Originally published in: TMNT Magazine (Panini) #1
Publication date: May 2 - May 29, 2013
Story: Ed Caruana
Script: John-Paul Bove
Pencils: Ryan J. Neal
Colours: Jason Cardy
Letters: Alex Foot
“Takeout”
Summary:
How It All Began: While leaving a pet shop with four baby
turtles, exiled ninja master Hamato Yoshi accidentally stumbled upon a pair of
strange men trading a canister of ooze.
There was a fight and in the confusion, the canister broke, spilling its
contents onto Yoshi and his turtles.
Yoshi was mutated into a rat while his turtles were mutated into
anthropomorphs. He fled to the sewers
with his new sons and trained them in the art of ninjutsu. And so…
The Turtles are on their way home with a large stack of
pies from Mancini’s Pizza. Donatello
hurries his brothers along, stating that they only have nine minutes before the
pizzas fall below “optimum temperature”.
Unfortunately, their trip home is sidetracked when
Michelangelo elects to help a stranded kitty down from a window ledge. The Turtles are about to continue on their
way when they hear a woman scream. They
round the corner and find a little old lady being robbed by muggers. The Turtles scare the muggers off and
Leonardo returns the old lady’s purse (which she promptly beats him over the
head with for being a “giant lizard”).
Time is running out as the pizzas are rapidly cooling and
the Turtles are about to slide down the manhole when they hear an
explosion. This time it’s the Purple
Dragons, setting fire to an electronics store.
The Turtles beat the snot out of the Dragons (pawning off their load of
pizza boxes onto Mikey with each attack).
Eventually they take them all down and stash them in a dumpster until
the police arrive.
The Turtles think they’re home free, but just as Mikey starts crawling down the manhole, a truck comes zooming down the street. Mikey ducks in time to save his head, but not
the pizzas, which the truck runs over.
Down in the sewers, the Turtles relate the events to Splinter. Splinter praises them for putting the needs
of others before their own desires.
However, he suggests that in the future, they seek wisdom from an
ancient scroll. Leo unfurls the “ancient
scroll” which turns out to be a delivery menu from Mancini’s Pizza.
Turtle Tips:
*The next story in publication sequence is “Chasing Shadows”.
*Page 11, the truck that destroys the pizzas is modeled
after Optimus Prime from the live action Transformers films. Panini used to publish Transformers comics back in the 2000s, but has since lost the license to Titan.
Review:
For the record, I’d like to thank “Enscripture” of the
Technodrome Forums for hooking me up with these comics. I’m American, if you haven’t guessed, so the
Panini magazines aren’t so easy to come by for me.
In case anyone is confused, these Nick TMNT comics
published in Europe by Panini are NOT the same as the Nick TMNT comics
published in America by IDW. The TMNT New Animated Adventures series is an entirely different book. From what I understand, IDW was able
to get a license to publish their original TMNT comics in Europe (through…
Titan, maybe? I’m not sure). However, Panini Magazines had already secured
a license to publish TMNT comics based on the Nickelodeon animated series in
European markets some months before. As a
result, IDW cannot publish TMNT New Animated Adventures in European
territories.
At least, that’s how it is at the moment. IDW and Panini may eventually work things out
down the line. I’d kind of like to see
some synergy between the Panini and IDW Nick TMNT comics and maybe both titles
could share their content back and forth.
Hey, it’s not unheard of. The
Marvel UK Real Ghostbusters comic used to reprint issues from the American Real
Ghostbusters comic published by NOW (usually broken up across issues, since UK
comic content is slimmer). And likewise,
when NOW was running late, they’d reprint strips from the Marvel UK Real
Ghostbusters comic as filler (usually 3 strips per issue, since American comics are longer).
The reason I’d like to see cooperation between the two
publishers is because I think BOTH of their Nick TMNT comics are pretty good and
I wouldn’t want either side of the Atlantic to be deprived of any of them.
These Panini comics run at different lengths depending on
the issue. Sometimes there are two short
strips and sometimes there’s a double-length comic. The variety is nice and I appreciate the
freedom the writers have to only say as much as they want to rather than feel
obligated to pad out a full 22 pages.
Both the Panini and IDW comics suffer from the same
unavoidable setback of having to take place “between” episodes of the currently
running animated series. As such, the
adventures have to be… not “small time”, but they certainly can’t be
definitive. If the Turtles fight a
villain from the show, he or she has to be left in pretty much the same position as
where they found them so as not to disrupt the continuity of the cartoon. Likewise, there isn’t really any room for
story arcs in these comics, because they’re tiptoeing around cartoon storylines which
the writers don’t even know the specifics of.
In a way, I actually kind of like this limitation placed
on the Panini and IDW Nick TMNT comics.
They’re solid, fun, done-in-one stories and in this day and age, there
just aren’t enough comics like that. In an
industry polluted by Bendis-style decompression, it’s nice to have an episodic
book every now and again.
Anyhow, despite my appreciation for these comics, this
introductory chapter is a little unassuming.
Not a bad tale, though that droll comedy relief ending felt like it was
missing a trumpet going “Mwa Mwa Mwa Mwaaaaaaaa”. This is the first issue (and only the first
story in the first issue) and writers Caruana and Bove are just getting their
feet wet.
One thing Panini seems to be getting right that IDW isn’t:
Leonardo. Nick’s Leo is the most
entertaining incarnation of the character in franchise history and he’s
great. IDW’s Leo hasn’t really had any
of his goofy “Space Heroes” wannabe outbursts yet, while Panini’s Leo has his
moment in this first issue (giving a corny speech as he returns the purse to
the old lady, only to get thwacked). It’s
a little thing, I know, but now that we’ve finally got a Leonardo with a
freakin’ personality, it’d be nice if the IDW writers would be kind enough to
use it. Panini’s writers establish their
understanding of the cast concisely and convincingly in just this 6-page short,
which is impressive and satisfying.
And I’m really digging Neal’s pencils and Cardy’s colo(u)rs. The work from Brizuela and Breckel over at
IDW has been nice, but these two have a way of going off-model, but not too
off-model. I like Brizuela, make no
mistake, but his adherence to the Nick cartoon designs can be a little
problematic (his April looks like a plastic doll, for instance). Neal’s Turtles break model for emphasis and
don’t feel quite so static in expression or pose. His layouts can be a little erratic, but
there’s a whole lot of energy to his work that’s very cool. Cardy’s colors seem much brighter than
Breckel’s and the characters really pop.
Anyhow, these comics were a pleasant surprise. I’m about 6 issues behind on em, so I’ll be
having some fun catching up. Hopefully,
if all the rights and distribution issues between IDW and Panini are resolved,
we can have a transatlantic Nickelodeon TMNT comic exchange. They’re both good stuff.
Grade: B (as in, “But because the comic cannot risk
contradicting the cartoon, Mike missed an obvious opportunity to adopt Klunk”)
