Midnight Son – Part Two Credits: Dean Clarrain (script), Chris Allan (pencils), Jon D’Agostino (inks), Gary Fields (letters), Barry Grossman (colors)
Like the previous issue, the adventure opens with Splinter telling a story. He reveals that he lived outside of Hiroshima in 1945. One day, while sparring with his great-uncle and sensei, Gyogi, the Enola Gay flew overhead. While Splinter ran to warn his family, Gyogi watched the atomic bomb fall. Gyogi was blinded, but the family did manage to drive away from the radioactive fallout (the science of this is perhaps questionable). Today, Splinter has brought April and the Turtles to A-Bomb Dome, one of the few structures that withstood the blast.
Soon, the Turtles encounter Ninjara and an army of white ninjas. While Raphael finds Ninjara cute, she’s only interested in cutting out his heart. As Raphael puts it, “You may be foxy -- but you’re no lady!”
Meanwhile, Chien Khan is still holding Fu Sheng and Chu Hsi captive. Convinced that Khan is willing to kill Oyuki, the girl he kidnapped last issue, Fu Sheng agrees to help Khan summon the Warrior Dragon. When Khan adds his own ingredients to Fu Sheng’s transformative powder, Chu Hsi changes into a brainwashed Warrior Dragon. As he walks through the city, the Turtles cross his path. They climb on to Dragon’s body and ride along, as he heads for a nuclear power plant. Fu Sheng reveals to Oyuki that Khan’s plan is to destroy the power plant, so that the raw energy can open a demonic gateway.
Bonus: Ninjara's origin in just three panels.
Review in a Half-Shell: There is some nice character work with Splinter, but the majority of this issue is a fight scene. Unfortunately, Chris Allan’s action scenes aren’t particularly exciting, so it doesn’t quite work. I know that Ninjara goes on to become a major character, and her scenes here at least serve as a decent introduction.
Turtlemania: There’s an ad for the second TMNT Game Boy game, “Back from the Sewers.” I never owned a Game Boy, so I wasn’t able to experience these games (or the Game Boy Spider-Man game, which was apparently the only decent Marvel video game for years).
I'm a big fan of the blog, and this is my favorite issue of the TMNT Adventures. Selfishly, this is because Archie printed one of my drawings of Mondo Gecko in the issue's "Fan Art" section.
ReplyDeleteAs I remember it, Archie didn't even send me a letter as a "heads up" about the drawing being used; when Marvel Comics printed a letter I wrote to their licensed ALF comic book, they at least gave me some warning so I could make my parents buy multiple copies.
Asking her if she was "Child of the Atom" was cool. It works in context of the story, but also in reference to those other mutants Marvel was publishing :D
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