TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 7

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Turtles still haven't found the Shredder and recovered the meteor that he stole. It seems Shredder has more things up his sleeve as he is now putting together the first ever Shreddercon! What will the Turtles do?

Not particularly the cover I wanted, but for some reason this issue was hard to find so beggars can't be choosers.

'Shreddercon' opens with April reporting that City Hall has taken action to cancel the year's St. Nick-Con. It's a tradition where people run around dressed as Santa while acting in the most obnoxious way possible. Some examples include racing reindeer through Times Square and filling the Rockefeller Ice Rink with coal. Revelers say they will continue the tradition even if the city won't allow them to do so while dressed as Santa Claus.

Meanwhile, Shredder, in regular clothes, meets up with a man named Kai Eddiku. Oroku Saki knows that his ancestor Eddiku Yuri created a powerful sword from the ore of a meteorite. Oroku says he has found the other half of the meteorite and wants him to use the ore to create a replica of the original sword. Oroku says Eddiku's family's secret methods of creating swords knows no equal and he can name his price.

Eddiku is intrigued but says it would be impossible. He says forging the blade would be easy, the difficult part is the tsuba, the hand guard. His ancestor created them in ways that he didn't pass down his family line. However, a motivated collector might be able to find some of Eddiku Yuri's unused tsuba at the Mid-Manhattan Museum of Asian Art the following week. Eddiku says that with one of those and a reasonable fee, he should be able to assist him. Saki says he has taken too much of his time but he does intend to speak with him soon.

Later on at the villains' hideout, Krang is upset that Shredder hasn't approached anyone that could forge a sword yet. Shredder says they needed to be able to extract the ore first. Krang asks why they didn't just kidnap the sword expert. Shredder says he wants an exact replica and abductees never turn in their best work. 

Krang says they could have been building a death ray with all the time they wasted on this sword. Shredder assures him the sword will work, and the hand guard will be easy to steal because the Turtles and the police will be too busy dealing with the St. Nick-Con chaos to notice. Bebop and Rocksteady come in and tell them that the con has been cancelled and anyone caught wearing a Santa outfit will be fined a thousand dollars. 

Krang berates Shredder on another 'master plan' failing, while the Foot Clan leader thinks of something. Shredder asks Krang if he still has the duplication beam. Krang says the duplicates are of inferior quality and they vanish after a few days. Shredder says that's more than enough time.

Later that day, the soap opera on the TV is interrupted by Shredder. Shredder tells the people of the city that he heard that St. Nick-Con is in jeopardy, but he found a loophole. If they can't dress as Santa, they can use a different costume, and Shredder is offering his for free. People can look for Shreddercon trucks and get their free costumes. The Turtles don't know what to make of this so they go to check it out.

The next day, Bebop and Rocksteady are giving away costumes to the eager New Yorkers as the Turtles watch from the rooftops. Donatello says they're not stealing anything and Leonardo can't figure out what Shredder's plan is. Michaelangelo shows up with a Shredder costume. Donatello doesn't find any circuitry in the helmet, so he rules out mind control. The rest of Shredder's outfit looks normal too. Raphael complains about the scratchy fabric used and Michaelangelo says that might be why Shredder's always angry. 

Raphael asks if they can stop them now. Leonardo says they're not doing anything illegal and even the blades on the costumes are plastic. Raphael says he knows they're up to something. Leonardo says that St. Nick-Con is disruptive and Shredder was counting on that disruption for some reason. Whatever his plan is, he will need a distraction, so the Turtles will have to stay alert on that day.

Several days later near Washington Square Park, April reports that Shreddercon is about to begin and the police are keeping a close eye on the costumed pranksters. The Turtles see the large group of New Yorkers, all dressed like the Shredder, and they are surprised to see so many. Leonardo says the real Shredder is in there somewhere, so they'll have to keep their eyes open. 

Michaelangelo says things are chaotic but they have to be careful not to hurt anyone, since they're just regular people. One of the Shredders is shocked to see a giant turtle and tells him not to attack him. Michaelangelo says he's not attacking anybody and gets distracted by another Shredder spray painting his shell. We see that the one Michaelangelo was talking to was the real Shredder, and he checks in on Bebop and Rocksteady.

Bebop and Rocksteady are at the Mid-Manhattan Museum of Asian Art and have tied up the guards. They're also wearing Shredder outfits and pretend that this is all a prank and intend to paint smiley faces on all the exhibits.

Meanwhile, Leonardo cuts open a fire hydrant, splashing the mischief makers who says it's too cold for this. Michaelangelo ties them up with his grappling hook. Raphael says it's time to admit that they've been had and the real Shredder isn't around. He says this must be the part of the story where Shredder gets further ahead in his master plan that will be a big headache several pages down the line. Michaelangelo asks if they can go home since it's pretty cold outside. Leonardo says they will continue to protect the city even if it's against a few petty misdemeanors. 

Shredder arrives at the museum and they confirmed that they broke all the security cameras. Shredder says even if they missed one, the authorities will assume he was one of the pranksters. Bebop asks if he can vandalize the sword exhibits. Shredder says to leave it, he wants the curator to be so relieved they were untouched that he won't notice that he replaced one of the tsubas with a fake. Shredder tells his henchmutants to run as the duplication ray will be wearing off any moment now.

The Turtles are still dealing with the mischief makers when suddenly the Shredder costumes disappear, leaving everyone in their underwear and getting fined by police. Later on in the park, the Turtles regroup with April to tell her what happened. April asks why the police didn't try to grab them. Raphael says they wrote them off as good Samaritans on the way to a costume party. Leonardo ponders what Shredder hoped to gain from this. Michaelangelo says maybe Shredder just wanted to be a jerk for the holidays. April says if she finds out anything, she'll let them know. Donatello says they'll head off to find something hot to eat since the cold is rough on mutants.

Raphael is still angry that the Shredder got one over on them. Leonardo says that Master Splinter said they don't have to win all battles, just the right ones. Michealangelo says it wasn't a total waste since the pizza place gave them a discount for misspelling his name. Donatello asks why he would get a discount just because they spelled his name 'Micheangeo'. Michaelangelo says it put them in the holiday spirit since there was 'no L'. The Turtles groan. 

My Thoughts-

This was an odd tale. When I heard about 'Shreddercon' I was thinking it would be some sort of comic book convention thing. I didn't think it would be some sort of wild parade of people causing mischief and vandalism all over town. This story is also one of the few times that Shredder's plan actually worked out flawlessly. That's the benefit from having stories last for several issues; the villain can score some wins along the way. Also, other than taunting Michaelangelo, Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady had no real confrontation with the Turtles. 

As far as the Turtles are concerned, they just had a weird day and Shredder caused all this just to be a jerk. It does seem they have completely forgotten about the stolen meteorite that they never got back from Shredder.

There isn't too much to say other than Sarah Myer continuing to bring her brand of energy to the characters. It was cool to see Shredder in regular clothes for once, and to conduct himself as a regular person. This issue is probably Shredder at his most cunning, maybe even moreso than on the show. This could be a sign of Shredder getting craftier over the years, because I do imagine the Shredder from the 80's cartoon would have just kidnapped Eddiku and being done with it.

Not only did we see Shredder in regular clothes, we also got one hell of a callback. April started off the story wearing a shirt that her live-action counterpart Judith Hoag wore in one of the scenes of the 90's TMNT movie. This issue might have been about Shredder but April is the one dishing out the deep cuts.

It was a fun story, but it still felt like it could have used a fight scene near the end. I know we needed Shredder's plan to succeed for the story to continue, but maybe there could have been a fight at the museum and we find out that despite everything he still got away with the hand guard he needed. We had a similar issue with Leatherhead, where despite everything Shredder managed to get away with the anti-matter scalpel, but we still got a fight against Leatherhead. I guess the issue is that this time the main conflict was 'Shreddercon' itself, but it wasn't really any big danger to the city. It was just a few days of annoyance that the city had to deal with, at most. I know Leonardo insisted on 'keeping the city safe from petty misdemeanors' but once they found out that Shredder wasn't around they really could have sit this one out.

Either way, this story might have left me feeling sort of empty, the next one promises wacky surprises as Mr. Ogg returns.