TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 38

 By Mark Rodriguez

Hun was introduced as Shredder's right-hand man as well as the leader of the Purple Dragons in the 2003 TMNT cartoon. He became a bit of a breakout character, making appearances in other cartoons and comics. There was a version of Hun in the 2012 cartoon (though he looked more like Bruce Lee) and he has appeared in the Mirage comics and IDW comics. Now he's been brought into this 80's cartoon comic series. If anyone was ever curious how Hun would have worked in the 80's cartoon show... I guess this is it. 

 

"Here they be (Purple) Dragons" opens as the Turtles head to the Channel Six building as April called them for an S.O.S. They follow April to her office and find Casey Jones looking all banged up. Raphael asks him if he was trying to stop a bus from jaywalking. Casey tells him that the Purple Dragons got him. Raph says Casey mentioned them before, being his arch-enemies but also being small-timers.

Casey explains that was out on patrol as he found the Purple Dragons stealing 'Little Orphan Alien' toys from a warehouse. Casey starts to fight with them, but rather than run, they start laughing at him. The vigilante asks what's so funny and they say they can't wait to see him get his butt kicked. Just then a voiced calls out and Casey is shocked to see who it is.

Hun, now a mutated dragon (I guess?) asks Casey if he doesn't recognize him now that his new boss gave him a new makeover. He punches Casey, sending him to the ground and says the new boss can do the same to him. Casey says he will track down this boss, after taking care of him. Casey swings his bat at Hun but it snaps in half against his chest. This led to the beatdown that brought Casey to Channel Six.

 

Leonardo says if he's facing a mutant, Shredder and Krang might be behind it. Raph says he told him that he should have taken a Turtle Comm with him. Casey says he doesn't need their help. The Turtles and April give Casey a look. Casey says he might need some help this time since mutation is involved. He says they need Hun off the streets before he can cause real damage. Leonardo says they'll have to draw the Purple Dragons out. Raphael says they can set a trap with bait they can't resist, but he'll need April's help to get the word out.

Later on, April stages an interview with 'Dr. Don Tortuga', which is Donatello in disguise regarding an amazing discovery. Donatello shows a purple dragon statue said to be made of amethyst but contains black crystals that might be extraterrestrial in origin. The statue will be taken to TCRI where it will be examined for what they discover might change the ways humanity understands the universe. Irma cuts the feed and Donatello tells April they appreciate her help in such short notice. April says her viewers love it when she interviews the weirdos. Michaelangelo asks if they're sure the bad guys will catch this news segment. Raphael says they should since all the sitcoms are showing reruns now.

Sure enough, the Purple Dragons are watching the news and Hun thinks the statue will look good sitting on the TV. Shredder shows up and says the statue's extraterrestrial element could be the key to a new power. He says they will attack TCRI at once. 

 

Elsewhere, above Central Park, Major Ganz and his cronies appear in the sky and land in the river. These were the Indiana Jones type villains  that April and Ace Duck encountered in the April O'Neil special. They have tracked the Heart of K'Avila to this city but can't get a more specific location. April was the one that brought the mystical gem along with her when she returned to Earth. Ganz is angry at how difficult it will be to find the gem in such a large city. Just then they see a bus pass by that advertises April on Channel Six.

 

Meanwhile in TCRI, Shredder berates that Purple Dragons, saying if he wanted incompetence he would have brought Bebop and Rocksteady. Hun says he agreed to work with him, but not to the abuse. Shredder says he gave him his mutant power, and if he wants to keep his mutant strength, he'll talk to him however he wants. Just then, one of the Dragons, Mitch, tells Hun he found the room they were looking for.

 

The villains find the Purple Dragon statue. Shredder grabs it and it sets off the alarm. Hun taunts Shredder for triggering the alarm despite being a ninja. Shredder says it's time to escape, but the Turtles and Casey have arrived. Professor McGuffin says security is on their way and the Turtles will detain them in the meantime. Hun says Casey didn't learn his lesson the first time, but the refresher course is free. 

The fighting starts and Casey is able to hit Hun which a denser baseball bat than usual. Leonardo tells Donatello to take the professor to safety. McGuffin tells Leo not to destroy the room too badly since the insurance premiums are a beast already. Leo tells the others that it's up to them to capture Shredder and the Purple Dragons.

Michalangelo flips over Mitch and tosses his grappling hook at him. It wraps around his legs and make him fall. Raphael tosses his sai at two of the thugs, which taunt him for missing. The sai bounce off the wall and smack both men on the back of their heads. Raph reminds the readers not to try this at home, he's a trained professional.

Leo grapples with one of the thugs who asks if he's not going to use some 'dynamite ninja move' on him. Leo says a sleeper hold is enough. The guy fades out and Leo promises that he'll have a more epic duel against the next vigilante he meets. 

Hun tries to hit Casey Jones, but keeps missing. Casey the last time he was caught off guard by his strength and he also had his gang with him. This time Casey knows what to expect and the Turtles took care of the gang. Casey says he has a bat forged from a meteor that crashed into Mt. Kilimanjaro in '47, or at least that's what the guy at the sports shop told him. Hun is getting winded and demands Casey to fight him. Casey says he has been, and his strength is nothing if he doesn't have the stamina to use it. Casey hits knee with the bat and then knocks him out with a golf club. 

 

Casey says this was easier with the Turtles fighting the other gang members, but asks if they could have helped against Hun. Raph says they left him to it for hi self-esteem. Casey says he cares more about the results. The Turtles tie up the Purple Dragons and notice that Shredder is gone. Michaelangelo says he's so used to Shredder's grand monologues that he didn't even see him leave. Leonardo says he took advantage of the distraction. He asks Donatello is the security cameras caught where Shredder went. Donatello says no, and McGuffin says Shredder took out the security cameras with an explosive. Mutagen Man, who I guess is still not cured, says they can use this chance to upgrade security.

Michaelangelo asks if everyone wants to celebrate with pizza, now that they took care of the bad guys. McGuffin asks if they really should celebrate given that Shredder got away with the statue. Donatello says he wouldn't worry too much about it.

At the villains' hideout, Krang points out that Shredder wasted weeks recruiting a new gang and even mutating one them, just for a cheap cubic zirconia statue. Shredder is angry that he was fooled and he wasted his time and swears the Turtles will pay for this.

 

My thoughts-

So this was quite the story and a case of 'Hun and the Purple Dragons were there all along'. Apparently Casey is constantly fighting with them off-panel, which explains what else he's doing when he's not featured in a story. The comic maintains the Casey and Hun rivalry from other mediums though this one doesn't explain the why. 

Hun was a tough all-muscle guy, similar to his 2003 self, and he also didn't take crap from Shredder. You could say 2003 Hun also took crap from his Shredder, but those were actual death threats compared to James Avery's complaining. Also the 2003 Shredder looked and acted like he could actually carry out his threats.

The major disappointment though was we never got to see what the regular Hun looked like pre-mutation. I mean, at the very least we could have seen his human self getting enlisted by Shredder in a flashback. Shredder also said the mutation was temporary and Krang called it 'half-baked' so he also could have reverted to his regular self after he was defeated. In a way, we'll never get to see what the 'regular' Hun would have looked like, Fred Wolf style. 

While the rest of the Purple Dragons were made-up thugs, one of them was that nameless thug that was killed by Shredder at the end of the first episode of the 2003 TMNT series. Like I said, that version actually carries out his threats. Not counting Hun, this guy was supposed to get an action figure back in the day but it was never released, and even then he was just called 'Purple Dragon'. He appeared in the Dreamwave comics since the first issue adapted the first episode and was called John. Here he was called Mitch.

It's funny how this guy got so much attention, despite being a nameless thug that was killed in the first episode of a seven season show. He was the only member to almost get his own action figure. Dreamwave made a comic that was pretty much the story of how he was friends with a guy that grew up to become a cop while he grew up to become a gang member. Now he made an appearance in this comic when they could have easily used someone else, or just made all the gang member be made up characters.

 

One unexpected thing was the interlude which shows that Ganz and his henchmen have entered our world in pursuit of the gem that April brought to New York. I wonder how that's gonna play out as we are quickly counting down to the final issue.

I am very confused by the Mutagen Man cameo though. I could have sworn he was turned back to normal permanently at the end of issue 31. Not only that but he was now immune to mutations. 

Other than that, it was a cool issue and we finally got to see Casey use his head rather than muscle to take down Hun. It is still kinda odd to see him be so chummy with the Turtles in this series since he was more of a guest star in which you could probably count the episodes he appeared in on one hand. Here they are trying to make his dynamic with the team be somewhat closer to the Mirage comics and other mediums. The comic also started making Casey and Raph good friends to follow other versions. 

Some thing that came to mind over the years when thinking about the TMNT Archie comics, is if they would have eventually thrown in elements of the 2003 series had it lasted that long. If you look at the Archie Sonic comics, they started out slightly based on the early Genesis games and the 90's cartoons. Then they made up new enemies during Sonic's 'no-game' period until the Sonic Adventure games came out which brought out more characters to feature. The Archie comics also started taking heavy cues from the 80's cartoons and then started making up new villains along the way. Would we have seen Archie versions of Hun and Bishop had they continued? While the Archie comics are very different from this series, seeing them dip into the 2003 well with characters like Drako and Hun is probably as close as we can get.