Chomp! is the comic in the thirty-second issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Appearing in Chomp![]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
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Synopsis[]
In Central Park, the Turtles are battling against Snakeweed, who says that they are not going to stop him again. Snakeweed is certain he’s got the location advantage; they’re nowhere near anything they can zap him with and they haven’t the muscle to take him down. Suddenly Donatello holds up a device that Snakeweed thinks is just part of a large karaoke machine – until he’s hit by waves powerful enough to make him explode.
The Turtles are covered in plant goo and Raphael complains that Don should have warned them to move back. Don says he really wasn’t sure what was going to happen because this was his Sonic Zapper’s first field test. Leonardo wants to know if what happened to Snakeweed is permanent, but Don says it’s nothing that’ll keep him from growing back. He does collect a tendril in order to study it and see if it can give him some insight that will help them stop Snakeweed when he does come back.
A swarm of mosquitoes suddenly show up, which annoys Raph but also makes him wonder why they aren’t biting him. Don explains that male mosquitoes feed mostly on plants, and they are chowing down on Snakeweed’s outer shell. Raph is less interested in that than he is on getting back to the lair because he’s just downloaded the new Battle Gnome game.
Shortly after they leave, the munching mosquitoes begin to change. The mutagen-laced chlorophyll in the outer shell turns them into multi-colored, two-legged mutants, with mouths like Venus Flytraps. It also gives them the ability to speak and the first thing they do is acknowledge they feel different. The second is that they are hungry for more of the food that made them feel different. Yellow-head says the food is all gone, but purple-head sniffs the air and says it smells more. The other two follow purple-head, who is on the trail of more food.
Later, down in the lair, three of the Turtles are munching on pizza and Michelangelo says they need to remember to save Donnie at least one slice. Raph has no sympathy as he thinks if Don wanted something to eat, he wouldn’t be playing around with a hunk of vegetable. He munches on a slice of pizza while playing the new video game against Leo and beating him one handed.
Meanwhile, in his lab, Don is studying a readout on the plant tendril, which is on the table behind him. Suddenly the tendril vanishes and Don hears an odd noise. In the kitchen, Mikey is about to chow down on pineapple jalapeno pizza when he hears “want more food”. He asks who said that and looks down to see purple-head sniffing at his pizza. When Mikey graciously offers it a slice, purple-head almost takes his hand off. Purple-head likes it so much, it demands more.
Mikey races into the living room to tell his brothers that he thinks Snakeweed had a dog or something and that it followed them home and is eating all their pizza. Raph thinks it’s just a story to explain Mikey’s sucking up all the food. Mikey swears it’s true, so Leo and Raph pause their game to go look. The Turtles go into the kitchen and see not one, but three doglike mutants polishing off the pizza. Mikey freaks out because they’ve got the taste for pizza and may never again leave some for anyone else, especially him.
Out of food, the mosquito mutants want more food and decide they like the smell of the Turtles, voting to eat them. Donnie makes an abrupt appearance, using a trash can to trap all three of the mosquitoes. He takes a seat on the trashcan to keep them inside and Leo asks him to explain what those things are.
Don can only guess. He found tiny amounts of mutagen in the Snakeweed stalk and it could have been enough to mutate something very small – like the mosquitoes from earlier. Leo wants to know why they would come to the lair and Don thinks they followed the scent of the stalk so they could eat it, since it’s gone. Don then asks someone to get something heavy to put on the trashcan so he can get up. Mikey suddenly has a lightbulb moment and runs out of the kitchen.
When Mikey returns, he’s holding a bag of Super Happy Grow plant food, thinking that it will mellow them out. With Don still seated on the trashcan, Mikey lifts an edge and sprinkles some of the food inside. Don fusses at Mikey that he shouldn’t have given them a chemical fertilizer until he had a chance to look into it. Mikey says it’s plant food and wants to know what worse could happen.
He gets his answer when there is a rumble from beneath the trash can. Numerous plant-like tendrils slither out from under the can and Don is thrown off. Don grabs the bag and freaks out about the amount of chemicals in the plant food.
The mosquitoes have now mutated into a huge, thick stalked plant-thing with the three heads from the original trio of mutants. It grabs Mikey and Don, who uses his bō to keep from being munched on by yellow-head. Raph has had enough and tells his brothers to cover him because he knows what to do. Don is worried because when Raph asks them to cover him, it means he has a plan, and his plans are terrible. Leo is chopping tendrils and asks Don if he learned anything from the one he was studying that could help them.
Don says all he can say for sure is they are every bit as much a plant as Snakeweed. Raph returns with the Sonic Zapper in his hand, thinking it to be the perfect solution, but Don calls out for him to wait. The Zapper hasn’t been adjusted to be used inside…
He never finishes the sentence because Raph activates the Sonic Zapper. The glasses in the lair explode and the Turtles cover their ears as the sound becomes painful. Purple-head says it’s not hungry anymore as the sonic waves sweep over them. Suddenly they explode, raining particles of plant bits down on the Turtles and the lab. Raph is pleased with himself, but Don scolds him about the damage he could have caused by using sound waves in an enclosed space.
Mikey starts talking at the top of his voice because all he can hear is bells. Raph blows Don off and says nothing else is going to keep him from playing Battle Gnomes. He races out of the lab, but a second later the others hear a loud shout. Going to investigate, they find that along with all the other glasses in the lair, the TV screen has also shattered.