Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #16 Dreadging the Ocean Blue

Issue Description

Master Splinter is at home in the sewers of New York City, where he's attemtping to contact the TMNT via astral projection.
Meanwhile, Mr. Null's henchmen, the cowboy named The Kid, is searching the jungle inside a helicopter, trying to locate the Turtles and their allies. Our heroes manage to escape detection and reach their destination: the Atlantic Ocean. April asks how they're going to cross the vast sea and the guys get to work building some rafts made from the debris found on the polluted beach (except Mikey, who takes the opportunity to do some surfing).
Once the rubber tube rafts are complete, Jagwar and Dreadmon bring fruit from the jungle so the TMNT and April will have food on their journey. Goodbyes are said and the heroes in a half shell set sail for America.
The group finds an island and decide to do some swimming and investigating. No sooner have the TMNT beached than they're attacked by a strange submarine that's equipped with robotic arms, which grabs the Green Team and April and stuffs them into its hull, carrying them off to an underwater headquarters.
Our heroes soon meet up with two other captives, Man Ray (aka Ray Fillet) and his diminutive buddy, a fishy dude from a species called Glublubs. Ray explains that he was swimming with some dolphins who were teahing him how to cope with his new body when he discovered the Glublubs. Unfortunately the fish folk's coral reef home has been the site for toxic waste dumping. While Ray and the Glublub were viewing the radioactive waste, they both became sick and passed out, eventually waking up as prisoners. The Turtles decide that they'll have to stop the illegal dumping and hatch a plan to escape. Ray uses his echo-location abilities to determine the thickness of the walls and discovers that the large mirror in the room is thin - which allows the Green Team to cannonball Mikey through the glass and create an escape route.
The TMNT find a group of men on the other side of the glass lead by The Kid - who tells the pirates (known as the Oceanauts) to capture the mutants alive. The Turtles have other ideas, however, and begin to kick Oceanaut butt. Ray runs down The Kid, who fires his pistol - the bullet narrowly misses Man Ray, but strikes the little Glublub in the chest, killing him. The murder enrages Ray, who starts to tear the ship apart. The Turtles try to calm Man Ray, but there's no stopping him - so they find an access pool that allows them to escape into open water.
Later, Man Ray and the Turtles bury their fallen Glublub friend on the beach, just as a shooting star falls from the sky.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (1989)

Publisher

Archie Adventure Series

Volume Description

Published by Archie Comics, this comic was based on mainstream version of the turtles. It started out simply retelling episodes of the then popular animated series but with the fifth issue the book branched out into telling it's own stories. Primarily written by Dean Clarrain the stories would often have an underlying environmentalist themes, over time the storylines grew darker and more mature. The series drew negative press when a storyline saw the death of the turtle's allies The Mighty Mutanimals in a massacre.

The three part "Future Shark Trilogy" which saw the turtles, Splinter and their ally Ninjara come to the aid of the older turtles in dystopian future proved popular with fans and elements and characters from the story were revisited many times in the series. For five issues the comic was renamed Cyber Samurai Mutant Ninja Turtles in a storyline that was set soley in the aforementioned future. By now the turtles fad of the eighties and early nineties had faded which meant lagging sales. Mirage wanting to put out their own color TMNT book made the publishers nervous of competition leading them to consider cancellation. Growing frustration of darker storylines came to a head when Clarrain and co plotter and artist Chris Allen submitted a time travel story involving the the future turtles Archie was displeased. The covers for the seven part epic "Forever War" were made with the belief that this would be final storyline of the series. Clarrain and Allen were dropped from the book and it was cancelled two issues later with the final storyline focused on a present Splinter telling the story of how pre-teen turtles picked their weapons written by Steve Sullivan and drawn by Brian Thomas.

Years later Clarrain and Allen would work on the second volume of Tales of the TMNT writing the original turtles for Mirage. It has also been confirmed they are working on completing the final storyline of TMNT Adventures "Forever War" with Mirage publishing it as part of the TMNT's 25th anniversary in 2009.

Collected EditionsTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 1 (#1-4)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 2 (#5-8)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 3 (#9-12)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 4 (#13-16)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 5 (#17-20)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 6 (#21-22)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 7 (#23-27)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 8 (#28-31)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 9 (#38-40)

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