Publication date: May 29 – June 24, 2015
Script: Jennifer Keating
Art: Bob Molesworth
Colours: Kat Nicholson & Jason Cardy
Colour assist: James Stayte
Letters: Alex Foot
“Nano Your Business”
Summary:
In his lab, Donatello is working on repairing the tPhones
when Leonardo grabs him: There’s a Kraang plot to foil! As Donnie and his bros head to yet another
Kraang facility and smash up their plans, Donnie laments that every time he
gets started on a project, duty calls. Suddenly,
he has an epiphany.
Later, back in his lair, Donnie introduces the nanobot
M.I.T.E. (Miniature Intelligent Technology Engine) to his brothers. MITE can take raw materials from throughout
the sewer, form them into useable parts and then complete assigned
projects. As the Turtles leave on
patrol, Donnie shows MITE some schematics and assigns it to repair the tPhones.
When they return, Don is pleased to see that MITE
completed the job. However, what he
doesn’t notice is that MITE harvested the parts from some of the electronics
around the lair…
As the week passes and the Turtles are occupied thwarting
the Kraang, the Foot and the Purple Dragons, MITE completes increasingly more
complex projects for Don. At one point,
Don returns to the lair to find that MITE has replicated itself in order to
finish the workload. Don is concerned
about the initiative at first, but is soon blinded by the possibilities. As the Turtles leave to take down some thieves in an escape van, the MITEs find a payload of Donnie’s
blueprints and get to work.
The Turtles chase the van down in the
Shellraiser, but every time they try to launch an attack, one of their weapons
malfunctions. They eventually stop the
van via dumb luck, but when Don takes a look under the Shellraiser's hood, he’s horrified to find it cannibalized for parts. He realizes now that the MITEs have been
taking the lair apart to build his projects and the Turtles rush back home.
Returning to the lab, they find a swarm of MITEs building
all of Donnie’s dream projects, including the useless and unfeasible ones. They try to stop them with force, but the
MITEs are too small for them to destroy.
Donnie tells his brothers to seal all the doors in the lab and just
wait.
Eventually, the MITEs use up all the resources in the lab
and, having nothing else to work with, begin taking each other and themselves
apart. After a while, no MITEs are left active. Donnie is glad the problem literally took
care of itself, but ponders where he’s going to get new raw materials to fix
everything they destroyed.
In the end, the Turtles go dumpster diving.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT Magazine (Panini) #27. The story continues in TMNT Magazine (Panini) #29.
*Leo mentions Don’s disastrous attempt at reverse-engineering Kraang tech via the tPod in “I Think His Name is Baxter
Stockman”.
*The parsing “tPhone” and “T-Phone” are used
interchangeably in this issue. I’ve
still yet to determine which is the “right” one, but since it’s an iPhone
spoof, I’m guessing the former is correct.
Review:
You know, for all of Leonardo’s bitching about how the
world rests on his shoulders and the tremendous burden the leader must carry,
it really is Donatello who does the lion’s share of the work.
Whenever they need a new weapon to stop an
enemy, Donatello has to invent it and build it.
Whenever they need a new vehicle to cruise around in, Donatello has to
retrofit some old van or blimp or something. Whenever one of them is poisoned or mutated,
Donatello has to come up with a cure or retro-mutagen.
I mean, just look at what’s on his plate in the
Nickelodeon cartoon right now. He’s got
to cure Mutagen Man, he’s got to cure Karai, he has to cure his brothers
whenever the Creep or the Parasitic Wasps turn them into goop or zombies, he
has to constantly come up with new inventions to save the day, and ALL while
carrying his share of the physical burden that comes with going out and
fighting ninja and mutants and aliens.
Jesus Christ, Leonardo’s got nothing on all that.
At times, it makes me sort of hate Donatello, as he becomes
this deus ex machina to conveniently resolve a conflict at the last minute
(character poisoned by Fishface? He can
cure them! Character turned into goop by
the Creep? He can cure them! The Kraang hanging out in an underwater
base? He can build a submarine!). Admittedly, Donatello’s almost always been
this way, but the writers tend to think of “science” rather childishly, as if
there were no such thing as different scientific disciplines even the greatest
minds in the world have to spend a lifetime focusing on.
Donatello can accomplish whatever the plot needs him to
accomplish, just so long as the conflict has a solution that can be described
as “science”. I swear, just because you’re a rocket scientist that
doesn’t mean you can also be a brain surgeon.
Anyway, this comic doesn’t necessarily address Donatello’s
“jack of all trades” science prowess, but tries to approach the matter that
there aren’t enough hours in the day for him to do everything he does. Granted, it doesn’t solve that problem, but
it’s nice to see it acknowledged.
While the script isn’t a knee-slapping comedy, I did like
the pacing of the story as Donatello’s thrill at MITE’s initiative soon gives
way to concern. The manner in which he
tricks the MITEs into defeating themselves was pretty good, too, though one
questions why they didn’t just tear down the walls and doors with their lasers.
All in all, a pretty good story. It inspired me to go off on a tangent, and
that’s always nice.
