Black Magic - Untold Tales of the TMNT

SYNOPSIS
In the aftermath of the epic City At War incident, the criminal element of New York City is stirring. With the Foot Clan either in hiding or reformed by Karai, the various gangs and other criminal organizations make their moves against each other, as they vie for territorial control. Amidst this wave of violence, a new and potentially far more dangerous problem is spreading through the city at an alarming rate – a new drug known as Black Magic…

We open in the ER of a downtown hospital. Casey Jones has is storming through the hallways, ignoring the doctors and nurses trying to stop him. He’s furious. He finally arrives in a small room, where a young girl lies and a familiar face awaits, but before we can even guess who it is, Casey has slammed him against the wall. It’s Sid (from “Cousin Sid” - this however is a no-go, as Sid is appearing in new stories direct from Pete) and the girl is his younger sister Amy. Demanding to know how she got like this, Casey presses Sid hard for answers – ones he’s extremely reluctant to give. As it turns out she experimented with Black Magic and wound up overdosing. Torn between disappointment and love for his younger cousin, Casey swears he’s going to get whoever’s responsible and turns to the Turtles for help.

The Turtles agree to help, but warn that Casey will be on his own for a lot of this, as the Turtles don’t want to risk getting too involved with the gang problems, fearing their involvement may make things worse, just as it did with the Foot Clan. Don says he’ll stay and dig up whatever information he can on Black Magic. Casey, Raph and Mike head out and begin pressing local dealers and thugs for information, turning over whatever stone they can, eventually finding themselves Hell’s Kitchen, where they arrange to “meet” with a dealer named The Doctor (“because he’s got what you need…”). Pretending to be representatives of the “Kappa” gang, Casey, Mike and Raph are lead to an abandoned building where The Doctor runs his operations, but with Raph and Mike in disguises they can’t take off, they are refused entry. Raph tells Casey that they’ll “wait” for him outside, Casey agrees and is led inside.

The Turtles sneak to the roof of the building so they can keep an eye on things, and Casey tries to negotiate some sort of deal with The Doctor (in reality, he’s trying to get the Doctor alone so he can dish out some justice). Little does he know that The Doctor is suspicious of Casey and leads him into a closed room, out of view of the Turtles. Raph and Mike watch as Casey disappears through a door with The Doctor, but when The Doctor comes back out alone some time later, the duo realise something’s gone wrong. They contact Don and let him know what’s going on, who responds with some interesting info about Black Magic: when combined with another substance in exact measurements, it creates what is effectively a “zombi” drug, shutting off certain brain functions, and making those affected by the concoction totally subservient to those who give it to them.

Mike and Raph spring into action, chasing down Casey, dealing with The Doctor’s goons along the way and eventually find themselves in a massive underground area connecting to the sewers, where crates of Black Magic are being stored. Somewhere else down there, Casey has awoken to find himself in a sort of ritual chamber, bound in a fashion similar to those in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and confronted by a Haitian man with a tattoo of a skull on his face. The skullfaced man is going to force the zombi drug on Casey and just when things look bad, the Turtles bust in and interrupt the ritual. A brief battle breaks out, and the skullfaced man throws the mixture in Casey’s face. The dosage doesn’t seem like enough to completely affect him, but Casey reacts nonetheless, and Mike and Raph decide to grab Casey and get the hell out, setting fire to the crates of drugs as they do.

They arrive back at the lair, where Don has prepared a makeshift antidote using common pharmaceuticals. Casey recovers and although disappointed that the skullfaced man got away, the fact that the Black Magic cache was destroyed and that they know who’s behind it fills them with a sense of accomplishment. For now, Black Magic is no longer a threat.

Blood on the Streets - Untold Tales of the TMNT aka Tales #36 Sequel mk.II

After receiving a lot of positive responses to Tales #36, I decided to rework the sequel I had in mind and narrow it down to this story. The two major things people responded to were the action and the story, and both are elements I would like to up the ante on with this Tale providing intense ninja action with an intricate done-in-one story.

Picking up some of the story elements in Tales #36 that many responded so well to, this story would take a closer look at the status quo of the New York underworld following the major shake up that would have happened during and following the City At War arc.

Where Tales #36 was predominantly focused on the character of Gordon Miller, with the Turtles being more of an occurrence, this story would see the Turtles in the forefront, with Miller making more of a Commissioner Gordon style cameo appearance.

The story's action would once again focus heavily on the ninja aspect of the Turtles, and we will be able to see how well trained they are when they have to deal with both Foot ninjas AND heavily armed gangsters.

There would also be a heavy focus on the Turtles working together as a team, as brothers, especially during their fight with the heavyweight gang-leader.

Something else I would like to highlight is how the Turtles manage to keep tabs on certain aspects of New York's criminal element, which would be shown when Don and Leo examine the way the gangs have been moving and when Casey tells them how he heard about the arms deal. This could tie in well as sort of a carry-on from the relationship established with Miller and Whitmire in Tales #36, and could possibly even make reference to Nobody/Officer Longer.

Hopefully you like what you see!

SYNOPSIS:

In the months that followed City At War and the reformation of the Foot Clan, the gangs and powerplayers of the criminal underworld began vying for control over certain territories once held by the Shredder and the Foot Clan. Now, someone is aiming to become top dog in this villainous food chain, brutally waging war against the various gangs and heavy hitters for their territory, and with the police seemingly at a loss and Karaiís Foot Clan no where to be found, only the Turtles can do anything to put a stop to the violence in the streets.

We open on a police raid of a derelict building, believed to be a mob hideout. The police bust in only to find that, once again, someone has beaten them to one of the heavy hitting gangs/criminal organizations. Outside, we see that Leo and Mike are watching from a nearby rooftop, having followed the police trucks to the site of the raid. They are meeting with Miller (from Tales #36) who explains to them that the Foot have vanished (although there could still be some buried in the force covering for them) and right now, their big worry is the increasing gang problem. Miller offers to forward what files he can on to them to see what they can do.

The Turtles head back to the lair where Casey and Raph are shooting some hoops and Donatello is working on something. They seem to all be talking about something when Leo and Mike arrive home. After explaining the situation to Don, Casey and Raph, they check through the files Miller has given them and Don works out that the attacks have been aimed at gangs that have ties to the Foot Clan. They also manage to deduce who the next major target is likely to be, which all ties into what Casey was telling Raph and Don before Mike and Leo got back: word on the street is that someone has managed to get their hands on some heavy duty weaponry and that this new gang is the buyer. They all agree to check it out, and if it turns out to be right, then they may be able to put a stop to the violence and prevent this new gang from reaching the top of the underworld.

The Turtles and Casey arrive at the warehouse the deal is set to go down and are confronted by something they werenít expecting. The dealer is Lin (the traitorous Foot ninja who had infiltrated the NYPD from Tales #36) with an entourage of Foot clansmen! The buyers arrive, a group of thugs, led by the hulking Copperhead (tentative name), whose hulking physique and ugly mug put even Hun to shame! Our heroes formulate a plan, a way they can take care of the gangers and get their hands on Lin, and launch their attack.

In the battle that follows, the Turtles dominate the gang and take down some of the Foot clansmen, but seriously underestimate Copperhead, who proves to be more than a match for the Turtles. Lin manages to escape during the fighting, and as police sirens draw closer, the Turtles, Casey, and the gang leader all make their own exits. The police arrest the gang-members and Foot clansmen left in the building and secure the weapons. Later Miller meets up with the Turtles and they discuss the revelations of the evening. Miller thanks them for putting a stop to things before they could get out of hand, and our heroes part ways.

Too Good To Be True

I really hope this is for real this time...

http://gameinformer.com/News/Story/200711/N07.1114.1221.16217.htm

If so, the one sequel I have wanted more than anything has been realised! There is a God.

Thicker Than Water - The Sequel to Serve and Protect

Since the publication of Tales #36, I've had a lot of people emailing me about the sequel - when it will happen, what will happen in it, etc. Unfortunately, the story I'd conceived as a sequel was turned down, and I haven't heard either way on the subsequent follow-ups yet (though those stories are more along the lines of spin-offs,
rather than sequels like this one). So, out of fan curiosity and due to request, here's the sequel I pitched.

I have since pitched other stories involving the characters of Diamondback and Copperhead, so hopefully one day they'll grace the pages of my favourite book!
The intention was to create new, temporary villains that could come back every so often and kind of fill that void to stop people, both inside and outside the fanbase, continually asking for the Shredder to come back. But I digress...

Two Heads Are Better Than Three

I just received these from Andres this morning - pencils for my next Titan story. These images are copyright Mirage and Titan. I'm a sucker for big, lumbering, idiot villains. Triple Threat here was someone I wanted right from the beginning. There's a big spoiler in the last panel, so that can wait.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Dear Reader,

I've made my first proper post over at Good Idea/Bad Idea. Go. Look. Be enthralled. The End.

Love, Tristan.

Shade

Fragment Universe?!

A friend just pointed me here...

While I can't say I'm a fan of the fan-fiction (human/turtle homo-eroticism?), I can say that I dig whoever put this up. Their review of #36 is pretty much spot on, so it's cool someone got it and it's very cool that someone loves it as much as this. I dig the casting in the picture too - only shouldn't it be the Turtles from the live action movies?

Survivor of the Hard Drive Holocaust

If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that my Hard Drive kicked the bucket, taking everything with it (if you haven't just read down there a bit)... or so I thought.

I was stoked to find that these were on a flash disk I had tucked away inside a box in my wardrobe. Both of these were part of the sequel to Tales #36. The first are the renegade Foot Elite. The look wasn't something that would replace the traditional Foot Elite, just a special group amidst the Foot who refused to follow Karai (like the group that assaulted Precinct 5) - kind of an Elite Foot Elite. Anyway, these guys were the baddest of the bad, and the design was intended to be (in my mind) a much more streamlined version of the Shredder, taking elements of his design and the traditional elite design, and blending it with the common Foot soldier. The idea behind it being that they would be much more maneuverable than the current elite and much more deadly than your regular Foot ninja. They came in towards the climax of the story during a huge fight in a run down factory.



The second is probably my favourite (next to Diamondback). This is Copperhead, Diamondback's right hand man. Imagine Hun, but a lot less vocal, and a lot more bad-ass. He's kind of an Underworld urban legend - somewhere in his violent past he was shot up, took a bullet to the head and survived. The damage to his skull was repaired by a metal plate (hence the name), and the bullet to his head damaged his pain receptors, leaving him unable to feel pain. Diamondback and Copperhead were both the key members of a growing criminal syndicate taking territory from other smaller gangs in the vacuum left when Karai reformed the Foot. They also have a couple of very significant relics left over from the Return to New York arc that the Foot wanted from them.

Tristan's Titan Turtle Tidbit

Just a quick'un for the time being - I just received an email from Andres Ponce letting me know that he'll be handling the art on my next story for Titan's Turtle Comics "Two Heads Are Better Than Three" - which means a winning villain should have been picked by now. Can't wait to see both the kids' designed villain and Andres' work! I've been wanting to work with the dude since I saw his work in Tales #31. Hopefully I'll be able to work with the dude again on either a Mirage book or something else!

Here One Day, Gone the Next...

I have lost pretty much everything. Over seven years of art, scripts, stories, film work and ideas, everything I've ever worked on in any way, shape or form from a digital standpoint, has been taken to Hell with my hard-drive that decided it was time to die. No warning signs whatsoever, and now I'm back at square one on pretty much everything. Two projects I was really excited about have been savaged, all my Mirage work is gone, as have all the documents for Titan. All that survived was a horror western short I was planning on submitting to Heavy Metal.

Is it a sign?