Publication date: December, 2003
Written by: Peter David
Pencils by: Lesean Thomas
Inks: Erik Sander
Colors: Stuart Ng, Jong-im Lee, Sigmund Torre
Flats: Kenny Li
Letters: Matt Moylan
VP/Editor in Chief: Roger Lee
President: Pat Lee
Cover: Skottie Young
“Kali Flower”
Summary:
Outside the Second Time Around shop, Dheeraj and Jaya are
having a makeout session. April
interrupts them, as it’s time for Dheeraj to get to work. Inside, Dheeraj brings up the Turtles within
earshot of customers and April pulls him aside for a little chat. She tells him that their existence must
remain a secret, and if he respects the Turtles, he’ll keep his mouth shut.
That night, in the alleys, Casey Jones and Leonardo bust
up some punks. Leo asks Casey what he
knows about the Thoogs and Casey says that they’re a weird gang of
pseudo-cultists, out to resurrect ancient gods.
Casey tells Leo where he can find their hideout (an old theater), then
hops on his motorcycle and leaves. Leo
heads to the roof where he’s met by his brothers. The other Turtles insist on helping him deal
with the Thoogs and Leo reluctantly accepts the offer. Together, all four Turtles pile into the
Sewer Sled and head to the theater.
Elsewhere, Dheeraj arrives at his family’s apartment only
to be greeted by Mangesh, the leader of the Thoogs. Mangesh explains that the Thoogs have taken
Jaya hostage and if Dheeraj doesn’t join up with them, they’ll kill her. Dheeraj agrees to join their gang and Mangesh
tells him to meet up with the Thoogs at midnight at the old theater.
The Turtles arrive at the theater through the rear
entrance and spot the Thoogs on stage.
Jaya is tied up and they’re performing a ritual to summon Kali. Leonardo thinks and realizes that just
beating the Thoogs up won’t be enough to stop them from tormenting Dheeraj;
they need to scare the punks straight.
Donatello looks around at the leftover theater props and figures he can
work something out.
Dheeraj makes it to the theater and attempts to hoist Jaya
up to the catwalk by her ropes. He’s
spotted and Mangesh prepares to kill their sacrifice. Suddenly, a giant robed, four-armed figure wielding
swords and sais appears on stage. Its Leonardo
disguised as Kali, of course. Using the booming audio equipment, Mikey tells the Thoogs that Kali is outraged at their
impudence. He swears to swears to
destroy all the Thoogs for bothering him with their foolish ritual. On cue, Don shuts off the lights and the Turtles beat down all the Thoogs. Mangesh attempts to flee, but is knocked out
by Dheeraj. “Kali” vanishes and Dheeraj
and Jaya leave together.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT (Dreamwave) #6. Although it is the last issue, material for the partially completed issues #8-10 were later published as bonus content in the trade paperback collection.
*Contrary to popular belief, the cancellation of
Dreamwave’s TMNT comic had NOTHING to do with Dreamwave’s bankruptcy. Dreamwave closed down in 2005, almost two
years after this series was canned. The
Dreamwave TMNT comic was cancelled because it sucked, end of story.
Review:
This has to have been the absolute WORST string of TMNT
comics I have ever read. Every issue
ranged from bad to terrible, with boring stories, boring characters,
incompetent pacing and incompetent art.
There is nothing redeeming about Dreamwave’s Ninja Turtles comic; it’s
only saving grace is that you can get each issue for a quarter, I suppose.
This final issue (which wasn’t meant to be the final
issue) finishes up Dheeraj’s storyline, as the Turtles find a way to keep the
Thoogs off his back. Hey, remember when
the Turtles used to fight bad guys like the Shredder? Apparently, that stuff is dullsville,
man. Episodic tales where the Turtles
teach valuable life lessons to inner city children, THAT’S where it’s at!
Dheeraj is as obnoxiously milquetoast a character as
ever. Needless to say, he hasn’t the
charisma to carry a two-issue story arc.
I wonder if David had plans to keep him around as a major supporting
character in the series? I’m grateful
the comic didn’t last long enough for me to find out.
Apparently, the next issue would have begun a story arc
called “T4: The Turtlenator” which the comic had been advertising for a few
months. The solicit says that Baxter
Stockman’s Mouser mainframe would have gained sentience and, angered that the
Turtles “killed” her “children”, seek revenge by building a robotic
doppelganger called the Turtlenator. The
ads even call out that it’s featuring the enemy from the 2003 Konami TMNT video
game, trying to make some sort of tie-in with it. Wasn’t the evil robot called the Turtlebot in
the Konami game? Whatever, it doesn’t
matter.
While the teasers for the Turtles fighting the Turtlenator may have looked promising, let’s not kid ourselves. The issues would have suffered from all the same scripting and art problems that plagued the entire run of the Dreamwave series. It may not have been as boring as three straight issues of the Turtles helping kids deal with “real life” problems, but it would have been terrible in its own unique sort of ways, I’m sure.
While the teasers for the Turtles fighting the Turtlenator may have looked promising, let’s not kid ourselves. The issues would have suffered from all the same scripting and art problems that plagued the entire run of the Dreamwave series. It may not have been as boring as three straight issues of the Turtles helping kids deal with “real life” problems, but it would have been terrible in its own unique sort of ways, I’m sure.
As for the art in this issue, I’m tired of pointing out
all the same fundamental problems.
Instead, I’d just like to mention how hilarious it is that this issue
had FOUR colorists and they STILL got bandana colors wrong on a couple
pages. All that and the lettering is screwed up, assigning the wrong dialogue to the wrong Turtle.
Anyway, I’m just glad to have this dark cloud lifted from
over my head. I’ll never have to read
these fucking things ever again.
Grade: F (as in, “Finally. I can live again”.)
