Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VS. Street Fighter #2

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Turtles go to Atlantic City to enter the Street Fighter tournament. Bison and Baxter are working behind the scenes and Bison is interested in Raphael. Bison rigs the match so Guile wins over Raphael while Chun Li defeats Michaelangelo clean. Not letting the fight go, Raph seeks out Guile for a rematch. Bison watches this rematch and plans to unlock Raph's Psycho Power.

The issue opens with Raphael throwing Guile over his shoulder as Ryu, Ken and Chun Li watch. Chun Li roots for Guile to destroy Raph and Ken asks if she's ok. Raph accuses Guile of bribing the ref to rig the fight in his favor. Guile says Raph probably bought him off to avoid embarrassment, since he was also upset about the rigged fight. Raph says he was lying since his name is Guile. Guile knees Raphael in the plastron and tells him to go paint baby angels. Guile says if Raph wants a rematch he should ask him like a man, rather than try to jump him in an alley. Raph responds by punching him in the face.

The drone that was monitoring the match for Bison suddenly zaps everyone, knocking them all out. Bison asked what Baxter did since he was trying to analyze Raph and unlock his Psycho Power. Baxter says that's the last thing they want. He wants to keep the Turtles away from their plans. Baxter tells one of the minions to separate the fighters so they don't realize they were attacked together. He also tells him to dump the Turtle elsewhere in the city. Bison tells the minion to do as Baxter says. He says he knows what he must do, as he starts to plan against Baxter.

Later on, the Street Fighters think that Raph somehow attacked them all, while Raph tells his brothers that the Street Fighters attacked him. Raph says he woke up under the pier of the boardwalk and they were already gone by the time he got back there. Both teams think the other is evil and since it ties to the tournament, they will continue to gather intel. 

The next match is between Leonardo and Ryu. Ryu says they will fight in the spirit of competition and wish no true harm to one another. He says the person's heart is the same as Heaven and Earth, even the heart of a villain, which he accuses Leonardo of being. He leaps out at Leo with a punch. 

Leonardo catches Ryu's fist and flips him to the mat. Ryu says Leo is more formidable than he thought, but he will defeat him within the ring. He punches Leonardo back and adds that once they beat all the Turtles they will take revenge on Raph outside of the ring. Leo gets angry and punches Ryu repeatedly and kicks him down to the mat. Leonardo wins the match.

Ryu says they were evenly matched so he wondered where that burst came from. Leonardo says he threatened his brother, and having a third loss would also threaten his pride, so he figured it was OK to do a little harm to him. Ryu says he can respect that.

Bison is watching and is tired of Baxter's cautious approach. He says it's time to throw them to the wolves. Donatello is in the ring and he's going against Ken.

Raph is angry that Ryu called them villains since he sees the Street Fighters as the villains. Michealangelo feels that this is a misunderstanding and wants to talk to them. Jennika says he's not going without them. Michealangelo agrees but he reiterates that he's going to actually talk to them. Back in the ring, Donatello elbows Ken in the face.

Michealangelo asks Chun Li if she's doing anything later. She says she has no time for the likes of him. Leonardo says they started off on the wrong foot and Chun Li tells him to stand back. Meanwhile Ken trips Donatello onto the mat. As Ken stands over him, Donatello moves in and hits him with a headbutt. Guile and Raph argue some more and Leo says they're supposed to put their heads together to figure out what's going on. 

As the in-ring action continues, Ken tells Donatello that they're all a bunch of hotheads. Donatello says only one of them is, as Raph takes a swing at Guile. Just then Jennika picks up Ryu and tosses him. Donatello says maybe two of them are hotheads.

Jennika tosses Ryu into the ring, making him crash into Donatello. Everyone steps into the ring and start fighting each other. Leo asks Jen why she did that. Jen says that Raph had a look in his eyes that showed he was about to do worse. She figured a controlled attack would be better and Leo says that now things are out of control. A woman is gambling nearby and Donatello is sent crashing into the table. Bison watches and says they're making things a lot easier and sends out his extraction team.

Just then Bison's troops enter the Casino. Ken asks if they're with the Turtles and Donatello sarcastically says they have their own army. Ryu says they have to work together for now and trust each other. Chun Li asks how can they trust the Turtles if they don't know their motivations. Raphael says his only motivation is to get back into the ring and finish his match with Guile. If they have to work together to take down the soldiers and solve the mystery of the missing fighters first, then that's what he'll do. Guile agrees and calls for a temporary truce. Raph says it will be very temporary, as they all charge in to fight the soldiers. 

Everybody fights the soldiers. Leo asks Ryu if he's OK hurting these guys, and he agrees. One of the soldiers tosses a grenade and the explosion knocks some of the fighters back. Three of them blast Raphael with their laser weapons. Chun Li leaps in and tells them to leave the Turtle alone, and she gets blasted as well. 

One of the soldiers tells Bison that they captured the target and a bonus asset, but their attack wasn't covert. Bison says it's not worth having power if nobody can see him wield it. He says soon the world will feel the power of the Pyscho Bomb as we see Baxter working on a bomb the size of a rocket. 

After the smoke clears the gang realizes that Raph and Chun Li are missing. Michealangelo says they need to stop with the 'temporary truce' and trust each other one hundred percent. They need to work together. Mikey says they have to rescue Chun Li. Donatello reminds him they need to rescue Raph too. Mikey corrects himself and says they need to rescue Chun Li and Raph... Donnie just didn't let him finish. 

My Thoughts-

This story is interesting, not because it's a thrilling or compelling story, but because of how downright weird it is. The biggest problem is just how out of character all the Street Fighter characters are. It's also pretty weird to see everyone just fight with their fists and feet without the nunchucks, sais and Ha-Do-Kens. The closest thing we've seen so far is what looks like Chun Li doing her Helicopter Kick in one of the splash panels.

The tournament itself doesn't make sense. It's pretty much the WWE Survivor Series from the looks of it, Team Street Fighter VS Team Ninja Turtles. Jennika being there makes no sense since she makes it a team of five against a team of four. The comic downright dances around the problem by interrupting the tournament with an all-out brawl and an attack by the Shadaloo Soldiers. 

Speaking of the Shadaloo Soldiers, the last thing I was expecting was to see the troops from the Street Fighter Live Action Movie of all things. 

In a certain way, it sorta makes sense. This comic seems to strictly be in the Street Fighter 2 era, and despite Bison leading the Shadaloo organization even back then, we have never seen what his actual troops look like. After all, his army can't consist of just Balrog, Vega and Sagat. Street Fighter 2 long pre-dated the concept of the Shadaloo Dolls from the Alpha series and the Shadaloo Soldier design from Street Fighter 5. The closest thing we had were the troops shown in the live action movie and the associated movie based on the game and I don't recall seeing them in the cartoon. It's still extremely weird. This is one of those cases where I kinda wish they consulted someone more connected to the Street Fighter lore and used the soldier designs from Street Fighter 5 as an exception.

Another very odd example of the writers or artists most likely phoning it in when it comes to Street Fighter knowledge was the appearance of SNK characters in one of the alternate covers. I almost did a double take when I saw that, but one of the cover feature Leo and Ryu facing each other in a video arcade on a Street Fighter cabinet, surrounded by several Street Fighter characters, but also Mai Shiranui, Yuri Sakazaki and what looks like Terry Bogard. It's possible it was just a random Easter egg for the hell of it but I wonder if SNK knew about it.

I circled to make it easier to see. At first Yuri caught my eye, and then I noticed Mai. Then I noticed Terry. Most random cameos ever.

As for the story itself, I'd like to call BS on Leonardo easily taking down Ryu. Even in the SF2 days, Ryu took down Muay Thai master Sagat and yet Leonardo could take him down. No way man. It also looks like Mikey has a crush on Chun Li. It seems Bison's master plan involves a Psycho Bomb, but it's still not clear how the missing fighters fit into this. Based on the relatives we've seen, it seems whenever we get to see these guys, they're gonna be random dudes. It's a missed opportunity to have the rest of the Street Fighters make an appearance.

One person suggested they should have taken advantage of this and used the Tournament Fighters version of the Turtles. This would have been a cool idea because then the Turtles would have had special moves to counter the Street Fighters, and some of the other characters could have appeared too. Imagine Leo using the Shining Cutter against Ryu's Ha-Do-Ken or Rat King slamming Zangief with the Rat Bomber.