Publication date: December, 2005
Writing, lettering, toning: Peter Laird
Layouts, penciling: Jim Lawson
Inking: Eric Talbot
Cover painting: Michael Dooney
Production assistance: Dan Berger
Summary:
The smiling alien unleashes the Guardifriend on
Shadow. She tries to escape, but the
tiny robot is incredibly strong and destroys her dirt bike. It pursues her into the forest, wanting to “play”
with her. Shadow calls Stainless Steve
Steel on her cell phone, but gets the answering machine (her message is heard
by Metalhead, however). Shadow continues
running, accidentally dropping her phone in the process.
Leo follows the ritual on the scroll, drawing symbols on
the wall, pouring water on the floor beside it and chanting in a specific
way. The water creates a doorway to
another realm and Leo decides to walk through it. As he enters, the doorway collapses back into
a puddle.
In the Styracodon prison, a weakened Michelangelo begins
to lose hope that he’ll ever escape.
Meanwhile, the blind Triceraton Azokk smells the newest prisoner: An O’Quaqui. Seizing his chance, Azokk tears a limb from
the alien with his teeth and pours its blood on his shackle. He then urges Mikey to do the same without
getting any of the blood on himself. The
alien blood, acting like an acid, dissolves the shackles. Mikey then manages to defeat the Styracodon
guard and the pair escape.
Azokk and Mikey make it to the prison wall. Azokk, however, is quickly dying due to the
alien blood he got on his face. He tells
Mikey to go on without him and with his last ounce of strength, gives Mikey a
boost to the top of the wall. Mikey
looks back and sees that Azokk has dissolved and died.
On Earth, Raphael, Donatello, Casey, the Fugitoid and the
NYPD Xenosquad interrogate “Count Yorga”, one of the vampires who bit Raph and
mutated him. With the police’s
permission, the Fugitoid takes a blood sample from the “vampire”, as he
believes it contains an infectious alien agent.
And back in the woods, Shadow is still being pursued by
the Guardifriend. She tries to escape
downriver on an old canoe, but the Guardifriend can swim. It crushes the canoe and then drags her
underneath the water.
Turtle Tips:
*I think the NYPD Xenosquad characters are Sergeant Xitor and the unnamed
Police Captain, who first appeared in the short “The Grape”
and would infrequently appear in stories after that. They aren't addressed by name and are drawn a little differently in this
issue, so I’m not sure.
Review:
Alright, Mikey’s escape from space-jail! This was one of those moments from Volume 4 I
actually managed to remember pretty vividly, as it was one of the rare instances
where something freakin’ happened.
Mikey’s stay in prison was a cool little arc that didn’t
outlast its welcome. I think he was only
in the joint for 3 or 4 issues before breaking out, so the whole experience
didn’t have the chance to devolve into stagnating tedium. Azokk was an interesting character, and while
I would have liked to have learned more about him, he ultimately serves his
purpose. His death by alien blood was
pretty brutal, especially for this comic.
As for Mikey’s storyline, we'll kind of be entering into that “tedium”
situation I remarked upon last paragraph.
He’ll have adventures from this point on, but it’s another case of
“its ten years later and we still don’t have any answers as to why any of this
happened in the first place”.
Regarding Leo, I know I said I’d talk about the Battle
Nexus in this review, but I thought we were actually going to see the Battle
Nexus in this issue. So it’ll have to
wait until next time. The synergy with
the then-current 4Kids TMNT cartoon was an exciting touch at the time; the
Mirage comics for years had avoided cross-pollination with the mainstream TMNT
brands outside of small gags, so this was something of a new experience for
fans.
“Count Yorga” gives a blood sample. That’s… pretty much all that happens in the
Raph/Don/Casey arc. I think those are
the NYPD Xenosquad characters who appeared in the Professor Obligado serial and
Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #58, but I’m not sure (they’re unnamed and drawn a
little differently). If it is them, then
that’s a neat reference, since those characters hardly ever appeared,
otherwise.
Shadow is getting chased through the woods by an annoying
robot, which is suspenseful, but there’s also some neat juxtaposition. In TMNT (Vol. 4) #6, Jay was caught spying on
Shadow and was chased through the woods by the diminutive robot, Metalhad. Now, Shadow just got caught spying on Jay and
is in turn being chased through the woods by the diminutive robot,
Guardifriend.
Okay, so maybe it isn’t THAT clever, but it’s
something. And I’m actually looking
forward to seeing Metalhead in the comic again.
All in all, this upsurge in action in Volume 4 has been
very welcome. While I think we’ve pretty
much gotten all the answers we’re ever going to get out of this series (at
least speaking from the year 2015), there are still some suspenseful moments to
enjoy through to the end (or the last hiatus).
Even the Don and Raph arc is about to get a little better in coming
issues. Can you believe it?
