Publication date: January 27, 2016
Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Michael Dialynas
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
"Order from Chaos, Part 4"
"Order from Chaos, Part 4"
Summary:
In the secret munitions warehouse, Hun attacks Michelangelo, hellbent on
revenge for everything the Turtles have put him through. Old Hob stumbles in, too late to stop the
fight.
At Mutanimal HQ, Mondo Gecko tells the others that Mikey
went off to follow Hob in secret. Man
Ray and Herman the Hermit Crab share a worried glance, which Sally Pride
immediately notices (though they deny hiding anything from her and the
others). At Sally’s insistence, all the
Mutanimals (save Pigeon Pete, who is still cooking) leave to investigate. Little do they know, they’re still being
followed by the mysterious Agent Winter.
At the warehouse, Hob makes an attempt to calm Hun down,
but Hun smacks him away and begins throttling Mikey. Before Hun can beat Mikey to death, Slash
arrives and the two go toe-to-toe. At
first, Hun has the upper hand, but then Slash devolves into a savage berserker
and wrecks Hun. Hob manages to calm Slash
down by informing him that Hun is working for the Mutanimals.
The Mutanimals all want answers and Hob explains that
their operation cannot survive without some sort of income. Should they come up against Null or Stockman
or some other nefarious group, they’ll need resources. So he’s been stockpiling the weapons and
goods they’ve stolen from the mob and used Hun to fence them on the black
market. Slash tells Hob that he
understands his reasoning, however, he cannot be a member of an organization
that puts weapons back on the streets.
As Slash leaves, Hob asks the others if they feel the same way. The other Mutanimals express their concerns,
but none choose to quit the team.
However, Sally demands more transparency from Hob in the future.
Once everyone leaves, Hob turns to Mikey and slashes him
in the shoulder. He tells Mikey that he
won’t forget what he’s done and he will never forgive him.
Mikey goes to see Slash on the pier and asks if he’d like
to come stay with him at the lair. Slash
says that in the past he’s been an experiment for Stockman and a soldier for
Hob, but now he wants to find his own path.
He tells Mikey that he’ll always consider him his own personal hero and
then slowly swims off into the distance.
In the waters off of Burnow Island, Colonel Knight
introduces Sergeant Alex Winter to the leader of their organization: Agent
Bishop.
Turtle Tips:
*Colonel Knight originates from the Fred Wolf TMNT animated series. He appeared in the season 8 episode "State of Shock".
*Agent Bishop originally appeared in the 4Kids TMNT animated series, premiering in the season 3 episode “Space Invaders, Part II”. He went on to become a primary antagonist (and later ally) for that series.
*This issue was originally published with 4 variant
covers: Regular Cover by Dialynas, Retailer Incentive Cover by Andrew Griffith
and Pattison, Subscription Cover by Eastman and Pattison, and Eastman Fun Club
Edition by Eastman.
Review:
This Michelangelo and the Mutanimals two-parter has
been pretty great and I enjoyed it much more than the opening two-parter from
this Brave New Era in the IDW TMNT series.
I think what helps is that the diverse cast of the Mutanimals are so
much more colorful and vibrant than the, well, rather bland cast of the TMNT
and their human allies.
I don’t mean that to disparage the Turtles, but there’s
something you’ll see in the Mutanimals cast that you haven’t been seeing
amongst the central TMNT cast. The
different members of the group don’t share the same relationships; they all
play off of each other in unique ways.
Sally and Man Ray are friends because they came from the
same place, but Ray isn’t above keeping things from her if he thinks it’s of
strategic merit. Hob, Herman and Ray
have their own little “inner circle” among the Mutanimals where they plot out
the group’s darker workings in private.
Herman, though fiercely loyal to Hob, feels sympathy toward his
comrades, including Mutagen Man, and will die for any of them. Mondo’s buds with everybody, but he isn’t
sure he wants to keep on fighting despite his loyalties. And
so on and so on.
I mentioned this way back in a review from some years
ago, but the IDW Turtles and their main human chums (April, Casey) don’t share
the sort of friction between them that makes their interactions feel
individually tailored. They all get
along. You have a group of 9 or 10
characters (once you factor in Splinter, Nobody, Alopex, Harold, etc.) and they’re
all just… friends. Donatello should
never interact with Casey Jones the same way Raphael does, otherwise everyone
is just sort of spouting interchangeable dialogue.
We’ve been getting away from that lately, what with
Michelangelo leaving the team, but there needs to be MORE of it. Until then, the central cast is going to continue
to be outshone by second stringers like the Mutanimals.
In terms of plot, we get a reminder of how pragmatic Hob
is and exactly what his ultimate aims are, but he still isn’t a full on
villain. His goals are still altruistic,
if a bit misguided. And the strange
bedfellows he’s been making aren’t helping.
It’s one of the things that’s made him the most complex character in the
whole comic; he’s gotten the kind of development and progress that I suppose
the main characters are exempt from.
I’m sure if the writers grew and changed Raphael into
something organic but unrecognizable as Raphael, Viacom would put the kibosh on
that right quick. The central characters
sort of have to remain at a level of stagnancy or it just won’t be “them”
anymore. But IDW original characters like
Hob can do and become whatever they want, and as a result, AGAIN, they’re
becoming way more interesting than the central cast.
And then there’s Agent Bishop. I think we all saw this coming, right? A mysterious military-looking organization
monitoring the Turtles and the Mutanimals, who ELSE could be leading them?
Bishop was one of the best original ideas to come out of
the 4Kids series; maybe even THE best, depending on who you ask. By the fourth season, he massively upped the
ante as the main antagonist and outdid the Shredder in every way. What was cool about him was that, much like
Hob, he wasn’t a character of black and white (outside of his wardrobe). He was in a grey area; everything he did was
in the name of national security and he genuinely believed in the altruism of
his cause. Of course, that still brought
him into conflict with the Turtles and he did some heinously nasty things
throughout the series.
But that’s okay, because one time he got impaled on a
fucking meat hook. A MEAT HOOK.
He opens the door up to get the government or the
military involved in these shenanigans, which should be interesting, as they’ve
been absent throughout the IDW series so far (heck, even the cops have rarely
shown up until now). This could
potentially complicate things in a fascinating way; if Bishop’s working
through Dark Water then we’ve got one more faction to keep track of in this
chess game of a series.
Dialynas
did a fine job on the fight between Mikey and Hun. There’s a nice two-page spread (made up of
panels) that features Hun just totally wrecking Mikey’s shit. It reminded me of the first season of the
4Kids cartoon, before Hun had begun to suffer from Villain Decay and was portrayed
as a sort of unstoppable juggernaut. You
can see Mikey’s really trying in Dialynas’ layouts, but he can hardly scratch
Hun. Dialynas does good work on
character expression, as Hun grows progressively more psychotic and Mikey gradually
goes from cheerful and confident to shitting his shell.
Good arc! Love
these smaller two-parters; a nice break from the four-part or lengthy event formats. Hope we see more of them in the
future.
Grade: A- (as in, “Although with Slash gone, maybe Leatherhead can pick up the baton as ‘character who is really smart but turns
into a mindless monster when angry’. Can’t
have two characters with the same shtick at the same time, after all”.)
