In the Maligna Saga – comprising the “Mighty Mutanimals” three-issue miniseries and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures” 21 and 22 (May-July 1991) – we continue to see writer Dean Clarrain’s principles in play: Keep the action moving, relate it all to the environment, and (of course) sell comics.
I remember being excited about “Mutanimals” in 1991, actively making a beeline for this spinoff in the comic shop. Man, kids take a while to acquire taste. On the other hand, I guess I can see why I liked this new team of animorphic heroes. The “TMNT” franchise (especially under Clarrain’s typewriter) further distinguishes itself from “X-Men” by having most of its mutants be half-man/half-animal.
Most of these mutants are concerned not about social persecution so much as environmental destruction; the latter was a much more present theme in public school teachings than the former. Though I wasn’t magnetically engaged to Clarrain’s lectures, I recycle my metal and aluminum cans to this day, even when living in cities that don’t make it easy.
“Mighty Mutanimals” miniseries Issues 1-3 and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures” Issues 21-22 (1991)
Archie Comics
Issues: “The Wild Angels” (MMM1), “Under a Big Black Sun” (MMM2), “Space Junk Face Funk Cyber Punk Thief” (21), “Ride of the Ruthless” (MMM3), “Rat Trap” (22)
Writer: Dean Clarrain (Stephen Murphy) (all)
Pencils: Ken Mitchroney (MMM1, MMM2, MMM3), Garrett Ho (MMM1), Byron Vaughns (21), Gene Colan (22)
Inks: Ryan Brown (MMM1), Gary Fields (MMM1, 21), Art Leonardi (MMM2), Mike Kazaleh (MMM3), Brian Thomas (MMM3), Gene Colan (22)
Colors: Barry Grossman (all)
Archie openly solicits kids to write in and say if they liked the “Mutanimals,” because it would determine whether they’d get an ongoing series. (They did; more on that later.) For now, Archie is tentative, as these five issues are all Turtles-Mutanimals team-ups, comprising a fight against alien cockroach queen Maligna, who intends to conquer Earth by destroying the environment for all but her roach hive.
Much-Maligned supervillain
Her design is scary-looking for kids, and she tosses out more aggressive threats toward our heroes than you’d find in the toon, such as her intent to marinate, roast and eat Raphael and Mondo Gecko. In that way, “Adventures” is “edgier” than the TV show, but compared to the Mirage comics the stakes don’t feel serious at all. I never have a doubt everything will be fine by whatever point the arc ends.
By the same token, I know the next threat will spring up immediately. Clarrain’s stories move, with dialog consisting of fighting banter and snippets of environmental lectures — a trait of Man-Ray, Jagwar, Dreadmon and Wingnut’s sidekick Screwloose. Leatherhead and Mondo Gecko round out the Mutanimals, although they don’t officially form the team yet.
In “Under a Big Black Sun” (MMM2), Clarrain pauses the rainforest-battle action long enough for Jagwar and Dreadmon to tell their backstories around a campfire, thus completing the explanations for all seven Mutanimals’ existence. (Amusingly, this distraction accidentally allows Maligna’s warriors time to hatch and sneak up on them.) Jagwar came from a human woman and an animal spirit, though it stops short of being a case of beastiality, since their offspring is magical. Jagwar, initially a human thief, is a voodoo-created werewolf.
The two “TMNT Adventures” issues in this batch bob and weave with the “MM” miniseries. “Space Junk Face Funk Cyber Punk Thief” (21) introduces a mutant I had totally forgotten about (because he wasn’t made into an action figure), even though he’s on the cover, flying off with hostage April. Created by a meteor strike near toxic waste, he’s an off-the-grid swampland environmentalist who gets merged with his most hated thing, technology, into Vid Vicious.
Vid is another Clarrain mouthpiece. Via this techno-villain, the author strains to make a link between discarded technological hardware and toxic waste. It’s a sidebar of environmental concerns I would’ve liked to hear about in more detail; I’m thinking of the basement of one newspaper I worked at that was filled with blocked-off rooms of defunct computers from decades’ past. How is such trash ultimately dealt with?
April the ninja newscaster
Vid Vicious peters out as a villain, as does Clarrain’s cool plot wherein Vid and Donatello are trapped on a floppy disk grabbed by Shredder. Rather than getting caught in a “Tron” world, they jump out of the computer screen as easily as they jumped into it. All Shredder does in “Rat Trap” (22) is use Donatello as bait to draw the other heroes into a trap, which he then bungles. Shredder is meaner in “TMNT Adventures” than in the cartoon, but equally incompetent.
Granted, he is more of his own man here. Last time we saw him, he was in prison. He has escaped off-panel and set up HQ at an abandoned warehouse in NYC, armed with several robot foot soldiers, but he’s not in contact with Krang or Bebop and Rocksteady. Perhaps they aren’t even his allies. (We’ll catch up with them in the next batch.)
Also of note is April’s divergence into a unique “TMNT Adventures” version, as Splinter – who lessons never rise about pseudo-profound in Clarrain’s run — begins to train her in the same way he trains the Turtles. I had forgotten April’s journey into martial arts starts so soon in this series.
She still works at Channel 6 at this point, but Clarrain determines to make that a less-jokey workplace than in the cartoon. Burne, Vernon and Irma are absent. As April files her story on her rainforest adventure from the previous batch, she chats with Malcolm, a normal colleague who is glad she has returned safely. Possibly he’ll be a love interest.
The storytelling of the Maligna Saga is mediocre at best, but the energy can’t be quibbled with. If you don’t like one “TMNT Adventures” arc, it’s like Midwest weather, just wait 5 minutes. In the next batch, we’ll check in with Krang on a toxic waste planetoid.