Conservation Corps #3

Publication date: November, 1993

Script: Dan Nakrosis (story 1 & 2) and Paul Castiglia (story 1 only)

Pencils and letters: Dan Nakrosis (story 1 & 2)

Colors: Barry Grossman

Managing edits: Victor Gorelick

Summary:

“Oil Fowled Up!”

The Conservation Corps counterattack against Robo-Oily Bird and also I just got that “Danopaulus” is a portmanteau of the creators’ first names.  Firefly attempts to ignite the duck’s fuel, but the fowl just swats him away.  Stonehedgehog tries next, realizing that petroleum is a mineral and he should have the power to control his foe.  Robo-Oily Bird makes the ground too slippery for Stonehedgehog to get any traction and he goes careening off into the distance.  With no water or plant life around, Water Buffalo and Green Horn resort to fisticuffs, but cannot put a dent in Robo-Oily Bird’s armor.

Finally, Sky Shark steps up to the plate.  She tells the “inferior gender” to stand aside and boasts that she can take their enemy down all by herself.  Robo-Oily Bird chases her into the sky, but suddenly finds himself short of breath and plummets back down to the surface of Danopaulus.  Sky Shark brags that she simply sucked all the oxygen away in a vacuum around Oily Bird, asphyxiating him.

With Robo-Oily Bird unconscious, Benevolence has the corrupt Congressman taken away by the authorities.  The Corps asks who he is and Benevolence reveals that the Congressman’s name is Malevolence and that they’re brothers.  As for Robo-Oily Bird, Benevolence says that he’ll be sent to the planet’s polar region to be held in suspended animation until he can find a way to return the mutated water fowl back to normal.

The Corps offers to stay and help Danopualus with its reconstruction, but Benevolence insists that they have done enough.  Instead, he and his followers will find a way to balance ecology and economy.  The Conservation Corps, however, must return to Earth and use their powers to keep the planet from becoming as fargone as Danopaulus.  As the Corps leaves in the Pod-Ship, Benevolence promises that he will continue to mentor them from a distance.

When they return to Earth, the Pod-Ship lands in the South Pole and expands into a new high tech headquarters for the Corps… albeit one not drawn on-panel because that would be too much work.

“Fossils ‘n Foam”

In Kearny, New Jersey, a local boy named Frankie introduces himself and begins telling how he met the Conservation Corps…

A small meteor crashes into a dump on the edge of Kearny.  The meteorite pierces through numerous layers of debris until at last lodging itself in the fossilized skull of a tyrannosaurus rex.  The radiation from the meteorite brings the t-rex back to life, but it is missing parts of its skeleton.  Using its new radioactive powers, it collects all the non-biodegradable material it can find, namely styrofoam, and reassembles itself, becoming Styranofoamus Rex.

The monster goes on a rampage throughout Kearny and news quickly spreads across the country.  The President considers nuking New Jersey, Steven Spielberg tries to sue because he thinks he owns the trademark on dinosaurs, an opportunistic preacher in the Bible Belt attempts to sell a book on the End Times to the panicking public, Dan Nakrosis sleeps through the whole thing, and finally, in the South Pole…

At Conservation Corps HQ, the heroes get wind of the rampage and take their Pod-Ship to Kearny.  Firefly offers to melt Styranofoamus, but Water Buffalo stops him.  Melting styrofoam and plastics only creates poisonous gases which could harm the ozone layer!  Green Horn has a plan, and setting the Pod-Ship down by the river, begins to distract Styranofoamus…

Suddenly, Frankie gets called to lunch by his mother.  Hurrying away, he promises to conclude the tale very soon.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Conservation Corps #2.  The second story ends on a cliffhanger with a note asking fans to write in and request more Conservation Corps comics from Archie to see what happens next.  No further comics were ever published, so I guess we’ll never know what became of Styranofoamus Rex.

*This issue also included pin-ups by Fred Hembeck, Paul Castiglia, Brigitte & Mark Morales, Eric Shanower, and Amanda Conner.

Review:

The people have spoken!  And what did they say?  “You can keep the second half of that styrofoam dinosaur story, thanks.”

Yeah, isn’t that a little embarrassing?  Nakrosis and Castiglia deliberately left their last issue off on a cliffhanger, encouraging their fanbase to start a letter writing campaign for more Conservation Corps comics.  Except they neglected to realize that they didn’t HAVE a fanbase to begin with.  It seems they were hoisted by their own petards.

I’ve never gotten to type that colloquialism before.  Let me have this.

“Oil Fowled Up!” is a lackluster conclusion to the ongoing story of the miniseries; breaking this finale up into two segments ultimately shortchanged the A-plot.  Robo-Oily Bird winds up jobbing to Sky Shark to make the new character look good; something of a cliché I think we’re all a little tired of.  

We get our one and only glimpse of Sky Shark’s personality during this fight, as she refers to her male comrades as “the inferior gender” and then proceeds to parry Robo-Oily Bird’s randomly sexist/chauvinistic/misogynistic insults.  So it looks like she was going to be the stock “girl power” character, had this series continued.  Oh, what wonders we missed out on.  Ah well, at least they didn’t try to awkwardly sexualize her or anyth-

Sigh.  The sad reality is that thanks to the law of averages, someone somewhere has jacked off to this.  Let that thought keep you warm at night.

Also, the unnamed Congressman villain FINALLY gets an identity in this very last issue.  Also, he’s Benevolence’s brother.  It’s, like, Shakespearian symmetry or something.  Well, it’s definitely something, anyway.

“Fossils ‘n Foam” introduces, and I’m loathe to admit it, a pretty cool monster in Styranofoamus Rex.  A radioactive t-rex made out of styrofoam that no one can blow up because then it would destroy the ozone layer?  That’s just crazy enough to not be entirely terrible!

The series ends on a cliffhanger, as mentioned, so we’ll never know how the Corps defeated him.  Or IF they defeated him.  Since young Frankie is still breathing, I’m going to assume the Corps was victorious, but there’s always the chance they sacrificed themselves in battle.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

So yeah, needless to say, this entire miniseries is awful.  The art is amateurish, the storytelling is formulaic, the characters have no personality, the messages are preachy… It’s just totally fuckin’ bad.  

It’s a relic of a time when EVERY cartoon, comic and toyline was getting in on the environmentalism movement (G.I. Joe even had the Eco Force.  Yes, the “Eco Force”) and maybe it’ll take you back to those days in the early ‘90s when this shit was so common.  But expect it to feel less like nostalgia and more like a bad memory.

Grade: F (as in, “Fred Hembeck produced the only solid laugh I got out of this whole miniseries”.)

Conservation Corps #2

Publication date: September, 1993

Script: Dan Nakrosis and Paul Castiglia

Pencils and letters: Dan Nakrosis

Colors: Barry Grossman

Managing edits: Victor Gorelick

“A Fish Out of Water”

Summary:

On the ocean floor of the Pacific, Water Buffalo traces the enviro-pod’s signal to a sunken ship.  He creates a whirlpool which shatters the hull of the vessel, freeing the fifth member of the Conservation Corps: An anthropomorphic female shark!  She says that she was swimming a couple days ago when she thought the enviro-pod was food.  She followed it into the ship and it transformed her into what she is now.  However, the ship also collapsed on top of her, trapping her inside.  Happy to have completed his objective, Water Buffalo teleports himself and the shark back to Danopaulus.

On Danopaulus, the corrupt Congressman and his Cy-Droids have taken the Corps and Benevolence hostage, binding them in ropes.  The Congressman explains that he plans to use a transmitting device called Virtual Ecology to send subliminal messages to all the people of Danopaulus.  Those messages will make them think that all is well and that they’re living in a lush, green world.  And so, it will be even easier for him and the rest of the corrupt Congress of Science to continue mining, dumping, cutting and burning every last resource on the planet.  He then opens several tanks of carbon monoxide to suffocate the Corps and leaves with his Cy-Droids.

Water Buffalo and the shark arrive on Danopaulus and the shark manages to scare some answers out of a local, who tells them how to find the other Corps members.  They arrive at the carbon monoxide-filled room in the nick of time and the shark discovers she has powers over wind and air, blowing the poisonous gas out of the building.  Seeing these powers, she dubs herself Sky Shark.

The Corps and Benevolence reach the assembled Congress, but not in time to stop the Congressman from activating his Virtual Ecology transmitters.  The five transmitters broadcast the subliminal message across the world, making it appear to be healthy again.  But the evil politicians haven’t won, as the rest of Benevolence’s underground eco-resistance movement arrives, and they’ve brought thousands of new recruits.

As the Congress is taken into custody, the Corps breaks up so that each can take down one of the five transmitters.  Firefly melts one, Sky Shark destroys one with a tornado, Water Buffalo punches on, Stonehedgehog crushes one with a rock, and Green Horn turns a single blade of grass into a vine that strangles the last transmitter.

They return to celebrate their victory, but the Congressman isn’t finished yet.  He says that he has one more ace up his sleeve and introduces his ultimate weapon: Robo Oily Bird.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from Conservation Corps #1.  The story concludes in Conservation Corps #3.

*This issue also included pin-ups of the Conservation Corps by Kevin Eastman, Joe Staton, Dan Nakrosis (more a chart on household recycling tips) and one by someone with a signature I can’t really read but I think it says “Jorge Darn” (?).

Review:

Green Horn is fucking useless in this miniseries.  His powers revolve around controlling plant life, but the mini takes place on a world devoid of plant life, so what’s he good for?  An entire page is spent on him struggling to control a blade of grass.

So I guess now we know which one is the Ma-Ti of the group.

I’m sure we all cobbled together the allegory of this issue’s drama for ourselves.  The media makes us think everything is ok, but in reality the whole world is going to shit and we just don’t know it.  It seems like maybe Castiglia and Nakrosis got it the other way around; more often the media exaggerates a problem to get people riled up and paranoid.  It serves their ratings, but the reality is that it was never as sweeping a danger as they made it out to be.  Or do you really think it’s just a coincidence that every year, like clockwork, we undergo a media scare involving some trendy new disease (bird flu, swine flu, sars, ebola, zika, and so on)?

The fifth member of the Corps is revealed and it’s a shark.  Well, okay.  I do kind of like the counterintuitive natures of the animal/power pairings.  Water Buffalo is a land mammal and he has the aquatic powers, while Sky Shark is a fish and she has the air-related abilities.  Go figure.  It's the closest this comic gets to being creative so I'll take it.

Also, have you noticed that the evil Congressman who is thus far the primary antagonist of the whole miniseries has yet to receive a name?  And no, “The Congressman” is not his super villain name, I’ve just been capitalizing the “C” for ease of summary skimming.  But yeah, the creators forgot to name their own bad guy.  I guess that’s not the most incompetent thing about this comic.

The pin-up gallery in the back fails to credit the contributors and I hate it when pin-up galleries do that.  Archie was notoriously bad about this (many of their TMNT Adventures issues had galleries without credits) and half the time I can’t read the fucking signatures.  But at least I recognized Kevin Eastman’s pin-up.  It would be difficult not to.

Grade: F (as in, “From the vantage point of 23 years in the future, I wonder if Eastman regrets contributing to this comic?”)

Conservation Corps #1

Publication date: August, 1993

Script: Dan Nakrosis and Paul Castiglia

Pencils and letters: Dan Nakrosis

Colors: Barry Grossman

Managing edits: Victor Gorelick

“Lost & Found”

Summary:

In a raft somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, the Conservation Corps (Water Buffalo, Greenhorn, Firefly and Stonehedgehog) recount their adventure with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and redouble their efforts to find their missing fifth member.  Suddenly, Firefly gets a telepathic message that leads them back to Benevolence’s crashed spaceship.  Investigating, they push all five buttons on a panel and suddenly find themselves trapped in pods which whisk them off into space.

Along the way, they’re treated to a recording of the late Benevolence.  He explains that his homeworld, Danopaulus, was once a lush and vibrant place not unlike Earth.  However, they built their entire global economy around mining and abusing resources.  Now, they’ve destroyed their own ecology and their planet teeters on the brink of doom.  He asks that the Conservation Corps find a way to save Danopaulus.

Arriving on Danopaulus, a hooded native greets them and leads them to a city.  He gives Stonehedgehog a tracking device and tells him to follow it for more answers.  The Corps follows it and they’re eventually led to… Benevolence?  The not-dead alien tells them that when Cudley the Cowlick dropped him and Oily Bird off on Danopaulus, Cy-Droids managed to get him to a hydro-healing cocoon in time to save his life (whilst also taking Oily someplace unknown). 

He goes on to say that he attempted to rally the Congress of Science with his findings on their planet’s pollution and his strategy to save the environment.  However, corrupt politicians had him booted from the Congress and forced him to go underground, collecting a group of radicals to form an eco-task force (uuggghhh).

As the Corps and Benevolence attempt to rejoin the underground movement, they’re attacked by Cy-Droids.  A quick two-page spread makes short work of the robots and Benevolence soon meets with his colleagues.  Unfortunately, they cannot proceed with his plans until the Conservation Corps find their fifth member.  Using a matter transporter tube, Water Buffalo is sent back to Earth to scour the Pacific Ocean for their missing teammate, using a homing device of Benevolence’s design to locate the crashed enviro-pod.

Stonehedgehog is about to follow when suddenly their secret headquarters is invaded by a member of the Congress of Science and his Cy-Droids.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Meet the Conservation Corps #1.  The story continues in Conservation Corps #2.

*This issue also included 3 bonus pin-ups: One by Mike Kazaleh, one by Scott Shaw! and a third by Nakrosis called “Let’s Do Lunch with the Conservation Corps!” (which included a guide on how to recycle your mealtime trash).

Review:

Do you think I WANTED to review this miniseries?  Of course I didn’t.  But a week or two ago I found all three issues in a 50cent box at a local shop and I pretty much couldn’t put it off anymore.  I ran out of excuses and now we’ve all got to put up with this shit.

Personally, I’m not even sure if this counts as a TMNT comic.  I always viewed the Conservation Corps more as crossover characters like Usagi Yojimbo, not spin-off characters like the Mighty Mutanimals.  But I guess that they technically DID originate from a comic book with the Ninja Turtles in it, and the Turtles DO make brief silhouetted cameos in the flashback segment of this first issue, so whatever.  It’s just three issues.  Let’s get this over with.

TMNT Meet the Conservation Corps #1 was one of the worst TMNT comics I’ve ever read and one of the worst comics I’ve ever read PERIOD.  It was bad.  This first issue of the Conservation Corps is… not good.  No, definitely not good.  In fact, it’s bad.  But it isn’t AS bad as TMNT Meet the Conservation Corps, so that still counts as upward momentum.  An F is an improvement over an F-, after all.

The artwork remains very amateurish, but realistically, that’s how a LOT of Archie’s comics seemed to look like in the early ‘90s.  Go back and read the first 20-something issues of Sonic the Hedgehog to see what I mean (Disclaimer: Don’t actually go back and read the first 20-something issues of Sonic the Hedgehog to see what I mean). 

None of the characters ever seem like they’re making eye contact.  Yes, they’re certainly looking AT each other, or they're trying to, but the perspective and the line of sight is so far off I’m rarely sure that the characters even exist on the same plane of reality as one another.  I think the reason is that no one ever faces what they’re looking at.  Their head is tilted to the left and their eyes are straining to the right.

The story is also somewhat confounding, at least when read in conjunction with the TMNT crossover special that introduced everyone.  So in that story, Benevolence came to Earth because he knew Danopaulus was a lost cause and didn’t want Earth to suffer the same fate.  In fact, at the end of that issue, he has Cudley bring Oily Bird to Danopaulus because he feels that even if the monster did get loose and go on a rampage, it couldn’t do any further damage because the planet was fucked, anyway.

But now we learn that his actual motive was to use the Conservation Corps to save his homeworld?  So I guess it wasn’t as lost a cause as he said.  So why’d he bring Oily Bird back with him, then?  Also, having him live sort of sucks the suspense out of his noble sacrifice from the crossover special, but was anybody REALLY invested in the drama of this narrative, anyway?  Of course not.

Much of the plot is derivative of Superman’s origin, either knowingly or not, and you aren’t going to get anything original out of this tale.  Instead, Nakrosis and Castiglia try to dress it up with some Fourth Wall gags that are, actually, kinda clever.  Some of the time.  The opening splash page where Greenhorn accidentally reads the title backward was worth a smirk.

 Look, these aren’t good comics and you don’t need me to tell you that.  And they barely even qualify as TMNT comics, but I suppose I’ve reviewed books with even more tenuous connections.

Grade: F (as in, “For crying out loud, you'd think a creator with a name that sounds like "Necrosis" would be able to come up with something cooler than this shit:”)

Gary's Gag Pages

Originally published in: TMNT Classics Digest #5
Publication date: June 1, 1994

Script/Art: Gary Fields
Colors: Barry Grossman
Edits: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)

Summary:

"Ninja Nuttiness!"

The Turtles are crossing the street when Leonardo spies danger behind the window of a nearby butcher shop.  Leo springs into action, attacking the calf's brains with his sword, having mistaken them for Krang.  Leo is then left to nervously explain himself to an irate butcher.


"What the Shredder did for a Living Before he was an Arch-Villain"

Before he was the Shredder, Oroku Saki was an employee of the Taco Hut, using his armor to shred cheese for an impatient shift manager.


"Kooky Krang!"

As the Turtles invade the Technodrome, Krang taunts them from a closed circuit camera/TV system, boasting about how he'll soon be Emperor of Earth.  Michelangelo mocks him, telling him he has a screw loose.  Pointing to a prison cell containing the Mighty Mutanimals, Krang informs Mikey that not only does he have a Screwloose, but he also has a Wingnut, a Man Ray and many more!


"Bellybomb Returns!"

Watching TV, Donatello's program is interrupted by an emergency bulletin from April.  She warns the city that the intergalactic criminal known as Bellybomb has returned to Earth.  Don calls the Turtles to action, but Splinter warns him that he must be prepared before going into battle.  Donatello then reveals his ultimate weapon against Bellybomb: A high pressure hose and a tank full of mouthwash.


"Meanwhile in Dimension X"

In the Technodrome, Krang calls Shredder in to introduce him to his latest creations: The Foot Soldiers!  ...Ninja with gigantic feet for heads.


Turtle Tips:

*These one-page gag stories were used as bonus content in the fifth volume of the TMNT Classics Digest series and occasionally as filler in the TMNT Adventures ongoing series.

*"Meanwhile in Dimension X" was reprinted in TMNT Adventures #45 and "What the Shredder did for a Living..." was reprinted in TMNT Adventures #48.


Summary:

Yeah, these things were pretty corny and bad, almost always relying on a lame pun or a droll visual.  But I dunno, I kinda liked them for what they were.

I think they worked better as an extra little bonus in the back of TMNT Adventures issues rather than bunched together in a TMNT Classics Digest volume.  A little of this type of humor goes a long way and you get sick of them after two or more strips.

Comics Interview Super Special: TMNT

Originally published by: Fictioneer Books

Publication date: 1990

Publisher: David Anthony Kraft

Interviews:

Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

Bobby Herbeck (1^st draft writer, TMNT: The Movie)

Todd Langen (screenplay writer, TMNT: The Movie)

Judith Hoag (April O’Neil, TMNT: The Movie)

Paul Beahm (Casey Jones stunt double, TMNT: The Movie)

Simon Fields (Producer, TMNT: The Movie)

Tom Gray (Executive Producer, TMNT: The Movie)

Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy), Ryan Brown, and Dan Berger

Ken Mitchroney

Dean Clarrain (again)

Mark Freedman (brand licensor)

Peter Laird (again), Steve Lavigne, Michael Dooney, and Eric Talbot

Turtle Tips:

*This trade paperback-sized Super Special collects interviews previously published in Comics Interview Special #27, Comics Interview Special #83 and Comics Interview Special #95.

*As a result of these interviews being reprints, some of the topics covered are rather out-of-date by the time of this publication, particularly the Eastman and Laird interviews from Comics Interview Special #27.

Review:

Look what I found at the bottom of my foot locker!

I was digging through there for not-porn and I rediscovered this old thing beneath piles of Heavy Metal magazines and those TMNT & Other Strangeness manuals that haven’t seen daylight since I wrote that old article about them.  Also binders of old Marvel Comics trading cards.  Worthless, worthless trading cards.

The interviews collected in this special are quaint and of their time, but holy shit there are a LOT of them.  And they’re damn thorough, covering just about every angle of Turtlemania, from the comics to the movies to the super boring behind-the-scenes business stuff.  Just about the only end of the spectrum not to get any coverage were the cartoons and toyline, at least not directly (guys like Brown and Freedman talk about them, but we get no words from folks strictly involved in those mediums).

Obviously, not all these interviews are going to be insightful.  I found the plethora of conversations with the folks involved with TMNT: The Movie to get pretty tiresome.  They all tell variations of the same stories (“I thought the name sounded really crazy when my agent told me about it!” “The animatronic suits were always breaking!”) and after two or three of these things you get the feeling the interviewees were all paraphrasing a single script of approved responses from a publicist.

One of the most common themes of the movie interviews is how everyone involved wants to make DAMN SURE readers know that they’re staying true to the Mirage comics.  Steve Barron and Eastman and Laird and the screenwriters and everyone else reiterates, under no uncertain terms, that despite the colorful bandanas and the presence of pizza, that the TMNT movie would be a Mirage comics adaptation, not a Fred Wolf cartoon adaptation.  I guess they knew their audience with these interviews (the magazine was called “Comics Interview” after all) and wanted to make sure they wouldn’t dismiss the film out of hand.

I guess my favorite story in the movie portion of the special, and one Laird has told many times over the decades, was the initial pitch he received for the film.  Apparently, the film was going to be a low budget spoof flick starring popular comedians like Gallagher, Billy Crystal and Howie Mandell in green face-paint.  Eastman, Laird and even Mark Freedman (the licensor) vetoed that idea in an instant.

The more interesting interviews were with the comics staff.  Or they were more interesting to me, anyway.  Steve Murphy (under his pseudonym, Dean Clarrain) gets two separate interviews; one about TMNT Adventures and another about the TMNT newspaper strip and other assorted odds and ends.  He goes off on tangents about the environment FREQUENTLY, not that I was surprised, and he’s constantly giving himself a round of applause about the political and environmental themes he’d be including in TMNT Adventures.  It’s a bit masturbatory, but it’s typical Steve Murphy.

What I found hilarious was that he makes the claim: “I don’t want to get too preachy in the book.  I would like to somehow hit this middle ground where environmental themes can be, say, the crux of a problem, or a part of an adventure.”  Shit, man, you wrote a half-yearlong storyline where the Turtles try to save the rain forest, only deviating momentarily to try and save the whales.  If that’s your idea of not being “too preachy” then dear god, I don’t want to see you on a soap box.

The best bit comes when he starts calling out Captain Planet and the Planeteers: “And Ted Turner’s got a show he’s working on with DIC Enterprises for Autumn release, an animated series called Captain Planet.  From what I’ve seen, they’re humans with one character who is super-powered… I’ve heard that it’s very preachy… They seem to just be fighting the evil oil spill captain; very blatant type of stories.”  Real pot-kettle-black stuff, right there.  I mean, sheesh, Murphy wrote a story where a heavy metal singer screams songs about the evils of Big Oil and wrote god knows how many comics about the evils of pollution.

If anything interesting came from Murphy’s interviews, it was the reveal that Man Ray/Ray Fillet was based on the flying manta rays from his own comic, Puma Blues.  I hadn’t thought about that before, but it seems obvious in retrospect.

Ken Mitchroney’s interview is fascinating, though the Turtles are only a small part of it.  At the time, Mitchroney was working in Hollywood on shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and actually drew TMNT Adventures on the weekends!  I find that amazing, especially considering how few fill-ins he required during his run and how great the pencils looked.

Mitchroney talks mostly about the landscape of the animation industry circa ‘89-90, and if you’re at all interested in American animation history then you’ll recognize most of the names he drops.  Apparently, every person in Hollywood who worked on cartoons knew each other back then.  What’s even more fascinating is just WHO he talks about with reverence.  He mentions what an honor it was to work with John Kricfalusi on Beanie & Cecil before spiraling into anecdotes about Tiny Toons.  If you have ever, EVER read an interview with John K., then you know how much contempt he has for Tiny Toon Adventures (and nearly every cartoon made after 1955).  I guess the respect wasn’t a mutual one.

Most of the other interviews center around promoting stuff that’s been out for over two decades now, so it can get a little dull on that end.  I mean, it’s fun to read the excitement from the creators about their new comics and projects, and you can feel a little smug knowing how those things turned out because we’re 25 years in the future, but the exercise gets old after a while.  This special is 121 pages long!

The whole book is punctuated with promotional images.  A lot of it is “the usual”; the same old Eastman/Laird stock TMNT artwork you see in every retrospective book or magazine.  There were a couple pieces in here that I wasn’t familiar with, like a neat one with 6 (!?) Turtles cosplaying as various Marvel Comics characters.  I think the only other piece I’d never seen before was a cropped image of the Mirage Turtles sneering with contempt at a billboard promoting the cartoon Turtles.  Anyone have an uncropped version of this?  It’d make a good Awesome Turtles Picture update.

So I guess the question now is whether or not the special is worth tracking down on the aftermarket.  Well, it’s a mixed bag of content, but considering the sheer size of the thing, that was bound to happen.  While some of the interviewees are insufferable and a few seem interested in talking about anything BUT the Ninja Turtles, several of the tidbits they drop are rare and fascinating.  The editors get pretty obscure with who they contact; I mean, the stunt double and the 1^st draft writer?  So you get to hear insights from people at every leg of production, big and small.

Many of the stories are repeated between interviewees and there are times when the interviewer talks more than the guest, but it’s a good firsthand source for quotes and facts.  And I’ve always loved this promotional photo of Michelangelo outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

TMNT III: The Movie

Publication date: Summer 1993

Adapted by: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy) and Chris Allan

From the screenplay by: Stuart Gillard

Inks: Brian Thomas and Jon D’Agostino

Colors: Steve Lavigne, Bill Fitts, Michael Gaydos

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Edits: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)

“TMNT III: The Movie”

Summary:

1593.  Japan.  Prince Kenshin attempts to escape from his evil father, the Daimyo Lord Norinaga, but is wrangled by the Honor Guard.  He is brought back to Kumano Castle where Norinaga admonishes him before postponing a weapons-for-gold deal with the English arms dealer named Walker.  Kenshin seeks solace in the castle’s temple and a divine wind unfurls a scroll detailing his wicked ancestor’s defeat at the hands of four Kappa.  Spooked, he places his hand on a nearby sceptre.

1993.  New York City.  April visits the Ninja Turtles in their subway lair with some gifts she bought at a flea market.  Among them is an old Japanese scepter.  It begins to glow in her hand and suddenly April trades place across time with Kenshin.  The Turtles and Splinter are, naturally, shocked and grill Kenshin for answers.

In Feudal Japan, April is immediately taken prisoner by the Honor Guard for being a witch and spiriting Kenshin away.  She is brought before Lord Norinaga and Walker insists that she is no witch, but merely a trickster.  Norinaga has her sent to the dungeon to be tortured until she reveals the whereabouts of his son.

Back in the present, Donatello deduces that the sceptre is a mass-displacement device that can swap entities of identical weight across time and space, but only for 60 hours.  The Turtles decide to go back in time and save April.  Leonardo fetches Casey Jones to help Splinter keep an eye on Kenshin and whoever swaps places with them.  The Turtles activate the sceptre and trade places with Norinaga’s Honor Guard, who brought the sceptre into battle against some villagers as a good luck charm.

The Turtles immediately fall off their horses and lose the sceptre in the madness.  Michelangelo is carried off by his horse and is knocked out by the leader of the villagers, a woman named Mitsu.  She mistakes Mikey for a Kappa and tells the other villagers to take him back to their village, as he might be able to help them.  Meanwhile, an unseen figure recovers the sceptre.

At the castle, the other three Turtles, still disguised in the Honor Guard’s armor, decide to infiltrate the place.  They sneak into the dungeon, beat up Walker’s guards and save April.  They also rescue a man named Whit (who looks just like Casey), who was imprisoned for inciting mutiny on Walker’s ship.  They escape through a sewage drain before reinforcements can arrive.

The next morning, while freshening up by a stream, they’re attacked by Mitsu and the villagers.  Mitsu recognizes the “Kappa” as being similar to the one she helped the previous day and invites them back to the village.  They arrive just as Walker and his men begin ransacking the place.  Mikey reunites with his brothers and together they scare the men off, pretending to be demons.  They also save a young boy named Yoshi from a burning house.  In doing so, they’re accepted as friends by the villagers.  Mikey immediately becomes smitten with Mitsu.

Back in the present, Casey and Splinter are having trouble sedating the restless Kenshin and the Honor Guard.  Luckily, they manage to keep them occupied with a little television.

Back in Feudal Japan, Walker meets with Norinaga.  Norinaga tells him of the ancient scroll and how his ancestor was killed by Kappa.  Fearing the Kappa have returned for him, he agrees to buy Walker’s weapons.

At the village, Don has had no luck finding the sceptre.  Leo has taken to horse-riding with the village soldiers while Raph has formed a friendship with Yoshi (whom he sees much of himself in).  Mikey, meanwhile, tries to spend time with Mitsu, but she cannot relax due to her concern for Kenshin (her beloved) and for the people of her village.

The Turtles hire the village blacksmith to build a new sceptre.  He does so and Michelangelo immediately breaks it with his butterfingers.  All hope for going home seems lost until Yoshi reveals that his sister, Mitsu, has been hiding the real sceptre in their house.  The Turtles are pissed at her, but Mitsu’s grandfather reveals that she knew nothing of it.  HE hid the sceptre, hoping to keep the “Kappa” around so they would fight.  The Turtles decide that even though they could go home immediately, they’ll stay and fight with the villagers against Norinaga and Walker.  Suddenly, Whit shows his true colors and steals the sceptre, taking Mitsu hostage in the process.

Whit takes Mitsu back to Walker to make good with his old boss.  Mitsu is taken prisoner by Norinaga while Walker takes the sceptre as a bargaining chip.

That night, April surrenders herself to Norinaga’s men and the distraction allows the Turtles to break into the dungeon and save Mitsu.  They infiltrate the castle and confront Norinaga.  Norinaga attempts to kill Mitsu, but Mikey intervenes, getting badly slashed in the process.  Leo then traps Norinaga in a huge bell and the battle seems over.

However, Walker appears, holding April hostage.  His men then surround the Turtles and take aim with their guns.  Whit tells Walker that the deal was he’d just take the gold and leave without hurting anybody.  Walker throws Whit and April into the circle to die with the Turtles.  Leo tells the superstitious men that he and his brothers are demons and if they shoot them, the bullets will magically bounce back and kill them.  The men become too frightened to shoot, so Walker lights a cannon.  The Turtles duck their heads into their shells and the cannonball misses. 

Walker flees to the roof of the castle with the sceptre as the Turtles give chase.  He holds it over the ledge overhanging a precarious drop into the rocky sea, stalling the Turtles.  He then lets down a rope to climb to freedom, but just as he begins his descent, Whit launches an explosive from a catapult that severs Walker’s line and sends him plummeting to his death.  The Turtles form a human chain and catch the sceptre.

Back in the present, Casey takes the Honor Guard to a bar for one last glimpse at the future.  They get into a fight with some drunks and have a great time before heading home.

Back in Feudal Japan, the Turtles and April prepare to return home, however, Leo, Raph and Mikey want to stay.  They prefer life in Feudal Japan, where they can live openly among humanity.  However, April and Don insist that if they stayed behind, they’d be stranding Kenshin and the Honor Guard in the future.  Mikey says his goodbyes to Mitsu and they all grab the sceptre which begins to glow.

The Turtles and April return to the present (Mikey a little later than the others).  April and Casey flirt and everything seems like a happy ending, although Mikey is bummed that he lost Mitsu to Kenshin.  That is, until he remembers that the 20^th Century has something Feudal Japan doesn’t: Pizza!

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie II: The Secret of the Ooze.  If you consider the 2007 “TMNT” film by Imagi to be a sequel, then the story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #1 - Raphael.

*If you don’t, then the story continues in the Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation television series.  Godspeed.

*Obviously, this comic is an adaptation of the 1993 film “TMNT III” from Golden Harvest.

*2 versions of this comic were published simultaneously by Archie:

**Archie Newsstand Edition (flat colors by Barry Grossman, cover by Chris Allan, 13 bonus pages)

**Archie Prestige Edition (painted colors by Lavigne, Fitts and Gaydos, cover by Kevin Eastman and Eric Talbot, no bonus pages)

*Yes, that is correct.  The newsstand edition has the bonus pages and the prestige edition doesn’t.  Weird.

*This isn’t the only comic adaptation of “TMNT III”.  It was adapted twice for the Japanese market: A version serialized in six chapters in Comic Bom Bom (by Haato Mikaeru), and a version released as a graphic novel from Dengeki (by Yasuhichi Konoha).

Review:

Note: The only version I own is the Archie Prestige Edition, so that is the version I will be reviewing.

As always, I don’t want to review the story too thoroughly, since I’d rather save those thoughts for an inevitable review of the actual “TMNT III” film.  I will say, however, that the plot is much, MUCH more endurable in comic book format.  The awful costumes, special effects and acting are really the hardest part of “TMNT III” to suffer, and when all THAT is taken away… It’s much easier on the intellect.

Of course, there are still all the plot holes to reckon with; those don’t go anywhere.  You know, pointless bullshit like the blacksmith making a duplicate magic sceptre (because blacksmiths can do that?) and Mikey stupidly breaking it seconds later.  There was absolutely no need for that entire subplot other than to kill time.  Just… why was it even in there?  But I’m criticizing something present in the original film, so I’ll stop myself for the time being.

Steve Murphy does a much better job adapting this film than “Secret of the Ooze” and eliminates dialogue and gags that interfere with the flow of the story.  Not ALL the meandering bullshit, no (the aforementioned replacement sceptre bit remains intact), but it’s a pretty tidy rendering of the film.  He rewrites dialogue to a greater degree than with “Secret of the Ooze” and overall it reads much better.  As a matter of fact, thanks to the episodic nature of the film-itself, this could have almost been serialized as issues of TMNT Adventures without much disconnect (save for the presence of Casey Jones).

The art is provided by Chris Allan, which should immediately make the adaptation more interesting to collectors.  What’s strange is that he adapts the look of the characters as they appeared in the film rather than use his typical Archie style.  It’s a little weird, but I wouldn’t say that it’s ugly, either.  He actually makes those awful Turtle costumes and that pathetic Splinter puppet much more palatable.  Casey looks like he’s about 50 years old, though.

I think what really hurts this adaptation is that it lacks action.  With the whole film condensed down to 48 pages, the moments that further the plot take priority over the fighting.  As a result, the Turtles hardly get a chance to do anything “cool” and it’s mostly just bland rescue missions.  The comic adaptation of “TMNT: The Movie” also suffered from a decrease in the action to make room for the story.  Looking over these movie comics, I think “Secret of the Ooze” is the only one of them to effectively balance the action with the story (although it was oddly the worst of the three adaptations).

The comic version of “TMNT III” is probably the best way to enjoy that story.  It isn’t that good, mainly because it’s sort of just polishing a turd, but I appreciate that it made the effort.  There’s some very unique Chris Allan art to enjoy in here and the coloring in the Prestige Edition is really nice (save for a few moments of bandana fuck-upery, but that should almost go without saying by this point).

I’d say it’s “the best TMNT III will ever be”, but I actually enjoy the Comic Bom Bom manga adaptation better.  And even then, I only dig it because it chucks 75% of the movie out the window and does its own thing.  But I guess as a fairly straight adaptation of the film, then yeah, this is the best TMNT III will ever be.

Grade: C (as in, “Come on, they actually thought they could follow Super Shredder, Tokka and Rahzar up with a prissy British guy as the lead villain?  It’s like they weren’t even trying”.)

TMNT Movie II: The Secret of the Ooze

Originally published by: Tundra and Archie Comics (see Turtle Tips)

Publication date: Summer, 1991

Script: Dean Clarrain (Steve Murphy)

Art: Jim Lawson

Letters: Mary Kelleher

Color: Barry Grossman

Editor: Scott Fulop

Managing editor: Victor Gorelick

Based on the screenplay by: Todd Langen

Cover: Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne

Summary:

Pizza delivery boy Keno is on his way to April O’Neil’s place when he hears a commotion at the mall across the street.  He confronts a gang of thieves and holds his own with martial arts ability until he’s overwhelmed by their numbers.  Luckily, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show up (Mikey blurting out that they saw him from the roof across the street) and beat the thieves senseless.  Raph sends Keno away to call the cops and when he returns, April’s pizza is gone (but paid for).

At April’s apartment, the Turtles enjoy their pizza and celebrate their latest victory.  Splinter warns them not to get sloppy just because the Shredder is gone.

At the local dump, Tatsu has gathered the remnants of the Foot Clan at their backup HQ.  Before he can announce his plans to be the new leader, the Shredder (badly scarred from his fall into a dump truck) returns and repairs his helmet.  Shredder wants revenge against the Turtles for defeating him and orders one of the Foot Soldiers, Freddy, to follow April O’Neil.

At a toxic waste disposal site in New Jersey, April interviews Professor Jordan Perry of the Techno-Global Research Industries.  He explains that now that they’re developed new technologies to dispose of toxic waste, TGRI intends to dig up and properly eliminate all their previous waste chemicals.  (At the apartment, Splinter observes this report and decides to meditate on the subject.)

Freddy decides to keep up with Professor Perry when he goes off to look at something serious and discovers giant mutant dandelions.  He takes one back to the Shredder, who finds them very interesting.  He dispatches his men to TGRI to kidnap Professor Perry and steal any ooze that may be left.

Meanwhile, Splinter calls his sons to the roof of the apartment building and shows them the original canister of ooze that mutated them.  They read the inscription, “TGRI”, and realize where they must search to find answers as to their origin.  The Turtles infiltrate TGRI, but arrive too late.  All but one of the ooze canisters have been eliminated and Tatsu and the Foot have stolen it.

They return to April’s place only to be suddenly interrupted by Keno, delivering a free pizza.  Keno notices Raph hiding and stomps on his foot, drawing him out.  Splinter sits him down and tells him the story of where they all came from.  Keno says that he can help them find the Foot’s HQ, as Foot Soldiers have been aggressively recruiting teenagers with martial arts skills off the street.  Raph likes the plan, but Splinter forbids it, much to their chagrin.

At Foot HQ, Professor Perry refines the ooze and douses a snapping turtle and a wolf with it.  They are mutated into the hulking Tokka and Rahzar, but they have the minds of infants.  Shredder is displeased until he witnesses the destructive power they possess and decides to keep them around.

Keno and Raph have decided to go ahead with their plan against Splinter’s wishes.  Keno infiltrates a Foot recruitment center and with Raph’s help is accepted into the Clan.  Raph follows Keno as he’s taken to the dump, only for both of them to be spotted.  Raph is captured and Keno is allowed to escape, setting the Shredder’s plan into motion.

While all this is happening, the other three Turtles search the sewer for a new lair (deciding they’re too out in the open at April’s place).  Mikey accidentally stumbles upon an abandoned subway station and they move in.  At the same time, Keno makes it back to April’s place with the bad news and she relays it to the Turtles and Splinter.

The Turtles sneak into the dump, only to find that the Shredder is alive and waiting for them.  He traps them in a neat and a crane begins to maneuver them toward a bed of spikes.  Luckily, they were prepared for this and Splinter fires an arrow, cutting the net and freeing them.  The Turtles rescue Raph, only to be met with Tokka and Rahzar.  The two brutes pound on the Turtles, but in the chaos Donatello is able to rescue Professor Perry.  They escape into the sewer system.

Professor Perry joins them in the new lair and answers their questions about the ooze, explaining that the concoction and the fact that it was lost in the sewers was all one big mistake.  This depresses Donatello, but Splinter assures him that nothing in life happens on accident.

Meanwhile, Shredder sends Tokka and Rahzar to an empty city street where they destroy everything in their path.  April goes to interview Police Chief Sterns about the attack, but is cornered by Freddy.  He delivers a warning from the Foot: The Turtles are to come to the dockside construction site tonight or the Shredder will unleash Tokka and Rahzar on a populated Central Park.

April delivers the message and the Turtles have no choice but to comply.  However, Professor Perry reveals that he sabotaged the ooze when he refined it, which is why Tokka and Rahzar are idiots.  He says he can reverse the mutagen and together they whip up an antidote.  The only problem is that the evil mutants will have to eat it.

The Turtles arrive at the construction site where the Foot is waiting.  Shredder sics Tokka and Rahzar on them, but the Turtles trick the mutants into eating donuts laced with the antidote.  The only effect the antidote seems to have is that it makes them burp and the enraged mutants promptly throw the Turtles through the wall of the nearby Dockside Club.

Meanwhile, back at the lair, Keno decides he can’t stay and meditate with Splinter any longer and has to help his friends.

As for the Turtles, as they're getting beaten up by Tokka and Rahzar in the club, Vanilla Ice is inspired to freestyle the “Ninja Rap”.  Professor Perry and Donnie conclude that the burping is why the antidote is failing, because it needs carbon dioxide to function.  The Turtles then grab some fire extinguishers and blast CO2 directly down the throats of Tokka and Rahzar, kick-starting the antidote and de-mutating them back into a normal snapping turtle and wolf.  They then clobber Tatsu and the Foot Soldiers and dance on stage.

The Shredder isn’t through yet, though, and reveals that he has plenty of ooze left.  Keno then arrives and the distractions allows Leo to knock the canister from Shredder’s hands (where Professor Perry quietly picks it up and leaves).  Shredder takes a girl hostage and pulls out a small vile of ooze, threatening to mutate her.  Keno pulls the girl from his grasp, knocking the Shredder backward into a large speaker.  Donnie cranks up the volume and Mikey strikes a chord on a guitar.  The sonic blast sends Shredder flying through a window and out of the club.

The Turtles follow him to a pier and find that he’s taken the ooze, mutating himself into Super Shredder.  Super Shredder begins tearing apart the pier, knocking huge beams of wood down on top of them.  The Turtles dive into the water as the whole pier collapses, crushing and killing the Shredder for good.

The Turtles return home to tell Master Splinter of their victory.  He asks if they were seen and they assure him that they practiced the art of invisibility like true ninja.  Splinter then shows them a newspaper with the headline “Ninja Rap is Born!” and urges them to practice harder.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT: The Movie.  The story continues in TMNT III: The Movie.

*Obviously, this one-shot comic is an adaptation of the 1991 “TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze” motion picture from Golden Harvest.

*2 versions of this comic were published simultaneously by Tundra and Archie Comics:

**Tundra Edition (painted colors by Richmond Lewis, 4 bonus pages)

**Archie Newsstand Edition (flat colors by Barry Grossman, no bonus pages)

*There was no Mirage edition of this comic.  The Tundra edition is sometimes erroneously referred to as the “Mirage edition” probably because Tundra was the publishing company owned by Kevin Eastman (many Tundra comics are often mistakenly credited to Mirage).

*The Archie newsstand edition was published in the UK in 1991 by Fleetway under the title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie II: The Secret of the Ooze.  Oddly, the "Ninja" was not changed to "Hero" as was done in nearly all other TMNT media released in the UK at the time.  A new cover by an in-house Fleetway artist was used for this printing.
 

*CHET ALERT: The mall Keno visits at the beginning is called “Chet’s Mall”.  The name Chet was an in-joke slipped into the TMNT comics by numerous creators back in the day because… they just liked the name!

Review:

Note: The only version I own is the Archie Newsstand Edition, so that is the version I am reviewing.

Just as the second TMNT film isn’t nearly as good as the first, so is the second comic book adaptation not nearly as good as the first.

I don’t want to talk too much about the story or anything, because I’d rather save those opinions for a review of the film (I’ll get to them one of these days).  So I’ll just say that the adaptation is a condensed but accurate scene-for-scene retelling of the events of the movie. 

Unlike the adaptation of the first film, this script seems to be working from pretty much what we got in the completed film, so don’t expect to see many deleted scenes or “extras”.  The only bit I noticed in the comic that didn’t seem to make it into the film (aside from a little extra dialogue that may have been Steve Murphy’s creation) is a scene explaining what “the sudden disappearance of TGRI” meant. 

There are a few scenes midway through the comic where April interviews the TGRI folks a second time and finds them packing up shop and refusing to explain themselves.  Professor Perry later mentions that it’s standard procedure in case of a waste containment breach and that facilitates April’s line at the end about the “sudden disappearance” (in the actual movie it comes off as a weird non sequitur since it wasn’t foreshadowed).

I think what hurts this adaptation most is the lack of layouts from Kevin Eastman.  Jim Lawson’s layouts look like somebody playing a game of Tetris… and losing. 

Oddly sized panels are randomly dropped down onto the page, leaving needless amounts of dead space and there’s always this feeling of disconnect between what you’re reading from panel-to-panel.  Nothing seems to flow coherently, especially when Murphy tries to fit in all the gags and dialogue, making these weird strings of nonsense that feel awkward without the proper scene pacing of the film.

Characters look extremely crude and I’m going to guess that Lawson was really rushed to put this 64-page special out.  By 1991, Lawson was doing a LOT of work for Mirage, Archie and whatever else he had going on, so I can forgive him for not giving this movie adaptation his all.

I don’t know how Richmond Lewis’s colors look in the Tundra edition, but Barry Grossman’s colors are all sorts of messed up throughout this comic.  Again, it feels like a rush job; he had to get 64 pages of comic colored and onto the stands pronto.  Just try and read the sequence where the Turtles and Splinter are watching April’s newscast about TGRI.  They can’t keep the right colored bandanas from panel-to-panel, so it looks like Leo spontaneously changes his opinion on what he wants to watch 3 or 4 times in the span of 10 seconds.

There are other weird disconnects, too.  For instance, when the Shredder returns from the grave and appears to Tatsu, he’s cloaked in Shadow and Tatsu is remarking that his face has been brutalized.  Just like in the movie.  But on the very next page, Shredder is fixing his helmet and his face is fully visible for several panels and it looks just fine (if a tiny bit scratched up).  It’s like between pages, Lawson forgot that the Shredder was supposed to look hideously mangled.

“The Secret of the Ooze” adaptation is pretty cruddy, all things considered.  It’s very clearly a rush job in terms of art and colors and doesn’t offer enough deviations from the finished film to feature anything “new”.  It honestly doesn’t represent any of the creators at their best.  Is it the worst of the Archie movie adaptation series?  Well, I’m not sure since I haven’t read the TMNT III adaptation yet.  But that one has art by Chris Allan, so how bad can it be?  I guess I’ll be finding out soon…

Grade: D- (as in, “Did I mention that there’s a throwaway line of dialogue before the shopping mall fight where Leo tells the Turtles to stow their weapons and be ‘masters of their environment’?  Well, now you know why they fought with yo-yos and sausages in that scene”.)