Solicit[]
New York City is abuzz with news of a subway series baseball championship between their two major league ball clubs, but Tempestra has returned to spoil the works and shut the games down with a storm unless the city agrees to her demands! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and Casey Jones) aren’t going to just let the weather-manipulating video game bad guy interrupt America’s favorite pastime! Join us for terrible puns, lots of lightning, and a new rivalry for Casey and Raphael as Saturday Morning Adventures hits the ballpark!
Appearing in A Strike Most Foul[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
- April O'Neil
- Energy beasts
- Irma Langenstein
- Sling Evans
- Stump McCoyle
Species[]
- Humans
- Mutant rat
- Mutant turtle
Locations[]
- New York City
- Channel 6
- Casey Jones' apartment
- Long Island
- Long Island Power Plant
- Quint Stadium
- Turtle Lair
Objects, vehicles, and weapons[]
- Baseball bat
- Bō
- Fedora
- Hockey mask
- Hockey stick
- Katana
- Nunchaku
- Pizza
- Sai
- Trenchcoat
- Turtlecom
- Turtle Van
Synopsis[]
Reporting for Channel 6 from the Quint Stadium, April O'Neil tells viewers that it’s time for baseball’s world championship. This year they get a rare post-season subway series between the Big Apple’s resident ball clubs – the Insomniacs and the Quints. Sprawled across a chair in his apartment, Casey Jones watches the report and pulls for the Quints. Seated next to each other on the couch in the lair, Raphael and Michelangelo enjoy pizza and watch April as well. Raphael is pulling for the Insomniacs.
April’s report continues as she states it’s been decades since the last time the championship was down to two local teams. The city becomes excited anytime they two franchises face-off during the regular season, but for a championship - - Her report is interrupted by a burst of static and then Tempestra appears onscreen. She tells the audience that it’s a once in a generation match, with fans, advertisers, the tourism industry, and Vegas casinos counting on the series. It would be a shame, she says, if anything were to prevent it. She then introduces herself by name and as the mistress of weather. If the city doesn’t make it rain in her bank account, she’ll rain out the games. She’ll bring hurricanes if she isn’t paid a million dollars. She says they will receive instructions soon and then tells the mayor she hopes he’ll play ball.
The signal is returned to April, who reports that the championship and its revenue has just been threatened. With the games set to start in a few days, Channel 6 will be following the story closely. April signs out. Leonardo and Donatello have joined their brothers and the former says he thought Tempestra was gone for good. They trapped her ages ago. Raph says that bad guys never know when to quit. Leo asks Donatello if he can trace Tempestra’s pirate signal. Don says that maybe he could have, if he’d had some warning she was going to break into the broadcast. After the fact is impossible. Mikey suggests there might be a clue at Channel 6 and Leo approves of this idea.
Wearing disguises, the Turtles visit April at the Channel 6 news building. She tells them if they would have called, she could have saved them a trip. Their tech guys were able to track down where the pirate signal might have come from. They couldn’t narrow it down enough for the police to do anything. Don says that maybe they can investigate and wants to know if they were able to narrow it down. Irma Langenstein steps up and says that it’s somewhere between Canarsie and Great Neck. The Turtles are not impressed that the tech guys narrowed it down to two of the five boroughs. April says it would be easier if the mayor took this seriously. He thinks it's a prank and won’t pay. Mikey remarks that Tempestra won’t like that.
Leo says that if they can’t go to her, they’ll have to wait for he to come to them. He asks Don if he can rig up another control chip to contain Tempestra. Don thinks so and Irma asks about the control chip. Raph explains that Tempestra is a living video game sprite. He breaks the fourth wall to ask “weren’t you in that episode?” Leo says that they have time to prepare, so with luck, they’ll be able to capture Tempestra. He then asks April if she can get them tickets before the first game. April, however, tells them as far as that goes, they are on their own. During the entire conversation, a janitor moves around the room mopping the floor. No one realizes that it’s Casey Jones.
A few days later, at Quint Stadium, game day is about to begin. The stadium is filled to capacity and the play-by-play broadcast announcers, Stump McCoyle and Sling Evans, welcome listeners to the best-of-seven series. They are interrupted by a loud rumble from the skies above as heavy clouds roll in. Tempestra arrives with flashes of pink lightning to announce that they knew what would happen if the city didn’t pay up. The ballplayers are not impressed and order her off the field because they have a game to play. She tells them that’s what they think and drops a pair of Energy beasts onto the field, frightening the players into the dugout. Tempetra grabs a game official and tells him to pass along a message for her. She will allow everyone to leave unharmed today, but her price has now doubled. If she is defied again, she won’t be so generous the next time.
From behind her, Raphael says that if she wants to be generous, she can buy him a nacho helmet. Tempestra turns and her eyes flash as she recognizes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are wearing helmets and baseball uniforms with a “T” emblazoned on the shirts. Raph says they would have been there sooner, but it takes forever to get down from the cheap seats. He begins battling an energy beast while Leonardo turns his attention to fighting Tempestra. Leo wants to know how she’s free because they had her trapped in a circuit board. Tempestra shoots bolts of energy at him and agrees that the circuit board might have been her tomb, but instead some geek purchased it from a flea market. He used it to build his own arcade cabinet and she was freed as soon as it was complete.
Seated on the shoulders of an energy beast as they fight, Raph asks why she’s suddenly after money instead of just electricity. Tempestra explains that the gamer altered her coding to make her a more traditional villain. It doesn’t matter, because she can want more than one kind of power. Then she suddenly realizes that all their questions are meant to distract her. Donatello tells her she guessed it and for their next trick, a control chip that should recapture and safely store her digital body. He flies a drone over to Tempestra and it begins pulling power from her. The energy beasts are pulled into the chip but Tempestra is still fighting. Leo asks if this was supposed to work right away, and Don tells him to have a little patience. Blasts from Tempestra begin striking all around them and Mikey points out that if they are any more patient, she’ll burn the place down.
Suddenly, a baseball strikes the drone and destroys it. Clutching her head, Tempestra is relieved because she couldn’t have held out much longer. She says she needs to replenish her strength and tells the Turtles that this isn’t over. Tempestra vanishes and Don picks up the baseball, wondering where it came from. Casey Jones announces that it came from him and Donatello wants to know why. Casey answers that he had to keep that lawbreaker from destroying his favorite team’s stadium. Raphael turns on him, saying that only a Quintie would be so stupid as to mess things up when the good guys are about to win. Casey counters that only a ‘Soms fan would be willing to wreck anything that means something to good citizens.
Michelangelo steps between them to break up the fight, stating that they aren’t doing much to help with Tempestra. They both announce that the other started it and Leo says he doesn’t care who started it, they both need to knock it off. Then he wonders if this is how Splinter feels all the time. He asks Don why the trap didn’t work. Don extracts the chip from what’s left of the drone and explains that it was working, just not fast enough. Since he didn’t have the original game’s computer chip to compare it to, the parameters must have been off. Fortunately, the device was filled with sensory instruments that analyzed Tempestra. They have her right where they want her. The others look at him in confusion and Don says it means he can track her with the instruments in the Turtle Van. Up in the broadcast booth, Stump calls it the wildest game in his lifetime, and a pitch wasn’t even thrown. Sling says that fortunately, the league has already revised the schedule and they’ll be back underway in a few days. In the meantime, Stump says he'll be wondering about the mysterious ‘Soms fans in the Turtle costumes that scared off Tempestra.
Casey joins the Turtles in the Turtle Van and thinks to himself that he needs a van like this. Don states that he has good news and bad news. He’s tracked Tempestra to a power plant east of their location, but she’s evolved too much to be trapped by the device he rigged up. Angry, Casey demands to know if that means the lawbreaker will get away with extortion. Don explains it means they can’t trap her, but the information he gathered suggests another way to stop Tempestra. He will tell them on the way.
Later, at a power plant on Long Island, Tempestra is draining power to strengthen herself. She is upset that she’s had to return to old patterns like the video game that created her. She vows to evolve again, to improve, and then start with riches from New York’s coffers. The Turtles and Casey arrive and Raph asks if she wants money before revenge. He asks what kind of supervillain she is. Casey answers that she’s the filthy scum that likes to mess with America’s favorite pastime and she’s going to jail.
There is a sudden explosion as Tempestra reacts in anger. Raph and Casey race away from the scene, with Raph taunting the virtual being for missing her targets. He comments on the wanton disregard for property and tells Casey he doesn’t think she owns the building. Casey asks if he’s accusing her of stealing a base. Tempestra follows them outside and shouts that she loathes puns. They pitch a few more puns, and screaming in frustration, she tries to blast them. From the top of a building, Leo calls out that it looks like Raph and Casey have Tempestra’s attention. He asks Don if he’s sure his plan will work. As Don, with Mikey’s help, finishes wiring up a pole, he answers that he’s relatively sure. While Tempestra has evolved, she still has the same attack patterns as she did when she was a video game character. Like how she defaults to calling on atmospheric lightning instead of her other powers when she gets really mad. Raph and Casey will get her really wound up and then they’ll turn her power against her with this makeshift lightning rod.
Don asks for one of Leo’s katanas and as he hands it over, Leo says the plan sounds awfully complicated. The genius Turtle states that he’s confident the plan will work but they need to hurry because Raph is really good at making people angry fast. Meanwhile, Tempestra is still trying to hit Raph, who dodges and keeps up a running commentary. Casey joins in and she does manage to zap him. On the roof, Michelangelo spins the katana which is tied to a cable and Leo tells him it’s on him. Mikey launches the sword and its weight takes the cable down to wrap around Tempestra’s body.
She reacts with surprise and Raph informs her that it’s a trap that she fell into. He adds that people say video games will rot your brain, so being from a video game must really make your mind mush. Tempestra grows so angry her face turns red and she begins shouting threats. Lightning bolts flash across the sky and Don says that it’s working. A bolt shoots down and hits the lightning rod. Leo and Mikey both cheer and Don says he told them it would work. Tempestra wants to know where her lightning is because it should have smote them both by now. Then she notices the lightning following the cable down towards her and realizes it was a trap. The lightning strikes her, blasting her apart into little pieces that soon vanish.
A shocked Raphael asks Don if she was supposed to blow up. They can’t blow up people, he says, because they are the good guys. Don explains that Tempestra is made of pure energy. When she got hit with a few hundred thousand volts of electricity, that energy got spread out. She’ll pull herself together eventually, and when she does, he’ll have figured out a better way to contain - - Raph clicks his Turtlecom shut to cut Don off. He turns to Casey and says between that thing with Rudolph Cobrato and this, he thinks they worked pretty well together. He wants to say that he thinks Casey is all right, even if h’s a fan of a second-rate team like the Quints. They shake hands and Casey replies he’ll see what Raph says when his team sweeps the pathetic Insomniacs. As they swing down from the roof, Leo says that the villain is beaten and Raph is arguing with someone, so it looks like everything is as it should be. He guesses it’s time to go make some pizza. Mikey asks if they can bake a cake too. He’s got baseball on the brain, and a cake’s just a bunch of batter. Donatello groans at the pun.
Trivia[]
- Cover A includes an easter egg, where Kevin Eastman's last name appears as the brand of the baseball bat that Raphael throws to the ground. The baseball bat held by Donatello has Peter Laird's last name as its brand. These two Turtles are the favorite characters of each of these creators.
- This is the first time we get a look at the 1987 TV series Casey Jones' face.
- One of the sponsors signage in the stadium reads "Dooney Law Firm We Fight For You!" This is a reference to comic artist Michael Dooney.
- The play-by-play broadcast announcers Sling Evans and Stump McCoyle are named for the Archie characters Stump and Sling.