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IDW TMNT # 56

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 on a subatomic level is involved. The Turtles put on breathing gear and head off into a portal to see what Fugitoid has in store for them.

Rat King suddenly arrives in front of Kitsune and they discuss their recent moves. Rat King doesn't stay long but tells her he's in the city now and she'll be seeing more of him soon.


Splinter has a meeting with Jennika, the Foot Elite that betrayed Splinter to the Street Phantoms earlier. It seems she has been working hard to regain her honor and Splinter entrusts her with a very important task, guarding the tomb of the Shredder.

The Turtles see Fugitoid at Burnow Island which has been mostly terraformed for the Utrom homeworld's needs. He wants their help to awaken the Utroms stuck in stasis because they have not committed any crimes and are in danger of dying soon if they're not released. The Turtles agree to help and Fugitoid says he has another reason for inviting them over. It is, of course, Leatherhead.


We see the people from before, and based on their boots, we can assume they're soldiers of some kind. They can barely breathe in the Utrom atmosphere but they continue onwards. Kill or be killed.

Fugitoid explains that Leatherhead helped save Donnie's life and he thanks him. Leatherhead has heard of other reptile mutants and wanted to meet them. He has heard their origin story and will now tell them theirs.

Leatherhead was a normal alligator in the 16th century until pirates arrived with Mutagen. As they dumped it in the sea, Leatherhead became exposed to it. Leatherhead realized how valuable the Mutagen was and collected it, continuing to live life hiding from humans. Since the island had now become terraformed, he had to escape to survive and that's when he found Harold and Fugitoid and gave them the Mutagen they needed to restore Donatello. In exchange to that, he wants Fugitoid to teleport him off the island and to live with others like him in New York City. The Turtles discuss it and figure they can't leave him to die on the island and they can keep an eye on him and away from Hob's influence. They'll leave it up to Splinter to decide when they come to that and figure they'll save him now. Now with that settled, they get to work on trying to awaken the Utroms.

One of the Utroms is on hold, one named Ch'Rell who seems to be just as dangerous as Krang was. Fugitoid says the other Utroms are normal beings like artists and scientists and will leave it up to them if they should revive Ch'Rell or not. Raph asks Leatherhead about his name, and he says since humans always caught at least a glimpse of his head above water, they would call him the Leatherhead of the Lagoon, and he kept the name.

Fugitoid starts the revitalizing process and the Turtles load the machines with Mutagen. The Utroms are now breathing and rejuvenated. The Utroms are still sleeping however, and Fugitoid wants everyone to help move them to more comfortable quarters when they awaken.

Three hours later, Fugitoid checks on the condition of the Utroms and finds a room with some of them being slaughtered. He turns and yells 'YOU!' as something smashes him to pieces and heads off. By the shadow it looks like it could be Leatherhead.


My Opinions-

Good issue and I'm surprised the whole focus was mostly on the Turtles and Fugitoid this time with only a little bit of Kitsune, Rat King, Splinter and Jennika. Speaking of which, it's a little disturbing just how easily Rat King can appear right under Splinter's nose. Speaking of which, Splinter sure is placing a LOT of trust on Jennika, a member of the Foot Elite who was faithful to the Shredder not that long ago, to watch over Shredder's corpse.



Leatherhead is finally here. Not much to say unless I wonder what his motives are if he did slaughter those innocent Utroms. Ironically in the Mirage comics, he was one of their most trusted friends. The last pages show some sketches of him and in one he's wearing the classic Canjun hat from the 80's cartoon. I kinda wonder if they'll really go with that or if it's just an in-joke. Since 80's Leatherhead was a bad guy, that could be a hint of him being one here.


One thing to note is that Leatherhead was around since the pirate days.... and has been around since, not looking any older or anything. I was expecting some sort of time travel thrown into the mix, but no Leather seemed to have lived from the 16th century to modern times through sheer longevity. Does that also apply to the Turtles and the other mutants?

Ch'Rell gets a shout-out and it seems he might be part of the story eventually. Of course fans of the 2K3 series know Ch'Rell was an evil Utrom who took on the identities of both Oroku Saki and the Shredder after the supposed death of the original. Now that Shredder is dead in this series, will Ch'Rell take the mantle? I guess we'll have to find out.


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