There are a bevy of articles that I owe the geek community right now. I should be writing about Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 or Batman/Superman: Public Enemies (both are on their way, I promise!), but this last Wednesday, like every Wednesday, I headed to my local comic retailer (Time Warp Comics and Games, 555 Pompton Ave. in Cedar Grove, NJ, 07009. Give a shout out to everyone there) and saw something that needed to be addressed. As I thumbed through the regulars from my pull list, I saw something on the shelf that renewed a fire in my belly I had long since let die down. 

After the One More Day Spider-Man story arc, my frustration with Marvel and their treatment of the web head had reached an all-time high. One of the sloppiest re-launches in history had just occurred with Spidey (more like a lobotomy) and almost everything my generation had known and loved about Spider-Man was flushed down the drain along with the fact that Marvel had painted themselves into a corner...again.

Instead of letting the old crone that is Aunt May just die, especially after a séance with Madame Web confirming that Aunt May was at peace, and having Spider-Man take Mary Jane into hiding just like Luke Cage did with Jessica Jones, they have Spidey sell his marriage to Mephisto in order to push the reset button. Every "mistake" that Peter Parker ever made was changed and about 400 issues of continuity were erased. 

It was at this instance that I boycotted everything having to do with Spider-Man (except New Avengers, but if Jessica Jones mentions one more time she had a crush on Peter Parker in high school, that is being added to my boycott list as well). I wouldn't even play as him in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 except in the beginning when you have to. I accepted that my favorite Marvel character was dead to me and that maybe it was time I grew up a little and cut down my weekly comics list. 

Now, since I've boycotted everything past the first couple of issues of the re-launch (they made Mary Jane a superhero for cryin' out loud!) I don't know if anything has been resolved because I haven't read anything, but a small part of me died, much like the small part of Peter Parker that forever knows his greatest mistake was giving up his love for MJ. 

My two favorite super-heroes during my early years, like many people in my generation, were Batman and Spider-Man. I believe many people love these characters because of their humanity. Batman in more literal terms, Spider-Man in more figurative terms because even though he had super powers, the gamut of emotions and struggles he had to deal with hit close to home for many of us.

I like to believe they also gave us the most hope. Batman helped us believe there was always a way out of every bad situation as long as you properly prepared yourself. Spider-Man gave us hope because even through all his pain and torment, he still found true love and also found ways to persevere. 

This re-launch destroyed Spider-Man in such a way that I can't look at him anymore without feeling hate in my heart because I can't relate to a reset button no matter how hard I try.

With that rant out of the way, I go back to why this seething anger and hatred resurfaced months after the initial offense and ensuing boycott. While at the comic store, I noticed on the shelf the first issue of a six issue miniseries. It was the start of how Spider-Man's infamous Clone Saga SHOULD have played out and it opened with a one page, heartfelt apology from the folks behind it. 

I nearly ripped the issue to shreds on the spot, but, for once, a cooler head prevailed and I placed it back on the shelf with no incident. 

In my life, the Clone Saga was the first destruction of Spider-Man. At the time though, it was a more forgivable sin for me because I was a small lad and my knowledge of Spider-Man comics was limited to what had inspired me to read Spidey's comics, the Maximum Carnage arc (which is still the best Spider-Man arc I ever read).

The thing that fueled the anger was the fact that 20 years after the disastrously drawn out plotline, Marvel admitted, in print, to one of their greatest mistakes. As a fan, it was like a slap in the face. An apology will not fix the two years of wasted paper and ink that the Clone Saga caused nor will it bring back any of the characters who were bumped off after the fan base started warming up to them (unless this most recent re-launch decides to do it all over again so this way Marvel can really stomp on our hearts). 

I don't understand why Marvel feels it necessary to try to vindicate their mistakes by pressing the panic button whenever there is some negative backlash for their risk taking. I REALLY don't understand why they keep bringing these mistakes back up years after they have been forgiven in the collective consciousness only to re-open long since healed scars. All I know is I miss Spider-Man. I miss the REAL Spider-Man. The Spider-Man that I grew up with, that was married to Mary Jane, had to team-up with Venom every now and then to take on Carnage, and could still make some sweet wise-cracks. Get me Tom DeFalco RIGHT NOW! 

-Ray Carsillo

With this being the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mirage Studios and Ubisoft, who hold the video game licenses to the franchise, have been going all out with the shell-ebration. This includes a reissuing of some of the old 1980s action figures (which they were very kind to send me a Master Splinter figure; sweet!), a remake of Turtles in Time for the current generation of consoles, and the highly anticipated TMNT: Smash Up for the Nintendo Wii. 

Now that TMNT: Smash Up is officially available; I want to take this time to analyze the first original TMNT game for this current generation of consoles. The basic plot of the game is that Master Splinter wants to hold a special ninjitsu tournament to see how far the turtles have progressed in their training. The prize would be any of the items of Splinter's trophy room. Of course, there is a catch. Splinter, Casey Jones, and April O' Neill are all going to be participating as well. 

As the tournament progresses and a winner is about to crowned, the Turtles receive an emergency call from their old friend the Fugitoid saying he has been captured by Shredder. This is where you take over and progress through various fights before facing down Shredder and some Foot Soldiers. 

The plot is simple, as it should be for a fighting game. No one besides Shredder should be the final boss and the fighting mechanics are great. Ubisoft took the same fighting engine that was used in the Super Smash Bros. series so you can have four-player grudge matches and the game flows very smoothly. The game looks beautiful with some awesome settings and great interactivity in the levels. 

There are still a few things nagging at me though being a die-hard TMNT fan. First, the generic background music irritates me to no end. Can we PLEASE bring back the 80s theme? There wasn't even the new cartoon theme. I'll even take the "Go Ninja Go" rap from Vanilla Ice at this point. 

That isn't my biggest gripe though. My biggest gripe is that after being promised tons of characters, the list was suddenly shortened just before the release and instead of having hidden TMNT characters Ubisoft thought it would be a good idea to have three Raving Rabbids based on TMNT as hidden playable characters. WHAT?! 

No Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang (although they might try to pull off the Utrominator as an upgraded Krang without calling him that), Leatherhead, Baxter Stockman, Rat King, General Kragg, Wingnut, Ace Duck, Usagi Yojimbo, Tokka, Rahzar, Slash, OR ANY OTHER BIG CHARACTERS WE CARE ABOUT! Instead, we got the Turtles, Shredder, Splinter, Karai, April, Casey and...that's pretty much it. There were more stages than there were playable characters.

The most important thing about a fighting game after the fighting system itself is the roster of characters and TMNT: Smash Up sorely disappoints on this front. The majority of TMNT fans are still those of us who grew up on it and not catering to us is always a bad idea. I was really surprised with this considering the great job Ubisoft did when revamping Turtles in Time, but this really depressed me as a hardcore fan. Instead of trying to use this game to promote another franchise, Ubisoft should have concentrated on making this as good a game as possible.

Ratings are based on a score of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best. 

Graphics: 8.5: For the most part the game did look beautiful. Some of the settings were a little darker than I liked and when some of the large maps zoomed out to show all the characters on screen, it was hard to tell where everyone was, but for the graphics were mostly crisp.

Audio: 5.0: The generic background music irritated me and made me long for the good old days with the 80s theme song. The SFX were average and the voice acting was solid using the newest cartoon's voice actors, but they didn't record a lot of lines so they repeat themselves frequently. 

Plot/Plot Development: 7.0: The plot is not usually the strongest point for a fighting game. All you need is a reason to bring a lot of people together to duke it out and this game does that.

Gameplay: 8.0: The fighting mechanics are very good and all the characters have unique combos and special moves to fit their styles. Add in special Ninpo items like daggers, smoke bombs, and some mystical items that randomly appear on screen and you'll have a solid fighting game experience.

Replay Value: 5.0: An arcade mode, survival mode, and mission mode all make the game worthy of playing, including a nice amount of unlockables, but with none of those unlockables being characters from the TMNT universe, I have to dock this score a lot.

Overall (not an average): 4.0: This game reminds me of the original Smash Bros. for N64 and if this was two generations ago, this would be a great game. Unfortunately, it's not, so this game is not nearly as good as what we've come to expect from fighting games. A lackluster roster takes a lot away from the game and severely hurts the game's replay value because there are only a few characters to go through the game with. The engine is great and that is the number one aspect for a fighting game, but everything after that falls flat on its face and any TMNT fan will be disappointed at the very least, if not furious, over this game. A more casual fan might want to rent this just to take a look, but probably not. 

TMNT: Smash-Up is available now for the Nintendo Wii.

-Ray Carsillo