Turtlemania Special #1

Originally published by: Metropolis and Robert Wilson

Publication date: 1986

Edited by: Robert Wilson

Cover: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

Cover color overlay: Don Orapallo

Contents:

*Turtletalk (A brief history of Eastman, Laird and Mirage, a brief peek at future projects, and a print run summary of Mirage publications)

*TMNT Pinup Gallery (Leonardo, Raphael, Leonardo again, Donatello, Leonardo yet again, Splinter, All 4 Turtles; art by Eastman and/or Laird)

*Corben TMNT Preview (2-page preview of “You Had To Be There”, by Eastman and Richard Corben)

*Rogues Gallery (Casey Jones pinup by Eastman)

*TMNT/Cerebus/Flaming Carrot Poster by Bob Burden (the Turtles, Flaming Carrot and a drunk Cerebus try to stop alien zombies with SPAM)

*Rogues Gallery (Pinups of the Shredder, Casey Jones: Crazy Man, Leonardo vs. the Shredder; art by Eastman and/or Laird)

*TMNT/Cerebus Preview (6-page preview of TMNT Vol. 1 #8)

*Donatello Preview (Sketch cover and 3-page preview of Donatello Microseries #1)

Turtle Tips:

*There are 3 versions of this issue: Regular/White cover (3,000 copies), Silver cover (100 copies, autographed), Gold cover (10 copies, autographed with original sketch).  Those Gold copies will cost you an arm and a leg (if you can find one).

*There was never a Turtlemania Special #2.

Review:

The Turtlemania Special is something a lot of folks out there own but I don’t really think appreciate (well, unless you own one of those Silver or Gold versions, in which case you appreciate it right to the bank).  By “appreciate”, I don’t so much mean the actual content of the special, but more so what it represents in the timeline of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

1986 was one year before the Fred Wolf cartoon and Playmates toyline turned the characters into a cultural phenomenon, but this special sort of marks the first spark of “Turtlemania” (as the title suggests).  Clearly, even before there was a TV show and boat-loads of merchandise, there was something about the Ninja Turtles that was catching peoples attentions; so much so that one individual (Robert Wilson) decided to self-publish a part-documentary/part-advertisement for the brand.  Not only that, but he got other indie comics names, such as Bob Burden and Dave Sim to lend either their art or their characters to the project.

TMNT was turning heads and catching on in a big way, and though what we recognize as Turtlemania in a pop culture sense was still a year off, I’d say it started right here.

That little history lesson out of the way, what about the content of the Turtlemania Special?  Well, much of it is dated to the point where some might find it “quaint” at best and “useless” at worst.  12 pages are dedicated to previewing comics that have been out for a decade and a half, now, leaving the thumbnails and rough pencils to be the only attraction for hardcore fans. 

The print run listing in the opening editorial is useful, at least as a first-hand source for that kind of information (though the official Mirage website has those numbers readily available and, well, they’re a first-hand source, too).  The editorial is more charming in that it offers quotes from a younger Eastman and Laird, back when they still had dreams of someday working for Marvel and DC (Laird says that he would like to work on DC’s The Demon, while Eastman pines to work on Marvel’s Daredevil).  There are other tidbits in there, like a working title for the Palladium TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG apparently having been “Turtlestrangeness”.

I guess that leaves the pinups.  Well, they’re neat!  Eastman and Laird art you may not have seen, though as pinups they’re perhaps a little bland; just the Turtles striking standard action poses.  I rather liked how Casey Jones was listed under the “Rogues Gallery” header alongside villains like the Shredder.  This was early enough in Casey’s life that his status as “friend or foe” was still up in the air (after his first appearance in Raphael Microseries #1 where he antagonizes Raph, but before his second appearance in TMNT Vol. 1 #10 where he joins the gang).

The Bob Burden poster is the usual Bob Burden/Flaming Carrot stuff.  Random nonsense that’s supposed to be funny, I guess.  But hey, I think it marks the first collaboration between Eastman, Laird and Burden (and the first official time Cerebus was seen alongside the Turtles, right?), so there’s that.

Anyhow, I’ve found myself fascinated with that little span of time between the TMNT’s debut in 1984 and their transformation into corporate mascots in 1987.  It was when the franchise was growing and branching out in strange ways, but still flying under the general public’s radar.  There’s a lot of neat stuff to dig up from that brief era, and while a lot of it may only attract the interest of Ninja Turtle history buffs, every tiny bit is a piece of history.

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #4

Publication date: February, 1994

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Neil Vokes

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Eric Vincent

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Four”

Summary:

Mr. Furious dukes it out with the alien werewolf only for the beast to back off once it sees his Free Masonry ring.  Being a Mason itself, the werewolf runs away.  The Mysterymen, the Turtles and Col. Blade eventually catch back up and ask Mr. Furious what the deal with the werewolf is.

Back at the Flying Wing, the Spleen, Bondoman and Mystic Hand are under siege from the spectral figures.  The spirits are blasting beams of ice at them, encasing the jet.  The Mysterymen flee into the jungle with the specters close behind.

At the ruins, the werewolf is desperately trying to communicate with the team via dance, but they can’t interpret him.  Don, Leo, Screwball and the flame-creature Sykes show up.  After a brief bit of exposition, Sykes has a chat with the werewolf in its native language.  The werewolf then devours Sykes and collapses.  Star Shark comes down from his lookout post and tells everyone that the Flying Wing is under attack.  Leaving the werewolf behind, the Turtles and the Mysterymen return to camp.

They reach the Flying Wing, but have no idea what happened.  The werewolf then catches up with them and explains everything… in English!  He says his name is Chontre Mac and he’s an alien from a planet that exists within the center of the Sun.  He says that there are a diverse number of races from that planet and all have the ability to absorb the minds of those they devour (hence how he was able to learn English by eating the flame-creature that ate Sykes).  Chontre says that long ago, his people came down to Earth to set up a colony and built this great city.  However, civil war erupted and most of his people retreated back to the Sun.  Chontre was chosen to sink the city deep into the Earth so that its technology and culture could be preserved, putting himself in cryogenic stasis so he could keep watch.

Chontre is happy to be awake again and, seeing that there are no more warring Sun people on Earth, feels that now is the time to share the technology of the lost city with humanity.  Suddenly, Mystic Hand’s disembodied hands float over and motion everyone into the jungle.  They find Mystic Hand and Bondoman frozen in cryogenic ice (which Chontre assures them will defrost to no ill effect in a day or two).  The Spleen, who fainted, wakes up and describes the ice-blasting specters.  Chontre says that the specters are the Eikers, the faction who incited the civil war.  When the city was unearthed, it sent a signal into space.  Responding to it, the Eikers traveled down from the Sun to regain the lost technology and invade the Earth.  The electromagnetic beam that has been shutting off all technology on Earth was a homing beam from their mother ship.  Chontre explains that the only way to stop the invasion is to re-sink the city so the Eikers have nothing to home in on.

Screwball then calls down from his lookout post that the Eikers are coming.  Chontre says that they’re an early scout patrol.  He urges the Mysterymen and the Turtles to lead the aliens to the nearby river where the additional humidity will react with their freezing powers and force them to take tangible form.  The plan works and with the Eikers finally solid, Col. Blade is able to kill them all with machinegun fire.

Chontre leads Col. Blade, the Professor and Mr. Furious back into the main hub of the ruined city where they found him in cryo-sleep.  Chontre mans the controls to re-sink the city, telling the others to leave so they don’t become trapped, too.  The controls malfunction and Chontre laments that the only way to re-sink the city now is for two individuals to man separate emergency controls simultaneously.  The Professor volunteers to stay behind, jumping at the chance to go into suspended animation and awaken centuries from now in a brave new world.

Blade and Furious escape the building just as it and the rest of the city sink back into the Earth.  Everyone’s electronics begin working again, proving that the Eikers have lost the signal and retreated from their invasion.  Col. Blade gives a salute, praising the selfless sacrifice of the Professor.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3.

*The Turtles will meet Flaming Carrot again (or appear in the same crowd as him, anyway) in Savage Dragon #41.

Review:

When it comes to Burden’s style of writing, it’s always a mystery as to what will be important to the plot and what is just a dumb throwaway joke.  Last issue, they made a big deal about Screwball’s pet shoelace Sherman surviving the fire-creature attack, but Sherman never appears again.  The Zeke’s mentions that the protoplasmic goop left behind by the extinguished fire-creatures smelled like Corn Flakes… an aside which proved to be foreshadowing once we learned that the fire-creatures were fused with the I-Team and the Zeke’s was in fact smelling what the I-Team had eaten before they in turn were eaten by the fire-creatures.  And in this issue, Mr. Furious and Chontre both share Free Masonry rings, which ends their battle as soon as it starts, but no further value is ever attributed to that connection.

It’s… just a mess.  I guess you could say it “keeps you on your toes”, as you never know which random asides will pay off in the end and which will go nowhere, but more often than not it all just amounts to a bunch of pointless references and droll gags.  I’m guessing the Free Masons were supposed to have been descended from the Sun people’s lost civilization?  That seems the likeliest explanation, but the connection is never solidified and considering all the other random bullshit going on in this miniseries, it could just as easily have been another stupid attempt at silly humor (like Chontre trying to communicate via dance).

The miniseries never knows what tone it wants to strike and it becomes really difficult to invest in anything.  When the characters are capable of cartoonishly pulling lemonade stands out of thin air, it’s hard to take any suspense in the action seriously because the surrounding scenes are so silly and absurd.  The ending wants us to feel the drama of the Professor’s sacrifice, but how can we when, again, everything else has been so goofy and self-aware?  It’s a tone deaf comic in terms of mood.

I’ll bring it up again, but I just don’t see why this miniseries begged to include the Ninja Turtles at all.  By this concluding chapter, they’ve become nothing more than crowd-filling bodies.  They contribute nothing to the resolution and scarcely offer any dialogue (or, at least, any dialogue that sounds unique to them).  For the umpteenth time, I’ll repeat that the Turtles could have been substituted by any other four members of the Mysterymen and it wouldn’t have changed this comic one little bit.  Hell, the cast was already bloated so much that you could remove the Turtles entirely and it would make no difference.  They are entirely superfluous to everything going on around them and are more like baggage than characters.

To be frank, Mirage’s offshoot material released to supplement their various ongoings were never very strong; lots of goofy oneshot Specials and the occasional miniseries for the Hell of it.  Turtle Soup and Plastron Café are probably the only limited series that are worth a look, and being anthologies, even those are dicey in their content.  This Flaming Carrot crossover is just another in that long tradition of “why did they even bother?”  Burden doesn’t make the most of his opportunity to work with the Turtles and the whole thing just leaves me feeling cold.  Vokes’s artwork is the only positive angle to this entire endeavor, but even he can’t salvage it.

Grade: F (as in, “Flaming Carrot… such a dull, lifeless, uninteresting character, Hollywood didn’t even include him in the movie based on his own fucking comics”.)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3

Publication date: January, 1994

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Neil Vokes

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Eric Vincent

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Three”

Summary:

In the clearing, the group is struggling to gun down the army of flame-men, but they’re running out of ammo.  Suddenly, flame-men reinforcements arrive via river, riding giant leaves.  After sinking a few, the Mysterymen and the Turtles realize that water can extinguish the flame-men.  After cannibalizing the fuel pump from the Flying Wing, they hose down the flame-men and send them into retreat.

In the aftermath, all that’s left of the extinguished flame-men is protoplasmic goop which the Professor describes as being like giant amoebas (and which the Zeke's describes as smelling like Corn Flakes).  The Shoveler and Star Shark, who were attacked by the flame-men, say that they weren’t burned but instead drained of energy, like they were being absorbed.  Screwball panics when he can’t find his pet shoelace Sherman, but it turns up in a bag of Fritos.  In the morning, Mystic Hand, Bondoman and the Spleen decide to stay behind and try to reassemble the Flying Wing while the others return to the I-Team camp and search for more clues.  Shortly after they leave, the Spleen sees something lurking in the woods and Mystic Hand goes to investigate.

Fiddling with the I-Team’s radio, the Professor determines that the electromagnetic static that brought down the Flying Wing is spreading out from the ruins and may soon envelope the whole world.  They also find Polaroids of the I-Team getting along with the flame-men and keeping them as pets.  Flaming Carrot presumes that once the I-Team ran out of things to feed them, the flame-men turned on them.  The group decides to head to the ancient ruins, leaving Screwball, Leo and Don behind to guard the camp.  Searching the tents, they find one of the flame-men sleeping on a cot.

At the ruins, Mikey recalls the dream he had about the ancient city and follows his memories to a hidden opening in one of the buildings.  At last inside the previously impenetrable buildings, Col. Blade orders Star Shark to stay and guard the door while they split into groups: He, the Professor, Raph and Mike will go in one direction while Flaming Carrot, Mr. Furious, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler go in the other.  Col. Blade’s group stumbles upon paydirt quickly, finding skeletons of strange creatures, albeit ones with gold fillings that imply a greater intelligence.

At the camp, the flame-man introduces himself as P.F.C. Layton Sykes of Anniston, Alabama.  He says that he was once a member of the previous investigation into the ancient ruins.  His team encountered the flame-men, who ate anything but plants.  When they ran out of food to feed them, the flame-men devoured him and his men.  They were absorbed into the flame-men who ate them, merging their consciousnesses.  Don asks if he remembers eating himself and, if so, then what do humans taste like?  Sykes says “like chicken”.

Back at the ruins, Col. Blade’s team finds a chamber with a hole blasted into it by a flamethrower (indicating the I-Team had been there).  Inside are hundreds of glowing eggs, each containing a flame-creature.  The Professor joyously announces that they must certainly be looking at beings from another planet.

And at the Flying Wing, Mystic Hand returns with news that he found nothing.  Suddenly, a trio of cloaked, spectral figures comes floating their way.

And back again at the ruins, Flaming Carrot’s team finds a huge pod with a glass lid.  Inside is what looks like a 9 foot-tall werewolf clad in a jumpsuit and boots.  Ignoring their better judgment, they open the pod and release the werewolf.  The monster chucks Flaming Carrot, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler out a window and into the sea.  Tearing a pipe off the wall, Mr. Furious charges the werewolf.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2.  The story concludes in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #4.

Review:

As I said last time, Neil Vokes’s pencils really do improve this miniseries and it’s at least not as much of a grind to get through as before.  He tries to put a lot of fluid motion and energy into his pages, even when the characters aren’t doing anything, and he succeeds in providing the characters with personality when the writing all but refuses to do so.  Vokes has a nice cartoony, squash-and-stretch style that lends to some manic expressions that befit the absurd goings on.  He’s a much better fit for the material than Lawson was, I’ll say again.

But aside from the art, it’s hard to believe a story about superheroes and mutants battling flame-monsters in a ruined city could be this boring.  A lot of it has to do with the excessive dialogue and narrative text that Burden, er, burdens the pages with.  Characters have to think about or announce what they’re doing and narration has to describe what we’re looking at as if we were blind.  I guess it’s supposed to be this faux Silver Age gimmick or something, but it slows everything down.  As do all the pointless, random jokes like Screwball’s pet shoelace, the Zeke’s smelling Corn Flakes in the protoplasmic goop and Donatello setting up a tired “tastes like chicken” gag. 

And did I mention that it takes the characters 8 pages to realize “water puts out fire”?  Because seriously.

So when I said earlier that this second half of the miniseries is less of a grind to get through, that doesn’t mean it still ISN’T a grind to get through.  Because it is.

Grade: D (as in, “Does anybody still find ‘tastes like chicken’ jokes funny?  Anybody?”)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2

Publication date: December, 1993

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and Inks: Jim Lawson and Neil Vokes (pgs. 1, 23-28)

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Mary Woodring

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part Two”

Summary:

As the Flying Wing zooms over the TMNT’s camp, Mr. Furious suddenly loses power on all the instruments.  He order all the Mysterymen to bail save for himself, Flaming Carrot and Bondoman, who stay behind to manually work the wings.  Once they glide far enough away from the camp (and the ancient ruins) the instruments begin working again.  Mr. Furious sets the Flying Wing down and, after reconvening with the Spleen and the Zeke’s, they decide to hoof it toward the camp.

Meanwhile, the Turtles and Col. Blade are pretty spooked after the buzzing their camp received from the strange plane.  The Turtles split up and journey into the jungle to check things out.  Raph winds up getting into a tussle with the Shoveler, who proceeds to trick him into jumping off a cliff.  Raph lands right next to Screwball, who panics and flies away on his rocket-boots.

Elsewhere, Donatello has a run-in with the Mystic Hand, who scares him off with his flying, disembodied hands.  Star Shark rolls into camp and meets up with Col. Blade.  Recognizing the Colonel as an American soldier, the Mysteryman explains everything.  Raphael, meanwhile, has begun trailing another green flame-man.  The flame-man escapes, but leads him to the Flying Wing.  Mr. Furious and the Zeke’s are about to open fire when Flaming Carrot stops them.  He and Raphael know each other and the two trade information.

Back at camp, all the Mysterymen have been rounded up and both groups brought to speed.  The Shoveler, taking watch, sees activity off in the distance.  Mr. Furious concocts a way to draw all the little green flame-men toward them so they can deal with them all at once.  They set the area with traps and drive the Flying Wing and all its weapons near a clearing.  They then throw all their green flares into a bonfire, hoping to attract the flame-men.  Meanwhile, Flaming Carrot opens a lemonade stand to serve all the thirsty flame-men.

The plan works and the flame-men converge on the bonfire, creating a rainbow in the night with their weird energies.  Michelangelo tries to scare them off with a flamethrower, but finds that by feeding flame-men mass quantities of fire, they only get bigger.  Luckily, shooting the flame-men in the “heart” still causes them to snuff out and the giant is destroyed.  

Col. Blade takes charge and hands out artillery to everyone, including the Turtles (Screwball, meanwhile, dresses like a character from McHale’s Navy because he’s just so silly).  However, it may not be enough as hundreds of flame-men storm the clearing with no signs of slowing down…

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #1.  The story continues in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #3.

*Vokes was mistakenly not credited in this issue.

Review:

One of the anonymous comments for my review of last issue said that I pretty much repeated everything I wrote in my review for the first TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover.  And you know what?  They were right.

The problem is that there’s so little new material worth discussing between these crossovers.  Burden’s style of humor is bland and repetitive, his characters are bland and interchangeable and his plot is bland and underdeveloped.  Bland bland bland.  It’s hard to muster up new and exciting ways to describe the same ole shit.

And this second installment in the miniseries is definitely the same ole shit.  Everyone is boring and all the jokes are excruciatingly tiresome and stupid.  Ha ha ha.  Flaming Carrot opened up a lemonade stand.  Ha ha ha.  McHale’s Navy was a show that existed.

Just about the only improvement worth noting in this issue is the changeover in art.  Lawson was kind of phoning it in and his economical style was looking rushed and dull (he was doing TMNT Volume 2 at the same time, so his plate was probably a little full).  There’s no energy to any of his panels, which makes reading the groan-worthy story all the more tedious.  But then suddenly in the last handful of pages Neil Vokes picks up the baton and there is a WILD shift in art styles.  No attempt is made to harmonize their incongruous aesthetic approaches, just BAM!  Vokes takes over.

And the story becomes much more palatable.  All the same stupid jokes and cardboard characters are there, but Vokes at least breathes some life into them with his manic and fluid pencils.  What had been a really sleepy “action” scene when Lawson began drawing it suddenly turns into something with energy and pizzazz when Vokes takes the reins.  Does it save the issue?  No, but it at least reduces the pain.

Luckily, Vokes stays on for the remainder of the miniseries, so we’ve at least got that to look forward to.

Grade: D (as in, “Does anybody in any of Burden’s comics have a fucking personality?  Do those exist in his universe?”)

TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #1

Publication date: November, 1993

Story: Bob Burden

Pencils and inks: Jim Lawson

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Colors: Mary Woodring

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

“Land of Green Fire: Part One”

Summary:

A super storm has recently ravaged the eastern coast of Central America.  The Turtles and Col. Blade are on their way to the decimated town of Santa Baloona to help the locals.  To get there, they’re travelling in a blimp they absconded with after a team-up adventure in which they defeated Mr. Cadaverous and his Blue Santas.

After fishing the cow from “Bonanza” out of a tree, they set down on the roof of the US Embassy and the Ambassador takes Col. Blade aside for a debriefing.  They meet with Professor Daub, an archeologist.  The Ambassador explains that a unit of the US Military called the I-Team went missing somewhere in the Abecero Peninsula and they need to be found.  Col. Blade reconvenes with the Turtles and says that they and Professor Daub are deploying immediately for a special mission.

At Mysterymen HQ, following a shrunken head/protein shake/ice cream incident, the team receives a top secret call to arms.  Apparently, thousands of years ago, there was a highly advanced, nigh-mythical city called Botaquaxal, hidden in the Abecero Peninsula.  It vanished somewhere around 948 AD and all attempted expeditions to locate it ended in tragedy, as the investigators all vanished.  Recently, a dentist bought an artifact at a flea market and after x-raying it, found "something".  That clue incited the Pentagon to send the I-Team into the Abecero Peninsula.  When the super storm hit, it caused an earthquake, revealing a lost city.  However, the I-Team’s last transmission wasn’t very hopeful, as the radioman screamed about flaming people burning everyone to death.

Flaming Carrot rallies the Mysterymen (Screwball, Bondoman, the Shoveler, Mystic Hand, Mr. Furious, Star Shark, the Zeke’s and the Spleen) and they take off in their aircraft, the Flying Wing (after donning sombreros suitable for a Central American vacation).  As the other Mysterymen take turns flying the Flying Wing, the Shoveler does some meteorological investigation.  He determines that the super storm didn’t follow any natural weather patterns but appears to have originated right from the Abecero Peninsula.

Via blimp, the Turtles, Col. Blade and the Professor find the I-Team’s campsite (but only after Raph wails on a saxophone he found in a locker).  They investigate and find no signs of life, save some meals that appear to have been suddenly abandoned.  The surrounding jungle appears likewise abandoned, without any traces of animals.  What they DO find are the personal effects of the I-Team (rings, watches, fillings) sitting atop small piles of ashes, indicating they were incinerated almost instantly. 

Searching, they eventually come across the unearthed city.  Oddly, all the ancient buildings appear to be made of a strange plastic substance with magnetic properties.  As Mikey skateboards the ruins, he spots a tower jutting out of the sea not far from the coast.  Spying through binoculars, Col. Blade notices equipment abandoned outside the entrance to the tower, indicating people had recently been there.

They decide to break for pizza and investigate the tower the next day.  Sleeping, Mikey has a strange dream about a prospering city, shadowy halls and a flaming man.  He’s awoken by Leo’s screaming.  Leo exclaims that while he was taking watch, a tiny man made of green flame attacked him.  Leo wasn’t lying, as the flaming man pops out of the bushes and attacks again.  Leo attempts to cut it in two, but his swords have no effect.  Col. Blade pulls out his gun and aims for what looks like a heart in the center of its chest.  Blade shoots the heart and the flaming man vanishes.  Professor Daub laments that they didn’t try to communicate with the creature.  Suddenly, Raph is startled and points to the sky as lights approach.

Turtle Tips:

*This story continues in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #2.

*The Turtles last encountered the Flaming Carrot in Flaming Carrot (Vol. 1) #27.

*This issue featured an opening editorial by Michael Dooney explaining the origins of this miniseries.  Apparently, Burden came up with the idea while doing the first TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover.  It took several years to hammer out the final script, but apparently it was tossed around as two-part black-and-white miniseries, a giant sized annual and a 150-page graphic novel.  They eventually settled on the 4-issue color miniseries format.

Review:

So yeah, as I’ve confessed in the past, I’m really not much of a Flaming Carrot fan, so this 4-issue miniseries isn’t going to be easy for me to get through.  Bob Burden’s style of writing relies way too much on just being random for the sake of being random.  I’ve heard people call it “stream of consciousness” or “post modernism” and things like that, but to me it just reads like a game of Mad Libs and there’s nothing particularly clever or creative about that.  Raph playing the saxophone for two panels because it’s so random.  The cow from “Bonanza” makes a cameo because it’s so random.  Shrunken head in the protein shake because it’s so random.  The issue is just full of stuff like that and after 32 pages, it gets pretty tiresome.

There’s at least a stronger story behind this second TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover than their first team-up.  The fact that an at least semi-coherent plot is necessary to move the miniseries along, the narrative exposition overshadows much of the random nonsense, so it’s a bit easier to digest.

As with his last turn at writing the Ninja Turtles, Burden doesn’t appear to understand any of their individual personalities.  In fact, I don’t think he’s even aware that the Turtles HAVE individual personalities.  They all speak with interchangeable “cowabunga” and “radical, dude” dialogue and never display any of their talents or unique traits.  These are the Turtles you would see in merchandising on paper cups or bed sheets during the early ‘90s; vacuous corporate mascots spewing catchphrases and demonstrating no sense of characterization whatsoever.

It makes me wonder just why Burden even wanted to do these TMNT crossovers?  He clearly wasn’t impressed by the characters because he doesn’t treat the Turtles AS characters.  In fact, they’re all so bland and excruciatingly “wacky” that they could be substituted with any given member of the Mysterymen and it wouldn’t change a single thing about this comic.  I guess Burden just wanted the extra boost in sales having his name associated with the TMNT during “Turtlemania” would no doubt promise.  A lot of guest creators did that back in the day and their contributions can be a pain to sit through.  It was just easy money, back then.

This second TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover is extremely long and tedious and just not my cup of tea.  I know Burden has his fanbase, but no matter how I’ve tried, I just don’t see the appeal in his writing style.  It strikes me as being shamefully lazy.

Grade: D (as in, “Dude!  Radical!  Gnarly!  Cowabunga!  Now guess which of those catchphrases correspond to which Turtle”.)

 

Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #27

 Publication date: Late Summer/Early Fall, 1991 (approximate)

Originally published by: Dark Horse Comics

Art and story: Bob Burden

Editing and Lettering: Roxanne Starr

Assisted by: Joe Pruett

Cover: Todd McFarlane

“Battlemania”

Summary:

Frontispiece: The Flaming Carrot and all four Ninja Turtles rush into battle on a rooftop, charging down a faceless foe.

In the alleys, the Turtles remind the “Dark Avenger” that he’s Raphael.  But even with his memory back, Raph knows he still has to help Flaming Carrot defeat the Fearless Umpires, so all four Turtles race to the Empire State Building.

Upon arriving, they find the Umpires trying to attach rockets to the corners so they can steal the whole building.  Flaming Carrot invites them in through a window.  He’s defeated the Umpires that were interrogating him, but more are on the way.  They take those Umpires out, then start throwing office equipment out the window and onto the rockets.  A lucky shot activates one early, sending it flying and making it impossible for Robert Babo (the ringleader) to steal the building with only three rockets.  Not happy, Babo tells his henchmen to prepare his hot air balloon for a potential escape.

The Turtles and Carrot make their way to the roof, taking down more Umpires along the way.  Finding a command center, Carrot sends a message to the Mysterymen to come help.  The message is picked up by Screwball and Mystic Hand, who are still out driving.  Because Screwball doesn’t understand how a vehicle works, he accidentally activates the passenger ejector seat without first opening the sun roof.  Mystic Hand is knocked unconscious by the bump on the head and has to be taken to the hospital, leaving Screwball to head to the Empire State Building alone.

Using his nuclear powered pogo stick, Carrot takes down some more Umpires.  He interrogates one, who informs him of Babo’s escape balloon.  As Carrot and the Turtles continue on their way to the roof, Screwball arrives and drives his car straight through the door and up the stairs.

On the roof, Babo is resorting to plan B.  He asks Frankenstein’s Head to use his magical abilities to levitate the roof.  Meanwhile, his Umpires are keeping the police and the Mysterymen on the ground at bay by throwing pennies at them from the roof (and killing several people).  The Turtles and Carrot arrive and start wrecking Umpires until Babo unleashes his Barbecue Ray.  One zap from it and the heroes will smell like barbecue sauce forever.  Before he can fire, Screwball bursts through in his car and mows down the ray.  In the confusion, Raphael snatches Frankenstein’s Head and the Turtles play a game of keep away with it. 

Finally, Carrot tosses it to Screwball and tells him to fly away with the noggin on his rocket boots before he can levitate the building.  Frankenstein’s Head mentally attacks Screwball with thought power and Screwball responds with his own mental attacks.  The two are locked in telepathic battle until Screwball’s pet shoelace crawls inside Frankenstein’s Head’s ear and tickles him.  The momentary lapse of concentration hands Screwball the victory and he flies off with him.

In the scuffle, several spare fuel tanks for the hot air balloon are ruptured and about to blow.  Carrot and the Turtles escape on the balloon before the tanks left on the roof explode, killing Babo and his Fearless Umpires.  Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s Head recites a spell and vanishes from Screwball’s hands.  Undeterred, the Turtles, Flaming Carrot and Screwball decide to go get some Nathan’s hotdogs.  Elsewhere, Frankenstein’s Head’s spell, intended to give him the body of vicious Viking Rudolf the Remorseful, failed.  Frankenstein’s Head is now stuck with the body of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol.1) #26.

*The Turtles will meet the Flaming Carrot again in TMNT/Flaming Carrot #1.

*I put the publication date for this issue as Late Summer/Early Fall, 1991 because, for the life of me, I cannot find an indicia anywhere in this issue with publication information in it.  So I don’t know exactly what month this issue was released.  All I have to go by is that last issue was published in June and releases typically skip a month when they aren’t running late.

*This issue also included a “What is this Flaming Carrot?” strip by Burden, and a Flaming Carrot Pop Quiz.

Review:

And the first crossover between the Ninja Turtles and the Flaming Carrot comes to an end.

Honestly, I think my biggest grievance with this story isn’t that I found it unfunny, as humor is subjective and all that.  It’s more that Burden didn’t seem to understand the Turtles or their personalities and makes no attempt at distinguishing between any of them.  There’s nothing distinct about how any of the Turtles act; they spew all the same vacuous non sequiturs as every other character in the comic and their identities are entirely interchangeable (and by "identities", I mean a "cowabunga" here and a "radical" there). 

In that regard, the whole idea of the “crossover” seemed entirely needless, as why would Burden even bother if he wasn’t going to make an effort to write the Turtles AS the Turtles?  They could have been any other generic Mysteryman and it would have changed nothing.  I guess Burden just wanted the guaranteed sales boost that would accompany having a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the cover of your comic in 1991, but didn't feel up to putting forth the effort to write them in-character.

As far as other elements of the story go, we never found out what the deal with the Vague Dudes and their extendable eyes and amnesia ray was.  I guess they played a part in later Turtle-free stories, but for those of us only tuning in for the crossover, it’s sort of a dangling irritant.

The cover by Todd McFarlane sort of took me by surprise, as I’d never have guessed it was him had I not noticed his unmistakable signature in the corner.  I wonder if it was redrawn in any way, or if he was making a point to draw the Turtles in Burden’s style as opposed to his own.  It’s a pretty good cover, either way, and probably my favorite thing about this whole issue.

As I said when I began, Flaming Carrot just isn’t for me.  There’s still the 4-issue crossover miniseries from Mirage that I’ll have to get through, but maybe I’ll enjoy that one a bit more.  I’ll tackle that sometime later.

Grade: D+ (as in, “Donatello’s the smart one, Michelangelo’s the immature one, Leonardo’s the leader and Raphael’s the jerk… These aren’t complex personalities, man”.)

Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #26

 Publication date: June, 1991

Originally published by: Dark Horse Comics

Art and story: Bob Burden

Editing and lettering: Roxanne Starr

Assisted by: Rod Whigham, Pat St. Amour, Joe Pruett and Marsha Jense

“The Fearless Umpire Killers”

Summary:

The Mysterymen have successfully routed out a hiding place being utilized by a gang of zombies (who had disguised themselves with people masks).  Reporters converge on the scene and interview the Sphinx and the Shoveler, who say that there may be a connection between the zombies and the Vile Brotherhood.  Inside the building, Mr. Furious takes care of the last zombie, hurling it out a window.  As they take one of the zombies hostage, a human rights activist, Dr. Hissel, registers his displeasure with the excessive force employed by the Mysterymen.  As he tries to soothe the injured zombie, though, the corpse hurls him across the New York skyline.  Stunt Fly chases after him as Mr. Furious makes a televised threat to the Vile Brotherhood.

Down in the sewer lair, Leo, Don and Mike are watching a news report on TV.  One of the stories involves the recent disappearance of Frankenstein’s disembodied head from the Museum of Natural History.  A former employee explains that the head came in with a shipment of artifacts that were saved from Nazi destruction during WWII.  The head, still alive, eventually learned how to roll like a beach ball and escaped.  The Turtles then watch a report on the recent activities of Flaming Carrot and the Dark Avenger (whom the media mistakes as “Bread Boy”).  The Turtles recognize his fighting style as Raph’s and, thinking their brother has abandoned them to join the Mysterymen, rush to the surface to get answers.

Elsewhere, Flaming Carrot and the Dark Avenger are still on the prowl for Vile Brotherhood activity.  All they find, however, are a pair of broken breakdancers (they danced so hard they broke their own spines).  They’re approached by Leaf-Blower of the GI-Jims, a Canadian group of superheroes.  Leaf-Blower asks if they’ve seen any of the Fearless Umpire gang, as they’re rumored to be in New York.  They answer in the negative, and as Leaf-Blower disappears, Flaming carrot decides to head back to his hideout and consult his crime computer about the Fearless Umpires.

On the streets, Mystic Hand is giving driving lessons to the alien Mysteryman, Screwball.  They see a pair of suspicious individuals on the sidewalk and Screwball asks them if they’re terrorists.  The two men shrug their shoulders, lift up their jackets and reveal tons of guns and explosives.  Mystic Hand compliments Screwball on his fine work.

At the hideout, Flaming Carrot consults his "computer" (a rolodex) and brushes up on the history of the Fearless Umpires.  They were defeated by the Apprehenders in 1961, but resurfaced in 1982 under the leadership of Robert Babo, a former performance artist.  Recruiting other disenfranchised art students, he’s been using the Fearless Umpires to commit bizarre and meaningless crimes ever since.  Flaming Carrot wonders where they can track the Umpires down and Dark Avenger recommends the Umpire State Building.

At the empty building where Flaming Carrot rescued Raphael earlier that evening, the two weird-os with detachable limbs and extending eyes (identified as the Vague Dudes) usher a skeleton into their quarters.  They see that Raph has escaped from beneath their amnesia ray.  The Vague Dudes and the skeleton then laugh maniacally.

At Mysterymen HQ, Mr. Furious and Big Dipper are shaking down a hood for clues on the Vile Brotherhood.  The hood says that the Mysterymen came to New York City a week early; that the Vile Brotherhood were planning their crimewave for NEXT week.  Now that the Mysterymen are in town, they’ve cancelled the scheme altogether.   Disgruntled, Mr. Furious and Big Dipper head for the nearest bar to grab a drink, unaware that the Ninja Turtles are watching them from the shadows.

At the Empire State Building, Flaming Carrot and Dark Avenger take out some Umpire guards and steal their uniforms.  Infiltrating the meeting, they sit in on Babo’s speech to his gang.  He intends to levitate the building and steal it from New York.  One of the Umpires asks if they’ll ransom it and Babo explains that they don’t commit crimes for profit, but for the sake of art.  He then introduces the mastermind of the scheme: Frankenstein’s Head.  Frankenstein’s Head, having spent decades in a museum, is now well-learned in the mystic arts (though he still yearns for a new body) and assures the Umpires that he can levitate the building.

Giving Dark Avenger a card with the Mysterymen’s address and phone number on it, and a bubble pipe that the Mysterymen will recognize as his own, Flaming Carrot dispatches his sidekick to go get back-up.  While Dark Avenger is doing that, Carrot attempts to stall the Umpires with a game of tag.

Dark Avenger attempts to call the Mysterymen, but the Spleen fails to hear the answering machine due his headphones playing music too loud.  Dark Avenger decides to go to their headquarters, but he’s suddenly delayed by the Ninja Turtles.  There’s a brief scuffle, but Dark Avenger calls it off when he realizes that the Turtles look exactly like he does.  He then pulls off his mask, revealing himself to them as Raphael (though he doesn’t know it).

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Flaming Carrot (Vol. 1) #25.  The story concludes in Flaming Carrot (Vol. 1) #27.

*This issue also featured a “Flaming Carrot Pop Quiz” and a “Hey Kids! Meet the Mysterymen!” back-up strip by Burden and Starr.

Review:

A better issue than the last installment.  While I still don’t find Burden’s brand of humor funny, I’m coming to enjoy some of his story-telling techniques.  The way each bit of nonsense flows into the next, sending the characters on the trail of the villains, is actually pretty fun to follow.  It sort of reminds me of “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery” or other screwball cartoons, where the plot feels “made-up as they go”.  Just, you know.  Without the jokes.

I haven’t read enough Flaming Carrot comics to know who half these Mysterymen are, though most of the members featured in the movie are accounted for here (just missing the Bowler, Blue Raja and Invisible Boy, I think).  Given that this is a Flaming Carrot comic first and a Ninja Turtles crossover second, the TMNT take a backseat to the ongoing plot of the book they’re guest starring in.  The issue is punctuated with random gags and segues; some more fully conceived than others.  The humanitarian doctor threatening the Mysterymen with brutality suits getting chucked across the city was pretty groan-worthy.  I’ll admit, though, that the bit with Screwball and Mystic Hand spotting the terrorists got a good smirk out of me.  I think it was the way the terrorists just shrugged and gave up so easily.

In the opening editorial, Burden explains that in order to get this issue out early, he had to call in a quartet of “assistants” to help him with the art (to the point where they produced 9 pages in two days).  So with that in mind, I don’t know how much of this thing Burden actually drew.  At the very least, Burden properly credits his assistants who helped him on the art and even challenges the readers to try and figure out which pages were done by him and which were done by his assistants (I’m not familiar enough with Burden’s style, so I was unable to figure it out).  It’s a nice show of integrity on Burden’s part.  So often in the industry, star artists will credit an assistant for “backgrounds” when the reality is the “assistant” ghost-drew the whole issue for them (Pat Lee was perhaps the most notorious scam artist in this regard).

If there’s one minor thing I’ve liked so far about this comic, it’s that Burden rather defiantly uses trademark names in references, such as name-dropping Marvel and DC characters as coexisting in the Flaming Carrot’s universe or having actual beverages like Sprite appear in the book (as a small plot point, no less).  Now ‘n days, everybody’s so afraid of getting sued, you can’t even reference “McDonald’s” anymore.

Anyway, one issue of this left.

Grade: C+ (as in, “Casanova Frankenstein was a better villain than Frankenstein’s Head.  Just sayin’.”)

Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #25

 Originally published by: Dark Horse Comics

Publication date: April 1991

Art and story: Bob Burden

Assisted by: Roxanne Starr, Joe Pruett and Dave Newton

“Dark City…”

Summary:

Frontispiece: Leaping across the rooftops, the Flaming Carrot introduces us to his new sidekick… a weird green turtle-man (actually Raphael).  Carrot has plans to turn him into a topflight Mysteryman…

Down in the sewer lair, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello are busy childishly arguing over chores and what-not.  April comes storming out of the kitchen and scolds them, asking the teenagers to start acting like adults.  Raphael, meanwhile, has his nose in a book, trying to figure out what it means to be an “adult”.  Knowing that he won’t learn in anything in the lair, he decides to go to the surface and watch some adults in action.

Prowling the streets, he witnesses adults engaged in prattling, inane conversation and wonders if he even wants to become an adult.  But just as Raph starts to think all adults are boring, he spots one with a giant flaming carrot for a head.  Intrigued, Raph stalks the weird-o (the Flaming Carrot, naturally), who breaks up a fistfight and pulls a weed out of a windowsill (then puts it back when he remembers that plants create vital oxygen).  The Flaming Carrot’s “sense eyes” detect Raph’s presence and the Carrot leads Raph on a chase, eventually turning the tables and stalking the confused Turtle.

Trying to find the Carrot, Raph instead finds a suspicious-looking man sitting on a rooftop.  The man’s hand falls off (and he quickly reattaches it) and Raph, intrigued, infiltrates the man’s apartment.  Inside, he finds it to be nothing but empty space filled with boxes of junk.  The man comes inside and Raph hides behind some crates.  The man finds a sai that Raph dropped and extends his eyes out of his sockets to inspect the weapon.  Suddenly, another man looking identical to him knocks at the door.  The pair greet each other, speaking strange gibberish and proceed to get drunk on cans of Sprite.  As they play a record of old folk songs, they begin dancing with blow up dolls… seriously creeping Raph out.

A paper airplane then draws the pair's attention and Raph looks to see who threw it.  The Flaming Carrot stands at the window and quietly motions for Raph to sneak away to safety.  The weird-os notice Raph, however, and zap him with a raygun.  Before he can come to, they set him under a device called a “memory vortex” that gives Raph amnesia.  The two men leave and the Carrot sneaks inside to help Raph.  Unfortunately, he gets bored and falls asleep.  When he wakes up, though, he wheels Raph out in a wheelbarrow and takes him to Mysterymen Secret Hideout #28.

Flaming Carrot tells Raph that he’s a member of the Mysterymen, a group of B-grade superheroes not good enough for the Avengers or the Justice League.  They’ve left Iron City and come to New York in order to track down the Vile Brotherhood.  Raph, meanwhile, has no memory of who he is.  Carrot asks him if he’d like to become a superhero and Raph readily accepts the offer.  Carrot fashions him a costume out of a bread sack and gives him some plungers for weapons and a utility belt made from old Band-Aid tins.  Thus, Raph becomes the Dark Avenger.

The Carrot and the Dark Avenger then go looking for crimes to thwart and stumble across a pair of hooligans fishing for alligators in the sewer… with kittens as the bait.  They beat the thugs up and rescue the kittens.  The Carrot leaves his calling card (stuffing the orifices of the unconscious thugs with carrots) and the two superheroes leave to return the kitties to their owners.

Down in the lair, the other Turtles wonder where the heck Raph has gotten to…

Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #26.

*The “Bob Speaks” editorial in this issue describes this as a two-issue story arc.  It is, in fact, a three-issue arc.

*According to the “Bob Speaks” editorial, Burden had originally only envisioned a single TMNT/Flaming Carrot crossover, but after numerous rewrites, decided to split the story into two; one published by Dark Horse and a second published by Mirage.

*This issue also contained a “What is this Flaming Carrot” comic strip by Burden, two free Dark Horse Comics trading cards, and a back cover pin-up of the discarded cover for Flaming Carrot Comics (Vol. 1) #2, also by Burden.

Review:

The Flaming Carrot.  Now there’s an indie comic from back in the day I could never quite get into.

When it came to outrageous superhero parody comics, I was more a fan of "The Tick" (or, more specifically, the awesome cartoon series) and Flaming Carrot never really drew me in.  I enjoyed the movie, “Mystery Men”, well-enough… albeit, it somehow managed to be a Flaming Carrot movie that didn’t include Flaming Carrot (according to the Q&A on the DVD, they omitted the star of the comic because execs thought he’d look “too bizarre” on screen).  I just don’t have any attachment to the Flaming Carrot and I can’t manufacture one no matter how hard I try.

Reading the old comics for the first time, they tend to not be very… well, funny.  Burden relies too heavily on “lol so random” attempts at humor which are about as clever as a game of Mad Libs.  I think that’s one of the reasons why I always preferred the Tick, as it was full of silliness and absurdity, but never used randomness as a substitute for actual jokes.

Storywise, I felt Mikey would have been better suited for this sort of plot, as he’s the comic book nut, not Raph.  Raphael wandering off alone to ponder the meaning of adulthood felt a little strangely introspective for the character, and again, might have been a better fit for Mikey (as in, say, the other Turtles chide him for being immature so that causes him to go looking for the definition of maturity, etc).

Burden’s art is better than his writing and I love his panel layouts.  The style is very classy and reminiscent of old Golden Age comics.

I can’t think of much else to say about this first chapter in the arc.  I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed any of you Flaming Carrot fans out there, it’s just that the book isn’t really my thing.

Grade: C (as in, “Can you believe I actually remember Wizard magazine’s Flaming Carrot casting call, where they suggested he be played by Robin Williams?”)

The Savage Dragon #41

Publication date: September, 1997

Creator, writer, penciler, inker: Erik Larsen
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Colors: I.H.O.C.
Film output: Quantum Color FX
Chief Executive: Garrett Chin
Has pictures of Princess Diana that he’s willing to let go for a damn fair price considering what he went through to get them: Josh Eichorn
Special thanks to: James Ruhfus

Summary:

Barbaric and Ricochet are getting married! I dunno who they are, but apparently they’re important.

Alas, their marital bliss gets off to a poor start when a swarm of villains crash the festivities. A brawl between what must be a hundred indie comics characters ensues (including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who made the guest list), but it is quickly quelled by Ricochet, who tells everyone to shut up, sit down and enjoy the wedding.

Everyone shuts up, sits down and Barbaric and Ricochet are properly hitched. The Turtles, unfortunately, warrant rather cheap seats, as they’re situated in the back of the crowd, crammed between Madman and the page fold.


Turtle Tips:

*Despite being printed a year earlier, this issue most likely takes place between TMNT (Vol. 3) #16 and TMNT (Vol. 3) #17, as that’s one of the few narrative breaks in the series where all four Turtles are together.

*The Turtles last met Officer Dragon in TMNT (Vol. 3) #11. Sara “Horridus” Hill and Rapture were also attending the wedding and the Turtles (or just Michelangelo, rather) last met them in the same issue.

*Destroyer Duck is at the wedding and the Turtles last met him (in the guise of Specimen Q) in The Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck #1.

*Grifter of the WildC.A.T.S. is at the wedding, and the Turtles last met him in Shattered Image #2.

*Cerebus is at the wedding. He’d previously encountered the Turtles, canonically, in TMNT (Vol. 1) #8, and non-canonically, in Miami Mice #4.

*Flaming Carrot is at the wedding and the Turtles last met him (non-canonically) in TMNT/Flaming Carrot Crossover #4.


Review:

Erik Larsen included pretty much every comic book character he could get to appear in this issue, and even a few he couldn’t (look for illegal cameos from the Hulk, the Sinister Six, Batman, Robin and more). Naturally, the Ninja Turtles were a given.

Also, all THESE guys:

While they’re reduced to nothing more than faces in a crowd for their two panels-worth of appearances in this issue, this is actually one of my favorite Image cameos from them, as it’s the only one where they’re drawn with their various “mutilations”. Their cameo appearances in Image books like Shattered Image #2 and Mars Attacks Image #1 have them all drawn in their traditional, nigh-identical character models. Larsen, however, remembers to draw them with the visual distinctions they’d developed over the course of TMNT (Vol. 3); Raph sports his eye-patch and Don is a cyborg.

Other than that, well, nothing more to say about the Ninja Turtles’ part in this issue.

Instead, I’ll just say that thanks to the TMNT and their many crossovers with the series, I’ve been developing quite an affection for The Savage Dragon. All the issues I’ve read have been highly humorous, and while oozing 90s comic clichés, it seems self-aware enough never to take itself too seriously and revel in said clichés. I may have to start back issue bin diving for random issues, as Savage Dragon is always fun reading.

Grade: N/A (as in, “Now wait a second… Cerebus is at the wedding, too, and the Turtles don’t even stop to say ‘hi’? Wow, what a bunch of snobs”.)