Publication date: March 30, 2016
Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Zach Howard
Additional art: Cory Smith
Ink assist: Joylon Yates
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Publisher: Ted Adams
Summary:
Recently: The Shredder lures the Turtles out by
kidnapping Casey Jones. He stabs and
kills Casey before their eyes, and in their blind rage, all four Turtles are
easily captured. Kitsune then uses her
powers to brainwash the Turtles into servitude in the Foot Clan and the
Shredder sends them to hunt down Splinter…
After interrogating Old Hob, the Turtles learn where
Splinter is hiding. Hob barters his
freedom in exchange for the information, as the Turtles don’t consider him a
threat and are willing to let him go. As they chase
Splinter down, he begs his sons to remember who they really are, but they feel
nothing and beat him to a pulp. Leonardo
stops his brothers from killing Splinter, as the Shredder wants him alive.
At Foot HQ, the Turtles bring Splinter before
Shredder. Shredder wants Splinter to
live long enough to see his sons help the Foot take over New York City. Kitsune thinks letting Splinter live any
longer is a mistake, but Shredder silences her.
Outside the throne room, Karai pouts over being passed over for Chunin
in favor of Leonardo. She confides in
Alopex, having heard about her attempted rebellion against the Shredder in Alaska,
and the two begin scheming.
At the Skara Brae, Arnold Jones mourns the death of his
son. Sick of drinking away his sorrows,
he tells Brooklyn, Ferguson and Kid Kennedy to get the Purple Dragons back
together. He intends to be Hun one final
time and avenge his son’s death.
Later, the Turtles reconvene at Foot HQ. Leonardo has finished off the Savate,
Michelangelo has killed the Ghost Boys, Raphael has slaughtered Lupo and his
mob, and Donatello has executed the Street Phantoms before they could even
finish establishing themselves. With
power now consolidated in the Foot Clan, the Shredder raises his sword and
prepares to kill Splinter.
Suddenly, a wall explodes and in marches Old Hob and
Slash. They had coordinated Splinter’s
capture and rescue all in the hopes of getting inside Foot HQ where their
enemies were most vulnerable. At the
same time, Hun and the Purple Dragons invade, crying for revenge in Casey’s
name. And lastly, Karai and Alopex play
their hand, attacking Shredder over the injustices he has dealt them.
While the Turtles fight Hob and Slash, the Dragons fight
the Foot Soldiers, and Alopex and Karai fight the Shredder, Splinter challenges
Kitsune to a duel on the Astral Plane.
In the madness, Shredder kills Karai and Alopex, the Foot Soldiers and
the Dragons wipe each other out and Raphael murders Hob. On the Astral Plane, Splinter is outmatched
until his power is joined by the spirit of Tang Shen. Revitalized, Splinter kills Kitsune and she
drops dead in the real world.
With Kitsune dead, the Turtles regain their senses and
Slash, recognizing that they’re good again, stops fighting them. Shredder, mourning the death of Kitsune,
attempts to decapitate the defenseless Splinter. However, Hun gets the drop on him and blows
his head off with a shotgun (before dying from his own injuries).
Dying, Splinter tells his sons that they have won their
freedom. Before breathing his final
breath, he asks what they will do with it.
Turtle Tips:
*This story deviates from the events of TMNT (IDW) #22.
*Alopex’s rebellion against Shredder was seen in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #4: Alopex. Karai’s
resentment toward being demoted from Chunin was explored in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #5: Karai.
*Brooklyn, Ferguson and Kid Kennedy first appeared in
TMNT Annual 2012. The Purple Dragons
first appeared in TMNT (IDW) #11. Arnold
Jones was established as former leader of the Purple Dragons in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #6 Hun.
*Lupo’s mob and the Street Phantoms first appeared in
TMNT (IDW) #51. The Savate first
appeared in TMNT (IDW) #6. The Ghost
Boys first appeared in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #7: Bebop & Rocksteady.
*In the ongoing timeline, Splinter made an alliance with Old
Hob and Slash in TMNT (IDW) #23.
*“Deviations” was a 5-issue event running through several
of IDW’s licensed titles, depicting changes in established events for each
universe creating “what if?” scenarios.
Other titles involved were Ghostbusters, The X-Files, Transformers, and
G.I. Joe.
*This issue also included a cover inks gallery, script
excerpts, and a step-by-step breakdown of the art from thumbnails to colors for
pages 4-5.
*This issue was originally published with 2 variant
covers: Regular Cover by Howard, and Subscription Cover by Nick Pitarra and
Mike Garland.
Review:
The old “What If?” type of story doesn’t seem to be as popular today as it was back in the ‘80s. It seems that with modern readers, “what
counts” tends to outweigh “what’s good” and folks gravitate toward canon
storylines over alternate universe one-shots.
I’ve got a few theories as to why the “What If?” tale fell out of vogue,
and since this is my blog, I’m gonna go on a tangent about it.
What made those sorts of stories appealing back in the
day was that they offered a novelty.
They called a “do-over”, at least on an imaginary level, and showed you
what could have happened if things had been different. Nine times out of ten, the slight deviations
in history led to everybody dying, but that was also part of the appeal.
What if Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacy from
falling? It turns out the Jackal would
have killed everyone at the Daily Bugle.
What if the original X-Men had defeated Krakoa without needing the new
international team’s help? The Jackal
blows up the X-Mansion and kills everybody.
What if Elektra had killed Bullseye instead of the other way
around? The Jackal kills
Aunt May on his way to the grocery store. The point is that any deviation in established continuity ultimately
ends with the Jackal murdering all the supporting characters.
I think the reason “What If?” stories were more popular
in the ‘80s than they were afterward is because back then, comics hadn’t called
quite so many do-overs in their mainstream canon.
Now, “What if Jean Grey hadn’t died piloting that
spaceship back to Earth?” is no longer a “What If?”, it’s canon. “What if Bucky had survived the exploding plane?” No longer a “What If?” Or how about, “What if Spider-Man had never
married Mary Jane?” We don’t need to
imagine that one anymore, either.
The need for the “What If?” story dissolved when the
writers on the main titles realized they could just implement those revised
histories whenever things got inconvenient.
And just so nobody thinks I’m picking on Marvel while turning a blind eye to DC, I’ll say “Crisis
on Infinite Earths”, “Zero Hour: Crisis in Time”, “Infinite Crisis” and “Flashpoint”, and leave it at that.
So yeah, the “What If?” tale might seem quaint by today’s
standards, but I think they still have appeal for those willing to give
something that “doesn’t count” a chance.
And in regards to IDW, they generally don’t call “do-overs” on
continuity (except with G.I. Joe, I think), so the Deviations line has a bit more
of a novelty value.
So far as this event is concerned, the only other one I’ve read is Ghostbusters: Deviations
and it was pretty bad. I mean, I can
make my peace with poop jokes, but the writer only wrote one poop joke and then
stretched it out over the course of the whole one-shot. I think that one joke repeated infinitely was
the only actual joke in the whole comic.
It was a good springboard idea (what if the Ghostbusters hadn’t thought
to cross the streams to beat Gozer) sabotaged by some very amateurish writing.
TMNT: Deviations, on the other hand, fairs a good deal
better.
It follows that formula of “if something different had
happened EVERYONE WOULD BE DEAD” but as already stated, I always got a kick out
of that gimmick. The Jackal isn’t
explicitly behind everyone dying in this comic, but I think we all know he was
the true puppet master.
Like a lot of those old comics, it takes a year-long
story arc and tries to pare it down to one issue. So we essentially get “City Fall in 24 pages”. All the highlights are there and the
extraneous stuff is excised, so Waltz narrows things down pretty well. The story moves at a frenzied pace and a lot
of the events seem spontaneous, but that’s also part of the entertainment. Just… suddenly… Hun! Blowing Shredder’s head off with a shot
gun! Well okay then.
Now, when I say “spontaneous” I mean that I’m looking at
this one-shot as a one-shot. It’s
actually more a direct continuation of the “City Fall” storyline, taking the
character arcs in different directions.
So if you read TMNT #1-22 and then decided to read this comic next
instead of #23, everybody’s decisions would feel slightly more organic. But if you’re trying to read this comic in a
vacuum? Yeah. Ghost mom shows up in one panel and smiles
and then the good guys win, The End.
As for art, Zach Howard has previously done some variant
covers for the series, but this is his first go on interiors. His style is very dark, gritty and HEAVILY
inked. It fits the tone of the story,
which is all about everyone gratuitously dying in horrible ways. At times the inks are perhaps a little too
muddy and you might have to strain to tell what’s going on in a panel, but it’s
never so bad that I'd call it unreadable.
Pattison’s colors adapt to Howard’s style; they’re flatter to suit all
the inking. Cory Smith does two pages
depicting Splinter and Kitsune in the Astral Plane and you can see for yourself
how Pattison adjusts her methods to suit the artist. The colors on those pages are lusher and more nuanced.
And on the topic of using Smith for the Astral Plane
segments, I thought that was a neat touch.
Smith’s lines are cleaner and his characters look better groomed and
prettier. It creates a nice
juxtaposition with Howard’s pages set in the real world, where everyone is ragged
and brutalized and bloodied and ugly.
In conclusion, I suppose I wasn’t too excited with this
one-shot, but ultimately it made for a fun read.
It ran with the trope of “everybody DIES!” which is, well, predictable
but certainly amusing. I kinda hope this comic gets
included in future reprints of the “City Fall” trade. It might make a good Clue-esque bonus
ending. “So that's how things really happened. But here’s how things COULD have
happened…”
