TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Continued # 39

 By Mark Rodriguez

The original Playmates toy line 80's cartoon had so many action figures that not all of them made it to the show. So far we got to see Ace Duck (who only got a short cameo in the cartoon, not a full episode), Scratch (as a member of the Pantheon), and Panda Khan. This issue brings in Wyrm, as well as bringing back Scumbug and Muckman and Joe Eyeball. Let's check it out.

 

"A Wyrm and The Muck" opens with the Turtles arriving at a warehouse and starting to climb alongside it, courtesy of Michaelagelo's grappling hook. Raphael says it's the third time that April used the panic button Donatello installed on her Turtle Comm. He's not saying they should stop rescuing her but they should give her a book on risk management. The Turtles find April tied to a chair. Leonardo says it's a trap and Raphael says he knows but they should go down there and see what's going on.

A voice calls out and Raphael takes a moment to remember that it's Scumbug. He says they haven't heard from him in a while and some bad guys should really drop them a card once in a while. Scumbug steps out and says he'd add them to his mailing list but they're going to be too busy getting destroyed.

Leonardo asks Scumbug if he didn't learn that they're not easy to destroy. Donatello says most roaches only need to get stomped once to figure that out. Scumbug says he never got stomped during their last encounter. Shredder couldn't pay so he left. Raphael asks if the reason he's back now is because he got a new cash cow. Scumbug starts to explain that he visited his cousin in North Hampton... but Raph tosses a sai at him, saying they don't have time for flashbacks tonight.

Scumbug says he'll destroy them with what he has in his box. Raph asks why they're not already rushing him. Leo says the box might have a bomb. The box contains a new mutant which says the Turtles look delicious. April asks why he sounds like he's from Boston. Leonardo tells Raph and Mike to deal with Scumbug while he takes on the new mutant alongside Donatello.

 

Raph attacks Scumbug and asks who's paying him this time. The mutant roach says it's not about money this time. Michaelangelo swats the gun out of his hand with his nunchucks and says revenge is cliche. Scumbug grabs his nunchucks and says he got his eye on a gold stockpile and Wyrm can help take out the security guards. He kicks Mikey into Raph and says Wyrm wants more than his cut of the take.

Before Scumbug can explain further, he almost gets blasted with his own gun. April pulled the trigger and said it was a warning shot. Scumbug dashes at her and says giving a guy as fast as a roach a warning is a mistake. He runs in and bites the gun to bits.

Donatello fights with Wyrm, and he grabs onto his wrist. Leo rushes in but Wyrm grabs him by the throat. He explains that he drains life energy and mutant energy is the tastiest. Leo grabs his sword and slices his arm off. Mikey is shocked to see that, but Raph is too busy fighting with Scumbug to notice. Wyrm says he can no longer pitch for the Boston Argyles, but then reveals he can just regrow his arm. He is still holding onto Donatello with his other hand, draining his energy.

 

Donatello reaches for something in his belt and then taps Wyrm on the shoulder. Wyrm tells him not to bother punching him since he drained so much energy he can barely feel it. He also adds that mutant energy tastes like pineapple. Leonardo says he didn't ask, as a pizza eater, he doesn't like pineapple. He tosses Wyrm's severed arm at him (which is something I never thought I would say when describing an adventure set in the 80's TMNT universe) and he finally lets Donatello go. 

Leonardo tosses a smoke bomb so they can retreat. Wyrm and Scumbug can't see anything among the dark smoke. The smell is also badly affecting Wyrm. Scumbug tells Wyrm to forget about them for now. Meanwhile, Michaelangelo and April help Leo walk while Raph helps Donnie. April asks about Wyrm and Scumbug. Leonardo says that Donnie put a tracker on Wyrm, so they can find them later. They need to regroup for now as Leo and Don can barely stand.

The smoke clears and Wyrm asks about the Turtles. Scumbug says he got what he wanted so now he can help him break into the high-security depository. Wyrm is still hungry and mutant energy means more to him than money. Wyrm tries to grab Scumbug, which he dodges. Scumbug kicks him back and says he should have known better than to team up with someone that doesn't respect money again. Scumbug runs off and says he hopes Wyrm starts. Wyrm asks why he has to be so fast.

Wyrm stomps angrily seeing that his meals have gotten away. He says he can't go back to fish and game after having tasted mutant energy. As he stomps, he ends up stepping onto Donatello's tracking device. He checks it out and figures out what it is. He realizes that if he waits long enough, the Turtles will end up coming to him.

At the Turtles' Lair, April asks Splinter how Leo and Don are doing. Splinter says they are resting but he doesn't know if they will fully recover. Professor McGuffin says he might be able to reverse the process if they can capture Wyrm. Raph complains that it falls on them and they're two Turtles down. Michaelangelo just had an idea.

Later on, Michaelangelo and Raphael meet up with Muckman and Joe Eyeball. Muckman is glad to help but asks if there are usually four of them. Michaelangelo explains that a bad guy hurt Leo and Don and they can't catch him alone. Muckman is glad to help as Raph is getting nauseous from the smell of mutated garbage-men. Mikey explains that Donnie put a tracking device on the guy so they can find him, but they need some things from TCRI first.

 

Later still they four are driving around in the Turtle Van. Mikey tells Raph that since the smell of the smoke bomb got to Wyrm, Muckman will knock him for a loop. Raph says Wyrm can probably smell them a mile away. Mikey says he got something to disguise the smell. Mikey suddenly tells Raph to turn left. They arrive near the docks and Mikey uses the tracker to hone in on the signal. Raph says Mikey is really loving this. Mikey says Donnie usually hogs all the gizmos to himself.

The signal is strong but the crew don't see Wyrm anywhere. Just as Raph asks if Mikey is using the device right, Wyrm leaps out of the water. He tells the Turtles that the wait made him hungrier and angrier. He will not only drain them of every drop of energy, he will make it hurt. Raph says they hear that all the time, and their main threatens to turn them into soup all the time. Raph and Mikey try to blast Wyrm with freeze blasters, but the mutant worm leaps out of the way. Wyrm says guns aren't very sporting off them as he tosses a trash can at them.

Wyrm punches Raph's freeze blaster to bits. Muckman and Joe Eyeball (in ninja turtle costumes) leap into action. Joe grabs onto Wyrm's tail. Wyrm says he can't drain him with that costume on, but he can still kick him off. Muckman and Joe Eyeball tear off their costumes and explain they weren't to protect them from Wyrm, but to protect Wyrm from them. 

Wyrm tries to grapple with Muckman until the smell gets to him. Wyrm says he couldn't notice it when they had their costumes on. He kicks him away and says he can't stand the smell since his entire body is like a nose. Muckman grabs him and says he's coming with them. Muckman and Wyrm trade punches. Raph complains the bad guys don't cry this much when they fight them and feels kinda jealous. Mikey uses his freeze blaster to trap Wyrm in a block of ice.

 

Raph and Mikey thank Muckman for the assist. Mikey notices he stinks a little less. Muckman says Wyrm might have gotten some of his energy during the fight, but he'll be fine. As they carry Wyrm off, he says he knows he was trying to consume their life energy but he asks if they think they fought fair. He says he can still taste the stink. Raph coldly says his heart is breaking for him.

At TCRI the next day, Professor McGuffin says the energy transfer has been a success and Don and Leo should be back to normal. Don thanks him but asks why Wyrm's attacks made them so thin. McGuffin explains that Wyrm leeching off their mutagenic energy affected their body mass. Leonardo asks what they did with Wyrm. The Professor explains that he was too dangerous to turned into the authorities, so he was fully frozen and placed in their deep storage vault. Once they find a cure for his need to consume life energy, they will thaw him out. We see the deep storage vault has Dr. Rudolph Cobrato, Skarrg, Tokka, Baxter Stockman and Scale Tail alongside Wyrm.

 

Donatello says luckily, worms can survive indefinitely while frozen. McGuffin nervously says they only keep worms there, clearly not mentioning the other captured mutant villains. Raphael says he's glad this is behind them since Wyrm creeped him out. He notices a strong smell and wonders what it is. Michaelangelo says Muckman gave him a good pizza recommendation, anchovies, onions and limburger. 

 

My Thoughts- 

Scumbug was such a weird case in the cartoon. He first appeared in the episode Night of the Rogues as Shredder recruited a lot of the Turtles' old enemies to either destroy them or keep them busy long enough for his own plans. We saw familiar faces like Leatherhead and the Rat King, but then they randomly tossed in Scumbug and Antrax, and the crew acted as if they've always been there. The Turtles didn't give the usual 'who are you guys' reaction one would give when facing a new villain, and April even mentioned them by name later in the episode. Like the comic mentioned, Shredder didn't really have the money he promised so Scumbug and the other villains just walked off. It was weird to see Scumbug come back with his own evil plan, but at least they didn't act as if they faced him multiple times cause, well... they didn't.

 

Scumbug starts the story but he quickly leaves so that Wyrm can take the center stage. I am surprised the Turtles didn't take Scumbug into account or even ask 'hey Wyrm, what happened to your buddy?'. I mean yeah, us the readers know those two parted ways, but Raph and Mikey would have no way of knowing that.

Wyrm was one of those bad guys that probably would have been too extreme for the cartoon without just removing his energy sucking (or blood sucking) abilities altogether. He's pretty much portrayed the way he (or similar characters to him) are portrayed. As a mutated flatworm, he only thinks about his next meal, though in this case he is mostly after mutant energy. It would be difficult for Shredder or any other villain to try to recruit him due to his dangerous nature. Someone that only cares about eating everyone around you just can't be trusted.

It was shocking to see Leonardo cut the guy's arm off, or rather this version of Leonardo. I guess he was in such a dire situation that he remembered what his sword was actually for. Then he threw his severed arm right back at him. I liked that at least Michaelangelo had a shocked reaction. Naturally this happened to a character that can simply regenerate his arm, but Leo didn't know that at the time. It reminds me of Dragonball where the character that usually gets his arm cut off in a fight is Piccolo, the one that can actually grow it back.

I did find it funny how Scumbug and Wyrm got paired up in this. They also were paired up in the Archie comics though in that version they were both enemies the whole time. They were fighting with the Turtles as much as they were fighting each other. 

As for the other characters, I always like to see Michaelangelo get some spotlight. He saw how the smoke bomb affected Wyrm's senses, so he decided to enlist Muckman and Joe Eyeball. Muckman and his buddy appeared in the episode 'Muckman messes up'. The thing that stood out to me the most was that Muckman and Joe Eyeball's voices were based on impressions of  Ralph Kramden and Edward Norton from the Honeymooners. I have to say, we got to see a lot more fist-fighting here than we've ever seen in the show.

 

Overall a fun story and it brought back some characters we don't get to see too often. Scumbug has appeared as a cameo in the several times the comic has used the 'let's bring every villain ever' crowd scenes, so it's nice to see him get some focus, even though he left early in the issue. 

One thing I didn't expect is a cameo of Scale Tail, which is yet another action figure character that never made it to show. He was at least in TMNT III Radical Rescue for the Game Boy.

I had to look up Skarrg. He was in the episode 'Convicts from Dimension X' and since it was one of those episodes where the Turtles didn't face Shredder or anyone from the toyline, I completely forgot about that one.

So we'll see what happens to the semi-last issue next time as the Turtles hang out with Metalhead and Mondo Gecko! It's really gonna bite when the series ends. It's the one I look forward to the most every month.