Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter #4 Review

Welcome back my friends. Last time, Raphael and Chun Li were kidnapped by the uneasy alliance of M. Bison and Baxter Stockman in the hopes of extracting their psycho power and using it to power a weapon of mass destruction. As the other turtles and world warriors tracked the villains to their base, Raph and Chun Li attempted to escape, Raph staying behind so Chun Li could get away safely. While all this was going on, we learned that one of the many fighters captured by Bison was, in fact, The Shredder, who has broken free of his restraints and is likely looking to dish out some payback.

We open with Shredder rampaging through Bison’s lair, cutting down any henchman unfortunate enough to stand in his way. Stockman is naturally shitting bricks, but Bison seems surprisingly unconcerned that one of the deadliest ninja masters on planet earth is currently tearing through his compound looking to skin him Predator style. Instead, Bison’s focus is on the recaptured Raphael who is currently being loaded into one of the pods to have his Psycho power drained. Raph acts defiant, but Bison still tosses him in the pod and gloats like the supervillain that he is.

Elsewhere, Chun Li has escaped and met up with Mikey and Guile, Mikey giving Chun Li a big hug upon seeing that she’s safe. For all the problems this book has, Mikey’s crush on Chun Li is still incredibly cute.

Meanwhile, Stockman has had just about enough of all this bullshit. The turtles being involved is bad enough, but at worst, they would only foil his evil plot. Shredder on the other hand, Stockman will be lucky if what’s left of him fits in a glass jar if he doesn’t haul ass so the mad scientist is escaping while he can. And since Stockman has the worst luck, his escape root drops him right in the path of our remaining heroes. Upon seeing Stockman, Jennika finally decides to justify her inclusion in this comic and pins the scientist to the wall, threatening to cut his throat if he doesn’t tell them exactly what’s going on. Stockman spills his guts about the Psycho Bomb and mentions how they don’t actually plan to use it, only the threat of it, to get the world governments to recognize his and Bison’s (mostly Bison’s) authority. However, Donnie has noticed a part of the story that doesn’t quite add up. If they don’t actually plan to use the Psycho Bomb, why are they powering it up in the first place. Stockman admits that they are planning on testing the bomb in a desert in the southwest in order to demonstrate the destructive capabilities of the bomb to anyone who may not take the threat of it seriously. While the area slated for the test has a low population, our heroes still aren’t willing to allow civilian casualties and force the scientist to agree to help them shut it down.

Our heroes, with Stockman in tow, head towards Stockman’s lab, only to run into The Shredder, who is currently standing over a pile of bodies. As Donnie and Ken press forward with Stockman, Leo, Ryu and Jennika stay behind to square off with Shreddder.

Okay, we now have to talk about the moment in this comic that just pisses me off. We see Guile, Mikey and Chun Li freeing the captured fighters, and none of them are cameos from other Street Fighter characters. That alone feels like a waste, but it’s about to get much worse. Amongst the freed fighters is an anthropomorphic pigeon in a singlet named Pete. I don’t know who this character is but he seems to know Mikey so I’m going to assume that he’s an established character from the IDW comics. That’s actually not the bad part, that’s just weird. The bad part is who gets freed next, and it is the only, the ONLY, other Street Fighter character we see in this entire crossover. It’s not Zangief. It’s not E. Honda. It’s not Cammy. Hell, it’s not even Dan Hibiki. Who is it? IT’S FUCKING RUFUS!? That’s right, Rufus, one of the most universally disliked and intentionally annoying characters in Street Fighter if not Fighting Game history. He’s a complete and utter joke of a character, and not even a fun one like the previously mentioned Dan Hibiki. The fact that so many fan favorites lost out on a chance to be a part of this crossover, but somehow RUFUS got in feels like a punch for the collective nuts of every Street Fighter fan who spent money on this crossover.

Sigh Whatever, let’s move on. Leo, Ryu and Jennika are doing the best they can against Shredder, but even on a good day, The Turtles have a tough time against the leader of the foot clan, and right now, they don’t even have their full numbers so Shred head is promptly wrecking their collective shit. However, I do appreciate that out of the three of them, Jennika is holding her own the best, which does make sense since she was trained by Shredder. Long story short, Jennika used to be human, defected from the foot clan and, after being mutated into an anthropomorphic reptile thanks to a life saving blood transfusion from Leo, joined the ranks of the Ninja Turtles.

Meanwhile, Donnie and Ken have reached the control room and Stockman manipulates Ken into destroying the control console because doing so will make it impossible to stop the launch. Ken’s kind of a dumbass in this comic. But it gets even worse as Bison arrives to reveal that the coordinates for the bomb were not some desert in the Midwest as Stockman was lead to believe, but is, in fact, headed straight for Manhattan. See, the way Bison figures, blowing a hole in the desert only shows what the bomb is capable of, but wiping New York City off the map shows the world what Bison himself is capable of. If he demonstrates that he’s willing to blow up a major city, the world will see that he’s not fucking around and surrender to his might. And so, as Bison’s maniacal laughter echoes throughout the halls of his lair, our comic draws to a close.

First and foremost, Bison’s big villain speech at the end there was a definite highlight. To me, Bison is one of the best examples of a villain who is evil for evil’s sake and nuking Manhattan just to prove he’s not bluffing is exactly the type of cartoon supervillain shit I love this character for. The fight scenes and character moments were great, but honestly, I’ve kind of already said my piece on this crossover when we covered issue three and honestly, this issue hasn’t done anything to change that. If anything, it made things worse. Rufus will do that. In any case, all that remains is to cover the fifth and final issue. Join me next time when we finish this bad boy off.