Publication date: April, 2007
Plot: Peter Laird, Mike Manley, Steve Murphy
Words: Bill Moulage
Art: Mike Manley
Cover: Mike Manley and Eric Talbot
Frontispiece: Eddy Spurlock and Ryan Brown
Letters: Eric Talbot
“The Bait”
Summary:
Frontispiece: In a bar, Casey grips his hockey mask and
leans over a beer. Badly inebriated, he
tries to talk about how he taught his sorrows to swim, but constantly slurs the
words. Despite his best efforts, though,
he cannot forget the worst of his memories…
Down in the sewer lair, Splinter is meditating when he
feels a disturbance in the force. He
projects his astral form to follow the bad vibes and they take him to the
depths of the ocean. Splinter begins to
suspect the worst, when Casey comes storming in, screaming that Foot Soldiers
kidnapped his infant daughter Shadow.
Casey asks where the Turtles are and Splinter informs him that they are
off on a spiritual pilgrimage and cannot be contacted. Splinter vows to help Casey and asks what
happened.
Casey explains that he was taking Shadow through a walk
in Central Park in her stroller, when a bunch of Foot Soldiers descended from
the trees and attacked. He fought off as
many as he could, but they managed to separate him from the stroller and escape
with Shadow. Splinter finds it strange
that they let Casey live and suspects they’re setting a trap, using Shadow as
bait. Casey and Splinter return to the
scene of the crime in Central Park and find Shadow’s discarded stroller and
stuffed animals. Enraged, Casey tells
Splinter they need to stop by his apartment to pick some things up before they
hunt down the Foot.
A little while later, Casey emerges from his apartment
with his hockey mask and golf bag full of blunt instruments. Racing over the rooftops, he and Splinter
follow the Foot’s tracks west toward an old factory on a pier. Splinter says that the factory was the scene
of a previous battle with the Foot and is most likely where the Clan’s trap
will be sprung.
They sneak into the factory and begin taking down Foot
Soldiers until one of the ninja accidentally lands an axe into some pump
machinery. There’s a huge explosion and
water begins to rush in from the river.
Not just water, but hungry sharks and abnormally aggressive octopi,
too. Splinter feels supernatural forces
at work and suspects that this entire ordeal has been orchestrated by…
The Shark Shredder!
Having merged with Mashima the Foot Mystic, the Shark
Shredder was able to regrow himself. He
then got about plotting his revenge against Splinter and the Turtles, using
Casey and Shadow as bait. No longer
needing Shadow, the Shark Shredder drops the baby in the icy water. Casey dives in and rescues her, dodging the
Shark Shredder’s tentacles and claws.
Splinter feels the presence of Mashima within the Shark Shredder’s
consciousness and communicates with him spiritually. Mashima is loathe to be trapped inside the
Shark Shredder and desperately wants to end the abomination. Splinter and Mashima then begin a psychic
attack on the Shark Shredder while Casey attacks him physically, smacking him
upside the head with a golf club.
The dual attacks succeed.
Mashima’s spirit is freed to the afterlife and the Shark Shredder
collapses and impales himself on a broken beam, dying. Mashima thanks Splinter for his help, vowing
that he no longer thirsts for revenge.
Splinter forgives Mashima and wishes him well.
As fire fighters see to the scene, Casey and Splinter
slip away. Splinter returns Shadow to
Casey (after she pulls on his whiskers).
All is well in the end, save that Shadow needs a diaper change.
Turtle Tips:
*Chronologically, I would place this shortly after TMNT (Vol. 2) #13.
*Mashima and the Shark Shredder last appeared in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) #4, where they fought the Turtles and Splinter at the factory
and were thought dead.
*The Turtles forged a truce with Karai and the Foot Clan
in TMNT (Vol. 1) #61. Obviously, the
Foot Soldiers in this issue were loyal to the Shark Shredder and not Karai,
hence the lack of acknowledgement to the truce.
*This issue was originally published with a back-up
story, “Credo” by Will Tupper, Eric Theriault and Erik Swanson.
Review:
Well, it took forever, but Tales of the TMNT eventually sewed up the lingering cliffhanger from the end of the initial Shark Shredder
arc. Just be grateful the plot thread
GOT a conclusion. Most ongoing
storylines in Tales of the TMNT (Vol. 2) never received endings.
Anyhow, “The Bait” moves at mach speed to get everything
established and concluded within 23 pages.
This sucker is in a HURRY. Like
many Tales stories, I do kind of wish it had been given two issues to flesh out
its plot and conflict, but multi-parters were pretty rare in this book, so I
guess it would be asking too much. For
as hectically paced as “The Bait” is, I think Moulage deserves some credit for
managing to economically pack it all in there.
Moreso than the return of the Shark Shredder, I think the
real value of “The Bait” comes in the unexpected and abnormal pairing of Casey
Jones with Master Splinter. Never was
there more of an odd couple. Sadly, the
race to get the whole tale told in one issue somewhat squanders the potential
for fun, as Splinter and Casey are rarely afforded the opportunity to play off
of one another. They get a few good
lines in, and I rather liked seeing Splinter bonk Casey on the head with his
staff to calm him down, but the opportunity for so much more humor was there if
the story had just had the time to breathe.
Casey was portrayed really well in this issue, I
think. Though he “relapses” back to
hockey-masked vigilante mode for possibly the first time since “City at War”
(he put on a mask in Vol. 2 for one fight, but it wasn’t his hockey mask), his
growth as a character isn’t forgotten.
He’s doing this to save his daughter, who was his whole reason for
leaving the vigilante life behind. Casey’s
desperation to save Shadow is palpable and artist Mike Manley strikes
some great expressions of fear and confusion on him (particularly the bottom
panel of page 4). The page 11 pin-up of
Casey in vigilante mode was a nice piece, too, and his relapse feels like a
suitably “big” moment. Leaving the whole
vigilante thing behind was a pretty major plot point of his arc during “City at
War”, so it’s nice to know the writers for this story didn’t “forget” about
Casey’s retirement and gave the moment the drama it deserved. And considering how fast this story rushes
by, actually stopping for a splash page feels especially “big”.
As for the Shark Shredder and Mashima, well, they’re kind
of dispatched with too much ease. The Shark
Shredder makes his epic comeback on page 17 and he’s dead by page 22. Still, for what little we see of him at the
end of this story, I loved what we got.
When the Shark Shredder rises from the river and smashes the factory, he
utterly disregards the welfare of all his Foot Soldiers. In every panel, they’re seen hectically
clinging to wooden support beams, getting swatted by the Shark Shredder’s
tentacles, frantically swimming in terror from the man-eating sharks the
Shredder summoned, and so forth. It’s
funny, but it gives a bit of personality to this monstrous, abomination of a
Shredder, showing how little he cares for human life (he kidnapped a baby,
after all) and how willing he is to callously sacrifice anyone and anything
just to get revenge.
I think, conceptually, “The Bait” had the potential to be
a lot better than it wound up being.
There are great ideas in here, like the oddball pairing of Splinter and
Casey, and there are some big moments, like Casey coming out of retirement to
save Shadow and the return of the Shark Shredder, but it rushes through them
with a “let’s just get this over with” attitude that almost sinks it.
Grade: C (as in, “Can’t really excuse the scene where
Casey drops to his knees and screams ‘NOOOOOOO!’ to the Heavens as anything
other than terrible, either”.)
