TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued- April Special

 By Mark Rodriguez

It's only fitting that we get a special devote to April O'Neil for the month of April. Similar to the Halloween Special, the story takes place after the events of TMNT Saturday Morning # 11, so it's not just a random story for the sake of it. Let's see what kind of mess our intrepid reporter gets into this time.

The issue opens with April O'Neil covering the story of the recent dimensional anomalies happening over the last few weeks. There have been things like dinosaurs, cowboy dinosaurs and even presidential dinosaurs running around. April is on the scene interviewing Professor McGuffin on when he thinks these things will end.

The professor explains these events have gone from lasting for days to hours over the last few weeks. He predicts they will stop altogether by the end of the week. April wraps up the report and McGuffin says hi to his mom on TV. The professor doesn't notice a portal appearing above him and April shoves him out of the way. April gets caught in the portal and vanishes.

Vernon thinks April has been disintegrated and says he's sure to get a promotion now. Irma socks him in the air and asks the professor what happened. The Professor says April wasn't disintegrated but given how random the recent anomalies have been, it's hard to tell where she would have ended up.

April falls out of the portal and into a hole that leads to a cave. She reaches for her Turtlecom but there isn't a signal. Just then a giant boulder starts rolling down the path and April makes a run for it. She runs into a ledge and the giant boulder is still rolling behind her. Before she falls off the ledge, Ace Duck swoops in and grabs her. 

Ace Duck helps April get back to the ground safely. Ace Duck introduces himself and says they are just outside the Temple of K'Avila, which is full of traps. He asks how she got that far without knowing this. April says she was dropped into this are through a portal and asks where on Earth this Temple of K'Avila is. Ace Duck never heard of Earth and April sighs.

Sometime later after April explains about Earth's recent ills, including the dimensional anomalies and high rent prices, and asks Ace Duck if he knows any scientists. Ace Duck knows several but he is currently in the jungle searching for an ancient relic. He offers to help April get out of the jungle after she helps him find the relic.

Just then, April and Ace Duck dodge some bullets as some villains arrive. Ace Duck says that they think the Heart of K'Avila will help them rule the world as they run away from them.

Meanwhile, the Turtles and the professor are using devices to try to track down whether the portal will bring April or if they have to go after her. Donatello says if the anomalies vanish on their own, it stands to reason that April will also return on her own. The professor says they can use Donatello's dimensional portal to comb the multiverse if they have to. Leonardo hopes they don't go on a long journey that will leave the city unprotected. Raphael says it would make for a great graphic novel.

Back to April and Ace Duck, they traverse the temple while avoiding traps. Ace Duck asks April what the appeal is in being a news reporter. April says she liked to keep the public informed and makes sure the bad guys don't hide in the shadows. Ace Duck says he thought reporters were just glorified spectators. April says spectators stay home, reporters go where other people are too scared to go to get the story. April then asks about the story behind the relic and why the geese wanted it.

Ace Duck reiterates that they want to take over the world, and April wants to know how the relic would even do that. She asks if the relic is an alien artifact. Ace Duck says aliens don't exist and April points out that unless there are other humans around, she would be considered an alien to him. Ace Duck grabs a rock and tosses it at April saying she might be part of some sort of shaved gorilla invasion.

It turns out that Ace Duck was actually tossing the rock to knock out a snake that was about to bite April. Ace Duck explains that the artifact is told to be able to magically bring anything a person asks it to. The villains arrive and add that this would include the path to world domination. April and Ace Duck are captured.

Back in the New York, the Turtles have brought the professor to their lair, using a blindfold to hide their location. Splinter angrily asks Leonardo why they brought him to their lair. Leonardo explains that they're trying to find out what happened to April and so they brought all the data they found for Donatello to enter in his portable dimensional portal. Professor McGuffin wanted to come along and he wouldn't take no for an answer. Splinter asks if they haven't considered that April will just return to her proper place like the other dimensional castaways have. Leonardo says there haven't been more odd dinosaur sightings lately and are worried the trail would get cold. Splinter warns to be wary of the dangers beyond their world.

The professor is impressed and asks if they can take the portable portal to TCRI. Donatello says he'd rather not have that technology leave the lair. Raphael wants to check the streets and maybe get some help from Casey Jones and asks Michaelangelo if he wants to come along. Michaelangelo asks if he really wants to leave since they can at least stay and be moral support. Just then Donatello and McGuffin tune into a dimension with a Pennywise-looking clown and quick change the signal to something else. Michaelangelo agrees to leave with Raphael.

Meanwhile the villains push April and Ace Duck deeper into the temple. April asks what Ace Duck wants the relic to find for him. Ace Duck says his father disappeared when he was a kid and he wants to find him. The geese want to send April to get the relic so she can set off any booby traps along the way. Ace Duck tells her to start on the left of the ramp and switch sides every three paces of the ramp will collapse.

April walks on the ramp and decides to purposely make it collapse. The bad guys get distracted and Ace Duck uses this chance to knock out their leader. April makes her way to the Heart of K'Avila and figures that it's alien technology and might also be booby trapped. April wishes she had a bag of sand to replace the weight of the relic, and decides to remove it anyway. This sets off another trap that makes the ceiling collapse. April wonders if the relic can answer any question, so she asks the Heart of K'Avila to show her how to safely leave the temple. 

The artifact creates a hand pointing in the right direction and April calls for Ace Duck to follow her. They both make it outside as the temple collapses. April notices that the temple is gone and asks the relic if the villains survived. The artifact says it only answers one question per individual. Ace Duck takes it and asks how April can get back home. April asks about Ace Duck's father, and he says he didn't really want a shortcut and only wanted to wish for that to prevent the bad guys from getting their wish.

Ace Duck asks the relic how April can get back home. The relic says she will return once the power of the anomaly that brought her there runs out, she will be taken back to where she came from. Ace Duck says she can take the relic with her since he doesn't want something like that in his world. April starts to fade away and returns to New York with the relic in hand.

April contacts the Turtles but they are currently busy fighting with an alien monster that came through Donatello's portals. April wonders what that was about and the relic tells her it has already answered her question. The Heart of K'Avila says from now on April will have to solve further mysteries on her own. April is fine with that.

Second Story-

The story opens with a villain running across the rooftops until a grappling hook wraps itself around his feet and trips him up. Raphael and Michaelangelo gloat about their victory when Mona Lisa shows up. The crook says that's not the Mona Lisa he's seen in pictures. Raphael says he has the right to remain silent. The crook says that only applies to cops and lunges at the Turtle. Raphael flips into a wall. The crook decides to exercise his right to remain silent now.

Raphael asks Mona Lisa where she's been. Michaelangelo says he misses her since Raphael always forgets to eat his pizza when she's around. Mona Lisa says she's been busy in New Jersey chasing down a man named Sneed. He was the former first mate of Captain Filtch, the person that mutated her. He is currently terrorizing the open seas with mutant coral monsters. Mona Lisa went on to fight them but after she defeated them she found out that Sneed stole a powerful weapon and sold it to a notorious mobster. The crook the Turtles defeated happens to work for the mobster and Mona Lisa wants to question him.

Raphael tells the crook that he has the right to speak after all. The crook says he can't talk because of what Don Turtellini would do to him. Michaelangelo asks if Don Turtelli is supposed to be in prison. The crook says Don Turtellini is the second cousin of Don Turtelli. The crook would rather go to prison that handle their tickle torture. Michaelangelo says if he doesn't talk they'll use a ninja curse on him. The crook asks what that is and the Turtle whispers it to him.

Raphael, Michaelangelo and Mona Lisa leap across the rooftops. Raphael asks what Michaelangelo said that made the crook talk so fast. Michealangelo says he told him that the ninja curse was that his pizza would never taste good again. The trio look through a skylight and see Turtellini and his men saying that they'll be unstoppable with their new weapon. Raphael, Michaelangelo and Mona Lisa bust in and start fighting against the bad guys. Turtellini tells one of his men to bring out their new weapon. 

Mona Lisa says it's good thing they're in a back up story or the fight might take a while. Mona Lisa then grabs Raphael as they jump out of the way of a laser blast. Turtellini is now wearing a robot suit and firing off more energy blasts. The Turtles wish Leo and Donnie were there instead of checking on different dimensions back at the lair. Mona Lisa says they got this, but Turtellini grabs her leg and tosses her into Michaelangelo. Raphael makes sure Mona Lisa is alright and Michaelangelo reminds him that he's alright too. 

Raphael leaps onto the robot suit and smashes his sai on the side of it. Turtellini makes the suit crackle with electricity which blasts Raphael off him. Mona Lisa notices that Raphael's attack opened up a hole that exposes the robot suit's battery. Michaelangelo draws Turtellini's fire while Mona Lisa gets behind him and yanks out the battery. Turtellini is now unable to move.

Later on, the trio celebrate their victory. Raphael says he does miss Mona Lisa and would like for them to hang out alone some time. Michaelangelo agrees and says they start now as he runs off with the rest of the pizza. 

My thoughts-

This was an interesting story, and it follows right after the events of TMNT issue 11. With all sorts of dinosaurs running around 'for weeks', Renet was wrong when she said the 'time hiccups' would only be happening for two or three days. Even though the Turtles made a cameo here and there, April still took center stage and it was still her quick thinking that helped save the day. For people that thing that April was always the damsel in distress, she would occasionally help the Turtles out of a jam or help save the day in the end.

Ace Duck makes his appearance, and this time he's an Indiana Jones type hero in an alternate world with humanoid animals. This actually contradicts the show where he seemed to be a character from a TV show or movie in the short cameo he had in Season 2 of the 80's show. The second wave of Playmates toys, we saw Genghis Frog, Baxter Stockman, Krang and Ace Duck released as figures just in time for season 2. Krang has been around since the beginning, and Baxter as a mutant fly and the Punk Frogs appeared in season 2, but I guess they ran out of ideas when it came to Ace Duck so he only had a cameo. The profile card on the back of the action figure made him sound like a pilot that was mutated into a duck that would hang with the Turtles.

Ace Duck also appeared in the Archie comics as a wrestler and also an alien pilot fighter in the IDW comics. It seems Ace Duck is always going to have a new incarnation every time he appears. 

With Ace Duck pretty much being Indiana Jones, we pretty much have a Raiders of the Lost Arc parody story. We got the giant ball, the geese pretty much looked like the movie villains (even though they never got named in this story, except for one of the henchmen) and we even get April making the 'Indiana Jones think pose' when she was about to grab the relic. Even though April and Ace Duck argued a lot at first, it was good to see them get along and work together by the end.

I noticed a few out of character moments though. While I understand they had Raphael want to go off on patrol for the back up story to happen, it was a bit out of character for 80's Raphael. He was probably the least pro active of the bunch so him wanting to actually go out and do something without being told to was odd. Also Michaelangelo acting like 'the moral support' of the crew might be in character for other versions of the character, but he was never quite like that in the 80's cartoon either. The writing has been so good for these guys so far, but I'd like to see the guys stay closer to their 80's characterization and not blend into how they act in other versions.

Master Splinter just assuming that April would return on her own after vanishing also felt a bit out of character. I know part of the joke was everyone assuming she'd come back anyway while McGuffin was worried about her, but I don't think Splinter would also shrug it off. He'd be worried about her disappearing and not coming back as well.

As for the back up story, we get to see Mona Lisa again, though the story acts like she visits the gang from time to time, and even trains with Master Splinter. She's still as cool as ever and keeps Raphael on his toes. She even caught him off guard by breaking the fourth wall. While she only appeared in one episode of the 

The comic is also slowly starting to add new villains, like the first mate of Captain Filch, who was never in the original Mona Lisa episode. Then we have Don Turtellini, and while he's a new character, it is referenced that 'the cousins of the Turtelli family' all use tickle torture. In the old series, there was a mobster named Don Turtelli appeared in two episodes 'The Great Boldini' and 'The Case of the Hot Kimono', but a very different looking Don Turtelli appeared in 'Burnes Blues'. I'm not sure if whoever was in charge didn't get the memo on either what the character looked like or if they had already used the name 'Turtelli', but one thing they both had in common was torturing their captives with tickling. At least in this comic it's not explained that they're both cousins and part of the same family. Seeing how they mentioned the Shibano-Sama and Hamato Koji retcon, I'd imagine they'd cover this one sooner or later.

Overall an entertaining story as April got to save the day, and we got to see Ace Duck and Mona Lisa.  Things are about to get crazy as issue 12 will have a massive TMNT crossover. Can't wait to check that out.