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Some TMNT stuff really isn't for little kids. |
Casey Jones in Muscle & Faith, or just Muscle & Faith for short, was a comic to be published by Mirage Studios at some point, possibly as a one-shot, written and drawn by Jeffrey Bonivert, under the commission of Kevin Eastman. The comic was completed, but at the time it was scheduled to be published, Mirage had temporarily ceased publication. Instead, it was later released online on Bonivert's website in weekly installments in 2000. According to the copyright information on the site, Mirage still held copyright to the comic, which likely transferred to Nickelodeon in 2009.
Appearing in Muscle & Faith[]
Major characters[]
- Casey Jones
- Mother Drekk (debut) (death)
- Badlads (debut)
- Ratface/Randy (debut)
- Spankmaster (debut)
- Badlads (debut)
- Sister Sally (debut)
- Sister Sue (debut)
Minor characters[]
- Big Willie (debut)
- Donatello
- Dustin (debut)
- Hellcats (debut)
- Manx (debut)
- Leonardo
- Little Willie (debut) (corpse)
- Michelangelo
- Raphael
- Ryan (debut)
- Splinter
Species[]
- Cat
- Dog (corpse)
- Humans
- Mutant rat
- Mutant turtles
Synopsis[]
Michelangelo sits down to read something, when he's suddenly attacked by his brothers. It seems they've "invented" a new game, Sewer Commandos, and he is being forced to play. Mike refuses, saying that the book is important for him to read. After some jostling, he reveals that it's the diary of a friend of theirs, Sister Sue, who asked him to read a specific entry. They realize that this is about the time that Sister Sue and Sister Sally came to them for help, but they had the flu, and so they sent the nuns to Casey. Now all of the Turtles want to read about this and fight over who gets to read; Splinter appears to admonish his sons over their fighting, but once the tell him what's going on, he instructs them to take turns reading.
The story begins; two members of a gang called the Hellcats are boosting tires from a fishmonger's truck. Casey arrives and tells them of the trickle-down effect that stealing the tires will have for Mr. Johnson, the truck's owner who provides fresh fish to the small local groceries, who will be unable to provide for his wife and eleven children without these tires. One of the Hellcats, Manx, decides to continue to provoke Casey, angering him by calling him a "psycho creampuff". The Hellcats finally flee after Casey beats the tar out of them.
Casey starts heading home and hears some crying nearby and goes to investigate. His homeless friend, Big Willie, has lost his little dog Little Willie during the night, frozen to death beside him. Outside of being Big Willie's companion and surrogate brother, Little Willie was Big Willie's literal moneymaker; Nobody paid attention to Big Willie out on the street on his own, but with Little Willie there, people were moved to give money. Casey suggests they bury Little Willie, but Big Willie refuses, telling Casey to scram since he wants to be alone.
When he arrives home, Casey hears some voices inside his apartment and stands ready to fight the intruders. They turn on the lights, revealing a pair of nuns, Sister Sue and Sister Sally. It seems they have a problem, and the Turtles sent them to him. The two nuns are the executive administrators of Saint Albert's Orphanage for Boys, and they caught two of the boys, a pair of brothers called Dustin and Ryan, escaping for the Badlands, a section of the city full of condemned buildings that is fenced off, but inside is run by a bunch of thugs. Despite the danger, Casey is moved by the nuns' sincerity to protect the children, and agrees to help.
The following night, Casey meets up with the nuns, and despite Sister Sue's willingness to go undercover in a "seedy" outfit, Sister Sally insists she stay with the orphanage bus. Thus, Sally and Casey make their way to the Badlands. They worm their way in by overhearing the password ("swordfish") and encounter a drunken trio of the youth gang, the Badlads. Sally and Casey threaten the boys into giving up the location for the Badlad initiation, at the old Rialto Theater.
When the pair arrive, they find the initiation is lead by a monstrous, massive woman going by Mother Drekk. They witness Ryan and Dustin among the intiates-to-be, and Casey decides to create a diversion. Dressing up as a hillbilly (with a hockey mask still) and calling himself "String Bean Jones", he starts plucking at a banjo, angering the Badlads, while Sally tries to get the boys away. Mother Drekk, however, recognizes the distraction for what it is, and orders her minions to attack Casey and Sister Sally.
The Badlads dogpile Casey and successfully cover him, but he begins flinging the children away, escaping. The Badlads run, but several of them return on minibikes to attack Casey again, ironically hitting him with baseball bats. Casey steals one of the minibikes and heads straight for Mother Drekk. Unfortunately, not only is the woman stronger than Casey, but she is also able to knock him out with her girth. Casey wakes up to find not only himself tied up, but Sally and the brothers as well. Drekk plays out the group as a mock family, with herself as the "wife" and Casey as the "husband". The Badlads present cockroaches for "dinner", apparently with the intention of force-feeding the prisoners, but Casey frees himself and brawls with Drekk.
As Casey ends up finally getting the advantage, though, Ratface tosses Mother Drekk a shotgun. The brothers decide to indulge in a bit of turnabout and save their savior, attacking Drekk and knocking her shotgun into the mud. As she goes to attack the two boys, Casey pulls on her ponytail and wallops her one last time. Before they can leave, however, she gets back up and tries to blast Casey again. Casey warns her not to, since her gun is full of mud, but she doesn't listen, and it explodes, killing her.
With Drekk gone, her second-in-command, Ratface, declares that they're all free. It seems at first, the boys were all happy to be a part of something finally, but over time they began to detest being "bad" and the fact that now they were forced to do bad things instead of choosing to, grew old quick, and Drekk was a scary and domineering individual. Ratface finally remembers his real name, Randy.
Meanwhile, Sue things something terrible has happened since it's taking so long, and equips a wrench as a weapon to go save her friends. Casey and Sally arrive at that moment, however, with the former Badlads in tow.
Michelangelo finishes the story, but the others wonder what happened to Big Willie. He had skipped a page, and reads that Casey and Sister Sue brought him a new puppy, the same as Little Willie, and agrees to finally bury his old buddy, and then come for a hot meal at the orphanage. Now, the tale is finally concluded.
Transcript[]
See also[]
- Comic gallery