Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything! issue 1



Story: Ben Bates & Dustin Weaver Art: Sophie Campbell (Page 1-3), Dustin Weaver (Pages 4-5, 11-14), Ben Bates (Pages 6-10, 15-18), Giannis Milogiannis (Pages 19-20) Colors: Bill Crabtree & Sophie Campbell (Pages 1-3) Letters: Shawn Lee Editor: Bobby Curnow Publisher: Ted Adams

Minor Characters

 * Donatello (Mirage)
 * Human Bebop (B&RDE) ""
 * Human Rocksteady (B&RDE) ""
 * Leonardo (Mirage)
 * Michelangelo (Mirage)
 * Raphael (Mirage)
 * Reggaeton
 * Savanti Romero (Mirage)

Solicitation
After their defeat in TMNT #50, the dull-witted Bebop and Rocksteady, everyone's favorite warthog and rhino mutants, are feeling dejected and without purpose. However, when they stumble across a time-travel scepter, they realize that their craziest, most destructive adventure awaits! Will the universe survive?

Synopsis
65 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs, the ex-Time Master Savanti Romero, wielding the Scepter of the Sands of Time, battles a version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (wearing all red masks) and Renet. The Turtles defeat Savanti and he is banished, forced to remain in the prehistoric age. And while Savanti was once held in exile for eternity, he is suddenly rescued when the timeline is altered by two unlikely time travelers, explains our narrator Donatello.

In the present day, the Turtles are sneaking into the Natural History Museum in New York City to investigate a new exhibit, Mysteries of the Ancient Sorceress, featuring the mummified remains of a human that somehow dates back to the Cretaceous Period. While Raph comments that dinosaur bones aren’t nearly as impressive as living ones (like they saw in the Turtles in Time miniseries) and Mikey cracks jokes, Leo tells Donnie that he could have handled this mission by himself. Donnie tells Leo that it’s not the mummy he’s interested in, but two other specimens found nearby—two fossils that like exactly like their two bumbling foes, Bebop and Rocksteady.

In a separate panel, Donnie breaks the fourth wall, telling us, the audience, that this story revolves around Bebop and Rocksteady and their accidental adventure through time.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, present day. Bebop and Rocksteady are once again getting kicked out of a gang, this time because they accidentally sank their boss’s very expensive boat, loaded up with even more expensive war-bots. Their ex-boss (whom they try to dub Reggaeton, in keeping with their fondness for nicknames based on musical genres) orders his men to shoot Bebop and Rocksteady, who are bound together with chains. Annoyed by the gunfire, Rocksteady gets angry and slams a shipping container into the men shooting at them to get them to stop, but he hits it too hard and accidentally kills them. Bebop begs to be allowed to stay in the Lamina Negra Commandos, but the leader of the Lamina Negra tells Bebop and Rocksteady that they are going to die and he activates two of the war-bots, which promptly blast Bebop and Rocksteady with a missile. Bebop and Rocksteady, enraged, shake off the explosion and kill all the gang members.

Later, Bebop and Rocksteady lament their lot in life, sad after being kicked out of another gang and on their own again. Rocksteady, who is very bad with geography, wonders why they were sent to what he thinks is Africa. Rocksteady tells Bebop that they should just make some fast money and fly back to New York, but Bebop tells him that’s impossible, because they don’t look like the pictures on their old ID cards anymore.

Meanwhile, back at the Natural History Museum, Mikey calls for his brothers to take a look at the gemstone in the grasp of the prehistoric mummy. Mikey tells his brothers that the can hear the gem calling to him, telling him to touch it. He touches a finger to the gem and a beam of energy bursts outwards, opening a portal from which falls a confused Renet, the Turtles’ friend and a Time Lord. Renet wonders how she ended up at the Museum of Natural History when she was traveling to the Neurial Empire in the year 6056 when she turns around and sees the Turtles. Donnie explains that Renet appeared when Mikey touched the mummy’s gem. Renet says it’s a type of automatic teleporter, and a rare one at that. Renet tells the Turtles that the mummy was a time lord who apparently knew the Turtles. Suddenly Renet realizes that the mummy is her in the future.

In an attempt to clarify things, Mikey asks Renet if she thinks that at some point in the future she will travel back in time to the age of dinosaurs and leave a gemstone to be found by the Turtles, which would summon young Renet to them. Renet tells them that if she went back in time to the Cretaceous Period, it’s because of Savanti Romero. Renet tells the Turtles that Savanti must have survived when they defeated him last. The Turtles, totally confused, ask Renet who Savanti Romero is. Renet tries to jog their memory, reminding them about how Savanti had taken her time scepter and attempted to cause all the volcanoes on earth to erupt at once, altering the earth’s orbit ever so slightly, so that the meteor that killed the dinosaurs would never hit happen and earth’s history would be changed forever, erasing the Turtles from existence.

Leo reminds Renet that all they did in the past was encounter some Utroms, not fight a time lord named Savanti Romero. Rent asks if she was there and Leo reminds her, and Renet realizes that the Turtles traveling back in time after being saturated with chronoparticles hasn’t happened yet for her, as she jumps around in time a lot. The Turtles realize that Rent doesn’t remember meeting them at the Battle Nexus either, because that had not yet happened for her either. The Turtles ask how Renet knows them if she hasn’t even met them yet. Renet explains that she’s met them many, many times, but some of them were alternate dimension versions of the Turtles. Renet explains that there are countless alternate dimensions, parallel universes, whatever you want to call them, but Time Lords like herself exist as singularities across all realities. Raph wants to know how Bebop and Rocksteady tie into all the situation. Renet explains that she must have set up the gemstone teleporter to get her to help the Turtles, and that Savanti must have gotten his hands on her time scepter, which means he could be anywhere in time or space, or even in another dimension.

Renet tells the Turtles that they still have an ace in the hole: the time scepter that Savanti has is a future version of Renet’s time scepter, which means that the two are linked and they can use the one to track the other. Renet inputs some information into her time scepter and she discovers that there’s another one on earth now.

Bebop and Rocksteady are rummaging through their belongings in their hideout in Rio de Janeiro. Rocksteady asks Bebop if he remembers the strange looking guy who asked them to join his gang about a week ago, who they had beat up because at the time they were still with the Lamina Negra. Bebop recalls that they’d stolen some type of wand-looking thing from the guy and says it must be somewhere in their hideout. The two begin looking for it, thinking that if they find it and return it maybe the guy they stole it from would let them join his gang. Finding the time scepter, Bebop and Rocksteady rejoice but are then surprised by a flash of light and the opening of a portal in their hideout, out of which comes Renet and the Turtles. Bebop and Rocksteady are just as surprised to see the Turtles as the Turtles are to see them. Renet wonders where Savanti Romero is while the Turtles charge towards Bebop and Rocksteady. Bebop and Rocksteady fight the Turtles while Renet tries to puzzle out the whole situation. Rocksteady accidentally hits Bebop in the head with the time scepter, activating it and sending the two of them through time, back to New York City. Bebop and Rocksteady are glad to be home and head to see if they could make use of their old hideout. When they arrive, Bebop and Rocksteady see that their old hideout is already occupied—by none other than themselves, pre-mutation. Bebop and Rocksteady realize that they’re in the year 2000.