IDW TMNT # 26 City Fall Part 5

By Mark Rodriguez

Things keep heating up as Shredder continues to take the brainwashed Dark Leo under his wing, and we get to see the return of several characters that we haven't seen in a while in this issue. Let's continue the epic City Fall story line as things start to come to a head.

City Fall part 5 starts off with a vision of Leonardo walking with his mother Tang Shen admiring the natural beauty of the forest. Leo feels sad because he feels like he's missing something, like something was lost and he will never find it again. Tang Shen blames herself for leaving too soon. She says once he discovers who's responsible for what he lost, he'll also discover what's missing from his life. These are visions Leonardo is seeing as he lies deep in meditation. Tang Shen gives him a folded cloth in his dream to remind him that he is never alone. In real life, a tear runs down his cheek as he is holding that same folded cloth.

For those that's know, the IDW TMNT were once the sons of Hamato Yoshi and Tang Shen back in ancient Japan. After Oroku Saki had them executed, they were lucky enough to be reincarnated into turtles and a rat in modern day that happened to be doused in Mutagen... Their IDW origin had a lot of happy coincidences.

Elsewhere, some guys are robbing a liquor store, but are suddenly stopped by Angel. Raphael also shows up to finish the fight. Raph asks why the Purple Dragons aren't with her, and she says things aren't the same anymore with them. Raph wants to know if they can count on the Purple Dragons to have their back and Angel says she doesn't know about them anymore, but she'll always be on their side.

Just to elaborate a little here, in the Hun Microseries issue, it was revealed that Casey's dad used to be Hun back in his glory days until his would-be wife would tame him and he'd settle down. Feeling his life falling apart with his son dying in the hospital, and wanting to leave his drinking habit behind, he was tricked by Shredder to work for him with the help of ooze that helped him get back into huge muscle-bound shape like when he was in his prime. Hun returned to the Purple Dragons and took command away from Angel and now leads them to fight it out with the Savate under Shredder's orders. All this while not knowing that Shredder was the one that neatly killed his son to begin with.

Meanwhile, Mikey runs into his old friend Woody. Woody is a pizza delivery guy that always gives Mikey a free pizza or two, and is basically one of his first human friends. He was brutally attacked by Slash some time before, so and that scared him away and made him figure having a mutant turtle as a friend is too much to handle, and so he ended their friendship. Upon seeing him again now, Woody apologizes for bailing out on him before, and they become friends again. Mikey tells him about Shredder and the Foot capturing Leo and turning him against them. Woody says he heard word on the street about the Foot starting a war on the streets. There's some dangerous places he doesn't like to deliver pizza to, and Mikey asks about what which ones.

Meanwhile, Don takes April to meet Howard, a reclusive scientist he met before in the Donatello Microseries. Don and Howard met online and would always be trolling each other in MMOs and such until they met in person at a science fair run by Baxter Stockman. After that they formed some sort of respect for each other. Howard has upgraded his inventions since last they met (an invisibility device and an anti-gravity gauntlet) but says if he let them borrow them, he isn't responsible for what might happen. 

One of the pet peeves between these two is any time Don corrects Howard by saying it's 'obtuse' not 'obtruse'. In this case, Don stopped April from correcting him before it would start another argument.

At the Savate headquarters, Victor is about to lead his men out to take the city saying their enemies will 'never see them coming'. Just then Shredder and Leo bust in and start attacking the Savate. Leo tells Karai and Alopex to stand by until he gives the order to attack. Karai basically says 'screw that' and leads Alopex and the Foot into the battle. Victor makes a break for it and Shredder sends Leo after him.

Outside of Stockgen, Old Hob wants Splinter to sneak inside and steal Mutagen for his mutant army. Splinter only agrees with this because Hob promises to help him get Leo back. After Splinter leaves, Hob tells Slash it's time for his part of the plan. Splinter sneaks inside, getting past all the security lasers and a guard and finding the Mutagen.

Leo finds Victor and they fight it out. The Savate Leader is armed with guns, but Leo tosses a smokebomb and disarms him during the smoke screen, breaking one of his hands. Victor pulls out a knife and Leo extends his Shredder-Blades. Victor dodges a swing from the Turtle and then low-sweeps him. Leo lands on his back and kicks his knife away and then flip a safe distance away. Victor says his skills are impressive and Leo says he's just getting started. Victor throws a kick, which Leo blocks, and the Turtle follows up with an elbow to the gut. Leo then socks him out and gets ready to finish him off, until Shredder arrives to stop him.

 Shredder says they won the fight, but the war isn't over yet. He has plans that require Victor to remain alive. Victor pulls a gun and fires, and Shredder shoves Leonardo out of the way. He then proceeds to SLICE OFF VICTOR'S HAND. Shredder tells the Foot to bind his wounds and not allow him to bleed out.

Splinter manages to get a huge vial of Mutagen, but gets caught by a guard. He easily knocks the guard out and apologizes as he runs out with the glowing green chemicals. Raph visits Casey at the hospital and apologizes for getting him hurt. Casey says it was Shredder's fault, not his. Raph updates him on what Mike, Don and Angel are up to. Casey asks about Splinter... and Raph admits he's worried about him the most.

Splinter meets up with Hob and gives him the Mutagen. Hob jokes that he should call Splinter for favor more often. Splinter reminds him of the favor he owes him and that he better answer when he calls on him. After Splinter leaves, Slash shows up with an empty bag saying he's finished with his job. Old Hob says there will be no more pain and activates a detonator that blows Stockgen up.

 Karai walks down the halls of the Foot headquarters, as some of the ninja take Victor away. She asks one of the ninjas where Shredder is, and he tells her he's in the next room with his chunnin. Karai overhears Shredder say that the Savate has fallen and soon all of the city will be there. He says this will only be the beginning. Karai smiles evily saying that 'yes... it is' as she has plans of her own. 

My Opinions

 This was an interesting issue to say the least. The beginning was cool and felt like a walk down memory lane as we saw the return of Woody and Howard, and in a smaller aspect Angel, as we all the minor and somewhat major characters coming back into the fold. It was nice seeing Mikey get his bro back, since he was very sad when Woody sent him that 'goodbye' note, and seeing Howard come back and add some of his tech into the mix was a great idea and salvages him from being just a throwaway character from that Don micro ages ago. 

The main draw here was the fight between the Foot and the Savate. I already commented above on how sweet the scene between Leo and Victor looked. I like that play-by-play panel style of fighting instead of the usual big splash-page battle scene. We know these guys are ninjas, but I like to actually see them fight it out blow-by-blow and show their moves in an actual one on one fight. Shredder once again shows that he's not just wearing those bladed gauntlets just to look cool and actually uses them to shred people up. Ouch to Victor using his hand... just ouch....

 My main thoughts are with the Savates. Man, were these guys pathetic. One of them first appeared in TMNT issue 6, being chased and killed by the Foot and hinting of an upcoming war. We didn't see or hear from them again until the TMNT annual that dealt with them... but even then they felt comedic and incompetent until Victor took over as the new leader. Then City Fall promised they play a big part.... but all we've seen are random fight scenes without them ever being the main focus of an issue. Like to say, there was never an issue where the main villain or threat of the story were the Savate. It's been mostly Shredder and his group as well as Hob and Slash in the shadows, but the Savate are just random throwaway characters. 

They were just a random gang for the Foot to fight, and there honestly wouldn't be much of a difference if the Foot were fighting against the Purple Dragons instead. That one issue where Shredder offhandedly mentioned 'oh and by the way, my Foot are wiping out the Savate as we speak' just showed how lame these guys were. Splinter throwing in 'I don't care' kinda goes with what the reader should be feeling. 

Victor seemed to be cool last issue as he killed off some Foot and was called in to take his leadership seriously. But that all falls apart almost like a cartoon gag with him getting ready to strike and saying 'they'll never see us coming' only to be completely taken down by Shredder and the Foot. Victor was not much of a match for Leonardo and was lost his hand to the Shredder. Without him, his gang already fell and now he's at Shredder's mercy. So much for them.

I think the problem is the Savate were never given the chance to develop or be made interesting in this weird world of mutant turtles and revived 16th century ninjas. The Foot has a bad-ass like Shredder as their leader, as well as Karai, Alopex, Dark Leo and Kitsune. What do the Savate have? Victor looks bad-ass I must admit, but where are some equally bad-ass second in commands? Where are his mutant or otherwise weird ninjas? Maybe some cyborg ninjas? A dude with tons of different kinds of swords... a really big muscular dude.. maybe some disco dude with a large fro... I don't know... SOMETHING that stands out besides Victor and a bunch of bland boring characters no one cares about. Hell, take a page from Mortal Kombat and have a ninja that freeze things. I don't know. Those Naruto headbands aren't enough to make them stand out. Either way, the Savate is a boring and bland nameless gang that will quickly be flushed out by the Foot and their freaks. The only thing interesting about them is the unanswered question of why there was a second gang of ninjas in the city to begin with. 

I have to say, I really loved how they made the 'KSSSHH' sound be made out of the same glass the Foot are smashing through. Very nice touch.

Have you read the IDW TMNT comics? Have you read this issue? What were your thoughts on it? As always, comments are greatly appreciated.