By Mark Rodriguez
As many might or might not know, a few years back we had an
animated special called Turtles Forever, in which the Turtles from the old 80’s
show, the newer 2K3 show and even the original Mirage comics met and defeated
the 2K3 Shredder. This movie was made on the 25th anniversary of the
Turtles being created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, but also marked their
farewell since Laird sold the rights off to Nickelodeon. Nick would promise a
new comic, a new cartoon, toyline and movie in the following years, and there
already been a few pics of the new cartoon and toyline, estimated to hit this
fall. Now, I know many people don’t read comics, and for many the new cartoon
will be the first sign of new Ninja Turtles stuff… but actually Nick allowed
IDW to produce a comic series last August of 2010. Yep, a month before DC’s New
52.
I enjoyed this new comic, especially since we haven’t had a
regular ongoing TMNT series since the Archie comics of the 90’s based loosely
on the old cartoon. Yes, Mirage had their series, but their main comic was once
every whenever… and the Tales of the TMNT had stories that might take place
before this, after that, years into the future, or even days before the events
of TMNT # 1. So yes, it is nice to have a normal monthly comic series to look
forward to.
Since IDW started off fresh, this version of the Turtles can
be whatever they want it to be, featuring new never-before-seen characters and
some from Mirage and even the old cartoon show. Anything goes because this
series is basically a re-introduction to them. However, since hardcore fans had
yet to see TMNT Volume 4 reach its conclusion due to Laird’s personal problems,
many hoped this new comic would be like a new version of Mirage. Though they
gripe about the many elements from the old show that have been popping in,
again…. This is IDW’s TMNT, they can do whatever they want.
So far the comic has been an interesting read… though the
art did take me a while to get used to. One thing to note is that the main
story does take quite a while to go through. The new origin IDW has for us
comes in bits and pieces and for every new question we get answered, two more
seem to pop in its place. I do like it however, because it draws me in and
leaves me eager to see the next issue, which is what a good comic should do.
Well, before I make articles based on the newer stories (as of now issue 7 is
due this month, and we have a Donatello micro coming soon, as well as a
crossover event called Infestation out next month) I would like to go back to
the first 5 issues which is the first essential storyarc. And again, before
anyone says ‘that’s not right’, ‘that’s not how it happened’ or ‘what the hell
is said character doing there’ or whatever, again, remember. This is not
Mirage, the Fred Wolf cartoon or the 2k3 Series. This is an all-new continuity
based on IDW’s ideas.
Issue 1 begins with… um… the story seems to have no title…
and it came with 12 variant covers (one of them drawn by Kevin Eastman
himself) to really kick the series off
with an impressive start. I actually have 5 of them since I got a deal with the
local comic guy, Steve Riddle, that he’d give me the Eastman variant for free
if I pre-ordered the 4 individual Turtle covers.
Splinter and 3 of the Turtles are seen facing off against a
mutant alley cat named Old Hob and his thugs. Right off the bat, we wonder who
this ‘Old Hob’ is, and where is Raphael? While Splinter wants peace, Hob won’t
have it, so they fight it out. The Turtles soon take down the punks while
Splinter defeats Hob. As Hob escapes he tells Splinter ‘he’ll gut him yet’
along with the turtles, and they’ll soon be as forgotten as ‘the other freak’.
Splinter sheds a tear and thinks to himself ‘Raphael, we have not forgotten’ as
we see, elsewhere, Raph wandering around, sad and homeless.
We jump back 18 months earlier, as we first see the IDW
April, starting her first day as an intern at Stockgen research, apparently a
place to bioengineer livestock for starving third world countries. April sees 4
little turtles in a glass case and is told by Chet that they are to be used for
a special kind of project. A rat jumps on top of the case and scares April.
Chet says the little guy is harmless, and part of another special project, and
is hard to keep contained. Chet then escorts April out of the room so she could
get her official intern badge.
Baxter Stockman runs the place, and gets a call from General
Krang in Burnow Island. He is waging a war and is getting impatient for the
test results he ordered. Baxter says there are delays but they are making great
progress with the Terrapin/Human Exo-Armor Synthesis and Rodentia Psychotropic
serum tests. Krang demands all of this, as well as the super soldier mutagen
Baxter promised, since the General was giving Baxter the funding for all of
this. Baxter promises all will be delivered soon and wait will be worth it… as
a worried little rat looks on.
Three months later, Chet comments on how fold April is of
the turtles. She asks why they call the rat Splinter. Another intern, Lindsey
tells her they test him with Psychotropic serum, with splits, or splinters his
animal nature in two, separating a capacity for human-like cognition, from his
basic animal instincts. April asks what something like this has to do with
bio-engineering meat, and Chet quickly draws her attention back to the turtles.
April already named them, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael,
inspired from a ‘history of renaissance art’ course she’s taking that semester.
Back to present day, the homeless Raphael is looking for
food in the dumpster managing to find some pizza slices. He looks for clothes
in another dumpster, but hears a crash sound nearby. A nearby house has a man
beating someone up. Raph overhears this being a drunk father beating on his son
Casey. Raph breaks in, fists raised, and
tells the guy he really hates bullies.
From this issue I can say, it was an awesome read and great
to see the guys again in a new on-going comic series. It was interesting to see
them all in red bandanas, and the mystery behind Baxter, Krang, Hob and why
Raphael is lost somewhere made me eager to see the next issue. And yes, this so
far the first version that had April name the Turtles.
Issue two, again, has no title, but 5 variant covers. Raph
fights it out with Casey’s drunk, enraged father. He managed to knock Raph
down, and does an elbow drop on him, but is hurt by the shell. Raph then tosses
his clothes away and continues the fight, until the man gets in his car and drives
off. Casey thanks Raph for the save, but wonders where he came from.
15 months earlier, April is at the Stockgen Research,
studying for her college work. Splinter shows up and gives her a disk. Just as
she wonders what it is, ninjas break into the building. April sees that the
disk is marked ‘confidential’ and ‘Terrapin/human exo-armor synthesis’ and
‘military applications & battlefield’. The ninjas attack her. One steals
some chemicals, as the other tries to kill April. Seeing April in danger, Splinter
runs off and activates the fire alarm. April smashes a glass vial into the
ninja’s face to defend herself and runs off. Splinter notices the ninjas were
also stealing the turtles. As the cops arrive, the ninjas are gone, and
Splinter runs off.
As the ninjas climb outside, Splinter jumps and claws one in
the face, making him drop the bag with the chemicals and turtles and throw the
rat down with them. Splinter falls in a puddle of glowing green goo, leaking
from the broken vials, and the turtles are there as well. But just then, he
notices an alley cat walking off with one of the turtles in its mouth!
Back to present day we see the Turtles and Splinter living
in the sewers. Leonardo is practicing with his weapons, Donatello is working on
something, and Michelangelo is just chillin with some pizza, while Splinter
sips his tea. The Turtles wonder if they’ll ever find Raphael, and Mike says
maybe they should go out and beat on Hob and his thugs instead. Splinter tells
them that he understands their frustrations, but will continue the search. He
says their fight with Hob would be the first of many in a war they will soon
face. But they must find Raphael first, because they are lost without him.
Back to Raph, he makes friends with Casey Jones and explains
how he’s homeless and can’t remember anything of his past. Raph wonders why he
isn’t scared of him, but Casey says he’s a teddy bear compared to his old man. Casey
offers him something to eat, but sees the fridge is empty. He then says they
can go out to eat… and have some fun along the way, as he is now sporting the
famous hockey mask and a bat.
The second issue continues to intrigue was we see the
ninjas, and I was very surprised to see that in this version, the cat took Raph
away from his brothers while he was still an ordinary turtle and before the
mutagen kicked in. So… seeing that Raph and the others have never seen each
other after the mutation left me very curious as to how things will be when
they reunited.
Issue 3…. Has no title again.. I think maybe they start
giving titles to the stories once this arc ends… but I’m not sure. We still get
5 variant covers.
Anyway, Raph and Casey are out on the town and they take
down a purse snatcher. However, giving the purse back to the lady doesn’t quite
work out as she runs off screaming at the sight of a big green guy and a guy
with a hockey mask. Casey says they could take the purse to the police station
and grab a bite to eat. Raph asks if it was so easy to take down the purse
snatcher, why didn’t he take down his drunk father. Casey explains his dad
started drinking when his mom got sick from cancer. One of her dying wishes was
to not fight with his father, and so far he’s kept it.
As for Raph, all he remembers is waking up in an alley, and
nothing before that. Casey also explains that his hockey mask comes from him
playing hockey in college, but currently he needs to get his grads up or he’s
gonna lose the scholarship money he needs to pay rent and food. As they walk
and talk, Old Hob’s men spot him…
Meanwhile, back in the sewers, the turtles spar a little.
Don takes down Leo, but takes a second to gloat, which gives Mike the chance to
take him down. Splinter points out Don’s mistakes and says ‘underestimating
their training is also underestimating the enemy’. Mike then asks the million
dollar question.. why exactly is Old Hob so mad at them. Splinter just says
that ‘Old Hob has his reasons’.
15 months earlier, we go back to seeing the still normal rat
Splinter and the alley cat with the normal turtle Raph in his mouth. They have
a brief clash, and Splinter gets slashed on the side. However, he’s determined
to save the turtle and bites out the cat’s eye. The cat runs off angry. Just
then the ninja arrive, looking for the stolen items they dropped. Splinter
tries his best to push the turtles back in the bag and drags them to a sewer
entrance. The ninjas fail to grab them before Splinter and the 3 turtles fall
down into the sewers. Splinter sees he still only has 3 of the turtles… and
passes out.
Upon waking up some time later, Splinter realizes he can
talk.. and stand.. Now in a more humanoid body, Splinter is confused… but is
even more surprised to see that the other 3 turtles have also mutated and can
talk.
Recently Mutated um... Mutant Turtles =D
Back to the present, Leo, Don and Mike are out looking for
Raph again, as Mike complains. Leo tells him to stop, but Don agrees since
they’re ‘chasing their tails every night looking for a brother they’re not even
sure exists’. Leo says Splinter believes he’s alive and that’s the end of it. But
Don says it’s NOT the end of it and argues they should be doing something about
Hob instead, in which Mike agrees. Leo said that the earlier fight (I assume
the one from issue 1) gave them no choice since Hob was too close to knowing
where they live and was threatening innocent people to get at them (huh?).
Leo and Don continue to argue until Don says that maybe this
is all some sort of guilt trip from Splinter since he couldn’t save Raphael and
can’t accept the fact that Raph was probably killed. Leo doesn’t want to hear
it, but Don says maybe Leo just doesn’t have the guts to say it himself. This
sets Leo off, but Mike quickly gets in between the two to break it up. Don
apologizes but suggests a different approach. The Turtles compromise and agree
to go after Hob, while searching for Raph. Don reminds Leo that Splinter always
says ‘change is the only constant’.
Elsewhere, Casey and Raph buy some hot dogs from a vendor,
but some guys running from the cops shove the food out of their hands. Casey
and Raph chase them and beat them down, saying they owe them dinner. However…
this was all a set-up as Raph and Casey are now trapped with Old Hob and all
his boys (and a girl with a pipe too, you know what I mean).
I love this issue. We get to see more of the Turtles than
just Raph. I’m liking Mike the most, since I was afraid he would be just a
comic relief annoyance like the 2K3 version. Yeah, he might complain, but he
gives valid reasons and asks good questions as to why he has to do something,
like why this mutant cat hates them so much. Many people were surprised that
Don was arguing with Leo, kinda like Raph used to in other media. But again, it
does go with Don’s personality of being the most scientifically sound of the
group. He looks at things with cold logic, and to him, running around every
night looking for a shadow just because ‘Splinter says so’ and because Leo so
blindly agrees, is bound to bring some questions. As for Leo, he is definitely
the leader here, but way too blind to do whatever Splinter says without
question, even when his brothers do question it.
I also don’t quite understand the ‘Hob was threatening
innocent people to get to us’ part. The fight we saw had Hob and his thugs face
Splinter and the Turtles, with no innocent bystanders in the background. They
don’t even know April yet. And Splinter did tell Hob he wanted the neighborhood
left in peace… So was Hob and his goons running around beating up random people
asking if they’ve seen a giant rat and 4 giant turtles? Anyways… on to issue 4.
Issue 4 again, has no title and 5 variant covers… and is
also the first cover to feature things actually happening in the story, rather
than just the turtles posing.
Hob asks Raph if he remembers him, and Raph has a brief
flashback of when he was a little turtle and the alley cat had him in his
mouth. As Splinter bit the cat’s eye out, Raph was sent flying back. He crawled
away and mutated elsewhere… away from the others. Back to the present, Raph
says he doesn’t remember Hob, and the cat takes great offense to this. He tells
his men to put away the guns so they can give them a beat down they won’t
forget. That said, the gang attacks Raph and Casey.
We go back to 15 months earlier, where Baxter and Chet are
surveying the damage caused by the ninja break-in at Stockgen. Baxter doesn’t
care about the missing rat and turtles and is more concerned with the mutagen.
However, it was lost, and the samples left spilled on the street would be too
tainted to work. With both the psychotropic serum and mutagen lost, Baxter is
concerned… especially with the mutagen since the basic contents were supplied
to him by General Krang, and he’d have to ask for more. Chet says they could
avoid having to start from scratch if they were to find Splinter and get
psychotropic samples from his blood. Just as Baxter asks how they can find a
rat in a city filled with millions, the recently mutated Old Hob shows up,
asking if the rat has to be alive when he brings him.
The flashback continues with April having a hard time
convincing cops that she was attacked by ninjas… and that a lab rat saved her
by pulling the fire alarm.
Meanwhile in the
sewers, the recently mutated Splinter and the Turtles try to get as far away
from the lab as they can. He says that fate and destiny has brought them
together again, so they must fade into the shadows as has always been their
way. One of the turtles asks about ‘their way’. Splinter asks for their trust
as they continue to escape, and says that with their new life, they will have
new names, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello. And Splinter will be their
father and sensei like before. He also says there are many things he must teach
them, and things they will learn again, but first they have to find a home, and
their missing brother.
Back to the present, Casey and Raph fight off Hob’s thugs,
but eventually are overpowered. Casey takes a brick to the face and is out, and
Hob smacks Raph around and has his men hold him down so he can shoot him. But
suddenly, 3 shuriken are tosses into Hob’s arm. He turns to see the other three
turtles have showed up.
The four turtles take down the gang, until Old Hob
suddenly tackles Raph down. Hob tells Raph his family left him to die, and that
they’re all better off dead and gone, since he’s gonna drag all of them, as
well as Splinter, over to Stockgen to be tested on.
Raph loses his temper and attacks Old Hob while the others
finish off the rest of the gang (what happened to the babe with the pipe?).
Raph beats the hell out of the cat and is about to finish him off. Leo stops
him. Don says Hob will just attack them again, and Mike says the cops are
coming anyway. The turtles finally introduce themselves to Raph as his
brothers, and Casey wakes up, confused as to why he sees 4 turtles now.
Later on, the Turtles return with their long lost brother,
and Splinter is overjoyed to see his family complete. In his own words “the
circle is complete, now we can truly begin”.
This was an awesome first arc and I really enjoyed it. The
origin is so new and different, it pulls old readers in just to see what
happens next. And again, questions are answered, and more pop up. The main one
here is… why was Splinter talking to the Turtles which such phrases like ‘as
it’s always been our way’ and ‘with a new life comes new names’. Of course we
know the answer now, but before we were all scratching our heads. Plus, we
still don’t know who General Krang is (we assume he’s somehow based on the 80’s
toon version) and the Turtles haven’t even met April yet. Plus, how will things
be for Raphael now that he’s reunited with his family… and how will the other
Turtles deal with their new bro?
As for Baxter, I do like his slightly sarcastic sense of
humor. I don’t know. Being a genius and all, he has a way of talk down to
people, sometimes going over their heads. I especially like when told about the
missing animals when the mutagen was a more important loss. “I see—quite the
tragedy, that. Remind me to have my secretary allocate the funds to replace
these poor lost creatures. I’m guessing twenty dollars and a trip to the pet
store should suffice. The MUTAGEN Mr. Allen! Never mind this inane talk of
missing rodents and reptiles! Tell me what happened to the bloody SUPER SOLDIER
MUTAGEN!”
I already mentioned some points in my past TMNT articles,
but I’ll elaborate further as I cover the epic issue 5, as well as the Raph and
Mike micro-series next time I blog about the Turtles. And even though this story
has no title for any of the 4 issues, I found out IDW is putting them together
in a Trade Paper Back (or TPB for those that know) called ‘TMNT Change is
Constant’ so I guess we can label these issues as Change is Constant parts 1-4.
Anyways, it was a fun arc, good action and good scenes with the characters we
know and love. Even though Raph got most of the focus, the scenes with the
other 3 were cool. Anyways, stay tuned for my next blog on this awesome new
comic series.
