TMNT: Out of the Shadows (2016) Review at AIPT

What, like I WASN'T going to review the newest major motion picture featuring the TMNT?  I can't kid myself; I have no convictions. I'm a consumer whore.

Here's my review of TMNT: Out of the Shadows at AIPT.

Okay, look, this wasn't an objectively good film.  Not by a long shot.  But you know what?  There was stuff in there I liked.  Stuff I enjoyed. 

And so instead of pissing and moaning about the things that bothered me, I wanted to instead focus on the positive aspects of the film.  So it's a pretty generous review.  I'm not sure I liked the movie as a whole, but I liked Krang, I liked the Technodrome, I liked Baxter Stockman and I liked Bebop & Rocksteady.

I won't say it was good, I'll just say that it ain't all bad.

TMNT: Official Movie Adaptation

Publication date: April, 2007

Screenplay: Kevin Munroe

Script: Steve Murphy

Art: Diego Jourdan, Cristian Gonzalez, Juan Saavedra

Letters: Eric Talbot

Cover: Kevin Munroe, Anthony Washington

Summary:

Three thousand years ago.  A great conqueror named Yaotl and his Four Generals, seeking immortality, open up a gateway in Costa Rica utilizing the Stars of Kikin.  Their plan backfires, unleashing Thirteen Monsters upon the Earth, transforming the Four Generals to stone and cursing Yaotl with immortality.

The present.  Costa Rica.  After taking care of the cruel Colonel Santino, Leonardo’s global pilgrimage is interrupted by April, who came to Costa Rica to find a statue for a millionaire and stumbled upon the “Ghost of the Jungle”.  Leo asks how his brothers are doing without him and April replies with bad news: Donatello is working tech support, Michelangelo is doing kids’ birthdays as “Cowabunga Carl” and Raphael is mostly absent (masquerading as the vigilante Nightwatcher, unknown to them).  April asks Leo to come home, but Leo doesn’t feel he’s ready.

In the lair, Don, Mike and Raph are watching a news report on the Nightwatcher.  Mike gets wistful for the old days when THEY fought crime, Don thinks the Nightwatcher is a dangerous rogue and Raph is glad that SOMEONE is cleaning up the city.  They start to fight and Splinter breaks them up, worrying about what has become of their family.

At Winterscorp, April and Casey deliver the statue of General Aguila to Max Winters, the millionaire who sent April to Costa Rica for it (along the way, Casey accidentally trips an alarm, causing a security lockdown).  Winters thanks April for reuniting him with all four lost members of his “family” and lets the pair leave.  As soon as they leave, Karai and several Foot Soldiers step out of the shadows.  Winters has a job for them, having contracted their services: They’re to meet some “friends” of his and bring them to him.

Later that night, Casey goes on a vigilante stroll and spots the Nightwatcher.  He calls Raph out, having deduced his identity.  They have a talk and Raph says that he got sick of fighting Triceratons and Utroms while the innocent people of New York are preyed upon by criminals.  He took on the Nightwatcher identity to keep his family from knowing, since they were forbidden from interfering with the world of men while Leo was gone.

Meanwhile, as Leo hang-glides back into town, Max Winters revives the Four Generals thanks to the Stars of Kikin beginning to align.

Leo is greeted by Splinter, who is happy to have his son back, but warns him that until he and his brothers can act as one, they cannot fight.  The Turtles go to the rooftops to train when they spot Karai and the Foot battling Bigfoot in a construction zone.  They try to help, only for Karai to attack Leo and then retreat (Leo had hoped that with the Shredder dead, their antagonism might have ceased).  Bigfoot throttles the Turtles until General Mono arrives and trashes the beast.  The Turtles are forced to retreat when they hear police sirens.

At Winterscorp, Karai is upset about the interference of the Four Generals and the TMNT.  Max Winters tells her that they are to work together and like it, as there is little time before the portal opens.

The next morning, Splinter hears about what happened on the news and once again orders his sons to stay out of action.  Over the next few days, the Four Generals and the Foot Clan capture several of the remaining monsters unopposed.

As night falls, Raph and Casey stumble upon the bad guys capturing the Vampire Succubor.  They’re pursued by General Gato, who tags Raph with a weird tranquilizer dart before being forced to flee when the police arrive.  At April’s apartment, Raph recovers and they all have a good look at the Aztec dart.  Casey tells April that the one who shot Raph was one of the statues she collected.  April recounts the Legend of the Yaotl and figures Max Winters is the immortal conqueror.  Raph wants to take the fight to Winters, but Leo reminds him of Splinter’s decree and Raph storms off in a huff.

At Winterscorp, General Serpiente brings the eleventh monster.  However, General Aguila fears that Winters plans to undo their stone immortality and orders the other generals not to find the thirteenth monster.

At a diner, Raphael (as Nightwatcher) does battle with the miniscule Jersey Devil and drives it off.  He’s called out by Leo, who orders the “Nightwatcher” to quit being a vigilante “or else”.  The two fight and Leo learns that the Nightwacther is Raph (shock!).  Raph says he’s sick of Leo bossing him around and beats him up.  After Raph storms off, though, the Generals tranq and capture Leo.  Raph returns too late to save him.

Raph brings the bad news back to the lair.  Splinter says that they must reveal themselves at last and take the fight to the enemy.  The Turtles, Splinter, April and Casey storm Winterscorp and fight their way through Karai and the Foot.  Inside, Max Winters is shocked to find that the portal is malfunctioning.  The Generals betray him, revealing that the thirteenth monster (Leo) is a fake.

The good guys make it inside and Casey trips the lockdown alarm, trapping the Foot outside.  Raph frees Leo and gives him his swords, making amends.  Winters reveals that he’s trying to send the monsters back to their dimension and teams up with the Turtles.  He orders Karai and the Foot to find the last monster, with April and Casey tagging along.

The Turtles fight the Generals while Splinter and Winters keep more monsters from escaping through the malfunctioning portal (which will only let things out, not in, until the thirteenth monster is found).  The Foot, April and Casey return with the last monster (the Sea Monster) and force it through the portal.  The Four Generals are sucked inside, the breach seals and Winters is freed of his immortality.  Winters thanks the Turtles and April before decaying into dust.  Karai warns the TMNT that a “familiar face from the past” will be returning and the Foot leave.

Down in the lair, Splinter places Winters’ Yaotl helmet in the trophy room along with Mikey’s Cowabunga Carl mask.  The Turtles then race into the city together as a team.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #5 – Leonardo.

*Among the items in the trophy room are Shredder's helmet from TMNT: The Movie and the mutagen canister from TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze.  Though not seen in the comic adaptation, in the film the trophy room also contains Norinaga's helmet and the time sceptre from TMNT III.

Review:

So yeah, man, there’s just way too much shit going on for one story, here.  Leo’s doubting himself, the family’s broken up, monsters are on the loose, the Foot Clan are there for some reason, stone generals and immortal businessmen, a dimensional portal, Raph’s a vigilante, what the FUCK.

It was hard enough to keep track of all this stuff in a movie, but in a watered-down comic book adaptation the pace is practically incomprehensible.

At the risk of critiquing the movie (I want to save that for a review of the film), the story feels like Munroe took six different scripts and tried to combine them all into one.  There is just WAY too much going on and as a result, nearly every plot line gets shortchanged.

Murphy does his best to try and condense things, though as I said, condensing is NOT what this story needed; it needed to be EXPANDED to make room for all the plot lines.  The prequel comics try to make sense of everything and do an okay job of at least reducing the What-the-Fuck Factor, but they don’t really do enough.

If anything, instead of getting five prequels and an adaptation, it would have been better had the movie-itself been decompressed across six issues in order to give every plot thread its due.  The prequel comics end up either adding nothing or uneconomically retreading ground (April’s conversation with Leo is seen across THREE issues in this series).  The whole thing was very poorly plotted and executed; it just feels rushed and ill-conceived.

Now, let me say upfront that I think Diego Jourdan is a great artist.  His work on Tales of the TMNT is good stuff!  But this… is not his best work.

I’m not sure what his lead time for this adaptation was, but it seems clear it wasn’t enough to reasonably complete a 62-page graphic novel.  He has to resort to a lot of shortcuts, mostly in the realm of copy-paste, and it shows quite a bit.  The characters shine when Jourdan breaks model from the Imagi style guide and gives them a bit more cartoonish energy, but those panels are few and far between.

This comic looks ROUGH.  There are lettering fuck ups, too, with sentences being repeated, missing words and conspicuously empty text boxes that should probably have sentences in them.

Ultimately, this whole series based on the 2007 film is a bad example of Mirage trying to synergize with one of their mainstream TMNT offshoots.  They fail on a remarkable level, producing comics based on a children’s movie but primarily unsuitable for kids (lots of gore, swearing and a weird moment an issue ago with a child sex ring).  The quality control is lousy and the end results look quick and dirty.  These are bad comics.

Grade: D- (as in, “Diego Jourdan, another good artist that Mirage unfortunately saddled with a lot of their lesser scripts”.)

TMNT Movie Prequel #5 - Leonardo

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Steve Murphy

Pencils: Dario Brizuela

Inks: Leandro Corral and Dario Brizuela

Letters: Erik Swanson

Cover: Santiago Bou

“Five to One”

Summary:

In Costa Rica, Colonel Santino prepares to chop down some rain forest because the Bible says it’s okay.  That’s when the Ghost of the Jungle (Leonardo) beats him and his militia up.  Leo gives a speech that the rain forest does not belong to man, but to the world… the community…

The past.  As Splinter prepares Leo for his global pilgrimage, he leaves him with a riddle “The five-fold path shall lead you to the one”.  Leo doesn’t know what that means, but hopes to figure it out along the way.

Path Five (Courage).  Iceland.  A whaling vessel is about to harpoon an endangered fin whale.  Leo leaps from an iceberg and deflects the harpoon with his sword.  He then destroys the harpoon gun with shuriken and tells the whalers to take a closer look at their prey.  A baby fin whale then breaches alongside the adult; had they killed the adult, the baby would have been orphaned.

Path Four (Compassion).  Portugal.  Leo stows away on a Moroccan freighter headed to Liverpool.  In the cargo hold he finds numerous African and Middle Eastern children who are to be sold into sex slavery in England.  They confuse him for Enugu, the Turtle God.  Leo slaughters every human being on the freighter and calls the cops to pick up the children.

Path Three (Selflessness).  Mongolia.  In the mountains, a poacher and his crew capture a yeti and prepare to take it back home for fame and fortune.  Leo approaches them and offers to take the yeti’s place.  The poachers beat him up and decide two cryptid specimens will make them twice as rich.  Suddenly, a tribe of yetis attack and chase off the poachers.  The yetis, who are intelligent, thank Leo for helping them and offer to nurse him back to health.

Path Two (Humility).  Japan.  Leo goes before the Ninja Tribunal and the Ancient One, saying that he is the best of his brothers and that he is ready to receive the same training that Hamato Yoshi did.  The Ancient One scoffs at his arrogance, mocks him with childish names and then soundly beats him in battle.  The Tribunal turn their backs to Leo and say that by forsaking his family, he has learned nothing; he cannot finish the five-fold path alone.

Path One (Community).  Costa Rica.  Having dealt with Colonel Santino, Leo receives a surprise visit from April.  Leo tells her that he cannot return to New York after what he’s seen.  He feels that humanity is awful, beyond hope and he doesn’t want to live among them (or beneath them) anymore.  April suggests he look at what he’s learned from a different angle.

Later, Leo thinks about what Splinter said: “The five-fold path shall lead you to the one.”  He realizes that “the one” is family and he must go home and be with them.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #4 – April.  The story continues in TMNT: Official Movie Adaptation.

*Leo was sent on his pilgrimage in TMNT Movie Prequel #1 – Raphael.

*The yeti are not among the Thirteen Monsters as seen in the TMNT feature film or the comic adaptation.  However, in the junior novelization “The Legend of Yaotl”, a yeti is identified as one of the Thirteen.

*The Ninja Tribunal and the Ancient One originate from the 4Kids TMNT animated series, appearing throughout seasons 4 and 5.

*This issue was reprinted in TMNT Comic #8, TMNT Comic #9, TMNT Comic #10 and TMNT Comic #11.  The blood from Leonardo's massacre of the child slavers was removed entirely so as to make it look like he was only knocking them out.

Review:

Yeah, this was a Steve Murphy comic through and through.  Leo travels the globe, saving the whales, fighting deforestation and thwarting poachers.  All it needed was a “just say NO” message about drugs and this would have been the ultimate ‘90s comic… that happened to be published in 2007.

The art by Dario Brizuela makes the story more exciting than the script deserves, but that seems to be a theme with Brizuela's Mirage work.  Leo’s globetrotting adventures are a little rushed, but with five chapters and a bookending sequence, there’s only so much space.

The lessons he learns on each leg of the path are pretty ham-fisted, but they get the message across for the most part.  Some are positively gag-inducing (protecting the rain forest for the “global community”), but they aren’t too ponderous.

I think the lone exception is the Path of Compassion.  Now, let’s make it clear that I’ve no love for sex traffickers and pedophiles, but does THIS look like a picture of someone who has mastered the concept of compassion?

Yeah, Leo saves those kids… by ruthlessly slaughtering dozens of other people.  Horrible, horrible people, but people nevertheless.  I’d think a stronger lesson in “compassion” might have involved sparing their wretched lives so that maybe they can learn the error of their ways in prison.  But evidently “compassion” in Steve Murphy’s dictionary means “capital punishment”.

The presence of the 4Kids TMNT characters is a little weird, but I suppose no weirder than the Triceratons showing up in the first issue.  I wouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that the TMNT film takes place in the continuity of the 2003 cartoon; it was more likely just another author pulling ideas and characters from all over the TMNT mythos.  At least the Ancient One wasn’t featured long enough to regale us with his hilarious fart jokes.

The Leonardo installment in the Movie Prequel miniseries isn’t too bad, if just for the really nice artwork.  It only suffers in how patronizing much of the story is (“save the whales”, “save the rain forest”, "the Bible can be interpreted to justify atrocities", “think of the children”, “poaching is evil”, “family is the most important thing of all”, “humans are the REAL monsters”) and for a very skewed definition of “compassion”.  The bright side is that I’m one step closer to being done with this series.

Grade: D+ (as in, “Dario Brizuela is a great artist who unfortunately got saddled with the WORST scripts by Mirage”.)

TMNT Movie Prequel #4 - April

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Jake Black

Art: Andres Ponce

Letters: Erik Swanson

Cover: Santiago Bou

“Bungle in the Jungle”

Summary:

April delivers another artifact to her employer, Max Winters, who has been sending her all over the globe collecting items of interest for him.  He has another assignment for her, which she accepts, although she knows that Casey won’t like it.  When they moved in together, April thought things would change, but she and Casey haven’t been getting along since she began travelling for Max Winters.

April goes home and finds that Casey hasn’t done anything all day.  She gets mad at him and when he makes an effort to clean things up and take her to dinner, she walks out on him.  April heads over to the Second Time Around shop and meets Max Winters, who gives her her next assignment.  He wants her to travel to Central America and find a statue called "The Fourth General" for her.  April is happy to get away from Casey and continue progressing her career.

Using Winters’ private jet (piloted by a woman named Gabrielle), April spends the next three and a half weeks hopping from country to country until a new lead brings them to Costa Rica.  With her guide Sebastian, April begins combing the rain forest for the statue.  Along the way, she has a brief reunion with Leonardo and lets him know how things have been falling apart without him back home.

Following clues, Sebastian eventually guides April to the Fourth General’s statue.  Before April can prepare it for shipment, Sebastian and a group of cultists slaughter all the assistants.  April is tied to an altar and Sebastian prepares to sacrifice her to the statue, which was once a great religious symbol to the people of Costa Rica before it was lost.

Sebastian is about to stab her when he’s shot to death by the Costa Rican army.  The officer in charge frees April and tells her to escape in his chopper while his soldiers take care of the cultists.  The soldiers pack up the statue and loads it into a truck to be taken as evidence.  April is about to board the helicopter and return to Max Winters empty-handed when she overhears the officer mention his plan to sell the statue to the highest bidder.

April jacks the truck and races toward the airfield.  She calls Gabriel and tells her to have the jet waiting to take off as soon as she gets there with the statue.  April makes it in time and the statue is loaded into the jet, but the officer gets to them before they can take off.  He’s about to execute April when the cultists arrive and shoot him in the head.

April and Gabrielle escape as the cultists and the military slaughter each other.  April asks who the officer was and Gabrielle says that he and his “army” are all ex-military who have been searching for the valuable statue for a while.  Thinking of all the people who died over the statue, April ponders what Max Winters could want with it.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #3 – Donatello.  The story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #5 – Leonardo.

*The scene where April encounters Leo will be repeated in TMNT: Official Movie Adaptation.

*This was the only issue of the TMNT Movie Prequel series not to be colored and reprinted by Titan for their TMNT Comic magazine.

Review:

April as a globe-trotting treasure hunter was a neat idea that the fourth movie introduced, trying to give her a more exciting occupation that tied into her history as an antiques dealer.  It’s an angle no other TMNT medium has explored, most favoring her interest in science. 

Nobody wants April to be a news reporter anymore, apparently, so she needs something ELSE that’s interesting to work with.  The science thing has never, ever panned out because it sets her up to compete with Donatello’s niche.  And since “does machines” is all Donnie’s got, April can never really match up with his often ridiculous prowess.  The whole “Indiana Jones” thing gave April her OWN niche that also offered story potential.

While this comic may not be very good and the movie was only okay, April as a treasure hunter and mythology enthusiast wasn’t a bad idea.  I’d like to see it revived, someday.

I think what brings “Bungle in the Jungle” down (besides the awful title) is that it seems to forget that it’s tying into a PG-rated film.  While the Raphael prequel had some blood in it, April’s installment just goes all out with the violence.  There are people getting shot in the head, riddled with bullets, stabbed to death and in one sequence, April actually gouges a guy’s eyes out with her fingernails.

It’s just ridiculous for what this comic is: A tie-in to a children’s movie.  It’s so tonally off, especially when the other installments in the miniseries aren’t nearly this brutal.

April’s characterization in this story is a bit irritating, too.  Her inner monologue through the first act centers on how fed up she is with Casey.  She goes on and on about how he isn’t trying and how he gets upset with her for going on trips and how living together isn’t what she thought it would be…

And then we see NONE of that from him.  When she comes home and finds the apartment a mess, he apologizes, promises to clean up and then offers to take her out to dinner.  “Not trying”, huh?  And then she storms out crying, claiming that he “won’t support her”.  What?  Their argument was over how messy the apartment was, not her career and business trips.  We don’t see ANY of this stuff about Casey selfishly attempting to crush her dreams that she keeps going on about.

The end result makes April look emotionally out of control.  What she’s thinking isn’t at all what we’re seeing and the two perspectives don’t match.  Instead of Casey looking like a controlling jerk, April comes across as melodramatic, irrational and more than a little cruel in her treatment of him.

It also doesn’t flow into the film.  Where’s all this fighting at?  Not in the movie.  April’s inner monologue makes it seem like their relationship is teetering on the brink, but again, we don’t get any sign of that in the movie.

While the story leads into the film fairly well (setting up the General Aguila statue and April’s background with Max Winters), April’s characterization and her relationship with Casey don't segue at all.

So like all the other installments in this miniseries, the whole thing feels sloppy and awkward.  Andres Ponce provides some nice artwork, probably the nicest in the whole miniseries, but it isn’t enough to save this issue.

Grade: D+ (as in, “Do writers go out of their way to make April obnoxious on purpose, or has it just been a perpetual accident over the last three decades?”)

5 Terrible Live-Action TMNT Video Specials

This is the big article I've been suffering my way through writing for the past few weeks.  I had to sit through 4+ hours of brutally awful TMNT videos in order to complete this thing.  I challenge you to make it past 4 minutes.

5 Terrible Live-Action TMNT Video Specials at AIPT.

This was... uuuugggghhhhh.  There's no other word for it.  Just uuuuggghhhh.

Uuuuuugggghhhhh.

The music video specials were bad enough, but the stage shows?  God, no.

So I hope you enjoy reading my article, because I sure as hell didn't enjoy researching it.

TMNT Movie Prequel #3 - Donatello

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Bill Moulage

Pencils: Jim Lawson

Inks: Sean Parsons, Jeremy Colwell, Dan Davis, Hilary Barta

Letters: Erik Swanson

Cover: Santiago Bou

“Strangers in the Night”

Summary:

Down in the lair, Donatello has used the money he’s saved as a part time Cowabunga Carl employee to build his latest contraption: The Trans-Species Locator Matrix.  It can identify the brainwaves of all known species in Manhattan, but when those are tuned out, it will only identify unknown species… such as his brothers and the Triceratons (should they ever return).

Splinter is impressed with his son’s invention.  Suddenly, a blip appears that isn’t Mikey (out doing Carl work), Raph (sleeping in the lair) or Leonardo (off on his pilgrimage).  Don and Splinter decide to go investigate.

Their search brings them to the spire of the Empire State Building, where they’re attacked by a giant bat (the Vampire Succubor) spewing a weird alien language.  The bat carries Donatello off, leaving Splinter no recourse but to get help.

Splinter returns to the lair and rousts Mikey (watching a news report about the Nightwatcher).  Unfortunately, Raph is way up in Harlem and unreachable.  Using Donatello’s device, they discern that the bat has taken Donnie to the docks.

When they arrive, they find Donnie and the bat in the rafters of an old warehouse.  Donnie is trying to communicate with the bat, which is speaking its alien language.  Splinter and Mikey jump the gun and attack, scaring the bat away.  Splinter asks if he was able to learn anything from the bat and Donnie suggests that the bat was trying to find its way home.  The bat, meanwhile, passes the Nightwatcher and then circles the skyscraper penthouse of Max Winters, who looks upon it and smiles.

Upon returning to the lair, Donnie checks his device and finds 13 unknown species on the radar.  He tries to amplify the machine, but his adjustments cause it to explode.  Mikey wonders if they’ll ever know why these weird monsters have suddenly begun invading Manhattan.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #2 – Michelangelo.  The story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #4 – April.

*The Turtles last fought the Triceratons in TMNT Movie Prequel #1 – Raphael.

*The giant bat (identified in the movie production materials as “the Vampire Succubor”) will return in TMNT: Official Movie Adaptation.

*This issue was reprinted in TMNT Comic #6 and TMNT Comic #7 with new colors by Hi Fi Design.

Review:

This was the first fairly palatable issue of the Movie Prequel miniseries, which has been pretty bad so far.  I’m even more surprised that it was decent, considering it was written by the same guy who did Raphael: Bad Moon Rising.  That’s not to say this adventure is great or even good or anything. It’s rather hohum and dry; Donnie tracks a monster, the monster kidnaps Donnie, Splinter and Mikey save him, The End.

But sometimes a dull but coherent story is better than a string of unreadable nonsense.  So it’s the lesser of six evils.

This issue does a bit more work setting up the, quite frankly, random bullshit from the feature film.  I mean, the 13 monsters.  I don’t want to get into a review of the movie yet, but man all that shit with the statue warrior generals and the 13 monsters and the weird dimensional cyclone and what the fuck.  Just way too much for a story that also wanted to be about getting the gang back together, finding individual jobs/identities for the Turtles, mending old family rivalries and setting up a sequel with the Shredder.  That movie had so much content it had to shortchange everybody.

But yeah, we get our first glimpse of the monsters and Max Winters which actually sets up the BIG story for the movie, while most of these other issues focus on the smaller character stuff.  Not that the smaller character stuff shouldn’t be explored, but the shit with Max  and the monsters really needed more lead time and this miniseries could’ve done a better job establishing it (we'll get a little more in later issues, but mostly in the background).  Remember how the movie opened with a prologue about the origin of the Turtles before going immediately off the rails into this expository drivel about a thousand year-old Yaotl curse and conquering armies and monsters and shit?  That was awful.

Now, while the story in this issue is bland but digestible, the art is another matter altogether.  There are FOUR inkers on this issue and holy cow, does it ever show.  None of them can seem to agree on how to ink Lawson’s pencils to the point where sometimes you can’t even tell that Lawson drew the thing.  Some of the inkers attempt shading/toning, while others prefer stark black and white.  Some inkers smooth Lawson’s edges and round his corners, while others try to preserve the angular look of his original work.  And some inkers are just absolutely fucking TERRIBLE:

It is positively absurd how bad this issue looks.  If you’re going to pass it off to four different inkers to save time, then at least establish some sort of cooperative mandate or a style guide or SOMETHING.  Did they do their pages separately at the same time and then just turn them in on the due date, blindly hoping their aesthetic choices would tessellate?

That’s no way to run a railroad.

Grade: C- (as in “Come on, Mirage.  Weren’t these comics intended to make people WANT to see the movie?”)

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 Movie Prequel #2 - Michelangelo

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Jake Black

Pencils: Mr. Exes

Inks: Ryan Brown

Letters: Eric Talbot

Cover: Santiago Bou

“The Continuing Story of Cowabunga Carl”

Summary:

Donatello and Michelangelo have perfected their “mascot” idea in the form of Cowabunga Carl, a costumed entertainer who does birthday parties and sporting events.  Basically, Mikey dresses with a huge foam turtle head on while Donnie works IT from the back of their van.  The pair head over to a hockey game, where Cowabunga Carl has been hired to entertain a bunch of shelter kids that Casey has brought along.  Suddenly, a thug snatches a purse from an old lady.

Despite Donnie (through an earpiece) repeating Splinter’s warnings about not interfering in the surface world, Mikey chases after the thug.  Following him through a maze of hallways and doors, he accidentally winds up on the ice.  He’s tackled by security and brought to a back office until the cops arrive to question him.

Mikey radios Don who looks up the building schematics and finds a vent Mikey can use to climb out.  Meanwhile, Casey distracts the guards with a false fire alarm and once the coast is clear, he joins Mikey in his escape.  Once on the roof, Casey tells Mikey he has to get back to the shelter kids he’s supposed to be chaperoning and wishes him good luck.

After reconvening with Don, Mikey sees the thug escaping in a car and they give chase.  Along the way, they pass the Nightwatcher on his motorcycle.  Mikey practically worships the vigilante, thinking he’s the coolest, but Donnie doesn’t trust him.  Unfortunately, the thug gets away, though Donnie slipped a tracking device onto his vehicle.

Mikey heads over to a suburban neighborhood to entertain a birthday party while Donnie keeps tabs on the thug.  By pure coincidence, the bad guy drives into the suburb where Mikey is.  Mikey, wanting to be just like the Nightwatcher, stands in the middle of the street and forces the thug to stop his car.  He then beats him up and regains the purse (which he later delivers to the old lady’s home).

Back in the lair, Splinter berates the two for interfering in the surface world AND for forgetting to bring him a slice of birthday cake.  He warns that if they ever try to play heroes again, he will forbid them from continuing their Cowabunga Carl business.  Mikey whines that with Leo off training and Raph brooding who-knows-where, he and Donnie just want to find their own path and do the right thing.  Mikey sighs and hopes that someday he can be just like his idol: The Nightwatcher.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT Movie Prequel #1 – Raphael.  The story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #3 – Donatello.

*This issue was reprinted in TMNT Comic #4 and TMNT Comic #5 with new colors by Junior Tomlin.

Review:

So yeah, this was kind of a dumb story.  

Author Jake Black plays up Splinter’s command that the Turtles not “interfere in the surface world”, though I’m starting to wonder how that makes any sense.  In the 2007 movie, Splinter explains that he forbade them from fighting crime because their team was fractured and they weren’t mentally or physically ready.  Okay, that made enough sense, but last issue Splinter had ALREADY ordered them to stay away from the “world of men” even when they WERE all together and working as a team.

So right away, Splinter’s reasons for not wanting the Turtles to go to the surface and fight crime are faulty at best.  I mean, the REAL reason he won’t let his sons nab purse-snatchers is because the writers need to manufacture tension for the narrative.  More and more, Splinter’s irrationality is making that fact obvious.

But yeah, Mikey’s dilemma in this issue is that he wants to help people and do the right thing because he has a good heart and all that, but Splinter won’t let him.  The idea is fine, but like I said, when the excuse is so flimsy and contrived (Splinter is just being a dick, basically), it starts to fall apart. 

Mikey is also shown worshipping and fawning over the Nightwatcher (unaware that it’s Raphael’s alter ego), repeatedly giving “when I grow up, I wanna be just like him!” speeches.  I didn’t think the Turtles were so young that they’d still be doing the whole “when I grow up” thing.

Also, escaping from security shouldn’t have gotten Mikey off the hook.  The cops already know that they need to arrest Cowabunga Carl.  And presumably, the Cowabunga Carl business is listed in the phone book or on the internet or something.  Realistically, this should have killed Mikey’s mascot enterprise.

The art from “Mr. Exes” is… not very good.  I think I understand why he chose to use a pseudonym (that sounds like an internet message board handle).  Facial features are so over-detailed that characters look positively geriatric.  Even the little kids that Casey brings along to the game look like midget octogenarians.  And hell, I wasn't even sure that cro-magnon was supposed to be Casey until Mikey addressed him by name.  

“Exes” even resorts to that cardinal sin of the lazy artist: Copy and paste.  He frequently copies panels and then pastes and repeats them with either no changes or minor alterations and it looks really bad.  The scene where Mikey stops the car and the page where Splinter scolds them are the worst offenders (the scolding scene in particular, as he uses the same drawing of Splinter across four separate panels).

If Mirage’s website is accurate, then all these prequel comics came out in the same month, presumably just a week apart.  They all wind up looking really rushed and low quality, with this issue being one of the least appealing.

Grade: D (as in, “Damn, I forgot to explain why Casey was chaperoning a bunch of shelter kids.  Oh wait, Jake Black forgot to write an explanation into the script!  Silly me”.)

TMNT Movie Prequel #1 - Raphael

Publication date: March, 2007

Story: Steve Murphy

Art: Fernando Pinto

Letters: Erik Swanson
Cover: Santiago Bou

“Disposable Heroes”

Summary:

On a rooftop, Raphael tells Casey how he hasn’t been getting along with his brothers lately; Leo in particular.  They’ve gotten so hung up on big picture threats like Triceratons and Utroms that they’ve stopped noticing the little people who need help the most.

Eighteen months ago.  The Turtles trudge through the sewers, ready to intercept a quartet of heavily armed Triceratons.  Raph hears trouble coming from the surface; an old man being attacked by a gang.  Raph tries to ditch his brothers to help the old man, but Leonardo won’t let him.  They beat up the Triceratons and as soon as they’re finished, Raph sees to the old timer.  He’s been beaten up pretty bad, but dusts himself off and wanders home, mumbling that were he still a young man he’d have mopped the floor with the thugs.

Leo gives Raph an earful for leaving the group without his permission and reminds him that Splinter has told them never to interfere in the world of man.  While they argue, Donatello and Michelangelo go over their plans for Mikey’s “mascot” idea.

Later, Splinter calls them all together and says that he’s at last determined which of them has earned the privilege of going on a yearlong training pilgrimage around the world.  It’s Leo, of course.  Raph storms out and Leo snipes at him some more, telling Raph that Splinter would have chosen him if he’d trained harder and followed orders.

Raph heads over to Harlem, looking for trouble, and comes across a gang mugging a prostitute.  He mops the floor with them, and when he’s done the old man from earlier approaches him (having also heard the woman scream).  He says his name is David Merryweather and he invites Raph back to his home.  David tells him that in his younger days, he also used to be a crimefighter and the pair swap origins and stories.  Raph gets a call from Splinter, telling him to come home so he can see his brother off.  Raph leaves, but moments later he hears a gunshot coming from David’s place. 

He returns to find that the thugs from earlier tracked David down and shot him.  Dying, David makes Raph promise him two things: that he’ll put the punks who shot him behind bars, and that he’ll remove all his crimefighting paraphernalia from his home so no one can ever learn his true identity.  Following David’s instructions, Raph opens a secret doorway and finds a chamber loaded with weapons, armor and a motorcycle.

The present.  Raph takes down the punks who shot David.  Later, he decides to put the gear David gave him to good use and become a vigilante.  As Raph and Casey perch on a rooftop, Raph vows to keep his word.

Turtle Tips:

*If you consider the 2007 CG TMNT film to be in the same continuity as the live action film trilogy, then this story is continued from TMNT III: The Movie.  The story continues in TMNT Movie Prequel #2 – Michelangelo.

*One of the Triceraton blasters will appear in the trophy room in the 2007 TMNT film (but not in the comic adaptation of said film).

*This comic was reprinted in TMNT Comic #1, TMNT Comic #2 and TMNT Comic #3 with new colors by Junior Tomlin.  Much of the blood during David's death scene was awkwardly censored by being colored light brown.  As such, it looks like he's vomiting oatmeal rather than bleeding internally.

Review:

The 2007 TMNT film from Imagi was something that existed.  And that’s about the most anyone can say about it.  TMNT the Movie elicits wistful nostalgia from people, Secret of the Ooze elicits entertainment in a “so bad it’s fun” sort of way, and even TMNT III and the Michael Bay movie elicit feelings of loathing or resentment.  But who the Hell remembers the Imagi flick with anything more than an “Oh yeah.  I forgot about that one”…?

So considering my unbridled apathy for the film, I passed on these prequel comics when they first came out.  I eventually picked up the trade paperback collection when I found it marked down to half price about three years later, but I still couldn’t be bothered to read the comics until just this very minute.  The Imagi era TMNT stuff is so bland and banal, I just can’t work up the enthusiasm to care about this expanded mythology.

Well, I’ll try.

There’s debate as to whether the Imagi TMNT flick is a sequel to the live-action movies.  Nick-nacks from the live-action movies appear in the trophy room, and Shredder is considered dead at the hands of the Turtles, but beyond such vagaries there isn’t a stronger connection.  I consider it a sequel, personally, but a sizeable sample population doesn’t, so whatever.  It’s up to you.

But whether it’s a sequel or not, it does kind of throw you into the deep end, beginning the story in medias res.  These prequel comics attempt to add some background and context to the film, which feels like the second season of a cartoon series that was made without a first season.

Steve Murphy pens this script and does an okay job weaving in the other Turtles’ subplots so these comics have something of a natural progression for the characters (Leo gets chosen to go on his pilgrimage, Mike and Don come up with the "mascot" idea, etc.). 

The pacing is strange, especially those bookending segments with Raphael and a mute Casey Jones perched on a ledge looking at nothing.  There is really no need for Casey to be there and his presence just confuses things, considering Casey doesn’t figure out that Raph is the Nightwatcher until the movie.  Wouldn’t it have made more sense to end on Raph, dressed as the Nightwatcher, perched on that rooftop?  Casey doesn’t even help him take down the punks who killed David, so why was he there?

The Nightwatcher stuff was just one more element of the film that didn’t make a whole lot of sense and Murphy tries his best to justify it.  So Raph took on the costumed identity because Splinter forbade his sons from interfering in the world of man (they use that melodramatic wording, “world of man”, several times)?  Okay.  They can fight aliens in the sewers, but they can’t stop purse-snatchers on the streets.  I guess this Splinter is just a big picture sort of guy.  I suppose this was meant to explain why Raph would keep his vigilante lifestyle a secret from his family and why Leo would have such a problem with it in the movie (again, a part of the movie that made no sense considering how every other incarnation of the Turtles behave as vigilantes).

The origin presented here is a throwback to Nite Owl’s origin from Watchmen, which was a neat little homage to throw in there.  Nite Owl… Nightwatcher… Close enough.  I mean, David sure is quick to trust Raphael and hand over all the tools of the trade to him, but this issue only had so many pages to work with so we’ll just have to let it slide.

Leonardo is a total prick in this comic, but I guess it’s keeping with his character in the movie (where he was a MASSIVE prick).  He sees being sent on a yearlong pilgrimage as a reward, but I’m thinking maybe it was more of a punishment just to get that little shit out of the lair.  This is one of the more obnoxious renditions of Leonardo I’ve ever read, where he has no interest in helping people and is just constantly sniping at Raph at every opportunity and rubbing his victory (the pilgrimage) in his brother’s face.  He’s fucking awful in this comic, actually making Raphael come off as the more well-balanced Turtle for a change.

Fernando Pinto’s art is a bit lopsided; some pages look great while others look rather crude and clumsy.  He breaks model for expressions, which is cool, and there’s a lot of energy to his work.  However, his fight scenes can be extremely chaotic and I found myself having to closely inspect the panels to try and decipher what was going on.

All things considered, this is an okay start to the movie prequel miniseries, even if it can be pretty baffling.  These issues are intended to give more context to the film so it’ll make sense, but with the Triceratons and shit it winds up throwing the audience into the deep end just as much as the movie did.  The characterization is consistent with the film, but all that really serves to accomplish is make me realize how lousy the characterization in the film was to begin with.

Grade: D+ (as in, “David, you’re a wealthy, bitter white man living in the slums of Harlem.  It’s a miracle you lasted as long as you did”.)