Publication date: October 17 - November 13, 2013
Script: Ed Caruana
Art: Cosmo White
Colours: Jason Cardy
Colour assist: A. D. Lee & E. Pirrie
Letters: Alex Foot
“A Slice of Luck”
Summary:
At Foot HQ, Fishface tells the Shredder that he has a
foolproof scheme to find the Turtles and their sewer lair. Shredder warns Fishface not to fail him.
Down in the sewers, the Turtles are taking a shortcut to
the pizzeria that happens to cross through Leatherhead’s den. Knowing he can be grouchy when woken, they
decide to cross as quietly as possible.
Suddenly, Don’s T-Phone goes off, waking the alligator. Leatherhead proceeds to grab Donnie by his face
and hurl him against a wall. The
Turtles grab the witless Donnie and escape the rampaging gator as Raph tells April to call back at
another time.
Exiting the sewers into an alley, Mike laments that
Leatherhead must be so lonely down in his den all by himself. Raph tells Mikey to get over it because it’s
pizza time. Suddenly, they spot a pizza
delivery boy on a scooter being chased by a gang of Foot Soldier bikers led by
Fishface.
Don fires a grappling hook onto the rear end of one of
the bikes and all the Turtles leap onto their skateboards and let themselves get pulled along. The Foot bikers try to
ditch the Turtles and swerve them over to a construction zone, where a plank
has been conveniently arranged onto some debris to form a ramp. The Turtles fly up off the ramp and each land
on the back of one of the bikes.
The Turtles easily eject the Foot Soldiers and Fishface from
their bikes. Fishface scampers off,
swearing vengeance and the Turtles are pleased with another victory. The delivery boy thanks them for saving his
life, explaining that he saw the Foot robbing a store and they wanted to kill
him before he could snitch to the authorities.
He offers the Turtles his stack of pizzas as a token of appreciation; a
token they greedily accept.
After the Turtles disappear into the sewers, the delivery
boy reconvenes with Fishface. The
delivery boy removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a member of the Foot
Clan. Fishface then produces a device to
track the beacon hidden in one of the pizza boxes.
Down in the sewers, the Turtles are all trying to recount
their adventure to Master Splinter, but their mouths are full. Mikey finally shows up and Raph asks him
where he’s been. Mike says he just got
back from delivering his last slice of pizza to the slumbering
Leatherhead. Raph wonders if Leatherhead
even likes pizza. Mikey concedes that
maybe the gator would have preferred fish…
And on that subject, Fishface leads a unit of Foot
Soldiers to what he thinks is the sewer lair.
Unfortunately, it’s Leatherhead’s den (as the box Mikey dropped off was
the box with the beacon). Leatherhead,
furious at being so rudely awoken, proceeds to trash all the Foot Soldiers as
Fishface calls a retreat.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT Magazine (Panini) #6. The story continues in TMNT Magazine (Panini) #8.
*Obviously, this story has to take place between the
episodes “It Came From the Depths” (Leatherhead’s first appearance) and “TCRI”
(when Leatherhead is lost in Dimension X).
Review:
These Panini stories all wrap up so nicely; they’re just
well-structured little stories that set everything up fluidly at the start and
pull it all together by the payoff. They’re
not “challenging” stories by any stretch, but they’re very satisfying, especially
considering their economical length.
“A Slice of Luck” is no exception and features a nice
selection of appearances from popular action figures/characters. Fishface kind of suffers the same comedic,
bumbling end that Dogpound did back in “Daydream”, but again, these Panini
comics are pretty short and can only fit in so much material. Most of the villains are treated more for
humor than menace in these comics and I would like to see them presented as
genuine threats rather than punchlines, at least every now and again.
Fishface’s plan is pretty solid and at least half of his
blundering can be explained away as an act.
The idea of finding the TMNT’s lair by slipping a homing beacon in a pizza
delivery box isn’t exactly new, though.
Shredder tried pulling that one in the old Fred Wolf cartoon, in the
episode “Pizza by the Shred”. It worked
about as well there as it did here.
Cosmo White returns for another go around on the art
duties and it’s all quite good. Not to
disparage Dario Brizuela’s efforts over at IDW’s TMNT New Animated Adventures
book, but the Panini artists generally put a lot more kinetic energy into their
layouts and break model for effect a bit more freely. I’m actually beginning to prefer them. Those motorcycles the Foot Soldiers and
Fishface ride are absurd-looking, however. I
wonder, did White design those himself or was he adapting some sort of action
figure vehicle toy? I’d believe the
latter.
Anyhow, this has been two issues of the Panini comic in a
row without the Kraang. I’d love to see
them go for a hat trick.
Grade: B+ (as in, “But what is Leatherhead’s obsession
with Donatello’s face? It’s quite homely”.)
