Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything # 3

By Mark Rodriguez

Bebop and Rocksteady stole a time scepter from Savanti Romero and after running into the Turtles and Renet, went back to the year 2000, running into their past pre-mutated human selves. Both the human and mutant Bebop and Rocksteadys go through time in their Foot Cruiser, running into another pair of them in another car. They both appear in front of the Turtles and Renet and crash into each other. One pair of human Bebop and Rocksteadys didn't survive the crash, so the surviving mutants ran into the car of the other 4 and they all escaped through time, all in front of the very shocked and confused Turtles and Renet.

Mikey freaks out and asks Renet if they were sent to the crazverse, which she says she wouldn't take them there. Leo is worried that Renet just confirmed that there is a crazyverse, while Renet and Don explain time travel theories as to what happened. Savanti Romero arrived where they are now and had the scepter stolen from him by Bebop and Rocksteady. Savanti is currently there now but they can't see each other since they are both in different dimensions and alternate timelines. She can't take them to before Bebop and Rocksteady got the scepter but she does know where they went. Back to 2012 at Stockgen. The Turtles panic because this was when they were still ordinary turtles in Stockgen before they were mutated.

All the Bebops and Rocksteadys attack Stockgen and demand to know where the Mutagen is, though the people working there wouldn't know something so confidential. Bebop tells Rocksteady to stop messing around and help break a door down. This sparks an arguement between the two, which also sets off the human Bebop and Rocksteady to fight among themselves.

During the destruction, April and Lindsay are hiding with the normal Turtles, but don't know where Splinter ran off to. Lindsay is shocked by how the mutants killed Baxter Stockman. Before they can leave, a portal opens with the Turtles and Renet. Mikey explains that they're the turtles she's holding, but mutated. Chet comes along to catch April before she faints.

Chet gets hurt during the fight, which reveals that he was the Fugitoid all along. The Turtles start fighting and soon realize that the human duo with them are the pre-mutated Bebop and Rocksteady. Leo tells them to take down the mutant pair first since they'll be easier, but the regular Bebop and Rocksteady prove to be a challenge. Meanwhile the mutant duo smashes through the door. Leo says to forget taking down anybody and just try to get the scepter back.

The Turtles bust in and Bebop socks Mikey into one of the several containment units in the lab. This releases Slash who is more feral at this point, and he starts attacking Bebop. Human Bebop thinks one of the normal Turtles turned into Slash and asks mutant Rocksteady if he should help mutant Bebop against the Super Saiyan Turtle (lol, he actually said that).

The Turtles use this as a chance to get the scepter while Bebop and Rocksteady want to mutate their human selves. The Turtles overhear this and want to stop them before it happens. Just then ANOTHER set of Bebop and Rocksteadys, both human and mutants, come through another time portal using a car from Rio de Janeiro.

Just then through all the commotion, mutant monsters are being released, some of them look like Wingunt, Screwloose and a mutant roach. Just then a bunch of stone warriors bust in to save the Krang's ooze befoee it's stolen. The military also busts in to arrest everybody.

Everybody is basically fighting everybody while Renet and April lost sight of the Turtles. Bebop tries to cut Raphael up with his chainsaw until Pepperoni flies in through a time portal and smashes Bebop down.With all the chaos, Bebop and Rocksteady decide to just throw all the extra mutants into random time portals. A scientist that kinda looks like 80's Baxter is worried about his sea life mutants and Bebop shoves him into a portal too. During the fight between the soldiers and Stone Warriors, they also get exposed to Mutagen and start mutating.

April gets exposed as well and Bebop makes her fall into another portal before Fugitoid can grab her. As Bebop and Rocksteady decide to escape with their human selves, Bebop accidentally squishes normal rat Splinter that was running around. With all the random mutants and soldiers and whatnot thrown into all kinds of different time periods, Renet says they have to go outside of time to fix all of this. She takes the Turtles with her back to the 79th dimension.

My opinions

My goodness, this is totally insane and well... this is what comics are all about. An all-out brawl between random mutants, multiple Bebops and Rocksteadys, both human and mutant, the Turtles, the military and stone warriors. It's just madness! I can only assume through all this madness that the Bebop and Rocksteady pair we saw get away are the main ones that we've been following.

There are so many other things in this issue I can talk about that it would make it's own Top 10. A reference to 80's Baxter. A DBZ reference. Donatello talking to reader as he's explaining the time travel theory. All the extra mutants and cameos. The Turtles trying to name their new dino-pal as Anchovy or Bell Pepper. It's just insane all around.

But man, what a mess they made in this timeline. They killed Baxter. They mutated April. They shoved random mutants into who-knows-where of multiple timelines. They even squished normal rat Splinter. I don't even know where the 4 regular Turtles are at this point since April was guarding them.

This all falls under the timeline theory as seen in DBZ with Trunks. When you travel through time you make a brand new timeline and can't really change the one you're from. That's why Trunks saved Goku and everyone but dying and they defeated the Androids and Cell.... but when Trunks went back to his timeline, everyone was still dead and he had to destroy the Androids and Cell himself. So I assume with all of this craziness our regular non-mutant April and mutant Splinter still exist. But man, what a nightmare all of this was. Like the title suggests, Bebop and Rocksteady really are destroying everything!

The last thing I want to bring up are all the little plot threads here and there that were around since the beginning. Back when April was working with Lindsay at Stockgen, Chet was Fugitoid all this time but that wouldn't be revealed til way later, and Slash has been held captive there but that also wouldn't have been revealed til way later. In fact, I don't even think the Turtles knew Slash came from Stockgen til now. It was interesting to see Wingnut and Screwloose as cameos, but it looks like cameos are all they're gonna be unless they somehow survive whatever Renet is going to do to fix all of this.

And just what is Renet going to do to fix all this? I guess we'll find out next time.

Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything # 2

By Mark Rodriguez

The Turtles find fossils of Bebop and Rocksteady in a museum and Renet shows up. They go after the mutant duo in Rio de Janeiro who use the time scepter they apparently took from Savanti Romero to escape. They then end up in New York City but back in the year 2000 and run into their younger pre-mutated selves. Let's see what happens.

Renet and the Turtles are wondering what to do now and Leo asks why Renet thought it was weird to see Bebop and Rocksteady's bones in their timeline. Renet explains when you time travel, you change the universe you visit, so you can no longer return to the exact time you came from. The fossils must belong to another Bebop and Rocksteady from some other timeline. Don asks is they took the scepter from Savanti Romero, then where is he now? Renet and the gang decide to go back to the Cretaceous Period and find him.

Meanwhile back in the year 2000, Bebop and Rocksteady rock out with their younger selves. They hang out and talk for a bit which brought up an argument they had that caused them to split for a year. At the time Bebop was kicked from a gang but Rocksteady wouldn't quit since they liked him for his military experience. Mutant Bebop and Rocksteady decide to let them join the Foot early to hopefully become mutated sooner.

In prehistoric times, Savanti Romero now has Bebop and Rocksteady working with him. They plan to attack a nearby Utrom base and steal their teleporting technology so Savanti can return to the 79th Dimension, where the Time Masters reside.

Not too far away the Turtles and Renet arrive just in time to see Bebop, Rocksteady and Savanti start their attack. Raphael runs into a little dinosaur he met that he named Pepperoni the last time they went to this time period. Before they can do anything they notice that another time portal has opened up.

An older Renet, now a Time Mistress has come to stop Savanti but she is attacked by Bebop and Rocksteady. The Turtles want to jump in but the younger Renet holds them back. Savanti takes the scepter and lays out Renet, Bebop and Rocksteady as he escaped through time with the scepter. Renet encounters her dying older self who is glad her beacon worked. She tells them to follow Savanti through the portal before it closes and that they must 'remove the gem'. There is no time to explain as the heroes hurry through the portal, though Raph manages to bring Pepperoni and another little dino-buddy as well.

As the Turtles and Savanti fight it out in the um... timeline pipe thing.... Savanti manages to get away and knock the Turtles into an alternate timeline. Raph also loses sight of Pepperoni.

Back in 2000, Bebop and Rocksteady take their younger selves in their old car to where the Foot Clan would eventually be. The only thing is, in 2000 it seems the Foot wasn't around in New York yet and the building they went to was a Foot Clan Holding and Investment Corp. After questioning a guy there they decide to leave. The younger Bebop and Rocksteady say they'll just have to wait for the Foot Clan to come around. Mutant Bebop says they used the 'magic wand' to get from 2016 to 2000, so maybe they can use it to go back to 2016 again.

As the Bebops and Rocksteadys drive through time, they run across another set of the them doing the same thing. The two Bebops playfully clash time scepters as if they were toy swords. They notice that the second pair of themselves went through a different time tunnel.

The Turtles and Renet appear back in Rio de Janeiro, exactly where they left, but a week earlier. Renet says they can't follow Savanti since he went to another dimension that hasn't been altered yet. This timeline is about to be altered. Just then two time portals appear and 2 sets of Bebop and Rocksteadys drive into each other causing a big crash. It seems in the crash one pair of the mutant thugs survived the crash while their human Bebop died and human Rocksteady is left trapped under the crashed car. The mutants run out of the crashed car and join the surviving mutant and human Bebops and Rocksteadys and drive off into another time tunnel as the car that's left behind explodes killing the human Rocksteady. The Turtles and Renet are shocked.

My opinions-

Geez.... Dat Ending... I had to look at the page a few times to process that. So two different sets of Bebops and Rocksteadys crash into each other..... and one set of mutants just hops into the other car to join the survivors leaving their human selves behind to die? I mean seeing human Rocksteady realize he's going to be left behind and yell for help moments before the car blows up. Dude... just what the hell. This kind of reminds me of Rick and Morty with all the different timelines and alternate realities where Rick sees alternate versions of himself die and he doesn't even bat an eye.

Not much else to say. It's a wild ride. Savanti thinks the IDW Turtles are the Mirage Turtles he faced before. We learn a bit about Bebop and Rocksteady's past, especially Rocksteady's army days which explains the usual military motif he always has. I mean, yeah, we can assume he had some sort of military training, but it's nice for them to actually point it out. We also see that the Bebop and Rocksteady fossils were due to Savanti double-crossing them and leaving them behind in the past.

Also their cool car reminded me of the Foot Cruiser figure from back in the day. The fact that their younger selves wanted to someday add weapons on it is also reference to the toy.

It was nice to see Pepperoni again, but it's sad that now the little guy will be stuck in some random timeline. Other than that, not much to say except the story has me very interested into seeing just how exactly Bebop and Rocksteady end up in the dinosaur era like they eventually do.

The only thing I have to say is that in the preview cover for the next issue, I do see Wingnut and Screwloose and the Cockroach Terminator thrown into the mix, so I wonder how that's going to work. Especially since the Cockroach Terminator is so far, only in the Nicktoon series. Oh and Slash also is on the cover. Just what more craziness will happen in the third issue?

Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything # 1

By Mark Rodriguez

Bebop and Rocksteady have always been everyone's favorite henchmen when it came to the TMNT. Even though other series gave Shredder assistants like Tatsu, Tokka, Rahzar, Hun, Karai, Fishface and Dogpound, this mutant duo will always be the favorite. IDW did a great job of making them nearly unstoppable threats, while still keeping their trademark stupidity and incompetence. I mean a few years back would you have believed that there was a comic where Rocksteady beat Donnie to death with a sledgehammer??? Well, their first IDW one-shot dealt with their mutation and their first missions for the Foot. Now let's see what other trouble these mutant morons can get themselves into.

I notice this covers runs into the following one. I guess they'll all come around full circle once you have all the covers put together.

The story begins with Savanti Romero being defeated by the Turtles and Renet and being banished, losing his wife, his body and everything. He is then visited by two very unlikely time travelers, Bebop and Rocksteady.

redrawn from the Mirage comics!

Elsewhere, Don takes the Turtles to visit the history museum to see a mummified woman he heard about. However what he really wanted to show them was what appeared to be the skeletal remains of Bebop and Rocksteady. The Turtles are worried that those two have gone back in time.

Bebop and Rocksteady are in Rio de Janeiro working for another gang, the Lamina Negra Commandos, but they are pretty sick of their incompetence, having sunk their ships and destroyed their robots. Their boss is also sick of being called Reggaeton by them and sends his robots out to kill them. This only pisses off the mutant duo.

Later on, Bebop is pissed that they're back to square one, kicked out of a gang. Rocksteady tries to cheer him up and says they can rob a few stores and fly back to New York. Bebop yells that they can't do that looking like mutants, and that there's nothing to go back to in New York since the Foot Clan is now gone. Bebop says it's the end of 'Bebop and Rocksteady' and walks off.

At the museum, Mikey notices that the amulet the mummified woman was wearing had swirling energy in it, almost as if it was asking him to touch it. As he touches it, energy shoots out and Renet appears before them.

Renet explains that the amulet was a beacon from a time master set to automatically teleport her there if it was touches by someone she knew. She reasons it has to be someone the time master knew since many people must have touched the amulet but it only activated when Mikey touched it. Renet then realizes that the mummified woman is her. Mikey explains that future Renet must have gone back in time in some point, died and become mummified but left the beacon behind so they could summon a younger version of herself if they touch it.

Renet says if she went back to the Cretaceous era, then it must mean that Savanti survived. She says Savanti had a plan to set off all the volcanoes that would upset the Earth's revolution around the sun which would make the meteor never hit it and thus never kill the dinosaurs so humanity would never evolve. The Turtles don't remember any of that and said they ran into some Utroms when they went into the Cretaceous Period but never ran into anyone named Savanti. Renet says that means the Utrom stuff hasn't happened to her yet.

The Turtles ask about when they met during the Battle Nexus Tournament and Renet seems confused that they were in it. Renet explains she's met the Turtles lots of time, but they must have been alternate versions of themselves. Raph gets back on point and asks what Bebop and Rocksteady are doing here.

Renet says is Savanti stole her scepter, a future version, then it's linked to the one she's holding now. She says it's on Earth and she gets ready to go to that location with the Turtles. Raph asks if it's in New York and Renet says the Scepter is on Earth, but not New York.

Back in Rio de Janeiro, Rocksteady remembers a devil-looking guy that wanted them to join him a few back. Bebop remembered they turned him down because they were loyal to the Commandos at the time. Bebop remembers that they stole a wand off of him and Rocksteady says maybe they can give it back to him and he can let them join his gang.

Just then the Turtles and Renet appear, surprised to see Bebop and Rocksteady instead of Savanti. The Turtles fight with them, trying to get the scepter away from Rocksteady. Renet asks if the bones she saw belonged to those guys and she's surprised that this is all taking place in this timeline.

I really love the cartoony energy here,especially Mikey and Raph's reactions

Bebop wraps his chain around Donatello's bo, and as Rocksteady charges with the scepter, everyone pulls Bebop into him. As the mutants collide, the scepter activates and they're gone.

Bebop and Rocksteady find themselves back in New York and figure the scepter is some kind of 'magic travel thingie'. They decided to head back to their old hideout and lay low for a while. As they arrive they heard people arguing and decide to scare them off. As Bebop and Rocksteady scare the two guys, they notice that they're the pre-mutated versions of themselves. All four of them scream at each other. Bebop and Rocksteady have gone back to the year 2000, before they were ever mutated.

My opinions-

This was a lot more interesting than I thought. The IDW TMNT have run into Renet before, but not Savanti Romero. When the first page was black and white with Leo's bandana being red, I thought it was a stylistic choice, but no, that actually was the Mirage Leo facing the Mirage Savanti.

And the adventure Renet told the Turtles the about, with Savanti wanting to prevent the dinosaurs from being extinct? That happened in the Mirage comics (which was by the way also adapted into a 2-parter in the 2K3 series).

The fact that Renet (the same Renet mind you) has met up with the Mirage TMNT, the 2K3 TMNT, the Nick TMNT and now the IDW TMNT is very clever, and a perfect way to throw in subtle references to other versions of the TMNT without being too jarring. Remember the episode in 2K3 when Renet met April and said 'remember when I showed you...' but stopped herself from saying it? Many thought it was a possible reference to Volume 4 in the Mirage comics when Renet helped April discover her origin as drawing. Well... now that we know that Renet has met both the 2K3 TMNT and Mirage TMNT, that's all entirely possible. It just reminds me how ironically, she's never appeared in the classic 80's cartoon, in which she would have fit in just fine with all the aliens and mutants and space things that happened every other week.

As for Bebop and Rocksteady, I like seeing the interaction between the two. It seems Bebop is the one most likely to freak out and complain about life while Rocksteady seems to be more chill in most situations. Bebop was right, going by their first one-shot, they were kicked out from gang after gang until they met the Foot and got mutated. But with Shredder dead and Splinter leading the Foot, they're back to being kicked out from gangs despite being mutants. That has to be frustrating.

We see the clear differences between the comics and the classic cartoon here. When in the 80's cartoon the Turtles see Bebop and Rocksteady as minor annoyances and waste no time in defeating them, here, they're downright terrified of them. I do think the proportions were a bit off though. I know Bebop and Rocksteady are pretty huge, but here they seem to be picking the Turtles as if they were little toys. They're not that huge, I don't think.

Anyways I can't wait to see the next issue. This one had a hell of a cliffhanger. I kinda wish I got the issue with the Back to the Future homage though. The main question... how did Mirage Savanti end up in Rio de Janeiro to run into Bebop and Rocksteady?