TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 15

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Turtles have defeated Shredder with his Forever Blade, and they have bested Mr. Ogg and his Ogg-A-Lympics. With most of their enemies defeated, the Turtles will face all-new villains. This issue introduces the Pantheon! While it's slightly based on the IDW concept, this line up will mix and match characters from different corners of the franchise. Let's check it out.

"Enter the Pantheon Part 1" opens as the members of this group observe images of the Turtles. Leonardo is the leader, but his heroic enthusiasm can be used against him. Donatello is the tech specialist but his curiosity can be an exploitable weakness. Raphael is the fighter but he loves to hear himself talk so he can be distracted. Michaelangelo is a doof, but he inspires the rest so that makes him a problem. 

Drako says they're hardly impressive and asks why they wasted resources observing them. Aka says the Rat Queen says they're a threat. Manmoth says he thought turtles were supposed to be slow. The Rat Queen says she has seen them fight and there's nothing slow about them. Golgotha says they might be their world's 'most fearsome fighting team' but their syndicate is bigger than that. 

Old Hob says they don't stay on top by ignoring threats. He brings up how the turtles defeated Mr. Ogg, who has limited power twice, as well as a guy from the dream dimension and a warlord from Dimension X. Despite using primitive weapons they still did all that, so they should be taken seriously. 

Drako wants a full on invasion. Aka says they want a profit, not war. Drako disagrees. Old Hob says that invasions lead to attention, which is bad for business. They went through a lot of trouble to set up their HQ in a pocket dimension but every time they smuggle things in and out of there they risk being found. Hob says the law barely knows Earth exists, so it can be used a hub for years without anyone noticing, if they do things right.

Manmoth asks if this means they're not attacking Earth. The Rat Queen agrees with Hob's more subtle methods. Manmoth asks about the attacks from Dimension X, which are hardly subtle. Golgatha says the humans are so gullible they thought the Technodrome was a hoax. He says the Turtles seem to stick to one city and asks if they can just avoid that city. Hob says the Turtles have a hero complex and if they start doing business on Earth, they'll eventually cross paths. Golgatha suggests convincing the Turtles that they're not a threat and making a deal. Hob says heroes never make deals. He notes that heroes do like to help other do-gooders, no questions asked, so that gives him an idea. He calls for Scratch and tells him to get the Troubladours. He has a job for them.

Days later in New York City, the Turtles tie up some bad guys, who complain they miss the days they just had to worry about cops and the guy in the hockey mask. If you ask me, they're better off running into the Turtles than they are running into Casey Jones. Raphael says they keep catching these guys and tying them up and asks if they realize how much rope costs. Leonardo says they get rope at a bulk discount. Michealangelo asks if they can grab a Mega Gut-Buster Special from Perry's Pizza. 

Leonardo says it's been quiet so they can call it a night early. Just then a portal opens on a rooftop, and Michalangelo blames Leonardo for saying it was too quiet. Small aliens in Shakespearean outfits arrive, calling themselves the Troubladours. One of the captured bad guys explain the name is probably a play on 'trouble' and 'troubadour', and another one says they might be from Jersey. Raphael comments that not every bad guy can have a cool name like The Shredder and The Foot Clan. 

Raphael leaps into action saying the aliens can come up with a better name after they get kicked back to outer space.  One of them raises a wand that activates a force field that knocks the turtle back. Michaelangelo swings his nunchucks at another alien, but can't get past the force field. Leonardo asks Donatello for any ideas. Donatello says he can't just figure things out at first glance in the middle of a fight. Just then one of the aliens slaps Raphael across the face with his glove.

Donatello figures out that the alien force field forms around the aliens so they can fight. They should be able to grab them and toss them, force field and all. Donatello flips one over his head with a judo throw. The aliens open fire with their laser guns, saying they can be thrown around but they can't actually get hurt, while they can still shoot them. The gang dodge the laser blasts and ask Donatello for any other ideas. Just then Leonardo sees another portal open up behind him.

Old Hob, Manmoth, Aka and Scratch all arrive to help. Aka uses a sonic scream to shatter the force field of one of the aliens. Manmoth punches right through the force field of another one. Hob uses a laser rifle to blast the force field of the third one. Raphael asks the others if they hate it when mutants with super powers and laser guns come in and do all the hard work.

One the aliens tells Old Hob that they weren't supposed to actually get hurt and this was all for a show. Hob shoots all three of them and they vanish. Michaelangelo is shocked they were disintegrated. Leonardo draws his sword and tells the Pantheon to explain themselves before they have a problem. Hob blasts his sword, and it vanishes from Leo's hand and appears in his hand. He explains that the gun was just a transport beam. 

Donatello asks who these guy are. Scratch says they are the greatest force in the universe. They have tamed planets, beaten warlords as well as whole galaxies. He introduces them as half of the Pantheon. Michaelangelo asks his brothers if a Pantheon is a group of gods. Donatello thought it was a building in room. Raphael says they have a real high opinion of themselves. Old Hob says they didn't choose the name, but it stuck. He introduces his crew to the Turtles as Scratch hands Leonardo back his sword. 

Leonardo asks why they're here. Hob says the Turtles have defeated warlords and omnipotent beings, so they stick out. He says to realize their next goal, they need help, and asks if they will come with them.

Suddenly, Michaelangelo wakes up in possibly the biggest disco party ever as almost every character that has ever been on the show is seen dancing, even the villains. Michaelangelo doesn't understand where he is or how he got there. The rest of the Turtles show up and Raphael says they had an epic battle where at one point Michaelangelo was almost eaten by a giant Gila Monster. Michaelangelo says the last thing he remembers was being on the rooftop with Old Hob and the others asking for help. Raphael says they did help them so now they're partying. Michealangelo asks why the bad guys are also there partying.

Leonardo explains they saved the entire universe this time around, so even the bad guys are grateful. Donatello says the Pantheon brought in all their favorite music and food. The Turtles are finally treated like heroes instead of monsters. Michealangelo says this everything he's ever dreamed of and asks where the pizza is at. The Turtles don't know what he's talking about.

Michaelangelo says he knew something weird was going on and that they'd never forget about pizza, and he wants to leave. The Turtles ask why he wants to leave since they're his closest friends. Michealangelo says they're family, as his brothers as well as everyone else at the party start to swarm around him.

Michaelangelo says this situation is like 'Imvasion of the Normal Brain Snatchers 3'. As he tries to get away, Leonardo says to remember how they saved the universe. Michaelangelo says he would never forget about that, just like he's never forget about pizza. Donatello and Raphael knock him back, as the villains tells him that he will have to fight them all forever. Michaelangelo says he would like to wake up now, but then hears a strange sound.

An alarm is sounding and Hob asks Golgotha what is causing it. Golgotha says one of the Turtles is fighting against the mental conditioning machine. Hob asks if it's 'the science guy' but Golgotha says it's Michealangelo causing the trouble. He says they underestimated him and if he breaks the simulation, it will break the machine and they won't be able to control the rest of the Turtles. Hob says three out of four isn't bad and he shuts off the machine, releasing Michaelangelo.

Old Hob tells Michaelangelo that he's in a special room being brainwashed alongside the others. He plans to make them members of the Pantheon so they won't cause trouble whenever they bring their criminal empire to Earth. He explains that Michaelangelo turned out to be too stubborn for the process. so now the Pantheon is going to have to deal with him the old fashioned way. All of them are ready to attack Michaelangelo, leaving our party dude in a rough situation.

My Thoughts-

I guess after the Turtles have faced most of their major enemies from the old show by now at least once, they finally decided to go with all-new villains. While the Pantheon in the IDW comics are literal gods, here they are more like intergalactic gangsters. The writers decided to be clever and used them to reference several characters from other TMNT media, so let me get the references out of the way.

Old Hob is of course, based on one of the major villains and somewhat anti-hero of the same name from the IDW series.  He's the first villain the Turtles fought in the IDW series, which started things off fresh as he was a new character. He's a much snazzier dresser here, and also much calmer and devious. 

Scratch is based on the cat mutant that came late into the Playmates toyline and the original release is very difficult to find. The action figure was released so late, Scratch never made it in the cartoon, but he did appear in the Game Boy game TMNT III Radical Rescue. 

The original design went with the cat-burglar pun, seeing he's a mutant cat and all. He's more of a butler in this version, so they added the stripes onto his outfit as a clever callback. He also appeared in the original TMNT Adventures Archie comics, though with a different design.

Speaking of the Archie comics, Manmoth is also based on a character from the Archie comics. He was mutated from a caveman mixed with a wooly mammoth.

Drako is based on Lord Drako, one of the original villains from the 2003 TMNT show. He's usually involved in plots involving the Battle Nexus tournament and has actually fought Splinter in the past.

Aka is based on the member of the IDW Pantheon with the same name. In the IDW version she's a woman with owl wings, while they went with full on mutated owl woman.

The Rat Queen is the multiverse version of the Rat King, except a woman and an actual mutant rat. Finally Golgoth seems to the be only original character in the group. 

As for the story itself, it's cool to see new villains since now we have characters with different motives than what we're used to. Old Hob is the leader and the most level-headed one, and we see enough little personality traits and quirks to sort of understand their deal. Hob, Scratch and the Rat Queen seem to be the ones with the better defined personalities so far. Manmoth is obviously the muscle and Golgoth might be their science guy. This time their plan lies in taking out the heroes in a pre-emptive strike before making any plans for Earth. In a way we can trace this back to Mr. Ogg, since it was his accidental summoning of the Rat Queen that set this off.

This comic also brought up two things that this comic book series loves to do. One thing is having these huge cameo fests of characters. This is probably the third time we've seen as many villains and whatnot appear all at one time. This time they even went deeper with some of the mutants from the Red Sky Havok storyline. Even that one Stone Warrior that got into music from earlier in this series made an appearance.

The other thing is sometimes when the Turtles are shown doing whatever they're doing before the story comes to them, is showing them defeating some of the small time thugs and criminals that appear on the old show. We've seen the Badd Family and the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang, but this one really takes the cake. This time the Turtles are seeing tying up those random guys that robbed April's apartment in the Season 2 episode 'New York Shiniest'. Like these guys didn't have names. I'm actually surprised I remembered them. Unlike the Badds and the Turtle Gang who had actual episodes centered around them to varying degrees.... these are literally just some guys that were just there to help fill up episode time. These IDW guys must be popping in TMNT DVDs in between stories to keep looking for deeper cuts to add per issue. 

Speaking of cameos, how many times is Lotus Blossom going to cameo before she finally has a prominent role in this series?  

As for other references, the screens showing the Turtles to the Pantheon are based on the character select screens from the original TMNT arcade game. We also have Leo, Don and Raph wearing their disguises from the second TMNT episode 'Enter the Shredder'. 

Back to this story, I do like how the story acknowledges the importance of Mikey to the team. I do wonder what simulations the others were trapped in compared to Mikey to the point where he was the only one able of snapping out of it and trying to escape. Maybe they just got lazy and said 'well he's a party dude, so just throw one big hell of a party and the doof won't knw the difference'. I wonder if the story will go more into that in the second part. With Michealangelo facing the Pantheon on his own.... how will he get out of this one?

The last thing I want to add is that we're back with Dan Schoening who draws the Turtles and company as if we were watching stills from the first season. The only issue I have with this it this time is I'm not sure the members of the Pantheon are drawn quite to 'what if they were in the old show' style the way Renet was. I can't put my finger on it, but while the characters do look fine and I like their designs, something about them quite don't perfectly mesh with those season one TMNT character designs. I'd say out of all of them, Rat Queen and Manmoth have the most 'what if they were actually on the show' look to them out of the team.