Originally published in: TMNT New Animated Adventures #10
Publication date: April 23, 2014
Story: Derek Fridolfs
Art: Dario Brizuela
Colors: Heather Breckel
Letters: Shawn Lee
Edits: Bobby Curnow
“Love Bytez”
Summary:
It’s Valentine’s Day and Mikey wants to share the love
amongst his brothers with some valentines.
Unfortunately, they’re all too busy to notice his handiwork, so Mikey
wanders off to the rooftops to be alone.
While watching the happy couples on the streets below, he notices how
every time he looks away, they vanish.
The other Turtles respond to Mikey’s call and find him on
the roof wearing a tinfoil hat and rubbing himself down in pizza grease. Mikey suspects the disappearances to be the
work of the Kraang, ghosts and Bigfoot working together, so he’s prepared
his countermeasures accordingly (the Kraang can’t read his mind through the tinfoil hat,
Bigfoot can’t grab him if he’s all greasy and ghosts aren’t scary if you have a
group with you).
Investigating, they find a trail of spider webs leading to
an abandoned building. They all come to
the conclusion that Spider Bytez is behind the kidnappings and attempt to infiltrate
his lair through the skylight. Spider
Bytez anticipates their arrival, bringing down the roof with acid and then trapping them all in webbing. Spider Bytez
explains that he took the couples hostage to lure the Turtles out, but also to
get revenge on all the happy people out there who are still human. As a bonus, he wants to make the Turtles pay for getting
him mutated.
Luckily, the pizza grease allows Mikey to slip through
the webbing. He proceeds to “mock”
Spider Bytez by showering him with compliments and uses the distraction to slip
Leo his bladed nunchakus. The other
Turtles get free and follow Mikey’s lead, irritating Spider Bytez so he spits
acid indiscriminately in all directions.
Meanwhile, Mikey helps the (blindfolded) couples out of the
building. All the acid eventually brings
the building down and the Turtles escape as Spider Bytez is buried alive.
Down in the lair, the Turtles apologize to Mikey for
ignoring his valentines and thank him for saving the day. As a sign of their appreciation, they have
April bring in a heart-shaped pizza.
Splinter likewise thanks Michelangelo for reminding his family to never
take for granted the people who care for them, as there are others out there
who aren’t so lucky. On the surface,
Spider Bytez stomps around an alleyway in incoherent rage.
Turtle Tips:
*This story is continued from TMNT New Animated Adventures #9. The story continues in
“Mikey’s Map”.
*The Turtles last met Spider Bytez in the season 2
episode “Metalhead Rewired”.
Review:
So, Spider Bytez.
Let’s talk about him. He was one of
the earliest mutant villains introduced in the Nickelodeon TMNT series and he
was also one of the quickest to be forgotten.
Of his two appearances in the cartoon thus far, he’s been the focus
of neither episode and is just sort of this random action figure character who
shows up whenever Nick can afford to get Lewis Black in the recording booth.
While I don’t care for his design one bit, I think what
really hurts Spider Bytez is that he has no motivation or resources capable of
carrying a story. He was just some
overweight TV jockey who accidentally got mutated and now he’s mad at the
Turtles (and really, it WAS totally their fault he got dragged into a Kraang
mutagen facility). How do you write
stories around a villain like that? He
isn’t smart enough to come up with any inventive schemes, he hasn’t allied
himself with the larger villainous forces so far as we know (the Kraang tried
to keep him locked up, but he was hardly working for them), and he has nothing
driving him to even BE a villain other than “the Frogs made me into a freak”.
There just isn’t a lot to work with and I imagine that
plays a large part in why we hardly ever see him.
Newcomer to New Animated Adventures (though he previously
did some inking for Mirage, on the story “The Mother of All Anger”), Derek
Fridolfs does his level best to centralize a narrative around the TMNT’s most
shallow adversary. I think he does about
as well as anyone working with the character can be expected. Setting it on Valentine’s Day provides an
excuse for Spider Bytez to be angrier than usual and to take his bitterness out
on random people, and likewise Fridolf works the holiday shenanigans into Mikey’s
side of things so it all comes together.
One of those “two sides of the coin” deals; not exactly innovative but
it paces out a good story with a lesson to be learned.
Exactly what Spider Bytez planned to DO with those
hostages isn’t elaborated upon. Fridolfs
avoids any mention of him eating them, which I actually liked, as it keeps him
distinct from the TMNT’s other most shallow adversary: Snakeweed. Snakeweed’s deal is that he kidnaps people,
imprisons them in cocoons and then turns them into fertilizer so he can
eat. Admittedly, a giant spider
capturing people so he can eat them makes a little more sense, but again, it
keeps Spider Bytez’s gimmick from retreading Snakeweed’s (while also keeping
him somewhat sympathetic).
All in all, I don’t think “Love Bytez” was a bad story, I
think it just suffered from having to utilize a villain that hasn’t much to
offer. If Spider Bytez is ever
to stand a chance of being, you know, GOOD, he’ll probably have to quit being a
solo act and join up with some other mutants or something. Because on his own, he just can’t carry a
story.
Grade: C (as in, “Can’t we get an issue with
Newtralizer? That guy was awesome”.)
