HEY, KID, YOU'RE   A LONG WAY   FROM NICKTOONS!

Some TMNT stuff was always meant for grownups.

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"THREADS" Plot/layouts: Ryan Brown • Script: Doug Brammer • Pencils: Fernando Pinto • Inks: Joe Rubinstein • Tones · L. Jamal Walton • Letters: Eric Talbot [In the dark recesses of history, it was the Greeks who first lit the bonfires of the humanities.] CREEEEK CREEEEK KNOCK! KNOCK! BASH! BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! [They were the first to put forth the concept that all events in life are linked to prior events...] [That they, in turn, are themselves the cause of what follows.] BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA! BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA!

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BUDDA BUDDA! BUDDA BUDDA! [It was believed that it was never in anyone's power to do one thing rather than another.] BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA! BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA! CRASH WOOSH! [This theory of an ordering and sequence of causes became known simply as... Fate.] BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA! BUDDA BUDDA!

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BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA Man A "Ooomph!" Man B "Aaaagh!" [Accordingly, neither the gods nor man had the ability to exercise free will...] [...As when someone is told to do this, and they instead do that. As if such was their fate all along.] Leatherhead "Sceee!" BRAKA BRAKA BRAKA! BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA! [The inevitable often combines the fate of one with the destiny of another.]

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[The whole world was thought to be a complex mass of threads, all of it interconnected.] PLOP! [With each new thread, the vast tapestry of life is woven larger...] Bulldog "?" [...And thus there is never a single event that is not caused...] WOOF! WOOF! GRRRR! GAAARR! [...By fate.]

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[But in the rush to live our lives, we often miss cause and effect...] SNAP! CHING! HONK! HONK! BEEP! SCREECH! GULP! [That event "B" occurs because of "A," and "C" as a result of "B."] Leatherhead "Aaaiiee!" SPLOOSH! [...And so on and so on...]

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[For such is fate...] SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF [...Since the beginning...] [...And until the end...] RREEROW! [...Of time.] SMAK! SMEK! SMAK! [Or so the theory goes. One that was even debated amongst the ancients.]

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[Finally, it fell to the philosopher Cicero to have the last word on fate:] ["There is nothing that is going to be in nature..."] CHOMP! ["...Which does not contain causes."] AAAIIEE! SPLOOSH! ["Causes working to bring that very thing about."]

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["All should understand that fate should be not the fate of superstition... But that of physics. An everlasting cause of things..."] Rat "Screee!" ["...Why past things happened, why present things are now happening..."] ["And why future things will be."] Other Utrom "What have you found there, Xeinos?" Xeinos "Something quite extraordinary." Other Utrom "Looks to me to be nothing more than a common mississippiensis." Xeinos "Perhaps... But I think I will keep him." Other Utrom "You and your pets Doctor... You and your pets." The beginning...