TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 35

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Pantheon has finally made their move and started attacking the city with an army of robots. The Turtles fight them off with help of Master Splinter, Metalhead, Mondo Gecko, Mona Lisa, Dirk Savage and Bakari. The Pantheon have their own issues as Krang betrayed them and took control of the robot army. Donatello managed to sneak into the Pantheon base just as the Pantheon returned! What will happen now?

 

"Perils of the Pantheon Part 3- Whoosh There It was..." opens in the Pantheon's flying fortress which is currently hovering above Manhattan. Donatello says he wasn't expecting everyone to come back so soon and gets away with his smoke bombs. Scratch asks if the Turtles are going to use smoke bombs every time they show up. The Pantheon heads off to find Donatello and Hob heads towards the computer room to regain control of the robots. Donatello hides from sight and plans to follow Hob to the computer room.

Back on Earth, Shredder tells Krang that he let the Pantheon get away. Krang says he still has control over the transdimensional portal and the robot army. He wants to have some fun with his new toys first as he reactivates the robots, as they were shut down earlier.

Raphael jokes about missing halftime when the robots suddenly turn back on and start attacking. Leonardo says that this time they're firing lasers. One of Dirk's men says more robots are coming their way and they will be outnumbered soon. Mona Lisa looks up and sees a flying hot rod. 

The Neutrinos arrive and blast the robots out of the way. Dask tells the Turtles that Donatello is in trouble and tells them to hop into the car. Leonardo asks about the robots still attacking the city. Dirk Savage and Splinter tell them that they will handle the robots.

Zak explains that Donatello got past the enemy force fields by using one of their ships. He found out that they can get past the forcefield by broadcasting a particular frequency... which happens to match one of their favorite tunes. The heroes get past the forcefield. Once inside the fortress, the Neutrinos offer to help but Leo says they should return and help Splinter and the rest. Michaelangelo and Kala hug and wish each other luck. Leonardo leads the ways as he has Donatello's signal from the turtlecom.  

 

Old Hob tries to re-establish control over the robots, but the main console isn't working. He says the error message he gets is the one he gets whenever Rat Queen's rats get into the wiring. Donatello is the one messing with the wiring this time. Old Hob catches Donnie and says he's giving control of the robots to Krang. Donatello kicks him back and says he did better wiring than that.

Back to the city, Mona Lisa and Mondo Gecko notice that the robots are actually attacking each other. Hob tries to angrily slash at Donnie saying it'll be costly to replace those robots. He tells the computer to warp Drako, Golgotha and Scratch to control room 3B. They appear in the room and surround Donnie. 

Scratch says they'll make some turtle soup when a sai bops him on the head. Raphael asks if Scratch knows how gross that sounds. Michaelangelo says if they want to make soup out of them, then they'll bowl them over. Leonardo agrees and sends Mikey after Drako and Raph after Golgotha. Leonardo fights with Hob and tells Donnie to get back to sabotaging the machinery. Donatello says machines is what he does. 

Donatello faces off against Scratch. Scratch reminds him that despite losing Rat Queen, Aka and Manmoth, they are still evenly matched. Donatello says he hasn't forgotten but he wasn't worried about him. He uses his staff to flip Scratch over his head.

Old Hob and Leo fight it out. Hob says bad guys always win since they ignore the rules the good guys have to follow. Leo says fighting dirty might get them ahead for a while but playing straight usually wins in the end. Leonardo says guys like Hob always look for a shortcut when the easier path to victory is usually a straight boring line. Leo catches his fist and slams him to the floor.

Golgotha says that Leonardo is incredibly naive. Raph says he thinks there's importance in being earnest. He grabs the top of Golgotha's hood and pulls it over her face. Mikey comments that Raph's puns hurt. Drako says there are more painful things than wordplay. Mikey bops Drako on the top of the head with both nunchucks.

While the others fight, Donatello ponders the best way to deal with the Pantheon. He can't use self destruct because it would take the city out along for the ride. He can't turn off the force field because the air force might attack them and the wreckage will still falls onto the city. Just then he gets an idea. He also bops Scratch, who was trying to attack him from behind.

 

Donatello figured a way to take care of the Pantheon and the ship without hurting anybody. He then smashes he console with his staff so Hob can't undo it. Donatello tells his brothers it's time to retreat. Hob tells the computer to start another transport, but the transport is offline. He tells the crew to bring the Turtles back so he can make sure they didn't activate a self destruct.

As the Turtles run, Donatello calls Zak for a ride, but they're still busy fighting the robots. Donnie says they have 60 seconds. Mikey asks what they will do if the Neutrinos don't show up before the Pantheon do. Donatello says they'll have to have a little faith and jump. The Turtles leap out of the ship, and luckily the Neutrinos swing by in their flying hot rod to pick them up.

The Neutrinos ask if the Pantheon will launch a counter attack. Donatello tells Dask that he made sure they won't be a problem for a while. On the ship, Hob notices that he's been locked out of the computer systems and the ship has been sent to a quantum jump. Golgotha asks where they'll be sent to and Hob doesn't know. The Pantheon's ship is sent off to who knows where.

The heroes in the city see the Pantheon fortress vanish. Mondo Gecko asks if it's over. Metalhead says the wireless power that was controlling the robots vanished. Bakari says the citizens of New York will have a lot to ponder as they clear the streets. Splinter thinks this might bring the city together. Dirk says it might cause chaos so he'll 'leak' that it was a training exercise gone awry. The public might kick up a fuss but will forget about it in a week.

Meanwhile, Shredder is surprised that Krang took this defeat so well as he lost the robot army. Krang says they might have failed to take over the Pantheon and use their power to destroy the turtles, but it wasn't a total loss. Krang says their dimensional portal is fixed, he has an upgraded android body and they got Shredder back (he was trapped between dimensions for several issues). Krang does wonder what happened to Old Hob.

The Pantheon fortress stopped moving, but Hob doesn't know where they are since he doesn't recognize any of the stars in our solar system. Golgotha asks if they're lost. Hob says they are for now, but when they get out of this they'll get revenge on the Turtles and Krang.

At the Turtles' Lair, Michaelangelo thanks the Neutrinos for saving them earlier (they were also the ones that warned them about the Pantheon fortress). Zak asks for seconds and Mikey says they only got four pizzas. Raph says the Neutrinos saved them from going splat on the street. Just then Leonardo gets a call from April on the turtlecom.

April tells the Turtles that a sasquatch is running loose in Grand Central Station. Leonardo says they'll be on their way. Raphael says every time they think they're gonna get a break, the universe pipes up and says 'not yeti'. 

My Thoughts- 

So we finally got to the end of the Pantheon arc as they are blasted off to somewhere in the Milky Way (I assume) which should take them out of the story for a good while. It's odd how this started and ended with the Rat Queen.

A few issues back. Mr. Ogg summoned all of the Turtles enemies, past, present and future, which included the Rat Queen. He sent her back but this was before he would later wipe the memories of everyone he brought over. Rat Queen tells the Pantheon about the Turtles so they seek them out. The Turtles escape their fortress but Old Hob gets dragged along for the ride and ends up on Earth. Hob teams up with Krang and helps him fix the portal to bring in the rest of the Pantheon. Then we have a contest between the different members to take their chance to defeat the Turtles in exchange for taking Hob's spot as the leader.

The Rat Queen teamed up with the Rat King and ended up in prison (I fact I forgot about in previous reviews but some of the reader reminded me of). We finally have the showdown between the Pantheon and the Turtles, as well as Krang's big double-cross, but after the dust settles... the Rat Queen is the only one still on Earth in prison. She might be the link to bring the Pantheon back down the line. 

Another thing to remember is that Aka and Manmoth were affected by Mutagen Man which affected their moral compass. They bailed on the rest of the team. Who knows if Hob will pursue revenge on them as well.

Krang has a point though. He still has his new robot body, Shredder is back, but the most dangerous thing is they now have a functioning dimensional portal. Uh oh.  

As for this three-parter, it was a fun story and it was great to finally see Mondo Gecko (and Metalhead) make an appearance in this series. I was still surprised to see Bakari here, since while he has appeared before in this series, he was never in the old show. Yeah, the Neutrinos were probably overdue for a comic appearance as well, since they have appeared in several episodes (more episodes than Mondo Gecko, Mona Lisa and Metalhead combined...) but I was a bigger fan of the others. Now that I think about it, other heroes that could have made appearances here were Casey Jones, Lotus, Muckman, Bugman and if you really have to... Zack. I wonder if we'll see Muckman and Bugman in this series down the line, even if it's just cameos. 

Overall, it was a fun story, and having the other heroes make appearances gave the story more of an 'all hands on deck' feel. Unlike the original show, this one left a lot of repercussions. I already mentioned Shredder and Krang, but Aka and Manmoth left the Pantheon and Rat Queen is still in Earth jail. On top of that, Old Hob now wants payback on both the Turtles and Krang. We'll see how the story continues whenever this plot thread gets revisited.