TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 11

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Shredder finally forged the Forever Blade, and during a fight with the Turtles, the blade was shattered and he was trapped in feudal Japan with Leonardo. With the original sword gone, Shredder was able to obtain the original Forever Blade that was forged by Eddiku Yuri and used it to return to present day. The Turtles were able bring Leonardo back with the help of Renet, but now Shredder is preparing to bring back the Technodrome!!

'The Two Swords Meet' (The Sword of Eddiku Part 3) opens up in Donatello's lab, where Donnie is using the shards of broken replica to track down the original sword. He was able to find a similar energy signature in Long Island, but he will need Shredder to use the sword for something big so they can track it down.

Meanwhile in Long Island, Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady are ready to bring back the Technodrome. Shredder offers to bring a Technodrome from the future instead (the upgraded one seen in Turtles Forever) and creates a portal for it. Krang says it's the most beautiful thing he ever saw and asks where he found it. Shredder says he has come across visions showing the original Technodrome completely refurbished with upgrades. They just have to wait it to come through the portal. 

Back at the lair, Donatello's dimensional rift alarm goes off. Michealangelo notices it's a big blip and asks if they can get the Turtle Blimp over to Long Island in time. Leonardo says they can use the shards from the replica sword. Raphael asks if they have an anvil handy that he doesn't know about and Michealangelo suggests using super glue.

Ten minutes later, the new Technodrome is coming through the portal, when the Turtles arrive. Krang sends Bebop and Rocksteady after them and tells Shredder to summon up more Foot Soldiers. The Turtles easily beat up Bebop and Rocksteady, with Leonardo saying the bad guys always lose. Bebop asks if that's true. Rocksteady says he watches the news and sees that bad guys win all the time. Raphael says that's not the kind of lesson they want to teach. Shredder offers a lesson in multiplication and opens a giant portal that unleashes a huge army of multi-colored Foot Soldiers, Mousers and Roadkill Rodneys. Raphael says nobody likes math, but Donatello says that he does. Raphael says that Donatello better start working on his subtractions then.

Leonardo asks Donatello what they can do to stop the Technodrome from coming through the portal. Donatello says they just need to keep Shredder busy for three and half minutes since that's how a long a transtemporal portal of that size can stay open. The Technodrome isn't moving fast enough to go through before the portal can close.

Leonardo runs over to fight with Shredder. Krang yells out to turn and look at the Technodrome. Shredder realizes the portal is closing, and Donatello tells him it was bound to happen especially since he opened a second large portal for the all the Foot Soldiers. Shredder knocks Leonardo back and says his sword has more power than they can comprehend. 

Shredder leaps onto the side of the Technodrome and uses the sword to re-open the portal. Leonardo says it's time to fight fire with fire and runs towards the Technodrome. The rest of the Turtles cover him and fight back against the Foot Soldiers, Bebop and Rocksteady.

Leonardo makes it to the top of the Technodrome and Shredder says there's nothing he can do at this point. Leonardo says there's always something they do as he tears another portal open with his replica sword. Now the Technodrome has two portals on either side of it. As the portals clash, Leonardo is knocked off the Technodrome. Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang make a run for it. 

The Turtles make sure that Leonardo is alright. Leonardo explains that he opened up a portal directly inside Shredder's portal going in the opposite direction. Donatello says this will make the Technodrome vanish, making it so it's not in Dimension X or in their world at the same time. Michealangelo points out that Shredder left his sword behind.

Michealangelo grabs the sword, making a small portal as he waves it around, which shows Ace Duck in some sort of temple. He asks if the rest want to check out Hawaii for some surfing. Donatello says he should be careful with the sword, and Renet appears and says he's right.

Renet says both swords are dangerous, so she will take them to a safe house at the end of time. Raphael asks if the swords are what she was talking about earlier. She said they're part of it but she couldn't elaborate since she needed the Turtles to act exactly the way they did now. She says what they did broke space-time just a little. Donatello asks if she should prevent that from happening, but Renet adds that time need to break a little sometimes so it gets stronger as it resets. She says in this case, it was to the Turtles to fix things so she let things play out as they did to prepare them for what came after. She adds that there will be some hiccups as time resets.

Just then some robot dinosaurs show up. Renet explains that hiccups like those will be popping up for the next three or four days. The Turtles just need to keep them distracted long enough and they will soon vanish back to their correct time and place. Renet vanishes and leaves the Turtles to it.

For the epilogue, Shredder is also stuck between dimensions and Krang tries to create a portal to bring him back. Shredder goes through the portal but appears to be transparent like a ghost. Krang says he's still caught between both dimensions thinks that maybe he should have carried the five when doing his calculations. Shredder yells at Krang. Meanwhile Mr. Ogg reminds us that he will be returning in the next issue.

My Thoughts-

It was a big surprise to see the Shredder bring in the new advanced Technodrome from Turtles Forever. For those that missed out on the 80's TMNT/2003 TMNT crossover, Shredder and Krang released the 2003 Shredder from his ice asteroid prison. However the Utrom Shredder was too much for the 80's villains and he ended up taking over and remodeling the Technodrome. The funny part is at the end when everyone was sent back home, it's implied they sent Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady back along with the new Technodrome. The topic of 'what will the 80's Turtles do now that Shredder has a new Technodrome' would come up. I guess in this case Shredder swooped in and grabbed it, and if you count the comic as canon.... Shredder and Leonardo made that Technodrome vanish so they solved their own problem.

The disappointing thing was we only got to see the Technodrome from the outside, and just the small parts that were peeking through the portal. It would have been nice if Shredder and Leonardo got to fight a little from inside it and ran into some of the modern 2003 Foot Soldiers and such. Either that or it woulda been cool to have seen it attack the city for a bit before the Turtles stopped it. That would have been an epic fourth part to end this story with a bigger bang.

When it comes to cameos we get TMNT arcade game versions of the multi-colored Foot Soldiers as well as Mousers and Roadkill Rodneys. 

We also get a random cameo of Ace Duck when Michealangelo waved the Forever Blade around. For those checking out comic book previews, an 'April one-shot special' is coming out around this time which is, of course, starring April O'Neil, but also involves Ace Duck. I'm pretty sure Michealangelo accidentally took a peak into that adventure.

I also liked the line where Rocksteady says 'he watches the news and bad guys win all the time' which applies as much in the 80's as it does nowadays. There was some decent fighting in this issue, which brought to my attention that the Turtles actually do a lot more actual fighting and less relying on slapstick. The Turtles also seem to be in areas where there wouldn't be fire hydrants to break or pizza to throw around. That's pretty cool.

Overall a good story and a great way to end the trilogy. The best part is seeing that this series will continue. Shredder stole the meteorite in the first issue of this series and the fact that he was trying to forge a sword from it was an ongoing thread through the whole run thus far. Since it's hard to say exactly how long they can keep making stories based on the old 80's show, I was afraid the series would end with the Shredder finally managing to create and use the sword. That could also be why Mr. Ogg appeared in the corner to let the readers know to expect another issue.

While this story gave us a peak at the Turtleverse with the appearance of Renet and the Turtles Forever version of the Technodrome, the next issue is going to go nuts as we'll see Turtles from several different series get together. But first.... let's see what April O'Neil is up to.