Originally published in: Ladies’ Home Journal Christmas
1990 issue
Publication date: December, 1990
Plot: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy) and Andrea Carlin
Script: Dean Clarrain
Pencils and Inks: Michael Dooney
Colors: Steve Lavigne
Letters: Mary Kelleher
“Twas the Fight before Christmas”
Summary:
It’s Christmas Eve and a little girl on her way home from
gift shopping is in trouble. A gang of
hoodlums swipe her presents and leave her with nothing to take to her
family. Raphael watches all this from a
basement window and decides to rush back to the lair to get the other Turtles.
In the lair, Michelangelo and Splinter are preparing the
Christmas pizza, while Donatello, Leonardo and April trim the tree. Raph arrives, tells everyone what happened
and the Turtles head out to get the little girl’s presents back.
Returning to the alley, they find footprints in the snow
and follow them to the gang’s hideout.
They burst in through the window and beat everyone up, only to discover
that the gang has been busy. They’ve
robbed hundreds of people of their toys!
Wondering how they’re going to get all these toys back to the kids who
they belong to, Raph comes up with a plan…
Later, the Turtles (dressed as Santas), April (dressed as
an elf) and Splinter (dressed as a reindeer) drive through the city, handing
out the presents to all the kids in town (including the little girl).
Turtle Tips:
*This is basically a condensed adaptation of Michelangelo (microseries) #1.
*Special thanks to Go Green Machine for making this comic available!
Review:
Magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal and Woman’s Day used to have the same gimmick
around Christmas time. They’d include
short comics based on popular children’s characters as something for mothers to
share with their kids. Here’s a similar one Woman's Day did for Transformers back in ’85.
So maybe that’ll give you a little context as to why this
4-page short that would have been more at home in Welsh’s TMNT Magazine wound
up in a periodical for middle-aged women.
The story is essentially a condensed retelling of the
Michelangelo micro, albeit with the focus on Raph. There isn’t a whole lot of story to the
thing, but it boasts some nice Michael Dooney art and that’s always a pleasure.
Other than that, it’s just one more of the weird odds and
ends of the TMNT that found its way into the most unexpected places. If you weren’t there to enjoy it, this ought
to illustrate just how far a reach Turtlemania had back in the day. There really wasn’t any place the Ninja
Turtles DIDN’T show up.
Grade: Merry April, everybody!