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Some TMNT stuff really isn't for little kids. |
An anthology book with stories by various creators.
| Turtle Soup > volume 1 #1 | |
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vol.1 #1[]
- Major characters: Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Splinter, The Mate of the Night, Varmints, Lucky, Sgt. Heartbreak, Lt. Jones, Sal Pitela, Daggerlords, Mrs. Pitela, Miyamoto Usagi, Neko-Ninja, Prodigians, Testudons, Monty
- Cover date: September, 1987
Stories[]
"Turtle Dreams"[]
by Steve Bissette.
In April’s apartment, Splinter meditates, contemplating the evils of the night. Suddenly, the Turtles smash through the window, exhausted from battle and carrying a grim package: the grievously injured Michaelangelo. Splinter inspects the wound and finds that Mikey’s plastron has been split in twain and the gash nearly reaching his internal organs. Splinter quickly binds the wound with herbs and bandages and urges his sons to sleep, only to find that they’ve already passed out.
Each Turtle is plagued with unspeakable nightmares. Raphael leaps at a giant gaping maw head-on, only to be swallowed whole. Leonardo chops his way through a horde of nightmarish monstrosities, only to eventually become overwhelmed by their numbers. Donatello takes flight against his enemies on a winged dinosaur, but the monsters of the night tear both his steed and him down.
Michaelangelo is worst off, as he is fighting for his very life within the dreamscape. Mikey finds himself cut completely in two, revealing his still-beating heart. “The Mate of the Night”, a decomposing haggish monstrosity, reaches down, plucks out his heart and devours it.
In the waking world, Splinter sees his sleeping children struggling. Returning to his meditation, Splinter seeks to psychically rescue them from their nightmares.
The Turtles then find themselves in a linked dream. They are all babies again, paling around on a beach. They are approached by their momma turtle, who leads them down to the depths below the waves. There, they sleep peacefully, curled up with their mother.
Back in reality, the Turtles sleep soundly at Splinter’s feet, having been saved from their mental anguish.
"Pesticide"[]
by Frank Bella.
As Leonardo walks down the street, expounding on how most turtles like to hide in their shells, he sees his brothers besieged by giant cockroaches. Revealing that he prefers to face trouble, Leo draws his blades and charges into action. As he does so, he contemplates, “I knew New York had a roach problem, but jeez!”
"Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew"[]
by Stan Sakai.
See own article
"The Howl"[]
by Eric Talbot.
See own article
"Showdown"[]
by Jim Miller and C.A. Stormon.
As the Turtles and the Varmints (Lucky the aviator rabbit, a detective hamster and a samurai duck) both round the same corner, Leonardo and Lucky smack headfirst into each other. Neither leader is willing to admit fault and both demand satisfaction for the slight. Both groups fight, but prove equally matched in battle. Leonardo comes up with a solution of his own; he’ll act as ref while his brothers and the Varmints compete in a rooftop relay race.
Mike and the hamster are first off the line and scale the nearest building via the fire escape. They leap off the first roof and onto the second, but come in too fast and crash into the next members of the relay.
The samurai duck and Raphael recover at the same time and each take swinging lines over to the third building. Unfortunately, their lines get tangled and both slam face-first into a brick wall.
Eventually, they tag Lucky and Donatello, who race across the roof and leap down into the alley where the finish line awaits. They smash into craters in the concrete. Leonardo declares the race a tie, but the detective hamster insists that Lucky was first.
The samurai duck says he has an ancient Japanese tiebreaker and produces the Jewel of Solutions from Ti-Quack. The jewel zaps them with an “aura-monster” that puts both groups into a deep trance. By the time the jewel finishes working its magic, both groups have completely forgotten about the encounter and wander off their separate ways.
"Apparition"[]
by Francis Mao.
Midnight in an alley on South 5th Avenue, and the Turtles are all badgering Don as to what exactly they’re doing there. Don relates his story one last time…
Just after 11 o’clock, Don was heading to the grocery store for April when he bumped into a distressed young man on the run. Only briefly shocked at meeting a giant turtle, the young man had more important things on his mind and hid both himself and Don from a car full of gang thugs that were hunting him. The man introduced himself as Sal Pitela. A local gang, the Daggerlords, had invaded his apartment and taken his wife and children hostage. Sal managed to escape but he feared what might happen to his family if he didn’t get help. He asked Don to meet him outside his apartment on South 5th Avenue at midnight while he tried to get help from the police.
Well, it’s midnight and Sal is a no-show. The Turtles begin discussing what to do when they hear a woman’s scream coming from Sal’s place. They decide to intervene, while Don stays behind and waits for Sal. As his brothers invade the apartment and begin knocking gang-banger heads, Don is approached by the shadowy figure of Sal, appearing from a darkened alleyway. Sal tells Don that he didn’t make it to the police and that it’s up to him to save his family. Don joins his brothers and dispatches with all the thugs.
Mrs. Pitela (thinking the Turtles are wearing weird gang costumes) thanks her saviors, though Don reveals that it was Sal, outside, who was the real hero. Mrs. Pitela conveys shocking and tragic news that it couldn’t have been Sal that Don had talked to a moment ago, as the gang had shot him earlier when he was trying to escape and carted his corpse back to their apartment. Don and the Turtles investigate the bedroom and Don IDs the dead body on the bed as Sal Pitela.
As the cops clean up and the Turtles disappear, Don ponders what exactly it was that he saw in the alley…
"You're in the Army Now"[]
by Bernie Shuman and Danny Shuman.
See own article
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"[]
by John Dowling.
Down in the sewer lair, Raphael callously bursts through a portrait his brothers are painting. As they yell at him, he says that he’s off for Hollywood. Catching a ride on the bumper of a car, he arrives at JFK and snakes aboard an airplane via the landing gear.
A week later, the Turtles lament Raph’s absence during a poker game. Raph, meanwhile, is living it up on the beaches of Hollywood, surrounded by several naïve blondes. He tells them that he is a Testudon alien that has come to Earth to save humanity from the Prodigian shape-changers. In fact, he’s making a movie about it right now in order to warn the world of the alien threat! Raph’s agent, Monty, then swings by and picks him up for a ride to the studio. Monty shows Raph a piece of concept art for the Prodigian villains (shapely alien women) which the art department created to his precise specifications. As Monty and Raph drive off, the two blondes transform into Prodigian alien women. They are disturbed that a Testudon is on Earth and even more disturbed that he suspects their invasion. They decide to accelerate their plans.
During the ride, Raph recalls how when he first arrived in Hollywood, he couldn’t get a job because mutants were passé. He then saw a photo of an anthropomorphic turtle in a newspaper, labeled an “alien”, and decided to use that as a basis for his invasion cover (which landed him a gig with Monty).
Monty and Raph arrive at the studio and find a horde of Prodigians battling a horde of Testudons on the set. Monty tells Raph that the invasion has begun before they could make their movie, while Raph is just shocked that his whole phony story was true. Raph pulls Monty from the path of a Prodigian laser tank and both pile into Monty’s car. Raph drives the car full-speed into the tank, exploding both vehicles (and killing Monty). Still on fire, Raph battles the remaining Prodigians and takes them all down.
The fight over and the Prodigians captured, the Captain of the Testudons thanks Raphael and escorts him back to their spaceship. The Captain explains that the Testudons and the Prodigians have been waging war for all of recorded history. The Prodigians were exiled to Earth in the form of a penal colony, but when the Testudon’s registered anthropomorphic terrapin life similar to their own on the planet, they came back to remove the Prodigians before they could take over. Raph asks how he could have known the whole story when he pitched his script to Monty and the Captain says something about residual psychic energy.
Suddenly, the producer starts shaking his fist at the spaceship, demanding reimbursement for the damage done to his studio. The Testudons then flee and drop Raph off in New York on their way home. They invite Raph to come live with them on their homeworld, but Raph declines
Notes[]
- It is never explained how Mikey got his wound or what's up with their life-threatening nightmares.
- The Blazing Tales Varmints appeared in precisely two other comics: Varmints #1 and Varmints Special #1, published by Blue Comet Press in 1987.