TMNT New Animated Adventures #5

 By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written by Paige with opinions from Mark Rodriguez

Fishface finally takes his walk into comic stardom in issue number five of TMNT New Animated Adventures. And the crowd goes wild! Have you ever wonder what else Fishface and Dogpound do when not commanded to hunt down the turtles by the Shredder, well they have their own adventures! Yay! Fishface is on a mission to find a friend from his past, while the turtles follow him (from a lead from April.) Read on to find out what happens!

On a cruise ship, Victor Sousa is arguing on the phone that no one can cross him. He ends the phone right before Fishface appears through the ship window. He asks the people in the room where Victor was located.

Now underwater in the turtle-shaped submarine the Turtles got a lead from April. She received the tip of the location of Fishface on her website. They followed his trail from the marina to the cruise ship. The group asks themselves why Fishface is on a cruise ship. Mikey makes his guess that he's either dining on the food, watching a comedy show or surfing on the wave pool. Yes Mikey,  that's what he's doing... Leo is determined that Fishface won't get away with whatever he's up to and proceed to call the group the "Mighty Turtles" and says they are there to protect anyone in harm's way. Raph says "I thought our job was to punch the bad guys till they stop being bad." Uh, okay. Mikey asks if Leo was serious with the latest name for the group.

Back on the ship, Victor was chased into the engine room. Fishface eventually reveals who he was to his old friend.

The turtles make it into the ship, ready to find Fishface. They wonder where their fishy-foe is hidden. Suddenly a man runs past the group screaming about a "fish monster" in the engine room. Mikey repeats the same thing to the group...Sigh...They arrive at the engine room and instead of finding him, Mikey finds Victor and he jumps thinking he's another monster. Mikey tells the man that he's here to help him and asks if he seen Fishface. He says yes and points towards him. Fishface is happy that both his hated enemies are in the same place. He attacks the turtles, but Donnie attacks and hits their foe into an oil tank making it leak. A spark from his robot legs creates an explosion.

The ship is now sinking and the captain makes the decision to evacuate everyone. The turtles lead Victor out the engine room. Victor asks if Fishface is really Xever and Mikey says yes and explains that he gave him the name because he has a fish face. Then Victor randomly says that they used to be friends. They used to commit crime together, but the two split because Victor wanted to turn around and be an outstanding businessman. Raph doesn't believe the change of character and refuses to help Xever's bestie. Victor informs the turtle that they aren't friends anymore. Victor explains that they were on two different paths. He says that Xever was short-sighted. Leo says about how that sounds familiar and Raph makes a comment about about Xever getting tired of a know-it-all.

While the group was walking out of the ship, there is the shadow of Fishface. He jumps down from the balcony, stopping everyone. He tells them that Victor is lying and that he's still a criminal. Xever explains that Victor was the reason he got arrested and he believes it all lead up to this moment. So he blames Victor for what he is now. Victor tries to plead to his old friend that he can make it all up to him. The ship suddenly tips to it's side. And you know Mikey has to say something stupid here... They know that they don't have much time before the ship completely goes under. They turtles fight Fishface in the water which is something they haven't done before.  They're having a hard time fighting Xever in the water so they leave. Even Victor is long gone. While Fishface is distracted, the turtles disappear.

The turtles knows that they need a plan because Xever has the advantage being underwater. Again, Mikey makes his stupid statement about fish...They hear Victor shouting for help. Leo decides to go help, but Raph refuses because he's still a bad guy. The two get in an argument about Victor. Donnie chimes in about if the two brothers continue to fight, it might be too late.

The turtles find Victor hanging off the structure for the water slides, but as Leo attempts to help Victor, he gets thrown off into the water below. Victor confesses that he's going to try to defeat the turtles to be spared by Xever. The group begins to fight and Fishface joins in and bites Leo and Donnie. Xever confesses that he'll keep Victor around to help him defeat the turtles, then get his revenge. He mocks that Raph left and abandoned his brothers.

The turtle submarine appears grabbing Fishface in its mouth. Victor runs away while the turtles go to the submarine. Donnie is prepared with the anti-venom. But it falls into a random tube and Mikey dives after it. Raph takes Fishface and places him into the sinking cruise ship trapping him. Mikey returns with the anti-venom.

The turtles are back, safe and sound, at the lair. Raph is mad that Victor got away. That's when April comes in with her own news, which is that she tipped off the Coast Guard and Victor was caught. Leo explains to Raph that the turtles aren't just ninjas, they are turtle ninja heroes. Mikey doesn't dig the name.

Paige's Opinion-

Well this issue's story is with Fishface and his past. It has nothing to do with the Shredder or anything like that. It's a whole separate adventure. Pretty much like filler... It's pointless, but it does show a little more of Xever's past before he started working for Shredder and ended up turning into Fishface. I say skip these filler issues and back to the main plot. I try to look at it from both sides. The writers have been making each comic it's own separate adventure. But I think they should have a to be continued... Like something drastic happens and the reader has to wait till next month's issue to find out what happens next. Anyway, in this issue they make Mikey really stupid. One major example would be him saying something like "Wow fish are good in water" something like that... I'm asking why to the writers? Why make Mikey really stupid! *Shakes head* Like I said earlier the plot was pointless and we could've done without this issue, but I sorta understand that it's more insight to Xever's past. And looking at issue six, I wonder what is going to happen in next month's issue...

Mark's Opinion-

It's a decent story and a good idea, but it does show some of the limits the writers have to deal with. They can't contradict the show, but any new things they add, like Victor will never be references in the show either. Kinda interesting to see Xever on his own solo mission, I guess Shredder didn't need him that day. Also while I'm sure somewhere in the 5 seasons of the show the Turtles have to have dealt with Xever underwater, clearly showing the advantage the mutant fish would have, but this comic is the first ever example to show this. It is cool to see more of Xever's past before he became Fishface, but sadly we're never going to see this referenced in the actual show. 

I'm pretty sure the Turtle Ninja Heroes is a reference of jab at how back in the day the Turtles were called the Hero Turtles instead of the Ninja Turtles in the UK. I agree with Paige's thoughts, the comics were clearly meant to be one-shots without real stakes, for the same reason. They can't do anything to contradict the show and even then, stuff like the weapon switch in an earlier issue and fighting Xever underwater here cause issues because they also can't predict what the show is gonna do.