Originally published in: Mirage Mini Comics Collection
Publication date: 1989
Story by: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)
Penciled by: Michael Dooney
Inked by: Dan Berger
Lettered by: Mary Kelleher
“A Forgotten TMNT Adventure”
Summary:
Coming home after a brief stint as Intergalactic Wrestlers, Cudley the Cowlick is having a hard time getting the Turtles back to their rightful place within time and space. Having just brought them to a point too far into the future, Cudley gives it a second shot.
Violently spitting the Turtles out, they find themselves in a gorgeous forest untouched by man. Cudley explains that this time he accidentally brought them back to Manhattan…five hundred years before they were hatched.
Cudley and the Turtles admire the scenery, with Mike exclaiming that it’s so much prettier than the post-apocalyptic future they’d just witnessed (well duh).
Turtle Tips:
*According to the note on the back, this story takes place between the first and second panels of Page 27 of TMNT Adventures #7.
Review:
Counting the front and back covers, this is basically a throw-away eight-page story that doesn’t attempt to accomplish much. To be fair, how much depth can you accomplish in eight pages, anyway?
Placing it where it belongs in continuity, I admit that it sets up a better sense of duality, as we had just witnessed the mangled future-Earth spoiled by man and global warming.
Unfortunately, all it really serves is to make a preachy public service announcement preachier. TMNT Adventures was never shy about its environmental messages, and this is just eight extra pages of that “Captain Planet” quality finger-wagging at humanity.
Grade: C- (as in “Come to think of it, can I really give a good or bad grade to something that’s just eight pages of filler?”)
