Originally published in: Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #30
Publication date: December, 2006
Story: Will Tupper
Pencils: Jon Landry
Inks: Derek Fridolfs
Letters: Erik Swanson
“The Mother of All Anger”
Summary:
In the barn, Raphael is pounding the workout bag, trying
to understand just why it is that he always feels so overwhelmingly angry. He wonders why he alone feels this way and
not his brothers. Raph thinks back to
his many attempts to broach the subject with them…
Leo, deep in meditation, mistook his request for a
sparring challenge and sent him to bug Mike.
Mikey, meanwhile, has been so engulfed in his new video game, “Truth
Seekers 7”, that he fails to hear a word Raph says. And lastly, Don misinterprets the “pain
inside” Raph as a possible case of parasites.
Raph thinks to himself about Master Splinter, who is
their father figure, and he has the sudden epiphany as to why he’s so frustrated:
He has no mother and he’ll never know who his mother was due to the
circumstances of his mutation.
Raph finally collapses in tears. Just then, April steps into the barn and asks
him what’s wrong. Raph unloads and tells
her everything; everything that’s been bothering him since he was a child and
just why he’s so angry and frustrated all the time. April holds him and does her best to soothe
him. Raph then realizes that he’s always
seen April as a big sister or a mother.
He then considers what Splinter might say, that families can be created
over time. Raph realizes that Splinter
would be right.
Turtle Tips:
*”The Mother of All Anger” is part of a series of
character vignettes written by Will Tupper.
The other installments include “Credo”, “Secret Spirit”, “Practical Jokes”, “Fathers and Daughters” and "Conflict Resolution".
Review:
With “The Mother of All Anger”, Tupper brings up an
interesting point about the circumstances behind the Turtles’s birth not often
considered. The Turtles had biological
parents; they were just normal, dumb turtles.
They’ll never know who they were or what became of them because they
were plain ole animals.
While it might seem silly for the Turtles to pine for the
affections of a mother who would basically just be a normal reptile incapable
of higher mental faculties, when put in their position I can understand how the
emotion could become so frustrating. Or
at least it bothers Raph, anyway.
Of all the Turtles, Raph seems to actually be the most
contemplative regarding their place in the world and how unfair their “uniqueness”
really is. In “Sons of the Silent Age”
he’s seen lamenting the fact that he and his brothers are the only ones of
their kind, that they’ll never procreate and they’ll leave behind no genetic
legacy of their own. “Crack in a HardHeart” sees Raph struggle with the concept of not only his own mortality, but
that of Splinter’s; wondering how they’ll get by when Splinter passes and
cursing the inevitability of death. And
here, in “The Mother of All Anger”, Raph despises the circumstances of their
origin and that even if he could know who his biological mother was it still
wouldn’t bring him any peace.
These rare moments of reflection illustrate that there’s
a lot more to Raph than the beer-swilling, barroom-brawling badass that so
often dominates his surface. He’s far
more pensive and introspective than his brothers, or at the very least, he’s
less willing than they are to “accept” their lonely existence. When all is said and done, these stories come
together to paint a very vivid image of just what it is that ticks Raph off so
damn much and makes him lash out at everyone and everything. It also shows why, no matter how long the
series runs or how old he gets, he never “mellows out”. His problems run deeper than just teenage
angst and there are no solutions to his troubles.
But to contradict that last statement a bit, there *are*
always substitutions. April’s role as “den
mother” to the Turtles within the Mirage series has always been a bit
troubling. It makes her very, very
boring. She’s their level-headed
grounding in reality; a position that’s definitely needed, but comes with the
baggage of forcing her to be a dull voice of reason when everybody else is
allowed to be at least a *little* fun.
It’s a position unique to her Mirage portrayal, as every other piece of
Turtle media has sought to remedy her lack of entertaining virtues by making
her a news reporter or a ninja-in-training or even a perpetual love interest
(or so I’m told; I haven’t watched the new Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon yet). April’s stuck in an unenviable position
within the Mirage universe, as attempts to make her “more interesting”
(revealing that she’s a drawing brought to life by a magic crystal, having her
become the new Nobody and prowl the streets as a vigilante) run counter to the
foundation of her character as the tether “grounding” the Turtles to reality.
It’s definitely a catch-22 and I understand why most other Turtle properties
avoid trapping her in such a position.
Artist Jon Landry lays out some nice pages and I
appreciate his firm grasp on perspective and foreshortening; it makes his
panels “pop” and gives them a better sense of depth. While his Turtles are inexplicably “veiny”, I
really dig his animated take on their expressions. Landry would’ve been a good choice for a
comic based on the 4Kids TMNT cartoon, I think.
I suppose my only real complaint is with that last panel, which is
beautiful in spirit, but bothersome in that Raph’s arms are like 12 inches wide
and he kind of looks like the Hulk.
As with all the vignettes in Tupper’s series, “The Mother
of All Anger” is a poignant look at the inner workings of the Turtles. As a singular explanation for Raph’s anger,
the “mother” thing may not hold up, but when combined with all his other
moments of introspective frustration, it helps us to see the whole picture.
Grade: A- (as in, “And judging by the look of Don’s work
bench, he’s apparently building both a ghost trap and a Mouser”.)
