Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Battle Nexus # 2

 By Mark Rodriguez

Savanti Romero has captured Renet and Lord Simultaneous and also taken over the Battle Nexus Tournament. He has summoned the Turtles to face several opponents from across different realities. While at first they were surprised by the appearance of Slash, who they thought was dead, Leonardo is suddenly attacked by the Mirage comics version of Shredder!! 

 

The issue opens with the history of Savanti Romero's existence. He started as a son, a promising sorcerer and a husband, until eventually he would become a corrupted Time Lord's apprentice. He maintained his power until the Time Lords banished him. While this wasn't the first time, this time around he was sent to a limbo without time or energy. In this area, Savanti had lost his status, his companion, his freedom, but most of all, his power. His sanity soon followed.

Savanti spent eternity without anything to eat or drink, sustaining himself with magic and his own madness. He starts hallucinating as he yells at rocks, seeing them as the Turtles that had once defeated him. One day a portal appeared in front of him and Savanti wasted not time to leap through it and escape his prison.

Once back in the world, Savanti's power has returned with a vengeance. He shaved off his beard, shaved down his horns and trimmed his hooves, trying to look as young as he did when he was first banished. Now he has gained control of the Battle Nexus tournament and commands Leonardo and Shredder to fight. Beneath all that rage, Savanti's madness remained. 

The fight begins and Mirage Shredder says this won't take long. Leonardo says he's not the Shredder he knows. Leo leaps at him and Shredder easily takes him down. He says that Leo has always held back against him. Leo says he never fought him before. Shredder continues the attack, saying one must make decisions with lightning speed when in battle. He says he's not the Shredder he knows, he is 'so much worse'.

 

The other Turtles are tied up and forced to watch. Raphael asks who this Shredder is. Michaelangelo asks what Leo is doing. Donatello says he's hesitating. Shredder says Leo might have had a chance to defeat him if his 'rodent sensei' had given him better training. He says that Leo now faces a teacher and true master. This angers Leo, making him leap towards his opponent recklessly. Shredder kicks him in the face, calling out his mistake.

Shredder says he has looked into Leo's frightened eyes and sees he's just like the 'rest of them', weak and hesitant. As Shredder continue his trash talking, Leo tosses a kunai blade that knocks off the mouth-piece of Shredder's helmet. The Turtles cheer. Savanti sees that Leo is using his weapons to keep distance and that doesn't work for him, brother. He uses his magic to take one of Leo's swords and gives it to Shredder. Raph tells Savanti to stop cheating.

Shredder says the Battlemaster chose him out of every reality and existence because he hates Leonardo. Leo says he's not a big fan of him either. Shredder says it's not the same. Shredder says he might look like the Oroku Saki that Leo knows but he doesn't see him that way. In Shredder's case, it doesn't bother him so he will not hesitate and simply act. He'll destroy him like so many others.

Leonardo rushes Shredder, swinging his sword towards Shredder's shoulder. Shredder grabs him and runs him through with his sword. Shredder says he is beaten, which shocks the Turtles. Savanti laughs and says these versions of the Turtles were the weakest ones yet.

Leonardo fades away and the Time Lords tell Savanti to stop. Savanti blasts the mask off of one of the Time Lords. Raphael had had enough. He breaks free of the ropes and leaps towards Shredder. Shredder says he is not his to kill and vanishes. Raph hits the ground, but gets right back up and charges towards Savanti. As he leaps towards him, Ninjara kicks him back. Raph swings a punch, which she catches. She then smacks him back with a palm strike.

 

As Raph falls, Donnie and Mikey break free and tend to him. Savanti tells Ninjara that seeing her defeat Raphael gave him an idea. First he'll take care of the Turtles. Renet warns Savanti to stop using his staff since using dark energy this often can risk messing up the multiverse. Savanti asks if it's as bad as being stuck in limbo. He says reality deserves something bad to happened to it and he's just doing his part. He blasts the Turtles.

The Turtles appear in some sort of holding cell. Raph says this is probably where they'll be stashed in between fights, and he notes that Leonardo isn't with them. Don laments that nothing is ever easy. A shrouded figure says 'this set' of Turtles won't last long since they are already down by one. 

Raph asks the mysterious figure how he knows they're missing one of their group. The figure says he gets a great view from the barracks. Romero designed them as such so the fighters knows what awaits them. He offers to explain the situation to the Turtles, as he had done so with many others. Mikey says they already know the villain's name is Savanti. The figure tells them that Savanti has been bringing different versions of the Turtles and forces them to fight against his champions. Donatello finally understands that every time the villains mentioned 'the others', they were referring to alternate versions of themselves. Raphael asks how they'll get Leo back.

The shrouded figure says they don't get Leo back since he is gone. He explains that Savanti Romero knows everything about everyone. He knows everyone's strengths and weaknesses. He further explains that Romero doesn't want to just defeat the Turtles, he wants to hurt them. He brings them in from different realities and force them to fight people they know, or think they know. They face different versions of their friends, loved ones and enemies. This includes people they've betrayed, killed or let down. As this is explained we see examples of several fights like, Archie Comics Cryin' Hound who fights the Cowabunga Carl Mikey and Slash fighting against Manmoth and Traximus. 

Michaelangelo mentions Slash and asks how he survived and didn't try to reach out to him. He asks why he would work for Savanti. The figure says he doesn't have a choice. He says that every Turtle that has entered the arena has been defeated and then wiped from existence with dark energy. Just then Raph starts to glow as he is teleported away to the next fight. The Turtles watch the fight.

Raph is ready and asks who they got for him. He asks who they can possibly bring out that can hurt him more then he hurts himself. Just then Alopex shows up. Don and Mikey groan and the dark figure asks them who that is. Don and Mikey says she's Raph's ex.

 

Back Up Story-

Mr. Ogg explains that to prevent Savanti Romero from finding out about the Turtles that he got, he will keep the fights brief. The first match pits the Turtles from the 90's Live Action movies against the Mutant Mayhem Turtles.

90's Leo tells his team to look for openings, while Mayhem Raph charges forward and fights his counterpart. 90's Raph comments on his bandana, since his version looks more like a durag, and Mayhem Raph asks how he's not taller than him. 90's Donnie yells out 'Bossa Nova' as he fights and Mayhem Don asks if that's a type of music similar to K-Pop. As the Leos fight, the Mayhem version says they have to wrap this up because they have homework. 90's Leo is surprised that he goes to school.

Mayhem Mikey asks his counterpart if he wants to just improv while the others fight. 90's Mikey asks him who gave him his braces. Mayhem Mikey stops to think about it and 90's Mikey bops him with his nunchucks. 90's Mikey sits on Mayhem Mikey's shell and Mr. Ogg declares that the Mutant Mayhem crew lost to the 90's team.

 

My Thoughts-

When we first saw the preview of this issue with Shredder fighting Leonardo, it sounded odd to have the Mirage version of the character talk as if he has fought them several times. For the few that still don't know, the Turtles killed Shredder in the very first issue of the original comics. Any other time after that, the Shredder shown in the Mirage comics was a clone or someone else using the mantle. Now we know that he's been taking several versions of the Turtles before this story started. It still doesn't explain how this version of the Shredder is so strong and skilled.

The Mirage Shredder (not counting clones) has only fought the Turtles once and died in the first issue of the Mirage comics. At that point in time, the Turtles have only ever trained among themselves and had that opening fight against the Purple Dragons. The Shredder was killed by the Turtles when they were still, pardon the pun, green. It was four against one, but still. Now I can see Mirage Shredder taking down the goofier and sillier versions of the Turtles (I don't see the Coming Out of Their Shell Tour Turtles putting up much of a fight), but IDW Leo has had over 100 issues worth of battles against all sorts of villains. This fight should not have been that one-sided.

The fight had narrative purpose as it explains how Savanti rigs the opponents in his favor. He will purposely use opponents (or alternate versions of them) that the Turtles will have some sort of connection to. Even now we can already see that Michaelangelo is going to have a very difficult time even trying to attack Slash. I have zero idea what kind of personal beef the 2007 CGI version of Mikey would even have against Cryin' Hound. 

 

That was a cameo I never expected to see. Another one was the BayTurtles version of Leo and some other characters I didn't recognize that I'm sure the comment section will educate me on. 

Going back to Shredder, I hope they go into why he has such a 'white-hot' rage against the Turtles, to such a personal level. Again, he was barely alive long enough to know they weren't just guys in weird costumes, or to even know that their sensei was a mutated rat. Maybe Savanti showed him he was taken out like a punk early on and became a footnote in the grand scheme of things. That might have motivated him to get stronger so that he can fight at the level of skill he currently has. I know it sounds DBZ-ish, but I mean Savanti has access to all of time and space. Shredder could spend lifetimes training to get that good. I'm sorry but I hope the comic explains this and doesn't just go with 'Shredder was always this good, he just had an off day in Mirage # 1'.

As for the multiverse opponents, it is weird that Raph will be pitted against Alopex. I mean as angry as she is at him, will she really try to actually kill him? We already have Mikey and Slash from the same IDW-verse... and now Raph will face his version of Alopex instead of the 2012 version or something more random like Fishface or  Dark Raph from TMNT Fast Forward. Someone from another multiverse in a multiverse-based story. 

As of now I'm going to assume the dark figure is Last Ronin Mikey. He used words like 'awesome' and 'gnarly'. I also wondered why he was still alive to witness all the other fights, until I remembered that if it's Last Ronin Mikey, he'd be the only Turtle left in his particular set for Savanti to grab.

It looks like all the back up stories are going to be one page shorts. Not much time to see actual fighting or references. For what little we saw, we got a bit of them. 90's Raph points out Mayhem Raph's durag. 90's Don used 'Bossa Nova', and 90's Leo is surprised to find out that the Mutant Mayhem versions of themselves go to school. 90's Mikey even got to spin his nunchucks by the chain like he did in the movie. It's clever how Ogg mentions he has to keep the fights short so Savanti doesn't notice him since both multiverse escapades are happening at the same time. 

We'll see how things go next issue. Last I heard, they had a falling out since Alopex couldn't stand that the Turtles were working along with Shredder in order to face the Pantheon. How far is this grudge match gonna go?  

The last thing I want to comment on is... what the hell is going on in this panel? Leo rushes Shredder and does some weird spinning sword thing aimed at Shredder's shoulder or something? Huh??