Leonardo: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
Mirage Studios Volume 1, Issue 1
Story & Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Read it at NinjaTurtles.com.  For real!

Tragedy Un-Struck

It seems my intent of getting one or more of these out a week hasn’t quite been pulled off.  Things have been busy of late here on the farm, with the silo tipping over and so many of my animals coming down with species-specific varieties of pox.  Hopefully that’s all done with now, and I can get back to what’s important.

It also seems that somewhere in the gulf of time since I posted the Leonardo #1 non-review that you monsters responded to by kicking me while I was down, ninjaturtles.com took pity and put up Leonardo #1. They saw how bastardish you all were being, and they thought they’d help me out. Just to let you know that they’re on my side.

Leonardo #1 seems to be Eastman & Laird’s cover version of Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” We’ve got most of the gang at April’s apartment, indulging in Yuletide frivolities, living their joyous little lives of indoor trees and radish rosettes, while meanwhile Leonardo is getting his ass handed to him by swarms of Foot.

It’s like when I was a kid, vibrating with impatience, wondering which of the latest Playmates variants — Frankenstein Michaelangelo? Slam Dunk Don? Full Metal Jacket Leonardo? * — would be finding its way under the tree, and one of those Sally Struthers ads would come on TV and remind of what an ungrateful little shit I was for feeling any happiness ever.

I never sent in any money to those charities.  I hadn’t seen enough All in the Family at that point in my life for Sally Struthers to have gained the profound influence over my life that she holds today, and I guess hungry kids just didn’t do it for me on their own.  Especially such horrendously ugly ones — woah, calm down there.  This isn’t a racial thing.  I’m not saying they’re ugly because of skin colour, I’m saying they’re ugly because they’re so thin.  We get all pissed off when we glamourize these toothpick supermodels in our society, and yet when when I make the same criticisms about over there, suddenly I’m the monster?  We ask you to check your double-standards at the door, here at the Perp.

Getting back to what matters, we’ve got Leonardo running through snowy New York, alternately chasing and getting pummeled by Foot ninja (side note: “Ninja” can be either a countable or an uncountable noun, further evidence of their adaptability), while the rest are trimming and decorating the Xmas tree at healthy American female April O’Neil’s apartment.  The issue leaps back and forth between the two stories, and all the while, in the background, we sense something.  There’s a build-up, a event is coming, a big one, until finally we witness the terrifying return of …

… Klunk the cat.  Much like Santa Claus, Klunk hasn’t been seen since last Christmas.  The thing is, in book #10 we’ll witness the Foot enter April’s place and burn it to the ground.  And I see no evidence that the escaping heroes brought Klunk with them, so I have to conclude that the cat died in the fire.  That’s very sad, and yet it’s still another way Klunk is similar to Santa Claus, who died in an electrical fire (and not, as is commonly believed, a chimney fire out-of-control) on Christmas Eve back in ‘41.

Rest in Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men, Klunk.

* For the record, I never actually wanted any of these hideous abortions. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about the infinite lame TMNT variants in the future.