Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

By Mark Rodriguez The Turtles come home in time to see Kitsune and Alopex killing the Foot! Not only that but Kitsune stabs Master Splinter!! The issue opens in ancient Japan as a retainer who served the Governor of Kai ran into a multi-tailed fox on his way home. He shot at it with a noisemaker arrow to scare is away but it struck it in the back of the leg. As the man tried to get another arrow, the fox returned in front of him. Before he could shoot again, the fox suddenly vanished. When the man was a short distance from his home, he saw the fox again, now running with a burning branch in its mouth. The retainer gave chase and saw the fox turn into a woman and set his house on fire. Before the man could fire an arrow, the woman turned back into a fox and ran off. The house burned down. The Turtles witness Splinter get stabbed by Kistune. Splinter is still alive but before Kistune could do more damage, Mike tosses his grappling hook around her neck and pulls her ba

By Mark Rodriguez So it wasn't long ago that I heard many complaints towards Lootcrate, the subscription box service that pretty much started the whole subscription box craze. Boxes from April were arriving as late as August, and due to the nature of auto-renew, customers were still getting charged for the months in between with no boxes in sight. And to make it worse, by the time they got their box, they were missing items. Not just one thing, but sometimes half the box's worth of items! Even the shirt, which for many people is the main selling point of the box! So for those that don't know, Lootcrate is (or maybe, was) a monthly subscription box with different items and themes. The main box would be around overall geeky goodies, things related to Star Trek, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Marvel superheroes, Rick and Morty and whatever else. The themed boxes would be things like LootAnime, LootGaming, and LootFear with things related to their namesakes

By Mark Rodriguez After an adventure featuring Leatherhead, Traag and Granitor, Don stays behind on Planet Burnow to help the Fugitoid and the Utroms. Meanwhile Leo, Raph and Mikey return home just in time to see Kitsune and Alopex attacking Splinter! The comic starts up some time before. Splinter goes to visit Jennika, who she put in charge of guarding Shredder's remains. She asks why set a tomb for someone that did so much harm to his family. Splinter still honors the man Oroku Saki once was. Splinter talks to Kitsune and asks about the game she's playing with the other immortals and what the real stakes are behind it. She says it's only to live to die, to play or be played. Splinter asks if Shredder was one of the players, or the one being played. Kistune says Shredder understood that were no room for cowardice and weakness in the game, only victors and vanquished. Angel and April discuss Casey and the current problems in their relationship. Angel

By Mark Rodriguez The Turtles meet Leatherhead and try to awaken the Utroms trapped in stasis in the Technodrome. Someone slaughtered several Utroms and Fugitoid and Leatherhead leads Leo and Raph to where the culprits might be. Fugitoid is salvaged but is in a coma. The Utroms ask Donatello why they haven't revived Ch'Rell. Meanwile, Leo and Raph run into Traag and Granitor, who they blame for the murders, but they know nothing about it. Suddenly Leatherhead attacks Traag and reveals that he was the culprit all along. Now what will happen? Donatello tells the Utroms that Ch'Rell was kept in stasis since he was considered a war criminal by the Fugitoid. The Utroms are offended by this and declare him a war hero. Donnie wishes to speak to Ma'Riell in private. Don explains that the reason the Utroms can breathe just fine in this new environment was because Krang managed to terraform the island they're on, and he was stopped before he could terraform

By Mark Rodriguez The Turtles finally reunite in the Technodrome and meet Leatherhead, the one who helped save Donatello's body back when his consciousness was still inside Metalhead. He offers to help the Turtles and Fugitoid revive the Utrom race out of cryo-sleep in exchange of taking him with them so he has a new world to live in. However, Fugitoid discovered several dead Utroms, and before he could alert anybody he was mauled into pieces. Was this Leatherhead's doing? Let's find out. The issue opens with some of the revived Utroms, along with the Turtles, discovered their fellow Utroms murdered alongside what's left of Fugitoid. Mikey arrives and is shocked at what he sees. The Utroms say they can probably repair the machine, and Donnie snaps at them saying that Fugitoid is a person and is responsible for bringing them out of stasis. The Utroms ask who they are, where they are, and what happened to General Krang. Donnie says Krang is unavailable

By Mark Rodriguez This past weekend I got to check out the Steelcity Con in Monroeville PA, which I haven't been to in a few years. The Steelcity Con is often referred to as PA's premiere comic con and it is awesome. This con also happens more than once a year! The SteelcityCon usually hits PA in April, August and December, making it for 3 awesome times to get cool merch and also meet an ever-changing list of classic celebrities from your childhood. The con is full of possibly the largest collection of goodies of things both new and old. You can find old He-Man and TMNT figures, as well as modern day Funko Pops and WWE figures. Sadly this weekend was not my paycheck weekend so I had to fight against myself to not get blind boxes and M.U.S.C.L.E figures based on He-Man. I had to buckle down and go for what I was really after, a Steelcity Con shirt, and an autograph and pic with Kelly Hu . The autograph prices vary so I was making sure to save most of my spare cash on that au

By Mark Rodriguez Splinter killed the Shredder and now leads the Foot. Mikey didn't like that and went on his own, returning to the original sewer lair. The Street Phantoms are the new gang in town and Nobody and Alopex are doing their best to stop them. April and Casey break up. Kitsune continues to play mind games with Alopex as Splinter watches on. The rest of the Turtles reunite with Mikey to visit Fugitoid to see what he's up to. We already know that Fugitoid's mystery friend is Leatherhead, but let's all pretend to be surprised anyway. The story opens with some voices, struggling to breathe and saying that have to act fast if they are to survive. The Turtles arrive at Harold's where he's busy rebuilding Metalhead among other projects. He's busy working on some sort of counter measure against the cloak technology the Street Phantoms use that was stolen from him years ago. He suspects his old partner that helped make the cloaks work o

By Mark Rodriguez The Turtles, minus Mikey now run the Foot and are having problems with the Street Phantoms gang run by Darius Dun. Mikey joined Hob's team for a while until he found out that was working with Hun. When the other Mutanimals found out, some left Hob's side. We also discover that Agent Bishop has been studying mutants for some time. The issue starts with Mikey at the old lair, before it was destroyed by Mousers. He picks up a game controller and remembers when he used to game with Raph, as Leo and Don looked on. He picked up a paper with the Japanese kanji for Father and remembered giving that to Splinter, who hugged him and said the best gift was any day a father can be with his sons. Mikey reminisces and wondered how everything got so messed up. Alopex is with Angel, in her Nobody gear, on the rooftops, zoning out until Angel snaps her out of it. Alopex is having trouble staying focused, trying to deal with something in the back of her mind

By Mark Rodriguez After the Turtles defeated the Foot and Splinter killed the Shredder.... Splinter has now taken over the Foot to control the city's crime. A new gang called the Street Phantoms have popped up using a cloaking technology that Don's friend Harold is familiar with. Meanwhile, Mikey, who wasn't keen on working with the Foot, left his family and went to join Hob and the Mutanimals. However, despite the team's overall good intentions in fighting crime, Mikey discovers that Hob is secretly working with Hun and they're both stockpiling a massive amount of weaponry. As Mikey is shocked by this, Hun is sneaking up behind him. The issue opens with Mikey saying he's going to strangle Hob when he sees him, just as he gets strangled himself. Mikey bites the arm that's holding him and he sees that Hun was the guy that jumped him. Mikey tosses his grappling hook at him, but Hun catches it and uses it to fling Mikey into a wall. Hob hears

By Mark Rodriguez After killing the Shredder, Splinter now leads the Foot, hoping to keep them and crime in general under control. Mikey didn't like this and left the group, running into Mondo Gecko. A Foot Assassin named Jennika didn't like Splinter's non-killing ways and teams up with a new gang called the Street Phantoms to kill the rat. The Street Phantoms are defeated by Leo and Alopex, and Splinter is able to talk Jennika out of her treason. Meanwhile, Mondo Gecko welcomes Mikey with the rest of the Mutanimals, but they're all being watched by an agent from Dark Water. The issue opens with the Mutanimals presenting Mikey with a cake. Sally introduces herself as the rest of the gang, since there a few Mikey doesn't know yet like Man Ray and Mutagen Man... and also warns him not to actually eat the cake due to Pigeon Pete being the one that made it. Hob also greets Mikey and says he's glad they're both still alive due to all their rece