TMNT (Vol. 4) #21

Publication date: April, 2005

Writing, lettering, inking, toning: Peter Laird

Layouts, penciling: Jim Lawson

Inking: Eric Talbot

Cover painting: Michael Dooney

Production assistance: Dan Berger

Summary:

Mikey awakens in a dungeon populated with aliens and finds himself chained to a wall by an unbreakable molecular cable.  A Styraccodon tells him he’s in Royal Detention Center 17, a “black hole” prison where the Styraccodon’s send those they don’t want anyone to ever see or hear from again.  Mike insists that it’s all a misunderstanding, that the Regenta will set things right, but an elderly, blind Triceraton named Azokk warns him not to get his hopes up.

On the tepui, Glyminal tells Don that the Reptilians must be exterminated if they’re to have any chance of escaping.  Don suggests that instead of wiping out a sentient species, they instead use the shrinking ray on them so they can live out their live harmlessly in the habitrail.  Glyminal likes the idea and he and Don return to the habitrail to inform the explorers.

The humans are currently in a battle with the Reptilian that was brought into the habitrail unconscious with Donatello.  Glyminal uses the shrink ray on it and it falls into a river and begins happily hunting fish instead of people.

Down in the lair, Leo fits the mutated Raph with a new belt, though the bandana looks too silly on him to wear.  Leo checks out some fresh katana from the armory to replace the ones Three Moon Janguar broke, though Raph laments that he’s now too big to use his sai.  As they walk and talk, they mention that Mikey hasn’t returned to the Moon Island for his next tour guide assignment and risks getting fired.  Leo suggests Mikey just took Casey’s bike for a spin and lost track of time.

They meet up with the Fugitoid, who is using Don’s portable gene analyzer to check on Raph’s condition.  He informs Raph that he will no longer continue to mutate, but because his system has stabilized, he won’t be returning to normal, either.  Raph wants to get revenge on the “vampires” who did this to him and the Fugitoid informs him that the Kurtzburg Memorial officials have been on the case, but with no luck.

Back at the tepui, Glyminal returns all the humans and Utroms to their natural heights so they can go home.  However, when he tries the ray on Don, it doesn’t work.  He figures that Don’s unique mutant genetics are causing the problem, while Don isn’t too happy about being stuck in his shrunken state.

On a rooftop in Springfield, Casey asks April why she’s suddenly taken on the identity of Nobody. April says that after seeing what Renet showed her about her origins, she felt like “nobody” was the only identity she deserved.  Casey begs her to be honest with him and tell him what happened.  Realizing he deserves the truth, April starts to tell him a story…

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (Vol. 4) #20.  The story continues in TMNT (Vol. 4) #22.

Review:

The story arcs are all sort of shifting gears right now; the ones that were more exciting are slowing down while the ones that were tedious are ratcheting up.  It’s perfectly fine, as they can’t ALL be in action-mode all the time, and having them switch speeds at different intervals means we aren’t stuck with an “all-dialogue” or “all-action” issue.

Well, except for Don’s arc.  That shit has been nothing BUT tedious and it’s never gonna get any better.  But I’ll do these in order.

Mikey’s stuck in space-jail, doing space-time for his space-crimes and it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting space-parole anytime soon.  I love Mikey’s arc in Volume 4, and while I was cool with the rather long stretch of romance between him and Seri (the Regenta), I’m glad that it’s getting to the exciting part.  He’s going to be stuck in that hole for a while, but the tension builds steadily and some of the other alien prisoners will turn out to be interesting short-lived cast members.  Azokk has a wonderfully creepy design by Lawson and he’s one of my favorites of the named Triceratons in the series (up there with Zule and Zog).

And NOW we get to Don’s bit.  The fight with the Reptilian on the log spanning the moat should have been exciting, but the tiresome explanatory dialogue and the Reptillian’s stupid Gollum-speak effectively suck all the energy out of it.  Prior to that, four pages are spent with Donatello explaining to Glyminal that they should just shrink the Reptilians and, again, it takes the LONGEST route to describe the simplest concept.  Also, really?  The Venezuelan Utroms couldn’t come up with that complex strategy on their own?  “Shrink the Reptilians”?  Jeez, this doesn’t make Donatello look smart so much as it makes the Utroms look like simpletons.

Oh yeah, and Don’s stuck at 6-inches or thereabouts.  It’s been 10 years and he’s still that size.  Don’t expect any closure on that rather random dilemma anytime soon.

Although it IS interesting.  In this issue, Laird writes an extremely lengthy rebuttal in the letters column to a fan asking him why he couldn’t find some way to reincorporate the events of the Image TMNT Volume 3 series into Mirage continuity.  Laird, both delicately and not-so-much, explains that the Image series didn’t “feel right” and having it in continuity would distract and bother him, even if he never called back to it.  He didn’t care for where Carlson took the characters and didn’t want to try and fix the various mutilations the Turtles underwent, so he felt it was best to just forget the whole thing ever happened.

Yeah, he didn’t care for one-eyed Raph, one-handed Leo or cyborg Donatello.  But mutated Gameraph and shrunken (soon to be piloting a robot body) Donatello?  Aces.

The Leo arc, which had been the most fascinating of the storylines next to Mike’s, hits slow-motion for now.  Leo spends a really long time talking about their armory and why they have back-up weapons at the ready, as if we couldn’t figure that out on our own.  I did like how he and Raph took time to talk about Mikey’s whereabouts, at least intimating that they’re curious about where their bro is (rather than just plain forgetting about him).  The Leo arc is going to pick back up again, but I don’t think that’ll happen for a while. 

Raph’s arc is pretty much over and done with save for the formality of returning him to normal, so I won’t have much to say about him for the rest of these reviews.

And lastly, we have April and Casey.  April’s decision to become Nobody will amount to nothing; her melodramatic but cryptic explanation as to why she took the name is all we’ll get.  It was dumb.  But rather than talk about April and dumb storylines, I’ll save that for the next review.  It’ll be a doozy.

Poltergeist (2015) Review at AIPT

I made the time to go see the Poltergeist remake today.

Here's my full review over at AIPT.

Ultimately, it follows the original's story beat for beat, so of course you can predict everything before it happens.  They change up some of the details in visually interesting ways, I just wish they'd strayed from the original's path even more.

Pretty average, all thing's considered.

As for TMNT stuff, I'm currently working on a really big article that's taking me longer to write than I thought it would.  Hopefully I'll have it ready to go sometime next week.

Comics Interview Super Special: TMNT

Originally published by: Fictioneer Books

Publication date: 1990

Publisher: David Anthony Kraft

Interviews:

Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

Bobby Herbeck (1^st draft writer, TMNT: The Movie)

Todd Langen (screenplay writer, TMNT: The Movie)

Judith Hoag (April O’Neil, TMNT: The Movie)

Paul Beahm (Casey Jones stunt double, TMNT: The Movie)

Simon Fields (Producer, TMNT: The Movie)

Tom Gray (Executive Producer, TMNT: The Movie)

Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy), Ryan Brown, and Dan Berger

Ken Mitchroney

Dean Clarrain (again)

Mark Freedman (brand licensor)

Peter Laird (again), Steve Lavigne, Michael Dooney, and Eric Talbot

Turtle Tips:

*This trade paperback-sized Super Special collects interviews previously published in Comics Interview Special #27, Comics Interview Special #83 and Comics Interview Special #95.

*As a result of these interviews being reprints, some of the topics covered are rather out-of-date by the time of this publication, particularly the Eastman and Laird interviews from Comics Interview Special #27.

Review:

Look what I found at the bottom of my foot locker!

I was digging through there for not-porn and I rediscovered this old thing beneath piles of Heavy Metal magazines and those TMNT & Other Strangeness manuals that haven’t seen daylight since I wrote that old article about them.  Also binders of old Marvel Comics trading cards.  Worthless, worthless trading cards.

The interviews collected in this special are quaint and of their time, but holy shit there are a LOT of them.  And they’re damn thorough, covering just about every angle of Turtlemania, from the comics to the movies to the super boring behind-the-scenes business stuff.  Just about the only end of the spectrum not to get any coverage were the cartoons and toyline, at least not directly (guys like Brown and Freedman talk about them, but we get no words from folks strictly involved in those mediums).

Obviously, not all these interviews are going to be insightful.  I found the plethora of conversations with the folks involved with TMNT: The Movie to get pretty tiresome.  They all tell variations of the same stories (“I thought the name sounded really crazy when my agent told me about it!” “The animatronic suits were always breaking!”) and after two or three of these things you get the feeling the interviewees were all paraphrasing a single script of approved responses from a publicist.

One of the most common themes of the movie interviews is how everyone involved wants to make DAMN SURE readers know that they’re staying true to the Mirage comics.  Steve Barron and Eastman and Laird and the screenwriters and everyone else reiterates, under no uncertain terms, that despite the colorful bandanas and the presence of pizza, that the TMNT movie would be a Mirage comics adaptation, not a Fred Wolf cartoon adaptation.  I guess they knew their audience with these interviews (the magazine was called “Comics Interview” after all) and wanted to make sure they wouldn’t dismiss the film out of hand.

I guess my favorite story in the movie portion of the special, and one Laird has told many times over the decades, was the initial pitch he received for the film.  Apparently, the film was going to be a low budget spoof flick starring popular comedians like Gallagher, Billy Crystal and Howie Mandell in green face-paint.  Eastman, Laird and even Mark Freedman (the licensor) vetoed that idea in an instant.

The more interesting interviews were with the comics staff.  Or they were more interesting to me, anyway.  Steve Murphy (under his pseudonym, Dean Clarrain) gets two separate interviews; one about TMNT Adventures and another about the TMNT newspaper strip and other assorted odds and ends.  He goes off on tangents about the environment FREQUENTLY, not that I was surprised, and he’s constantly giving himself a round of applause about the political and environmental themes he’d be including in TMNT Adventures.  It’s a bit masturbatory, but it’s typical Steve Murphy.

What I found hilarious was that he makes the claim: “I don’t want to get too preachy in the book.  I would like to somehow hit this middle ground where environmental themes can be, say, the crux of a problem, or a part of an adventure.”  Shit, man, you wrote a half-yearlong storyline where the Turtles try to save the rain forest, only deviating momentarily to try and save the whales.  If that’s your idea of not being “too preachy” then dear god, I don’t want to see you on a soap box.

The best bit comes when he starts calling out Captain Planet and the Planeteers: “And Ted Turner’s got a show he’s working on with DIC Enterprises for Autumn release, an animated series called Captain Planet.  From what I’ve seen, they’re humans with one character who is super-powered… I’ve heard that it’s very preachy… They seem to just be fighting the evil oil spill captain; very blatant type of stories.”  Real pot-kettle-black stuff, right there.  I mean, sheesh, Murphy wrote a story where a heavy metal singer screams songs about the evils of Big Oil and wrote god knows how many comics about the evils of pollution.

If anything interesting came from Murphy’s interviews, it was the reveal that Man Ray/Ray Fillet was based on the flying manta rays from his own comic, Puma Blues.  I hadn’t thought about that before, but it seems obvious in retrospect.

Ken Mitchroney’s interview is fascinating, though the Turtles are only a small part of it.  At the time, Mitchroney was working in Hollywood on shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and actually drew TMNT Adventures on the weekends!  I find that amazing, especially considering how few fill-ins he required during his run and how great the pencils looked.

Mitchroney talks mostly about the landscape of the animation industry circa ‘89-90, and if you’re at all interested in American animation history then you’ll recognize most of the names he drops.  Apparently, every person in Hollywood who worked on cartoons knew each other back then.  What’s even more fascinating is just WHO he talks about with reverence.  He mentions what an honor it was to work with John Kricfalusi on Beanie & Cecil before spiraling into anecdotes about Tiny Toons.  If you have ever, EVER read an interview with John K., then you know how much contempt he has for Tiny Toon Adventures (and nearly every cartoon made after 1955).  I guess the respect wasn’t a mutual one.

Most of the other interviews center around promoting stuff that’s been out for over two decades now, so it can get a little dull on that end.  I mean, it’s fun to read the excitement from the creators about their new comics and projects, and you can feel a little smug knowing how those things turned out because we’re 25 years in the future, but the exercise gets old after a while.  This special is 121 pages long!

The whole book is punctuated with promotional images.  A lot of it is “the usual”; the same old Eastman/Laird stock TMNT artwork you see in every retrospective book or magazine.  There were a couple pieces in here that I wasn’t familiar with, like a neat one with 6 (!?) Turtles cosplaying as various Marvel Comics characters.  I think the only other piece I’d never seen before was a cropped image of the Mirage Turtles sneering with contempt at a billboard promoting the cartoon Turtles.  Anyone have an uncropped version of this?  It’d make a good Awesome Turtles Picture update.

So I guess the question now is whether or not the special is worth tracking down on the aftermarket.  Well, it’s a mixed bag of content, but considering the sheer size of the thing, that was bound to happen.  While some of the interviewees are insufferable and a few seem interested in talking about anything BUT the Ninja Turtles, several of the tidbits they drop are rare and fascinating.  The editors get pretty obscure with who they contact; I mean, the stunt double and the 1^st draft writer?  So you get to hear insights from people at every leg of production, big and small.

Many of the stories are repeated between interviewees and there are times when the interviewer talks more than the guest, but it’s a good firsthand source for quotes and facts.  And I’ve always loved this promotional photo of Michelangelo outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Wacky Races Forever: The 2006 Series Revival Pilot (Review)

This week's animation review at AIPT gets a little obscure (even by my standards).

In 2006, Cartoon Network pitched a revival of Hanna-Barbera classic Wacky Races, titled "Wacky Races Forever".

The pilot attempted to blend Western and Japanese aesthetics (banking on Japan's inexplicable affection for Wacky Races), but it didn't go anywhere.

Never-the-less, it showed some potential, even if I didn't care much for Jim Cummings as Dick Dastardly (he's just using his Darkwing Duck voice).

No new TMNT comics this week, except maybe the TMNT/Ghostbusters #1 Director's Cut (but that might not be coming out tomorrow).  I'll just keep plugging away at those TMNT Movie Prequel comics this weekend.

TMNT: Mutanimals #3

Publication date: May 6, 2015

Story: Paul Allor

Art: Andy Kuhn

Colors: Nick Filardi

Letters: Shawn Lee

Edits: Bobby Curnow

Summary:

At the train yard, Slash tells his (non-lethal) strategy to Mondo, who hotwires an old truck.

Inside the train, Hob and the other Mutanimals are introduced to Ray and Sally Pride, other experiments of Null’s.  Sally insists that she could drive the train to freedom if she could just get out of her cell (having been reflex-tested on driving sims at the lab), but Hob has a better idea: Wait for Slash and Mondo.

Slash and Mondo jump from the truck to the train and get inside the car, only for the car to fill with guards.  They overwhelm Mondo instantly and force him into a cell.  They try the same thing on Slash, but seeing the cages makes Slash lose his mind.  He rampages, hurling guards out of the train and ripping the bars off the cell doors.  His violence derails the train and it crashes.  Everyone is okay, but even after Slash calms down, his friends still fear him.

Lady Null arrives via chopper to the roof of her building.  A pair of guards inform her of their failure to keep the mutants locked up and she isn’t happy.  Jillian and Lindsey then arrive and Null tells them she plans to start over and have a new batch of mutants ready by the next fiscal year.  Lindsey tells her that after seeing her organization, she has to make a moral objection and quit.  Null informs her that mutant technology now exists and it WILL be used by someone, somewhere, and so she would be better off benefitting from it.  And anyway, if she tries to quit, she’ll get tossed off the roof of the skyscraper.  Lindsey tries to call Null’s bluff, but Null proceeds to grab one of the guards who failed her and drain him of his life, turning him into a withered corpse.

In the elevator going down, Lindsey and Jillian get into a fight.  They exit into a stairwell so the cameras can’t see them and Lindsey accuses Jillian of lying to her about Null’s intentions.  Jillian says that she had no choice; she was in too deep and needed someone to help her get out.  Just then, guards show up to escort them back to the lab.

At Mutanimals HQ, Slash is bummed about how he lost control and how everyone was afraid of him.  Hob tries to cheer him up just as Pete walks in, finishing the tour for Ray and Sally.  Sally wants to destroy the lab, suggesting that one of Null’s familiar experiments return and setup an ambush (hearing this, Mutagen Man sneaks away).  Ray suggests that the lab isn’t the root of the problem; they need to get to Null-herself.  She’s vain and cruel, wanting to crush her opponents personally, and Hob figures they can use that to draw her out.

Later, Pete is installing nightlights in the HQ when he finds Mutagen Man in the bathroom, messing with his suit’s wiring.  Mutagen Man asks what kind of nightmares Pete has and Pete talks about what scared him when he was just a normal pigeon.  Mutagen Man confesses that his nightmares are much different.  He then flees the HQ, running past Mondo and Herman, who try to stop him.

Mutagen Man arrives at the lab claiming that his suit is malfunctioning and the guards bring him to Lindsey and Jillian.  Lindsey is horrified at the sight of Mutagen Man, but Jillian brushes her off and promises to help the mutant.  Mutagen Man shows them the broken part of his suit, but reveals that he rewired it himself.  He’s overheating and in a few minutes he’ll explode, taking them all with him.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT: Mutanimals #2.  The story continues in TMNT: Mutanimals #4.

*This issue was originally published with 2 variant covers: Cover A by Kuhn and Filardi, and Subscription Cover by Ben Bates.

Review:

While this issue didn’t feel so much like it moved the story along (aside from the daring rescue and Mutagen Man going suicide-bomber), it was rife with little character moments.

We get a little glimpse at Mondo’s rebellious, punkish side as he hotwires that truck.  Kinda calls back to the Archie series, where he knew how to pick locks (or the Fred Wolf cartoon, where he was an out-and-out crook).  It’s a small thing, but it illustrates that he’s not just the vacuous skater dude and there’s a more devilish streak to him.

I liked Pigeon Pete’s little talk with Mutagen Man about nightmares.  Pete was never experimented on in a lab or horribly tortured, no, but his fears stem more from the life-or-death, eat-or-be-eaten existence he endured before he was transformed.  So even the comedy relief character gets a moment of heart.

As for Slash “hulking out”, well, I’m not so sure if that’s the direction they should have gone with the character.  So basically, Slash is a highly intelligent, gentle and thoughtful individual until something makes him angry, then he loses control and turns into a berserk cyclone of indiscriminate destruction.  Does that sound like anybody else to you?

Yeah, so what the fuck is IDW going to do when they get around to introducing Leatherhead?  The Jekyll/Hyde or Banner/Hulk thing is essentially Leatherhead’s entire stock and trade.  But Slash has just called dibs on that archetype.  So is Leatherhead’s whole shtick going to wind up feeling redundant alongside Slash?

Or maybe IDW will surprise us and we’ll get Cajun swamp trapper Leatherhead!  Hey, I can dream.

This issue was mostly “little talks” between the characters, which did a good job getting into their heads or defining their relationships, but doesn’t leave me with too much more to discuss.  The characters sort of exposit or explain their feelings during these talks, so there isn’t a whole lot for the audience to think about.

Regarding the action, well, after the recent Amtrak derailment that happened right after this issue was published, I think we all know you don’t just walk away from a train derailment without a scratch on you.  Even without the tragedy in the news, that moment was still pretty goofy.  Kuhn draws the derailment as this big disaster full of twisted metal and fire, yet everyone just brushes themselves off with a “meh”.

As for the new characters, Sally and Ray, we still don’t have the best feel for them outside of broad strokes.  Sally is wild and hotheaded while Ray is more pragmatic and patient; but then, we figured that much out from their brief dialogue last issue.  I’m sure they’ll get more to do as things progress, we just don't have a lot to go on, yet.

Oh, and Null sucked a guy dry (his lifeforce, I mean).  Makes me wonder what her deal in the scope of the IDW universe is, now.  Is she a literal demon from Hell like Archie’s Null?  Or is she maybe connected to the Pantheon alongside Kitsune, Rat King and Chi-You?  All of them are based on regional folk lore and mythology, so with Null taking on a very cartoonish appearance of a devil, she would fit right in.

Anyway, this issue was a lot of talking, but at times it was like it was talking to the reader, not the characters.  “This is how I feel”, “this is my story”, “this is my personality”, “this is my evil plan”.  I get that exposition and awkward phrasing is a necessary evil for reader benefit, but it was just a lot crammed into a single issue, that’s all.

Grade: C+ (as in, “C’mon, Mutagen Man.  We JUST had a conversation last issue about how the Mutanimals don’t want to act like terrorists and now you’re going to turn into a suicide-bomber?  In one ear and out the other with that guy”.)

TMNT Movie Prequel #2 - Michelangelo

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Jake Black

Pencils: Mr. Exes

Inks: Ryan Brown

Letters: Eric Talbot

Cover: Santiago Bou

“The Continuing Story of Cowabunga Carl”

Summary:

Donatello and Michelangelo have perfected their “mascot” idea in the form of Cowabunga Carl, a costumed entertainer who does birthday parties and sporting events.  Basically, Mikey dresses with a huge foam turtle head on while Donnie works IT from the back of their van.  The pair head over to a hockey game, where Cowabunga Carl has been hired to entertain a bunch of shelter kids that Casey has brought along.  Suddenly, a thug snatches a purse from an old lady.

Despite Donnie (through an earpiece) repeating Splinter’s warnings about not interfering in the surface world, Mikey chases after the thug.  Following him through a maze of hallways and doors, he accidentally winds up on the ice.  He’s tackled by security and brought to a back office until the cops arrive to question him.

Mikey radios Don who looks up the building schematics and finds a vent Mikey can use to climb out.  Meanwhile, Casey distracts the guards with a false fire alarm and once the coast is clear, he joins Mikey in his escape.  Once on the roof, Casey tells Mikey he has to get back to the shelter kids he’s supposed to be chaperoning and wishes him good luck.

After reconvening with Don, Mikey sees the thug escaping in a car and they give chase.  Along the way, they pass the Nightwatcher on his motorcycle.  Mikey practically worships the vigilante, thinking he’s the coolest, but Donnie doesn’t trust him.  Unfortunately, the thug gets away, though Donnie slipped a tracking device onto his vehicle.

Mikey heads over to a suburban neighborhood to entertain a birthday party while Donnie keeps tabs on the thug.  By pure coincidence, the bad guy drives into the suburb where Mikey is.  Mikey, wanting to be just like the Nightwatcher, stands in the middle of the street and forces the thug to stop his car.  He then beats him up and regains the purse (which he later delivers to the old lady’s home).

Back in the lair, Splinter berates the two for interfering in the surface world AND for forgetting to bring him a slice of birthday cake.  He warns that if they ever try to play heroes again, he will forbid them from continuing their Cowabunga Carl business.  Mikey whines that with Leo off training and Raph brooding who-knows-where, he and Donnie just want to find their own path and do the right thing.  Mikey sighs and hopes that someday he can be just like his idol: The Nightwatcher.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #1 – Raphael.  The story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #3 – Donatello.

*This issue was reprinted in TMNT Comic #4 and TMNT Comic #5 with new colors by Junior Tomlin.

Review:

So yeah, this was kind of a dumb story.  

Author Jake Black plays up Splinter’s command that the Turtles not “interfere in the surface world”, though I’m starting to wonder how that makes any sense.  In the 2007 movie, Splinter explains that he forbade them from fighting crime because their team was fractured and they weren’t mentally or physically ready.  Okay, that made enough sense, but last issue Splinter had ALREADY ordered them to stay away from the “world of men” even when they WERE all together and working as a team.

So right away, Splinter’s reasons for not wanting the Turtles to go to the surface and fight crime are faulty at best.  I mean, the REAL reason he won’t let his sons nab purse-snatchers is because the writers need to manufacture tension for the narrative.  More and more, Splinter’s irrationality is making that fact obvious.

But yeah, Mikey’s dilemma in this issue is that he wants to help people and do the right thing because he has a good heart and all that, but Splinter won’t let him.  The idea is fine, but like I said, when the excuse is so flimsy and contrived (Splinter is just being a dick, basically), it starts to fall apart. 

Mikey is also shown worshipping and fawning over the Nightwatcher (unaware that it’s Raphael’s alter ego), repeatedly giving “when I grow up, I wanna be just like him!” speeches.  I didn’t think the Turtles were so young that they’d still be doing the whole “when I grow up” thing.

Also, escaping from security shouldn’t have gotten Mikey off the hook.  The cops already know that they need to arrest Cowabunga Carl.  And presumably, the Cowabunga Carl business is listed in the phone book or on the internet or something.  Realistically, this should have killed Mikey’s mascot enterprise.

The art from “Mr. Exes” is… not very good.  I think I understand why he chose to use a pseudonym (that sounds like an internet message board handle).  Facial features are so over-detailed that characters look positively geriatric.  Even the little kids that Casey brings along to the game look like midget octogenarians.  And hell, I wasn't even sure that cro-magnon was supposed to be Casey until Mikey addressed him by name.  

“Exes” even resorts to that cardinal sin of the lazy artist: Copy and paste.  He frequently copies panels and then pastes and repeats them with either no changes or minor alterations and it looks really bad.  The scene where Mikey stops the car and the page where Splinter scolds them are the worst offenders (the scolding scene in particular, as he uses the same drawing of Splinter across four separate panels).

If Mirage’s website is accurate, then all these prequel comics came out in the same month, presumably just a week apart.  They all wind up looking really rushed and low quality, with this issue being one of the least appealing.

Grade: D (as in, “Damn, I forgot to explain why Casey was chaperoning a bunch of shelter kids.  Oh wait, Jake Black forgot to write an explanation into the script!  Silly me”.)

TMNT (1987) Season 6, Part 2: Review

Okay, I'm still working my way through this unremarkable season.  Here are another 5 episodes reviewed, though it cost my sanity.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) Season 6, Part 2: Review at AIPT!

In this batch, the Turtles fight a Freddy Krueger parody, a Phantom of the Opera parody (again), killer restaurant animatronic animals 20 years before Five Nights at Freddy's was a thing, and also Slash.

I'll confess that I enjoyed the Slash episode quite a bit.

Tag!

Originally published in: TMNT New Animated Adventures #22

Publication date: April 29, 2015

Story: Matt K. Manning

Art: Marcelo Ferreira

Colors: Heather Breckel

Letters: Shawn Lee

Edits: Bobby Curnow

“Tag!”

Summary:

The Turtles meet up in Chinatown for a training exercise.  It seems their tracking skills need brushing up, so Leonardo suggests they play a game of tag.  He tags Raphael and the game begins.

Raph hunts along the rooftops, following marks made by Donatello’s bo staff being dragged along the ground.  He realizes the trail is a decoy, finds Donnie hiding by an access door and tags him.

Donnie decides that baiting is more efficient than tracking and procures a pizza.  He sets it out and Michelangelo is immediately drawn to it.  Donnie springs out and tags him.

Mikey goes looking for Leo while eating his pizza and finds him in an alley, seemingly distracted.  Mikey tags him, only to be attacked by Kraangdroids.  They knock the pizza out of his hands and Mikey goes bonkers, trashing all of them.

Raph and Donnie show up and get the last Kraang, but just as Raph begins to brag about his speed, Leo tags him and the game resumes.

Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in TMNT New Animated Adventures #23.

Review:

Wow, this was a GREAT back-up; probably one of the best in the whole New Animated Adventures series.  Reading the summary, it may not sound like much, but it all comes down to the execution.

The story's done in first person perspective and each time a Turtle is tagged, the POV switches to the victim.  As they begin hunting the next Turtle, we’re treated to an inner monologue that delineates their thought process, strategy or lack of either of those things.

The inner monologues are pretty on point.  I especially liked Mikey’s; how he’s completely distracted by the pizza even after he’s tagged, yet he’s intuitively drawn to Leo.  The cartoon established that Michelangelo is the most effective when he acts without thinking and this was a good example of that “skill”.

The back-up turned out to be more interesting than the main story in this issue, but both Manning and Ferreira really brought their A game.  It was clever and fun and a pretty refreshing changeup.

Grade: A (as in, “And I loved Mikey’s line: ‘Old people are the craftiest people of all, Donnie.  Who do you think quilts?’”)

Natural Enemies, Part 2

Originally published in: TMNT New Animated Adventures #22

Publication date: April 29, 2015

Story: Paul Allor

Art: Dario Brizuela

Colors: Heather Breckel

Letters: Shawn Lee

Edits: Bobby Curnow

“Natural Enemies, Part 2”

Summary:

At the pier, the Turtles fight their way out of Spider Bytez’s webbing and then make a break for it as Spider Bytez and Baxter Stockman rain acid down on them.  Spider Bytez corners them into a dead end and hurls webbing balls filled with acid at them.  They scale the shipping containers and keep running as Spider Bytez gives chase.  Donatello finally knocks the arachnid down to the ground and the other Turtles tell him to surrender.

It was all a distraction, though, as Stockman comes plowing through in a truck hauling the red shipping container full of gold.  Leonardo finally asks Spider Bytez why he would work with Stockman and the slob tells him about their gold heist plan.  Leo explains that gold is only shipped in blue containers, meaning Stockman is pulling a fast one.

Furious, Spider Bytez knocks over the truck and opens the container.  It’s full of robot scrap; the very thing Stockman said he was going to buy with the “gold”.  Spider Bytez turns on Stockman, who offers him half the robot parts.  Before he can throttle Stockman, Spider Bytez sees a truck hauling a blue container and chases after it.  Raph asks Leo how he became such an expert on shipping containers and Leo admits that he made the whole thing up.

Later, back in the lair, the Turtles tell Splinter that they were able to chase Stockman and Spider Bytez off once they stopped working together.  Leo also admits that it was his fault the villains began a partnership in the first place.  Splinter assures him that screwing up when your're young only means you’ll grow up to be wise.  This excites Michelangelo, who figures he’ll grow up to be a genius.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from “Natural Enemies, Part 1”.

Review:

This is about as interesting as Spider Bytez has ever been.  I think teaming him up with another villain helps a lot; he’s pretty boring on his own but operates as an interesting foil when paired with someone else.  Beyond the spider and fly thing, teaming him with Baxter Stockman was a good choice, seeing as how Spider Bytez is a slovenly clod and Stockman is a genius.  The two played off each other pretty well, even if this wound up feeling a little short (though both parts combined for a full-length 22 pages).

Allor’s script is perhaps a little too preoccupied with breaking the fourth wall and satirically poking fun at itself.  It opens with the realistic revelation that spider webs, no matter how big, could never hold a person.  The narration even interacts with the characters to set up the gag.

Donatello gives a lengthy explanation as to how Spider Bytez could put his acid in a ball of webbing without it immediately eating through the webbing, eliciting commentary from Michelangelo.  It’s another lampshade moment, yeah.

Then there’s the bit where Don remarks that he preferred Spider Bytez and Baxter Stockman as humans, perhaps echoing some fan criticism of the cartoon, as a number of folks found the mutant henchmen more interesting before they were mutated.  Personally, I think that’s entirely true for Bradford and Xever, though Stockman and Spider Bytez don’t seem to have suffered much in the transition.

I don’t mind all the self-aware jokes, really, it just seemed like Allor crammed a few too many into 12 pages.  All things considered, though, this was a pretty fun two-parter.  The season one mutants seem to be mostly forgotten in favor of the newer action figures, so just on principle it’s nice when a story remembers they still exist and drags them out of limbo.  Snakeweed can stay there, however.

TMNT New Animated Adventures #22

Publication date: April 29, 2015

Contents:

*"Natural Enemies, Part 2"
*"Tag!"


Turtle Tips:

*This issue is continued from TMNT New Animated Adventures #21.  The series continues in TMNT New Animated Adventures #23.

*This issue was originally published with 2 variant covers: Regular Cover by Dario Brizuela, and Subscription Cover by Meaghan Carter.

TMNT: Free Comic Book Day 2015

Publication date: March 2, 2015

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz

Script: Tom Waltz

Art: Mateus Santolouco

Additional art: Dan Duncan, Ross Campbell, Cory Smith

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

“Prelude to Vengeance”

Summary:

Down in the lair, Splinter tends to the badly injured body of Donatello, whose mind remains separated and trapped in the robot Metalhead.  Splinter reflects on how he’s dedicated both his human and mutant lives to his principles, and how that has cost him so dearly time and again.  He sees Donatello and the sacrifice he made for his father and for the world and vows to do everything in his power to see his son well again.

On a rooftop, Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo watch a Purple Dragon gang rally in the streets.  Evidently, without Hun constantly watching over them like he used to, they’ve gotten rowdy and directionless.  The Turtles wonder if the Mutanimals might be of any help in quelling the riot, but apparently they’ve been lying low.

The Turtles reflect on all they’ve been through, from Leo’s transformation into Dark Leo, to the fall of the Savate, the rise of the Foot Clan and the battle of Burnow Island.  They think about all the allies who have helped them in their battles: April, Casey, Angel/Nobody, Harold, Alopex and even the Mutanimals.  And they need all the help they can get, what with Donatello trapped in Metalhead’s body and Karai swelling the ranks of the Foot Clan with mutants like Bebop, Rocksteady, Koya and Bludgeon.  Their only saving grace is that General Krang has been taken to a Neutrino prison and that Shredder is missing and presumed dead.

Below, the Dragons start destroying property and Leo figures they might as well beat some sense into them.  The Turtles leap down to the streets and begin trashing Dragons when Hun finally shows up.  He blames the Turtles for turning Casey against him and begins smacking them around.  Just then, Bludgeon and Koya show up, telling Hun that Karai wants to know why he deserted the fight at Foot Clan HQ.  The two mutants get distracted fighting the Turtles and Hun takes the opportunity to slip away.

As things start to look bleak, Donatello/Metalhead arrives and uses his firepower to keep the hench-mutants at bay.  The Turtles escape, though Don loses control of Metalhead’s vehicle mode and crashes into an alley.  His brothers pick him up and tell him he’ll get the hang of Metalhead’s body sooner or later.  Don hopes to be in fighting shape ASAP, as he feels something big is on the horizon...

In a factory, the Shredder oversees Baxter Stockman as he builds an army of Mousers and Flyborgs.

Turtle Tips:

*This story takes place between pages 20 and 21 of TMNT (IDW) #46.

*This special comic was available only on Free Comic Book Day at local comic shops.

Review:

Free Comic Book Day!  It’s like Christmas in May!

I don’t grab as many freebies on FCBD as I used to; just the ones that connect to the titles I’m subscribed to, which is admittedly very few.  Best to leave the rest of those goodies for the kids and see if they can get hooked.

FCBD giveaways vary from year-to-year, title-to-title.  Sometimes it’s all-new material, sometimes its selected reprints.  This year’s TMNT giveaway from IDW is a little of both, mixing recycled artwork and recaps with some brand new bookending sequences to give us a bit of fresh action.  It isn’t as lavish as their 2013 TMNT FCBD giveaway, which was essentially a completely original 22-page issue, but it’s pretty nice for what it is.  Better than straight reprints, anyway.

I’m not yet sure on the continuity of the thing; if it takes place between #45 and #46, or #46 and #47.  Bobby Curnow said the former, I think, and I trust the guy who edits and co-plots the book, though the presence of Hun conflicts a little with how he appeared in #45.

Eh.  I’ll wait until #46 comes out and if the continuity’s fucked I’ll change the Turtle Tips. (EDIT: Curnow clarified that it takes place during TMNT #46, so I changed the Turtle Tips.)

Now, as a recap issue, the dialogue used to contextualize all the flashbacks is stilted and clunky as heck.  A lot of awkward reminders about stuff none of the characters should be forgetting.  “Hey, remember how April’s our friend?  Yep, she sure is our friend.  Good ole April.”  But it is what it is.  I dunno who laid out the flashback pages, which are assembled from panels of art going back to the beginning of the title.  You get several different artists on the same page, but the layouts actually look pretty good, tessellating all those panels that weren’t meant to go together.

The fight with Hun, Bludgeon and Koya runs about 5 or 6 pages, though it’s more of a tease than anything else.  As soon as the fight with Hun starts to get good, the hench-mutants scare him off.  Then as soon as the fight with the Turtles and the hench-mutants starts to get good, Donatello/Metalhead creates a diversion and gets his brothers out of there.  But as a free sample book to get potential readers hungry for the $4 main course, it works perfectly well.

Now, if you missed out on this comic because you don’t have a local comic shop in your area or FCBD isn’t a thing in your country?  It doesn’t seem particularly essential to the narrative.  It’s mostly recaps and the fight doesn’t amount to much, sort of leaving everything where it was between issues so as not to disrupt any vital continuity.  We don’t really learn anything we didn’t already witness in #45: Donnie’s a robot, Hun’s having a falling out with the Foot, Shredder and Stockman are teaming up. 

So don’t beat yourself up if you couldn’t find a copy.  The Santolouco artwork on the original pages is the real attraction, but there’s nothing storywise that can’t be skipped.

Grade: Clip Show.

TMNT (IDW) #45

Publication date: April 29, 2015

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz

Script: Tom Waltz

Art: Mateus Santolouco and Charles Paul Wilson III (pgs. 1-2, 7, 14, 20-21)

Colors: Ronda Pattison

Letters: Shawn Lee

Editor: Bobby Curnow

"Vengeance, Part 1"

Summary:

Donatello awakens in some sort of spiritual limbo where he is greeted by Tang Shen.

In Harold’s lab, the Fugitoid arrives from Neutrino through the portal only to see Don’s lifeless body.  He runs a scan and finds that Donnie is still clinging to life, but barely.  He tells the other Turtles, Nobody and Alopex to get Donnie’s body to the freezer/server room in order to slow down his metabolism.  He then tells Harold to activate the portal and send him to Burnow Island so he can fetch some equipment.  Splinter, hearing that his son is still alive, begins to meditate.

Splinter’s astral form arrives in limbo, which takes the form of a massive hedge maze.  He begins to navigate the maze, determined to bring his son’s spirit back.

At Foot HQ, Karai, Bebop and Rocksteady survey the damage, trying to find Hun (not sure if he’s dead or a deserter).  Koya and Bludgeon then arrive with the news about the battle at Burnow Island and that the Shredder is no more.  Karai takes charge, saying that she’ll let Kitsune determine whether her grandfather is truly dead or not.  In the meantime, she intends to cull the ranks of the Foot Clan of all outsiders and cowards, hoping to rebuild it even stronger in the Shredder’s absence.

At a grocery store in New York, a trio of Purple Dragons are shaking down the owner.  Casey arrives and beats the snot out of them, sending them away.  The owner, Arune, thanks him and Casey gives him a cricket bat in case they come back.  Arune then warns him that their leader, a big guy, was hanging around, too.  Casey realizes that must be Hun, whom he spots storming into the Second Time Around shop.

In limbo, Donatello is confused as to where he is.  Tang Shen asks her son where he wishes to go.

Back in the lab, the Fugitoid and Harold begin hooking Donnie up to a bunch of weird medical equipment.  After securing a helmet to Don’s head, the Fugitoid then activates the machine.

Outside the freezer, Raph throws a fit, insisting that they should have dealt with the Shredder first like Splinter wanted; if they had, Donnie would be OK.  Michelangelo tells Raph to shut up; that by focusing on Krang, they saved the world and Donnie would be happy with what they accomplished.  Raph storms out and Alopex follows him, hoping to calm him down.  Leonardo says that Raph was right in that the Shredder needs to be dealt with.

At Baxter Stockman’s apartment, the Shredder wakes up and attacks his savior.  Stockman keeps him at bay with his Flyborgs and offers him a deal.  He’ll combine his genius with the Shredder’s wealth and resources, but only as equal partners.  The Shredder agrees to consider the proposition, but on the condition that their first project is to eradicate Splinter and his family.

In limbo, Tang Shen gives Donnie a ponderous speech about light and dark, how the two balance each other out and which direction Donnie wants to go in.  She vanishes as Splinter arrives and the rat guides his son back to Earth.

Donatello awakens in the lab, only to discover to his horror that his mind is in the body of Metalhead.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT (IDW) #44.  The story continues in TMNT (IDW) #46.

*Tang Shen last appeared to Leonardo and Splinter in TMNT (IDW) #30.

*This issue was originally published with 5 variant covers: Cover A by Santolouco, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RI by Zach Howard, Motor City Comiccon Exclusive by Simon Bisley, and Ottawa Comiccon Exclusive by Adam Gorham and Paris Alleyne.

Review:

Been a crazy month.  Even news outlets picked up the story about Donatello’s “death”.  I guess there wasn’t enough real news going on in the world over the past 30 days.

Of course, if they were any measure of journalists, they’d have read the Free Comic Book Day special that Diamond published half a year ago which revealed, surprise surprise, Donnie ain’t dead.  But I bitched about that enough last review.

Anyway, I hope you speculators sold those armfuls of TMNT #44 you bought up, because it’s too late to jack up the price, now.

But, I mean, yeah.  Did anybody REALLY think Donnie was going to die?  C’mon.  My irritation at the Free Comic Book Day leak was more a matter of principle; IDW should do a better job of maintaining the integrity of its storylines or at least be more judicious about what preview material they share with Diamond half a year ahead of time.

So yeah, Donnie’s gonna be okay.  He’s Metalhead now, but he’ll be okay.  It’s an interesting turn of events, maybe a little reminiscent of the Image TMNT Volume 3 series, where Don cheated death by getting turned into a cyborg.  Waltz and the rest work it into the tapestry of the series nicely; I presume that’s menta-wave helmet technology that put Don’s consciousness into the robot body.  Like everything else in IDW’s TMNT series, the pieces all fit together very snugly.

Tang Shen appearing to Don to give him a pep talk was a nice callback to the Northampton arc and her powwow with Leo and Splinter.  I guess this is what she does, now.  It’s a bit repetitive, but it’s still fascinating to see the Turtles with a mother figure still active in their lives (even though she’s dead).

The speech she gives Donnie is a lot of ponderous pseudo-philosophical babble.  It’s a two-page merry-go-round of a lecture about light and dark, seen and unseen, and the balance between them.  In the end, it’s just a long way of asking whether he wants to live or die.  Hmmm, such options.

Also, did Casey Jones just win a fight?  In an IDW comic!?  Saints be praised!

I’m being snarky, but you’ve probably noticed by now that I’ve taken considerable umbrage with what a pathetic joke IDW Casey has become over the past few years.  From the standpoint of the narrative, I can sort of see it.  He’s been through physical turmoil (Shredder stabbing him) and emotional trauma (Hun being his dad), so he hasn’t been on his A-game for a while.  But man, it’s been a WHILE.  He just keeps getting beaten up and humiliated and he hasn’t come out on top since, like, 2012.  It’s been no fun being a Casey fan.

Admittedly, he only manages to smash three nobodies this issue, but baby steps.  We’ll see how he handles himself against Hun next month; if he continues to be IDW’s doormat or if he finally starts acting like Casey Fucking Jones again.

Also, Foot stuff, but eh.  Just Shredder and Baxter teaming up and Karai possibly undermining her grandfather’s authority.  We’ll see how that plays out.  I’m more interested in seeing Karai finally come into her own as a character than whatever Shredder’s got in store.

Also, Santolouco is back.  I’ve started to see what people are talking about with his Turtles; they are very “cutesy” looking.  Compare to how he drew them back in Secret History of the Foot Clan and they look like they’ve actually gotten younger over the past few years.  It doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother a lot of other people, but I do think I’m starting like Cory Smith’s Turtles over Santolouco’s, if only because they don’t look like they’re eleven years-old.

That said, man, this guy can layout a page.  Casey’s comeback rubbed off as such a big deal to me because Santolouco made it look so dynamic and kinetic.  I mean, it’s just Casey whooping three nobody punks, but jeez did it look good.

Charles Paul Wilson III also shows up for the Tang Shen pages.  IDW always dusts him off for sequences involving Feudal Japan or Tang Shen and he’s really become synonymous with that corner of the IDW TMNT universe.  I dunno if he colors his pages himself or if Ronda Pattison does it, but I love the softer touch with all the visible brush lines.

Anyhow, I didn’t see a title anywhere, but I think we’re into the “Vengeance” arc.  Unless IDW changed the name of the storyline leading up to #50.  It’s all building up pretty nicely and while this was sort of the standard “breather” issue between big event arcs, it didn’t come off as being any less tense thanks to all the suspense with Donnie.

Grade: B (as in, “But did Shredder’s hair get twice as long between issues?”)