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Tweak says, "My widdle key."

blake_reitz (blake_reitz) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-17 21:48:00

Entry tags:

char: april o'neil, char: splinter, creator: jim lawson, group: teenage mutant ninja turtles, publisher: mirage, title: teenage mutant ninja turtles

Turtles in the Past, Turtles in the Future.
Turtles, Past and Future...

This story takes place before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, before they met April or Shredder, when they were just underground ninja teens.

We open with each turtle starting the day...

Don builds machines.

Leo's a boy scout, waking up early to meditate.

Mike, like Don, has been working on his projects all through the night. At some point I'll have to post the tale of how he got into drawing comics.

Awww...

Mikey's busy antagonizing Raph during the first half of this story. I had to cut the page where Raph wakes up and hides his bear. Here, Mike is pretending to be Splinter.

The turtles train, break for lunch/storytime, train some more. During sparing, Raph unloads on Mike, and nearly kills him. After a scolding from Leo, they break for meditation. Raph sneaks out, gets caught, and sent to his room.

I love this scene of the turtles at dinner, all trying to get Splinter's attention (especially Leo and his interrogation on every aspect of Hamato Yoshi). Such a normal carefree family kind of thing. (The movie of the night? Bruce Lee, of course!)

The day is done and it's time for bed.

Flash forward...

Same skyline as before.

A few quick thoughts. Nice how Robo-April is wearing what appears to be a standard reporting jumpsuit. I also think that this is the first time we've seen an eye-patched future Raph among Mirage's TMNT (that and the flooded NYC is a nice nod to the Archie comic). Didn't even notice that the remaining eye on the bear is the one Mikey sewed on OR that both Raph and bear are sans binocular vision. The family stuff in this issue is not to be overlooked. If you get a chance to pick up this issue, do it.

BONUS ROUND: Just to prove the near universal constant of future Raph's eye-patch, here's an episode of the 2003 series where Don visits a dystopic alternate future, all "Days of Future Past" style. The first part of the episode is here (part two, part three).

It's one of my favorite episodes, but as you can tell, I'm a sucker for the future.

Next time, I post the first (and chronologically farthest in the future) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story! It's not even from a TNMT comic!

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psychop_rex
2009-07-19 09:20 pm UTC (link)

Awww - this is pretty nice. The Turtles are very believable as brothers here - all getting on each other's nerves, but ultimately caring deeply for each other. (Although I would like to know - and this has been bugging me for a while - just how they got such a complete setup down in the sewers. I mean, I know that you can tap into the city's electrical grid fairly easily, but - beds? Lamps? Alarm clocks? Refrigerators? Where'd they get all this stuff? It can't ALL be garbage that people threw away, can it?)
Also, I love how Splinter is canny enough to the needs of his 'sons' that, among all the meditation and the training and the whatnot, he still has movie nights. (Of course, it may be that he's just a Bruce Lee fan.)
And that April O'neil robot is both creepy and vaguely tragic.

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blake_reitz
2009-07-19 09:37 pm UTC (link)

I can see them grabbing a lot of curb furniture at night. I've known college people to furnish at least as nice as the turtle's lair with things left out on the street (although I'm not sure where Raph thinks he's going to get a guitar.)

Splinter might just be a fan of the Dragon. I had to cut out a panel for length, but he even compares Bruce to Hamato Yoshi! That's speaks pretty highly for both.

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