Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything # 1

 By Mark Rodriguez

Bebop and Rocksteady have always been everyone's favorite henchmen when it came to the TMNT. Even though other series gave Shredder assistants like Tatsu, Tokka, Rahzar, Hun, Karai, Fishface and Dogpound, this mutant duo will always be the favorite. IDW did a great job of making them nearly unstoppable threats, while still keeping their trademark stupidity and incompetence. I mean a few years back would you have believed that there was a comic where Rocksteady beat Donnie to death with a sledgehammer??? Well, their first IDW one-shot dealt with their mutation and their first missions for the Foot. Now let's see what other trouble these mutant morons can get themselves into.

The story begins within the Mirage Universe as Savanti Romero gets defeated by the Turtles and Renet. Savanti gets banished through time, losing his wife, his body and everything. He is then visited by two very unlikely time travelers, Bebop and Rocksteady.

 

Elsewhere, in modern day, Don takes the Turtles to visit the history museum to see a mummified woman he heard about. However what he really wanted to show them was what appeared to be the skeletal remains of Bebop and Rocksteady. The Turtles are worried that those two have gone back in time.

Bebop and Rocksteady are in Rio de Janeiro working for another gang, the Lamina Negra Commandos, but they are pretty sick of their incompetence, having sunk their ships and destroyed their robots. Their boss is also sick of being called Reggaeton by them and sends his robots out to kill them. This only pisses off the mutant duo.

Later on, Bebop is pissed that they're back to square one, kicked out of a gang. Rocksteady tries to cheer him up and says they can rob a few stores and fly back to New York. Bebop yells that they can't do that looking like mutants, and that there's nothing to go back to in New York since the Foot Clan is now gone. Bebop says it's the end of 'Bebop and Rocksteady' and walks off.

At the museum, Mikey notices that the amulet the mummified woman was wearing had swirling energy in it, almost as if it was asking him to touch it. As he touches it, energy shoots out and Renet appears before them.

Renet explains that the amulet was a beacon from a time master set to automatically teleport her there if it was touches by someone she knew. She reasons it has to be someone the time master knew since many people must have touched the amulet but it only activated when Mikey touched it. Renet then realizes that the mummified woman is her. Mikey explains that future Renet must have gone back in time in some point, died and become mummified but left the beacon behind so they could summon a younger version of herself if they touch it.

Renet says if she went back to the Cretaceous era, then it must mean that Savanti survived. She says Savanti had a plan to set off all the volcanoes that would upset the Earth's revolution around the sun which would make the meteor never hit it and thus never kill the dinosaurs so humanity would never evolve. The Turtles don't remember any of that and said they ran into some Utroms when they went into the Cretaceous Period but never ran into anyone named Savanti. Renet says that means the Utrom stuff hasn't happened to her yet.

The Turtles ask about when they met during the Battle Nexus Tournament and Renet seems confused that they were in it. Renet explains she's met the Turtles lots of times, but they must have been alternate versions of themselves. Raph gets back on point and asks what Bebop and Rocksteady are doing here.

Renet says is Savanti stole her scepter, a future version, then it's linked to the one she's holding now. She says it's on Earth and she gets ready to go to that location with the Turtles. Raph asks if it's in New York and Renet says the Scepter is on Earth, but not New York.

Back in Rio de Janeiro, Rocksteady remembers a devil-looking guy that wanted them to join him a few back. Bebop remembered they turned him down because they were loyal to the Commandos at the time. Bebop remembers that they stole a wand off of him and Rocksteady says maybe they can give it back to him and he can let them join his gang.

Just then the Turtles and Renet appear, surprised to see Bebop and Rocksteady instead of Savanti. The Turtles fight with them, trying to get the scepter away from Rocksteady. Renet asks if the bones she saw belonged to those guys and she's surprised that this is all taking place in this timeline.

 

 

Bebop wraps his chain around Donatello's bo, and as Rocksteady charges with the scepter, everyone pulls Bebop into him. As the mutants collide, the scepter activates and they're gone.

Bebop and Rocksteady find themselves back in New York and figure the scepter is some kind of 'magic travel thingie'. They decided to head back to their old hideout and lay low for a while. As they arrive they heard people arguing and decide to scare them off. As Bebop and Rocksteady scare the two guys, they notice that they're the pre-mutated versions of themselves. All four of them scream at each other. Bebop and Rocksteady have gone back to the year 2000, before they were ever mutated.

 

 

My Thoughts-  

 

This was a lot more interesting than I thought. The IDW TMNT have run into Renet before, but not Savanti Romero. When the first page was black and white with Leo's bandana being red, I thought it was a stylistic choice, but no, that actually was the Mirage Leo facing the Mirage Savanti.

And the adventure Renet told the Turtles the about, with Savanti wanting to prevent the dinosaurs from being extinct? That happened in the Mirage comics (which was by the way also adapted into a 2-parter in the 2K3 series).

The fact that Renet (the same Renet mind you) has met up with the Mirage TMNT, the 2K3 TMNT, the Nick TMNT and now the IDW TMNT is very clever, and a perfect way to throw in subtle references to other versions of the TMNT without being too jarring. Remember the episode in 2K3 when Renet met April and said 'remember when I showed you...' but stopped herself from saying it? Many thought it was a possible reference to Volume 4 in the Mirage comics when Renet helped April discover her origin as drawing. Well... now that we know that Renet has met both the 2K3 TMNT and Mirage TMNT, that's all entirely possible. It just reminds me how ironically, she's never appeared in the classic 80's cartoon, in which she would have fit in just fine with all the aliens and mutants and space things that happened every other week.

 

 

As for Bebop and Rocksteady, I like seeing the interaction between the two. It seems Bebop is the one most likely to freak out and complain about life while Rocksteady seems to be more chill in most situations. Bebop was right, going by their first one-shot, they were kicked out from gang after gang until they met the Foot and got mutated. But with Shredder dead and Splinter leading the Foot, they're back to being kicked out from gangs despite being mutants. That has to be frustrating.

We see the clear differences between the comics and the classic cartoon here. When in the 80's cartoon the Turtles see Bebop and Rocksteady as minor annoyances and waste no time in defeating them, here, they're downright terrified of them. I do think the proportions were a bit off though. I know Bebop and Rocksteady are pretty huge, but here they seem to be picking the Turtles as if they were little toys. They're not that huge, I don't think.

 

 

Anyways I can't wait to see the next issue. This one had a hell of a cliffhanger. I kinda wish I got the issue with the Back to the Future homage though. The main question... how did Mirage Savanti end up in Rio de Janeiro to run into Bebop and Rocksteady?