TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 14

 By Mark Rodriguez

Mr. Ogg has returned and is angry that the Turtles continue to break the fourth wall. After getting rid of him once, he had returned with an event called the Ogglympics, and if the Turtles lose they'll be erased from existence. The Turtles defeated a dragon, but lost the second event which involved Creepy Eddie impersonating different versions of the Turtles from other shows. The tie-breaker involves the Turtles facing all of their enemies, past, present and future!

"What rhymes with Melee? (The Ogglympics Part 3) starts with Shredder and Krang confused as to how they arrived. Shredder thinks Krang was the one that pulled him out of being stranded in between dimensions. Krang is confused how he got his android body back. Mr. Ogg appears in front of them and explains he gave Krang his body back since he likes it better than his walker. Shredder remembers Ogg. Ogg says he also remembers them and explains he brought all the villains together to destroy the Ninja Turtles. Ogg asks if Shredder is in, or if he wants to get booted back to the dimension he was trapped in. Shredder says he was planning on catching up on his reading but he's always up for a little revenge.

LOL I love this writing. I can hear James Avery say this.

Raphael fights with Scumbug and complains how a B-Lister like Ogg is causing them so much trouble. Michaelangelo says he sounds pretty A-List if he's trying to wipe them from existence. Leonardo tells them to cut the banter and focus on the bad guys. Chrome Dome and Alpha One say their doom is assured. Leonardo says that they destroyed Chrome Dome recently and Alpha One was blasted to another dimension. He asks how they were able to return. Raphael says maybe they were part of a new toyline. 

Donatello says Mr. Ogg is supposed to be omnipotent, so dimensional transport should be child's play for him. Michalangelo says he wished he'd transport a pizza, since he was socked out by one of the other Turtles in the last event before he could finish his.

A mutant rat woman watches the Turtles fight, impressed by their skills. The Rat King approaches her and asks who she is. The woman introduces her as the Rat Queen. Rat King likes her confidence and says they can rule all of rodentkind if they team up. Rat Queen shoves him aside, saying she has no time for humans. She was brought to this place against her will and will find some way to turn it into an advantage.

Mr. Ogg appears by Rat Queen is notices she doesn't know who the Turtles are. He whisks her away back to where she came from. This anger the Rat King as he was still talking to her. Ogg says he was annoying her, just like he is now annoying him, and tells him to join the others in attacking the Turtles. The Rat King goes after Michaelangelo, who grabs him and flips him towards Baxter Stockman. Michaelangelo says he's glad they're all attacking him one by one like they do in the movies.

Leatherheard overhears this and agrees that they should all be ganging up on the Turtles. Slash agrees and the bad guys charge towards the Turtles, despite Shredder telling them to wait. As the villains charge towards the Turtles, Michaelangelo leaps over Rocksteady, leaving the mutant rhino to bump into Tiger Claw. Tiger Claw tells him to watch himself and shoves Rocksteady into Slash. Slash smacks Rocksteady away and Bebop starts attacking Slash in return. All of the bad guys start fighting against each other now.

Raphael calls the villains dumb. Leonardo says this is why they don't send a mob against a small force of elite warriors. Shredder leaps in and attacks Leonardo, telling him that not all of them are fools. Just then Lord Dregg appears and starts shooting energy blasts at Michaelangelo. The Ninja Turtle is confused as to who this guy is as he dodges all the attacks. Lord Dregg says he is their arch nemesis that always thwarts his plans and is angry that Michaelangelo doesn't recognize him. 

Leonardo fights Krang and tells Michaelangelo that Ogg mentioned fighting villains from their future, so they might not have met him yet. Raphael says he's not a classic like Shredder. Shredder thanks him. Raphael says it must ruin his day to know that someday Lord Dregg will replace him as their new arch nemesis. Shredder says it won't matter if the Turtles don't live to see that future. 

Donatello then asks Leonardo to repeat himself, and he mentions the villains from their future. Donatello tells Ogg that they won. Ogg calls for a time out and literally pauses the action. Ogg asks Donatello how they won if there are still many villains left standing. Donatello asks how they can have villains in their future if they lost and Ogg would have already have wiped them from existence. Ogg says he can't use semantics to win. Donatello says since he's omnipotent, he'll use any edge he can get. Donatello asks if he gives up, and Ogg says he will challenge this play and disappears.

We see a boardroom with comic book writers, deciding to use Lotus Blossom in an upcoming TMNT story, when Ogg appears before them. He asks the writers to rewrite the scene. The writers tell him that he can't let Ogg erase the Turtles because they're too popular. Ogg agrees to take the L but says he doesn't have to like it. Ogg vanishes, and rather than being shocked or surprised that a cartoon character appeared in front of them, one of the writers asks if they want to order more pizza.

Ogg re-appears at the battlefield and tells Donatello that he wins, but he will come back. Donatello says Ogg agreed to give up his power. Ogg says he never said he'd give up all his power, and asks how he liked it when semantics are thrown in his face. Ogg says to not mess up the timelines, he will send everyone back to the moments that they were plucked from without a memory of what happened that day. 

The Turtles are warped back to the beginning of the story, where they were fighting off the mutant billy goat, except the goat is gone. The Turtles are confused since they were sure they were fighting a goat, and Donatello suggest they scan their brains back at the lair to make sure they weren't hypnotized or something. Mr. Ogg watches them from a crystal ball and decides to end things there.

Mr. Ogg's angel and devil sides appear to complain when Mr. Ogg gets a call from 'the suits'. He's getting put back on the shelf since he's a B-villain at best. Ogg says he won't take that abuse and quit. His angel self tells him he can't quit since they were becoming relevant again. His devil self says he's been working on a merch deal for six months. Mr. Ogg says nostalgia sells, so he just has to bide his time while someone else picks up the slack. 

Elsewhere, the Rat Queen is warped back to the Citadel, where Scratch welcomes her. He tells her that the others are waiting to see her. They've seen what happened via their interdimensional transceivers and wants to know more about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Rat Queen is surprised Mr. Ogg didn't destroy them. Scratch tells her there hasn't been any space-time disturbance that shows that Mr. Ogg wiped them from existence. He says it's too bad for them, since oblivion is preferable to being on The Pantheon's radar.

My Opinion- 

This was a fun issue, and as you'd expect full of cameos. There are several stand-out moments, like the introduction of the Rat Queen that leads into the next story. The writing has been great with jokes that sound like they'd fit right into the original show.

There's also the fact that the Turtles haven't gone into the 'Red Sky' episodes just yet so they don't recognize Lord Dregg. I like the fact where Raphael and Shredder realized that Dregg will someday replace Shredder as their main enemy. I guess for the continuity buffs, we can say that this comic series is like an extended season 7 before they got into the Red Sky eps.

Speaking of Raph and Shredder, I just noticed this panel was a shout out to Mirage TMNT Issue 10, complete with the 'Issue 10' and '$1.50' shown behind them. It even had the purple-colored 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' font behind them.

A small letdown was the fact that the Turtles never got to fight or even acknowledge Tiger Claw directly. That would have made for a legit crossover into the 2012 series, since the 2012 Mikey we saw last issue was a fake. With all the bad guys all over the place. Rocksteady had more interaction with Tiger Claw than the Turtles did.

One thing I also noticed is that this issue would explain how Shredder would return after being trapped between dimensions.... except for the fact that Mr. Ogg sent everyone back to where they belonged at the end. Shredder is right back to being stuck between dimensions until Krang finds some way to get him back. I also noticed that the Rat Queen was sent back way before this happened, so it make sense that she would remember her encounter with the Turtles. This also means that technically this story can take place before the Usagi story after all, since Shredder would still be trapped between dimensions.

Overall a fun story full of 4th wall breaking nostalgia. I wasn't expecting to see the, I assume, actual IDW writers in the story, but I figured things were gonna go there the way the story was going. I mean the only thing that could have been more 4th wall breaking than that would have been Ogg flat out saying something like 'kids nowadays don't even remember the guy I'm a parody of anymore!'.

It does how much has changed with the ownership of the Turtles, seeing as Mr. Ogg is visiting the IDW staff and not Eastman and Laird. I guess it makes sense since they didn't do much with the 80's Turtles besides give them the rights, but it's still odd. Love their lack of reaction to Mr. Ogg appearing and disappearing.

Now let's see what will happen next issue as the Turtles will face The Pantheon, all new enemies to the series. However, they'll still be full of some familiar faces here and there.