TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 21

By Mark Rodriguez

The 80's TMNT always did thing differently when compared to the Mirage comics that inspired them. Characters and concepts like Bebop, Rocksteady and the Technodrome were made up from the cartoon, as well as things like April being a news reporter and Splinter being Hamato Yoshi himself rather than his pet rat. One of the things we've seen in several incarnations of the series is how Raph and Casey would partner up. 80's Casey is more of a nutball and guest character, so he never teamed with Raphael in the cartoon. Now finally we get a Raphael and Casey team up story in the 80's TMNT universe.

 

"Crime Spree" opens with the turtles complaining as Splinter wants to take them out to meditate. Michaelangelo asks why Raphael gets out of this, and Raph replies that he rules at rock, paper and scissors. Splinter says the city can live without the turtles for one night. Raphael will be joining them when he returns with dinner.

Raphael, wearing his trenchcoat disguise, goes to the local pizzeria and orders three large taffy and onion pizzas to go. Luigi says he just got fresh Jalapeños which would go great with pineapple and peppermint aioli. I think by now, the turtles got Luigi used to their weird recipes. Raphael decides to try that out for one of the pizzas when he's suddenly shoved aside by some punks.

One of the men pulls out a crowbar and demands all the money. Luigi says it's still Wednesday and there's hardly any money. The man says he knows how busy it gets midweek since he used to go to college in the area. Luigi asks what he went to college for. The man smashes a picture on the wall (of Vernon no less) and says he went to study philosophy so he's unpredictable. Raphael takes off his disguise and says they have to get past him first.

 

The man with the crowbar tells the others to attack. Raph dodges a punch from one of the guys, and then pulls his shirt up over him and kicks him into the others. The man swings his crowbar at Raph, which he dodges, and asks what he is. Raph says he's a Ninja Turtle, and the man says he never heard of such a thing. Raph remarks that since the guy said he was a philosophy major, he quotes 'there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt off in his philosophy'. Raph shoves a wastebasket over the guy's head. Raph tells Luigi that line was the big finale from a movie he saw called 'Hamlet VS the Martians'. A voice says they don't know about the quote but he gives the fight five stars. We see that it's Casey Jones and Raph asks what he's doing here.

Casey asks if Raph would believe he came for a slice. Raph says no. Casey says the real reason he came over is because there's war out there. He says businesses all over the city have been hit, and when there's that much coordination, there must be a plan. He's been chasing punks for the last half hour trying to get answers. Casey gets the wastebasket off the one guy's head and says it's his turn to talk. The man says he refuses to talk. Later on, Casey is holding the guy's leg, hanging him over a rooftop as Raphael watches. Apparently he has no problem with this.

The man explains that a new mastermind hired them to distract the police while he stole something on the sly. Casey knew there was some sort of plan at play. He tells the man he wants the details, before his hand gets tired. The man says the mastermind is after chemicals. That's the most he knows and he doesn't even know who the mastermind is.

Later on the bad guy is tied up and hanging off a fire escape. Casey he says he felt he should have broken his arm on principle. Raph says they're not doing that. What he will do is call the others to help. Raph sees that the Turtlecom batteries are dead. He says they're a bodega two blocks away where they can get some double-As. Casey says that will take too long and give the lawbreakers more time to evade justice. Casey takes off his hockey mask and says 'read my lips, we're pressing on'. Raph is surprised and says he always thought Casey was 35.

Casey says they're wasting time and there's lawbreakers to deal with. Raph says if it's just the two of them they'll have to work smart and need a plan. Casey's plan is to bash some skulls til he gets answers. Raph says the mastermind can get away with whatever he's planning while he's wasting time bashing skulls.

Raph thinks is mind control is involved, which usually happens in this series, Casey won't be able to make them talk no matter how hard he hits them. Raph asks if Casey can act well enough to convince thees guys that he's a crook.  Casey says he once got a standing ovation playing Humpty Dumpty in kindergarten. Raph says that will have to do.

Sometime later, a gangster is robbing a candy store, as he asks for all the money and a bag of saltwater taffy, except for the black licorice flavor. Casey comes in carrying a large bag with a dollar sign on it, saying he's the worst lawbreaker ever. Casey says he forgot where the criminal mastermind wants him to bring the big sack of money. The guy doesn't know about some mastermind, but he does know the Butcher wants everyone to meet up at the Schultz Warehouse over by the Williamsburg Bridge.

Casey thanks the guy and then hits him with the bag. Raph spills out of the bag and says he should have warned him before doing that. Casey didn't want to ruin his performance.

Meanwhile at the warehouse, April has been tied up and captured by the Butcher and his business partner. The Butcher said he didn't believe his plan at first, but the police are so busy trying to stop the smaller crimes, the places dealing with big money are unguarded. The mystery man says the chemicals he needs are also unguarded. April says they'll never get away with this and the Butcher says she'll be wearing a cement overcoat soon. The mystery man says April found them when nobody else could, but instead of calling the authorities, she tried to get a story. The man reveals himself to be the snake mutant, Rudolph Cobrato and the story is that he's back.

April asks how he got out of prison. Cobrato explains that since he was turned back to his human form, his lawyer proved he would no longer be a threat and got him out. Corbato went back to his regular life until he suffered a sudden relapse and mutated back into a snake. The only thing he was missing was his ability to control snakes, which he will regain once he has the right chemicals. Not wanting to be caught by the police if he were to steal the chemicals himself, he enlisted the mob to help him out.

Raphael shows up and knocks Cobrato back with a flying jumpkick. Raph comments that only did one of the deep cuts of their rogues gallery show up, Cobrato also explained his plans up front for him. The turtle sets April free. Apil asks about the others and Raph says they're back at the lair. Cobrato smacks Raph into a pile of boxes and says he was foolish to come alone since he can overpower him without his army of snakes. Raph says he never said he came alone. Casey smacks Cobrato back with his baseball bat. Casey says he feels like St. Patrick and Cobrato says that story was a myth. Casey hit him with an uppercut while telling him not to spread those lies in his direction.

As Raph unties April, she comments that it's weird to see him teamed up with Casey Jones. Raph says 'not according to the canon'. Raph tells April that they will keep Cobrato busy while she can tell the police what's going on. April asks if she should call the other Turtles instead. Raph says they'd never arrive in time and they have to stop Cobrato before he can regain his ability to control snakes. April runs off and hopes Raph know what he's doing. Raph draws his sai and says he hopes so too.

 

Casey knocks Cobrato flying back with a golf club. Raph low sweeps him as well as he says he'll never control snakes again. Cobrato slips out of his outfit, showing he's pretty much a huge talking snake, as he crawls down a sewer drain. He swears revenge once he regains his full strength. Casey asks if Raph intends to follow him. Raph says he won't fit through the vent. Casey calls him a slacker. Raph says that Casey doesn't have the shell so he can squeeze through the vent if he wants. Casey would rather go after all the crooks and break some heads.

Just then Tony the Butcher Vivaldi was still there and he called all of his boys to surround Raph and Casey. The Butcher tell them to carve his name into Raph's shell and reminds them that Vivaldi is spelled with an A instead of an O. Raph comments that he was supposed to just go out for pizza. Casey tells him not to whine, and that this will be fun. Casey gets ready to fight.

Later on, at the lair, Leonardo says that Raphael should have been back hours ago. Donatello says he probably wanted to get out of meditating and notices he can't reach him on his Turtlecom. April is on TV and reports that recent crime spree was organized by Rudolph Cobrato. The Turtles realize that they missed out on something major and Splinter says he was probably too rigid to keep them home all night.

April interviews Detective Longer who tells the viewers that they captured most of the gangsters but they weren't able to find Cobrato, The detective says they're also looking for a turtle and a hockey player seen fleeing from the scene. Leo wonders if the detective meant Raphael, and just then Raph returns and says he hopes so. Michaelangelo says he didn't even hear Raph come in. Raph says he's a ninja and he had one long night. Michaelangelo says he can't wait to hear about it, but he asks where their dinner is. Raph realizes that in the excitement, he forgot to go back to get it. The rest of the Turtles groan as they're all now starving.

 

My thoughts- 

I know covers are usually stylized, but I'm wondering where 'Raph and Casey trapped on a giant pizza' idea came from since none of that happened in this issue. 

So we finally see Raph and Casey work together one on one in the 80's cartoon style, and it went like you would expect. I can see Casey trying way too hard to act like a 'lawbreaker' and throw in the 'nyaaaa' that apparently 50's gangsters used. The bad thing about the comic is not knowing if Casey was still speaking in his Clint Eastwood style voice, or was he trying to imitate Humphrey Bogart? Can you imagine doing an impression of Clint Eastwood impersonating Humphrey Bogart?

I also enjoyed the back and forth between Luigi and the cook trying to rob him. Very in line with the classic cartoon where even the background characters would throw a joke in there or two. It's also worth mentioning, in case this is the first issue you've picked up, the artist Dan Schoening does amazing work drawing the characters look exactly how they did in the show. Some times the panels almost look like screencaps of some lost episode that never aired.

The comic has so many deep cuts that even Raph is using the phrase. All of the mobsters and crooks are a random assortment of thugs and henchmen the Turtles have faced throughout several episodes of their show. Rudolph Cobrat and Tony the Butcher Vivaldi are also obscure villains that have appeared in at least one episode. I swear Erik Burnham (the writer) must have the entire series on repeat at his studio because he really does dig deep into the show's lore and characters, no matter how obscure.

One of the cameos I didn't expect was seeing the old lady from the first episode (the one that pulled out a machine gun on the Turtles and April) being one of the store owners. Hey, granny went into business for herself! Good for you granny!

 

Another thing to point out was the fact that Casey Jones actually took off his hockey mask for a moment. Sure, his back was turned to the reader, but 80's Casey was so crazy, I thought he never took it off. This is the same guy that went for a job interview with a suit and tie, but still kept on the hockey mask and golf clubs. Instead of Raph saying 'he thought Casey was 35', I'd had him say 'I didn't know the mask could actually come off'. NECA released an action figure based on 80's cartoon Casey and it includes a maskless version. I guess, from what we saw, his look was based on this?

 

It was a fun story, though it seemed to end kind of abrupt with Cobrat just getting away and we didn't even get to see the fight against Vivaldi and his goons. I'm surprised we didn't see an additional scene of Krang and Old Hob still working on the dimensional portal. This issue was completely self-contained. 

Things will heat up in the next episode as Tempestra makes her return!