This is one of the comic series I really should have reviewed more of by now. I really should have started with #1 and reviewed them all by now. If I had the brain that wasn’t weird and could do things normally and correctly and not go OOH I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT NOW SO I HAVE TO GO FIND IT AND WATCH IT instead of you know planning things out. In other words if my brain wasn’t on all the time I could plan stuff and stick to that plan. I don’t know why I’m even blabbing all of this shit to you instead of someone who could actually help. Anyway, I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The old cartoon. the original Mirage comics (I need to review them too) but I love this series the most of all. I’m pretty sure these were some of the first comics I ever had. Not the ones that made me want to go hog wild on collecting we will get to them soon enough too. Just the first ones I was ever given because I remember quite a number of these characters and situations. I only have one issue of this series left from Childhood (I bought several more recently but I still have that tattered issue and it’s from later in the run too and if I cared about money I could probably sell it for way too much money but I’m gonna bitch and moan about that later.) Point is I should have reviewed something from this series by now.
To be fair, I believe I talked about TMNT Meet Archie on my YouTube channel which got less views then this blog does. This blog will at least get some attention sometimes. TMNT was one of the biggest things of my early childhood, up until I was like 7 or 8 it was my favorite thing. It was only usurped in popularity by Power Rangers which became my favorite thing. I’m sure I still bought TMNT action figures (until we had a garage sale in 1995 and my mom got me to sell them all for $50 to buy some Garfield stuff or something. Those figures could have gone for so much more). I still bought this comic (I remember getting an issue of the digest comic from a used book store and it turning out to be the same one I sold them! Wild!) Anyway, this comic did pretty well it lasted from 1988 to 1995. I believe from September of 1988 to October of 1995. That’s a good run seeing as the original cartoon only lasted another year, until they came back with the Power Rangers ripoff that I’ll get into in another blog post because I don’t like to think about it.
Anyway, this comic was written by Dean Clarrian, in fact I believe everything related to Ninja Turtles at Archie was done by him. He is very underrated in the Turtles fandom and should get more respect! This part of the series is when the executives stopped really checking in with him “You put the cyber turtles in here to help sell the toys. Yes? Alright have fun” because this five parter called Dream World is fucking wild and I will take you on this beautiful beautiful journey.
We start with a cat man who has cool cybernetic parts to his body who notices an alien ship flying by because he hacked into the hubble telescope II (hacking n the 1990s was fucking cool and let you do literally anything if you could hack you could dethrone God.) Yes, I know that’s 90s comic goofery but it’s 90s comic goofery I like. Along with the virtual reality. Honestly the only things I hate about 90s comics is the sometimes incredibly awful art (not a problem with this series) and the overuse of the cliche of A NEW COOL BAD GUY (usually just some dip shit in a shitty dirty ass trench coat and a big generic gun) being able to take down and sometimes kill a classic “golden oldie” bad guy. Either way we see him talking about his plan to destroy the Ninja Turtles. We then go see which all of the future turtles (yes this story takes place in the future where New York City has sunk under the ground and people and mutants have to get around on motor skis. It’s awesome). Michaelango works at an orphanage. Raphael is boining this hot fox woman and works at a restaurant. Leo is training a white lady, an Asian lady, a black guy AND A BABOON MAN to be ninjas and Donnie is still a big old nerd working on fixing a time travelling device (created by a giant shark man apparently! Man I missed out on some awesome shit when I gave up on this comic book) There’s a brain connected to the Time Travelling device and when he gets it all working it turns to WORLD WAR II. However that has to wait because Leonardo calls Donatello and tells him about the terrorists that took pills which literally vaporized their faces off. They are now off to find out whats up with those guys. End of part 1.
The second part opens up wit hthe brain just thinking in German and trying to get back to the past… in Nazi Germany. If you know anything about this comic you should know where this is heading. Hell if you don’t know anything about this comic you should still know where this is heading. It’s heading somewhere fucking cool as hell. Then we see some robots shoot a police officer while another one prays to God. Then we get the CYBER TURTLES to show up and kick ass. Don’t forget to ask your mom to go to the department store after reading this issue to buy you’re very own Cyber Turtles. I do not remember owning these guys as a nine year old child but I certainly want to own them now as a thirty eight year old child. Anyway the turtles find out that the robots are actually ROBO ZOMBIES. I seriously need to review every issue of this comic so badly. Michaelangelo leaves the group and runs afoul of VERMINATOR-X the Cat Man from part one and literally gets his ass kicked. I would have been sad about this had I read this comic as a kid because Mikey was my favorite but now as a mature respectable adult I like Raphael more.
Verminator-X is found by a HIDDEN INDIVIDUAL IN THE SHADOWS!!! He will be come very important in the upcoming issues. They leave Mikey all beaten and bruised for Raphael to find bringing him to Leo and Don…unconscious and not breathing! End of part 2! Mikey is now all in a bed being watching over by Leo’s new students. Thankfully he’s breathing again while Leo, Don and Raph all go into the time machine to Nazi Germany. I didn’t think I’d ever read a Ninja Turtles story where that happened, and I didn’t think I’d ever read one where it was only one of the wild and crazy things that happen within. The brain now has a cool robot body. I don’t know how it got it but hey it did. Maybe it has something to do with the shark man. I do not know. I believe I should have clearly read this story about the shark man. I really do not believe this was the first Future Turtles story.
Anyway the robot brain body attacks a resistance fighter right before the turtles show up and are chased by the rest of the resistance. The turtles climb out of the sewer just to find that the brain was in fact Hitler’s brain and he’s gotten back together with the real deal in 1944! Before we get back to that we have to talk about Verminator-X and his new alien friend who we will learn is named Crainium. He wants human brains for money to sell to an alien group that cannot dream without tapping into the memories of specific human beings. So that’s why he will want the brain of HITLER and he wants them FAST before earth is hit with a comet. Anyway we then see the Turtles meet the real Hitler and some Nazis but that’s before literal planes show up and shoot the shit out of the Nazi’s and the brains robot body. Hitler says he’s going to get the brain to Mengele but not before Raphael PUNCHES HIM RIGHT IN HIS FUCKING WORTHLESS FACE. I don’t care what story it is in that if you don’t cheer when HITLER GETS PUNCHED IN THE FACE you are a bad person that I do not want to know. No sir.
After Raphael says He’d like to do that again, Donnie let’s the other guys know that he lost the remote and they have to race back to where the gate opened because it will continue to open and close until they get back. Anyway they are met there by Hitler not because Raphael pulled his punches but because the writer wants to fuck with Hitler some more. He thinks they are demons and they get him to SHOOT HIMSELF IN THE HEAD. They then go back to realize that Leo’s students are really kinda shitty and have gotten themselves all tangled up with Verminator-X and Crainium who steal Hitler’s brain and fly off. Only this time Michaelanglo has grabbed onto the space ship and is going to hang on to find out where their hideout is! End of part 3. We start part four up with Leo being surrounded by tons of brains ready to screw over his cyber turtle costume? It ain’t good that’s for sure. He recounts the story from the past 3 issues and we see how Mikey is found. It’s pretty easily. He’s just floating in the river. He has however found two ways to attack the duo of Veriminator-X and Crainium. The turtles now break into two teams, Raph, Mikey, Raphs hot fox girlfriend, Leo’s crappy students all team up to go one way while Leo and Donnie go somewhere else in their cool new Cyber Suits (now only 899.99 dollars on eBay) They end up in the brain tank and have to fight the brains! While the other group fights ZOMBIES (ones that have not been turned into Zombie Robots). The brains overtake Leo and Don and separate them! What will happen next!
The final part is here! Don saves Leo and Raph tries to shock the zombies with Don’s bo staff but it helps them so he decides to reverse it and suck the juice out of the zombies which works! However there’s too much energy so he ends up having to shoot at the brain tank! This releases Cyber Don and Cyber Leo and the brains and also really pisses off the bad guys. They end up fighting and it pretty much comes down to Veriminator-X and Raph both pointing guns at each other and RAPH SHOOTS HIM. It’s fucking wild. I mean it’s still fixed by the next page when Donnie fixes his robotic body and makes him a good guy and they blow up the comet. This wild ass story is over.
FINAL VERDICT: Yes, this story is all over the place. Yes, they don’t ever explain what Veriminator-X’s original plan was, Yes it has flaws, but I could clearly get the fact that the people were having fun making this and I’ll take that over a story where everything is perfect but didn’t really feel like anyone was having any fun doing it. The thing is earlier I found out about this stupid thing eBay is doing to help not collectors (sorry I know that most collectors want to own their thing) but people who think they will get rich off this nerd stuff. Yeah, it depresses me. if I could press a button to make things go back to the days of “what you want this thing, fucking gross man” I would do that. To the days when the most you’d pay for this comic was 5 bucks (someone out there no joke wants 292 dollars for the Hitler punching issue. Is it just me or trying to profit off a comic where the character punches Hitler just seem really crass?) and the most expensive NES game was Stadium Events at a whopping 300 dollars. Yeah I’d do that in a heart beat. This stuff should be fun. If you want to invest, invest in some fucking stocks idiot.
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