Publication date: February, 2006
Writing, lettering, toning: Peter Laird
Layouts, penciling: Jim Lawson
Inking: Eric Talbot
Cover painting: Michael Dooney
Production assistance: Dan Berger
Summary:
On the Styracodon homeworld, a secret bunker operated by
a trio of Triceraton Commandos observes the landscape above. The Commander sees Michelangelo on one of their
hidden cameras and recognizes him from a long time ago. He decides to act before the Styracodons get
to him first.
Mikey, meanwhile, is still on the run from the prison
guards. He makes it to some old
farmlands and tries to eat a few dried out vegetables he recognizes from his
prison mush. Just then, a trap door
opens and the Triceraton Commander pops out.
Before Mikey can react, the Triceraton stuns him with a laser and drags
him into the bunker.
On Earth, the Guardifriend continues trying to drown
Shadow in the river. Luckily, Metalhead
shows up in the nick of time. He pulls
Shadow from the water and destroys the Guardifriend with his hair
tendrils. The Guardifriend tears off a
chunk of hair in the skirmish, but Metalhead reattaches it. Metalhead and Shadow then head back to
Stainless Steve Steel’s farmhouse for reinforcements.
In another dimension, Leonardo’s liquid portal opens and
he steps through. The portal returns to
a puddle of tap water, which Leo carelessly leaves behind on this alien
landscape. A weird deer-thing takes a
sip of it and freaks out (is this relevant?
I don’t fucking know). Leo
continues to explore the dimension: A dense jungle of ruins and strange
animals.
Leo comes across an alien creature named Jorut, who
speaks a language he can’t understand.
Jorut hits him with a Balponagu, a mosquito-like insect whose sting
allows the victim to understand all languages.
Jorut introduces himself as an official greeter for the Battle Nexus,
tasked with seeing that all visiting warriors find their way to the arena and
understand one another.
As they walk, Leo explains that he was not invited to the
Battle Nexus, but came after finding instructions left behind by his
master. Jorut is familiar with “Hamato
Splinter” and recalls a few of his Battle Nexus matches, including his fight
with “Thotan”. Along the way, Leo
wanders onto a platform and is suddenly surrounded by six armed aliens, all of
whom want to fight him.
Turtle Tips:
Review:
This… oh, this was a tedious issue. So much of the story involves the characters
wandering around and talking to themselves, describing everything they’re doing
in clumsy, excruciating detail. Three
freakin’ pages of Michelangelo eating space-corn and describing the texture and
flavor to no one in particular. And Leo…
he’s just… plodding through the jungle, contemplating the tap water he left
behind and then spending a whole page describing what it’s like to drink
water. TO DRINK WATER.
WHO are these characters talking to? This is the kind of stuff better suited to an
inner monologue; a thought balloon. How
the hell are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles supposed to function as ninjas
when apparently they talk loudly to themselves wherever they go? No wonder the Triceratons and Jorut got the jump on them.
And the stuff they TALK about isn’t even remotely
interesting. Corn… water… why do we need
to be reading this stuff? And for three
pages? What takes Mikey three pages to
contemplate and accomplish regarding his meal could have been covered in two
panels and a thought bubble. “Boy, I’m
hungry. Can I eat this? Looks like the stuff in my prison food, so I
guess so.” There. That is length and breadth of the content
contained within Mikey’s meandering drivel.
But we get to suffer it for three damn pages.
It makes it hard to tell just what is significant and
what isn’t in this comic. Was the
alien-deer sipping Earth tap water and freaking out of some narrative
value? Or was it just worthless bullshit
like Leo taking 8 panels to sip water from a stream? Was Metalhead reattaching his hair a plot
germ that will bear fruit issues later?
Or was it just something that was there for no other reason than to BE
there?
And beyond all that boring filler (and that’s what it is:
FILLER. Three pages of eating corn is
FILLER), this issue has a bunch of lettering errors in it. Sound effects aren’t italicized (making “Groan”
sound like the name of a Triceraton), words in sentences are repeated (“Those
are still on the on the stalk”), and words are misspelled (“If I don’t eat
something some”). This issue also
features one of the worst abuses of the ellipses in all of Volume 4. So much pointless dialogue and practically
none of it ends with a period.
Characters are constantly rambling… rambling… rambling… even when they’re making
declarative statements… and not talking to themselves… they still can’t use a
period…
But alright, let’s talk about something else. The Battle Nexus!
We’ll learn more about it in an issue or two, but in case
you don’t remember, the Battle Nexus actually originated from the 4Kids TMNT
cartoon that was airing at the time this comic was being published. Since Laird had such a direct hand in
grooming that show, he evidently felt no hesitation about adopting ideas from
it for the Mirage comics. Lots of 4Kids
concepts would show up in Volume 4 and Tales Volume 2, from the Foot Mystics to
Hun, but the Battle Nexus seemed like one of the biggest inclusions.
If this is the SAME Battle Nexus from the 4Kids cartoon,
I don’t think we’ve ever found out. With
the Turtles all existing in a multiverse, where alternate versions of
themselves can crossover and interact (as per Turtles Forever), you’d think
there’d be only a single Battle Nexus.
But who knows, maybe there’s more.
I guess if the Turtles all have alternate versions of themselves across
the multiverse, then the Daimyo and his court can have duplicates, too. But again, we don’t know.
It begs a lot of questions. Was the Splinter that Jorut saw participate
in the Battle Nexus the Mirage Splinter?
Or was it the 4Kids Splinter? Or
a different Splinter? And what does the
Battle Nexus have to do with the mystery warriors attacking the Foot and trying
to destroy that book they were publishing?
Nine years later and we still don’t know.
I’m trashing this issue pretty hard, but in all honesty
it is not a good comic. How someone can
script three pages of Michelangelo eating corn and think “this is the Ninja Turtles story that NEEDS to be told!” I’ll just never understand. But about six pages of content happen in this
issue and the rest is filler.
Water-sipping, corn-chewing FILLER.
