor. The tests prove that Robyn is the
biological offspring of Mr. and Mrs. O’Neil, but April is not. Robyn asks if this means April is adopted, but
Klynor says that anomalies in the results indicate it may be something more
serious.
Suddenly, April starts to spasm and shriek in pain. A bio-scan quickly concludes that Stockman’s
nanobots have switched into disassembler mode and are tearing her apart from
the inside out.
Turtle Tips:
*April and Robyn’s father died in TMNT (Vol. 1) #56. Their mother was mentioned as being dead in
the same issue.
*Chronologically, Braunze last appeared in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #49.
*This issue also included a TMNT-themed crossword puzzle
created by Peter Laird, and a bonus pin-up of the TMNT by Peter Laird and
Norman Lee.
Review:
Hey, Braunze is back!
That was… a fruitful subplot.
Maybe. It’s been a long time
since I read through all of Volume 4, so this is a bit of rediscovery for me,
but does Braunze ever do anything of substance in this volume? I mean, I don’t remember him doing anything
worthwhile after his big reintroduction.
So with that in mind, this arc with Jay was nothing more than a lead-in
to Braunze, but what does it matter when Braunze never does anything?
It’s sort of like all the hype for Cha Ocho (another
subplot in this and the past couple of issues).
Ocho doesn’t do a damn thing in this volume (now THAT I remember), so
what was the point of all the build up?
It peters out and goes nowhere.
While it’s nice to be reminded of the rich and colorful characters that
populate the Mirage TMNT universe, it doesn’t really do them any justice when
they show up for no other purpose than to say “Hi. I exist!”
And there isn’t much more to say about this issue. April’s subplot is spent verifying
information that was already revealed to us last issue. So while it’s vital in a, er, realistic sort
of way (gotta check, doublecheck and triplecheck the facts) it doesn’t do much for the reading
experience. Being made to watch the
Utroms fact-check themselves is about as thrilling as watching Michelangelo eat
a bowl of cereal for 8 pages. “Realistic”,
sure, but exciting and suspenseful? Not
really.
There’s a 3-page segment in this issue, where Braunze
rides into Northampton and remarks on the landscape and local businesses. It feels very authentic and I imagine it was;
the Mirage crew were often in and out of Northampton so I’m guessing each namedrop
and every street corner was true to life, circa 2003. While it was neat, it was also a little
self-indulgent, as aside from the Mirage crew, only a small minority of TMNT readers are going to “get” all
those references.
But I’ll cut it some slack, since as far as Volume 4’s self-indulgence
goes, this was nothing.
