TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 18

 By Mark Rodriguez

Last time, Raphael was grounded for breaking one of Donatello's inventions and stays home while the others go to check out a food festival. He gets a call from Mona Lisa to help her investigate someone constantly breaking a new museum exhibit night after night. They encounter a mummy, who is actually mutated bandages named Bakari who explains he continuously breaks the device to prevent the release of a mutant villain named Ptah. Bakari was so busy fighting off Raphael and Mona Lisa who first thought he was a bad guy, that now he got them on the same page, Ptah has finally escaped into the modern world.

"Mystery at the Museum Part 2- That's a Wrap for Ptah" opens with Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello returning to the lair a little past midnight. They call out for Raphael and say they came home late since they checked out a 'Stormy the Dog' movie. Michaelangelo says they saved him a slice of pizza, while Leonardo says it was six slices. We know what happened to the other five slices on the way home. Donatello finds a note that explains that Raphael went to help Mona Lisa at the museum, but he can't tell which one due to the horrible handwriting. Leonardo says they better investigate, if their friends need help then the situation must be serious.

At the museum, Ptah is glad to be freed and is ready to start to take over the world. Raphael and Mona Lisa tell him the modern world is boring. Ptah says he has devices and knowledge of the world, so he knows exactly what he intends to conquer. Raphael tosses his sai and knocks the device out of Ptah's hand. Ptah says the device was disabled anyway and can't be used to imprison him again. 

Ptah shows he still has some tricks and pulls out something that looks like a pen. Raphael calls that out but Ptah says the pen is mightier than the sword. He uses it to create a portal. Raphael says he's supposed to explain his evil plan so they can surround him while distracted. Ptah says he predicted such a strategy so he's leaving now and warns the heroes to follow him at their peril.

As Raphael and Mona Lisa give chase, they ask Bakari what else the 'magic pen' can do. Bakari says it has limited control over non-living things. Mona Lisa points out that Ptah is now riding atop an animated Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. He intends to use similar 'trophies' for his armies. Bakari says the world has good people in it and he won't let him enslave them. Bakari uses his bandages to stop the dinosaur's movements and Ptah jumps off. Mona Lisa says they will defeat him and send him to jail or a zoo or 'wherever they lock up mutant bad guys'. Raphael says they still go to jail. 

Meanwhile at a new hidden evil lair, Krang is still working on bringing Shredder back, who is still stuck between dimensions. Krang says it's his own fault. If he had used the sword in Oklahoma for example, they would have been ruling the world by now, but instead Shredder has to rub it in the Turtles' faces and challenge them. Krang detects a build-up of Q-Trons in Central Park, but Shredder tells him to just flip the switch. A big jolt of electricity hits the room, and instead of bringing Shredder back, it trapped Bebop and Rocksteady between dimensions with him. Shredder wonders why he is getting punished when all he wants to do is rule the world with an iron fist. The poor guy isn't asking for much.

Back to the museum, Raphael, Mona Lisa and Bakari run into a room, and the mutant mummy uses his bandages to lock the doors behind them. It's all for naught as the door if forced open by animated prehistoric animals charging forward. Mona Lisa says that they need to lead Ptah outside since they can't risk something irreplaceable being destroyed. Bakari says the museum has been a good home to him and he also doesn't want it to be destroyed. He says Ptah is easy to anger and all sense of reason leaves him when he's enraged. Bakari knows just how to make him angry, and starts calling him a mediocre inventor.

As the fight continues, the other Tutles notice the commotion from the Turtle Blimp. Now that they found the right museum, Donatello detaches the glider part of the blimp. Bakari wraps his bandages around a wooly mammoth exhibit and slams it to the ground. Just then the Turtles ram the Turtle Glider into Bakari thinking he was one of the bad guys. 

Raphael explains that Bakari is on their side and Michaelangelo apologizes to him. Ptah turns the Turtle Glider into a monster, which goes after Donatello. Raphael says they have to stop Ptah since he has too much to work with in New York. Mona Lisa says they can lead him to Central Park where there is more living matter. Raphael tosses his sai into Ptah's face and tells the 'Egyptian Leatherhead wannabe' to follow them.

Ptah chases after Raph and Mona into the park riding on his Tyrannosaurus skeleton. Once in the park, he losses sight of Raphael, who is hiding and throwing his voice to confuse him. Ptah fires off blasts from his weapon, but they have no effect on all the trees and the device's power runs low. Ptah demands that Raphael shows himself, which he does. Ptah wants to end him, but Raph asks for his last words. Ptah grants his request and Raphael says he has two things to say. The first is that Ptah looks like Leatherhead and Krang got in a teleporter accident. The second thing is that he followed two of them into the park. Mona Lisa jumps on top of Ptah and he loses his weapon. 

Raphael catches the magic pen and uses it to get Ptah tied up with his own outfit. Raphael says there's no fuss and no muss, and he really enjoys being in an all-ages book. Mona Lisa appreciates Raphael coming to help her out and says she owes him a pizza. Ptah tears out of the bandages and says they haven't counted on his mutated muscles. Bakari forms his bandages into a mallet and bops him on the head. Raph reminds the reader that he was the one that tried to stop Ptah without bashing his fist into his brain. 

Michaelangelo asks what they do now since mutant bad guys usually escape or get trapped into some other dimension. He asks if they can just call the cops. Leonardo says since they're in New York, it wouldn't be the strangest thing they would have seen. Raphael tosses the magic pen over to Donatello so he can use it to undo the damage caused. Bakari thanks the team for the help but says he will have to destroy the device in case it is disabled. He fells bad that the museum will lose its new exhibit over this. Mona Lisa has an idea of a new exhibit that the people can get behind.

A week later, April interviews Dr. Aida Hosny on the new exhibit causing a bigger stir than the one they were originally  waiting for. Aida explains a vandal destroyed the original, and he was now arrested. The new exhibit is someone actually from ancient Egypt and he loves to talk. April wraps up the newscast.

During the epilogue, Ptah is imprisoned in Striker's Island Penitentiary. Ptah says he's the greatest inventor that ancient Egypt has ever had and he deserves to be in their finest palace. He says he's only imprisoned due to his assistant that betrayed him, a lizard woman and four turtles. A voice on the other side of the jail asks if he wants to destroy the turtles. Ptah says he wants to destroy them more than almost anything. We see his neighbor is the Rat King who says they will be very good friends. On top of that... the next issue promises the return of Old Hob....

My thoughts-

A pretty entertaining issue. I wasn't expecting Shredder and Krang to make an appearance as we see that Krang is still trying to bring Shredder back to their dimension. Of course their memories of being dragged into the Oggalympics were erased, so they wouldn't remember that. Ptah is an interesting villain, for the short time that we got to see him. It was funny to see him constantly being compared to Leatherhead, and I was expecting sometime for him to just yell out 'who the hell is this Leatherhead you all keep talking about?!'. 

I did like the commentary on exactly where the Turtles would their mutant villains since they do usually get away. Ironically, it reminds me of the time the Turtles and Frogs captured Leatherhead and were planning to just hand over a dangerous mutant alligator to the local authorities as if it were no big deal. He got away so we never got to see how that would have gone down. 

I liked the surprise ending with Ptah meeting the Rat King. Rat King was the first villain the turtles encountered when this comic became an on-going series, so even I forgot that he ended up just going to jail like a regular criminal. Then we have Old Hob returning next issue, so things are getting more and more interesting. 

I guess the only thing that might be annoying after a bit is how every single line of Raphael's dialogue is either complaining about something or another fourth wall break. I guess Mona Lisa isn't enough to bounce off of and he needs the other Turtles around to break up the constant fourth wall breaking. Mona Lisa usually looks annoyed by this which makes me wonder why she likes him so much to begin with. I did like the back and forth when Raph and Mona talked about whether or not Ptah would go to regular jail or the zoo or something. 

If there's one thing I would like to have Raph comment on, since he can't help himself, is have him comment on how their current adventures seem to happen so linearly where before 'they could have pretty much taken place out of order'. That would be an interesting thing to notice. I mean, usually in a case like Shredder being trapped between dimensions, he just would have back in the next episode somehow. Here we see that Krang has been trying for several issues.

Overall can't wait to see what's to come, as now we have an interesting mix of classic and new villains for the Turtles to deal with.