TMNT New Animated Adventures #3

 Originally written by Paige with thoughts from Mark Rodriguez

After dealing with Purple Dragons, Snakeweed and... some regular military soldiers, this time the Turtles face one of the main villains, The Kraang. Let's take a look.

Zombies! They're attacking! Okay, not really. The turtles are watching a zombie movie marathon, only because Mikey dragged them into it. Like usual Raph-style, he complains about watching the movies. Leo and Donnie agree and all three head off to go to bed leaving Mikey behind. Before Leo does leave, he tells Mikey about his imagination when he watches scary movies.

He brushes this aside and continues to watch. Eventually Mikey goes to bed, but he can't sleep. He decides to wake up Raph and ask him to go skateboarding. The reader finally gets to see Raph's room and Spike the pet turtle. Well, Raph is angry for being woken up at 2 am.

Mikey still goes out skating, but as he skates he runs into ZOMBIES! It's really happening, zombies are taking over New York! Mikey gets away back to the lair.

Everybody is now awake from Mikey's screams about zombies. The rest of the turtles believe he was just imagining it. He tries to explain that he was skating and the zombies wanted to eat his brain. Raph makes a joke saying "Talk about a light snack". Splinter steps into the room ending the debate between the turtles. He tells them to check out what Mikey saw. The turtles are frustrated that they have to go out.

As they wait, nothing showed up at first. Leo and Raph mock Mikey. Eventually the zombies show up, but this time they're holding stuff. The stuff is not just ordinary stuff, it's high quality technology. The turtles follow the zombies toward a sleep research institute. Mikey comments about how big this was.. and Leo agrees. They climb the wall to the top and break inside. The Kraang are involved! There is a big computer-thingy in the center of the room along with the Kraang and the zombies. The Kraang have a scientist held hostage. Like usual, the Kraang explain their plan. They Kraang-explain that they are using the unconscious people to retrieve the items they need to take over the world!

Kraang then take the scientist/doctor away to take care of her. The turtles realize that people are sleep walking and the machine is controlling them. Raph wants to break the machine, but Donnie explains they can't break the machine since you're not supposed to wake up a sleepwalker. He explains it as not safely removing a drive from a computer.

Back to the lady, the Kraang prepare to 'do the doing'. They prepare to shoot her, but they are stopped by the turtles. Raph even smashes the Kraang into a filing cabinet. The woman introduces herself as Dr. Annie Sloane. She continues to explain that her original research about brain scanning was manipulated by the Kraang to be able to control the sleeping people. She continues to explain that they want to use the dream machine to control the whole city. Raph again says to smash the machine and again he is denied the chance. But she does give them a usb drive to be able to deactivate the mind control and blow up the machine.

The turtles go into action. and attempt to get to the machine. But as they get there, the machine was surrounded by the sleepwalkers. Donnie realizes that the sleepwalkers are now going after them. Mikey uses his knowledge of zombie movies to get around the people. He mentions about hitting them on the head, Leo says they're not zombies, they're innocent people that can't be hurt, so Mikey ends up running away...(They're sleepwalkers, not zombies...they're not going to eat you)...But anyway while Mikey runs the other way,  Leo, Raph and Donnie go through the crowd. Among the people there are Kraang hidden  ready to strike.

The three turtles can defeat them easily...but...they are getting overwhelmed by the sleep walkers. Some walkers hold down Donnie while a Kraang prepare to shoot him. He tells someone to tell April that he love...is fond of...have complicated feelings. Before the Kraang shoots, Mikey stops him and fights away the people surrounding Donnie. All the turtles escape. Mikey says he can plug the usb drive into the machine and Donnie doubts it. But Leo explains that Mikey has been right so far, so that convinces Donnie to trust Mikey.

Mikey gets it into the machine and it beeps. The Kraang gather around to stop the turtles. All the people are awake and confused about what's going on. Donnie fears that the people would see them, but Annie steps in and helps the people get out. She also promises not to tell anyone about the Turtles. The turtles continue to fight the Kraang as the machine blows up.

They get back to the lair. Splinter explains he was right about Mikey being right. Raph was astonished that Mikey was right. Donnie wonders where Mikey went...They found him in front of the TV watching another horror movie marathon... this time about vampires...

Paige's Opinions
Like I said earlier, finally a real bad guy! The writers are starting to add the villians I've been waiting for. And next issue features the foot soldier...so the next issue or the one following that will have Shredder! So I'm looking forward to that. An interesting issue having the controlled sleepwalkers, especially the whole zombie topic...since that is the new rage right now. lol The Kraang. When I read their lines, I couldn't help but read them in their voices...I think I did a real good Kraang impersonation. lol Also while I read their lines, I counted how many times they referred to themselves in just one sentence. I think I read up to four in one sentence. Issue three was good and kept my interest. I loved getting the chance to see Raph's room and all its glory. I wonder if the comics will show more of the lair in the future comics...Well we'll have to see.


Mark's Opinions
I like the story, it's a fun little story with a clever plot to control sleep-walking people. I do kinda wish they really were zombies though since Mikey's zombie-knowledge fell flat, but where would the Kraang get some of those? This is a fun little filler tale, and while it didn't mention any particular episode or event, it does fit in with all of the Kraang's wild random plans from the episodes. And hey, we finally got to see at least ONE of the Turtles rooms, right? It's interesting they met a new human friend, but I doubt we're ever gonna see Dr. Sloan any time on the actual cartoon.

Mikey was fun-loving and didn't do anything particularly dumb or annoying, which is good. Um.. except for wanting to skateboard at 2 in the morning and bugging Raph about it. I do to have say, it was weird seeing Mikey's fingers completely taped up in this issue. I know the turtles wears straps/tape on their fists now, but in this issue Mikey's entire fingers are wrapped up, almost like the dude burnt himself grabbing pizza right out of the oven. I don't remember the past issues doing this mistake since his hands aren't like that in the show. I wonder if that was an oversight since I don't remember that in the other issues offhand.

You can clearly see their fingers here.