Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #15 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Andy Kuhn (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: A new development shows that not all turtles share a love for pizza product.

The Review: While you’d be correct in saying that I read this series purely for its entertainment value, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that reading TNMT is a brainless exercise.  Obviously, history will not look back on this title with the same reverence for its themes and character development as, say, Watchmen.  At the same time, though, the Turtles have moments that deserve to be taken seriously, albeit only mildly so.

Master Splinter opened the door to some fairly thought-provoking problems when he declared that conflict with Shredder will inevitably require deadly violence on the Turtles’ part.  Eastman-Waltz have never shied away from these kinds of conflicts, although they don’t attempt to examine them in much depth.  It’s clear that most of the brothers are troubled by the prospect, although Raphael takes a practical view of it: “It is what it is, bro.  No point dwellin’ on somethin’ you can’t control—sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #14 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Andy Kuhn (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: Sometimes you have to kill family to make family.

The Review: Let’s take a moment to bow our heads and pump our fists for the demise of the ill-conceived Ninja Turtles film.  I know I’m a bit late to the game where that issue is concerned, but after all, I had to wait for this issue to release before I had an excuse to talk about it.  Now that I’m no longer bound by my code of initial open-mindedness, I can finally say that the idea of removing the “Teenage” and “Mutant” parts out of the TMNT sounds just plain horrible.

It simply doesn’t make sense to, in the pursuit of making something contemporary, remove the very qualities which make it special or distinctive.  All of this is to say we should be grateful to Waltz for teaming with Eastman and delivering a comic that has enormous respect for TMNT tradition and history.  For older fans, it has got to be a thrill to hear Krang talking about his origins on the planet Utrom of Dimension X, battling against the “Neutrino scum” and reveling over the construction of his “Technodrome!”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Andy Kuhn (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: The Turtles must endure their most torturous challenge yet—the game of Twister.

The Review: All in all, the Turtles have had a pretty eventful first couple arcs.  Even though I picked up this title only a little more than half a year ago, we’ve had quite a few changes from where the Turtles stood then and now.  At any rate, they’ve definitely beat several titles from DC’s new 52 in terms of plot and character development, despite being nearly the same age.  The series has earned a breather issue, one where they can relax and regroup for a bit.

Eastman-Waltz seem like they’d rather keep riding on the momentum they’ve built, though.  To be fair, the Turtles take their fun wherever they can get it, so even with ninjas attacking from all sides, they can always deliver a few moments worth laughing over.  Still, it’d be nice to have an issue committed to the comedy side of things again.  An impromptu game of Twister (or at least some facsimile of it) is an amusing aside, but I’m looking for a bigger dose of humor than that.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Dan Duncan (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: Who says ninja have to play fair?

The Review: If you read my review last month, you already know I have a limited familiarity with the Turtles.  Somehow, rewatching those gnarly cartoons over and over, it never occurred to me that Master Splinter and the Turtles were family.  I guess I was too distracted by the creepy pink tentacles of Krang undulating from the ab-window of his mecha-body.  But then, I was six years old at the time, and thus quite stupid and rather prone to distraction—still am, frankly.

Eastman-Waltz have kept the family bonds among our mutant heroes front and center throughout this series, and dang if it isn’t my favorite part of the whole run.  Mainstream comics nowadays seem to be all about breaking up relationships, not building them, whether it be husbands and wives, best friends, or whole teams.  Heck, the X-Men have a complete internal meltdown two or three times a year.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #10 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Dan Duncan (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: He may be a humanoid rat, but he’s not the biggest rat at this showdown.

The Review: Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found the Turtles to be pretty lighthearted fare.  When you have a bunch of overgrown reptiles wielding traditional Eastern weaponry while chowing down on pizza…yeah, I’d say you have good reason to believe the story can’t be all that serious.  But in this series, Eastman-Waltz have crafted a tale that, while it retains all the silliness and charm that made it a hit, clearly wants to be taken as pure entertainment.

Part of their efforts includes portraying the Turtles as more dimensional individuals than ever before.  Understand, each of the brothers has always had his respective interests and personality which prevented him from being a total clone of the others.  But only in this series have they been refined such that their voices sound completely credible—human, as it were.  You might even say that their mutant, turtley nature has largely become irrelevant, which is nothing short of a major accomplishment, all things considering.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #9 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (story), Dan Duncan (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: Doesn’t matter how big a robot is once you stick a knife through its motherboard.

The Review: I don’t know exactly when it happened—though I’m guessing probably sometime in the seventies—but at some point weirdness became an attractive quality to the mainstream.  Think about it: NBC comedies, reality television, films like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter—it’s almost as if in our ever-increasing struggle for originality, we appreciate anything that produces surprise of any kind, however tepid or extreme.

Nowhere does that point seem more apparent than in this series.  In the opening pages, April O’Neil recaps the Turtles’ story up to the present day, covering their mutant origins, their training in the martial arts by a giant rat, and their rivalry with a mercenary cat with an eye-patch.  And that’s before we get to Michelangelo reminding Donatello, “…you forgot to tell her the part about us being reincarnated and stuff.”  So, yeah, this is some truly strange stuff at work.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (writers), Dan Duncan (artist), Ronda Pattison (colorist)

The Story: It’s generally not a good idea to take your girlfriend down a sewer on the first date.

The Review: The hot news this week is Michael Bay, director of the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film adaptation, plans to revitalize the franchise by removing the “Teenage” and “Mutant” parts entirely and making them aliens instead.  In my determined pursuit of objective review, I’ll wait to see how the movie pans out before getting rendering judgment, but even I can’t help feeling like Bay will have a lot of work before him to make this idea work.

I understand the point of these changes is to remove some of the hokier elements from the Turtles’ conception and make them more believable.  But let’s say we revise Superman’s origins so he’s an Earth-born genetic anomaly rather than the last child of a doomed planet who happens to be sent to our planet.  Sure, it’d be more sensible and less corny, but I doubt many people would see it’s an improved story.

The stakes may be lower here, but the changes are no less significant for the Turtles.  The loss of their “teenage” status would remove a major part of their endearing and enduring appeal.  True, their jocky mentality and mannerisms can get gimmicky and a tad annoying, but that’s what make these freaks lovable rather than terrifying.  I mean, how can you be scared of giant turtle-men armed with traditional Eastern weaponry who call you “Bro” and compliment you on the “Cute girl” you have passed out in your arms?

That unconscious girl, by the way, is April O’Neil, brought by Casey Jones to the sewers to meet his turtle buddies, who also happen to be the ninjas she claims nearly killed her some time back.  The intersection between the human and reptile characters of the series means our core cast is finally complete, though it may be a while—especially on April’s part—before they all fight as common allies.  Looking forward to much entertaining exchanges among them to come.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle #6 – Review

By: Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz (writers), Dan Duncan (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)

The Story: Allez ninja, allez ninja, allez!

The Review: It’s been rather fascinating to watch the development of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Co-creator Kevin Eastman and script-writer Tom Waltz have been combining elements from the Turtle’s original comic series and the first cartoon show, as well as bringing in some new twists and concepts for this new on-going title. Yet despite letting the origin go on for five issues, many of the ideas have felt under-developed. I’ll get into the elements I think have been rushed in the Musings, but as I haven’t been reviewing this series until now, I think it fair to just review this issue on its own. And honestly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #6 is pretty good.

The writing in this issue is very tight. The Turtles are out on patrol when they sight a pair of ninjas chasing a mysterious Frenchman. They follow, allowing us to see the brothers interact as a group. The chemistry between the four is great, and if there are some cheesy lines like “These dudes take their Ninja Vitamins today, or what?” and, “Holy guacamole…”, well, this is the Ninja Turtles after all. However, the Turtles are physically so close to their quarry during the chase that I found it hard to believe the ninjas never heard the Turtles banter. At the end of the chase, things turn deadly, and despite internal disagreements, the Turtles don’t step in to help either side. They’re left with an ominous warning from the Frenchman, and the lingering question of whether they did the right thing by not interfering.

In the aftermath of their run-in with the ninjas, the Turtles regroup with their sensei, and Donatello expresses some disbelief at Splinter’s account of their origin. Splinter claims they are all the reincarnated spirits of a feudal Japanese family, killed in an internal power struggle of the Foot Ninja Clan. The reader is left with the question of whether this is accurate, or a by-product of the psychotropic drug used on Splinter when he was a lab rat. It’s good use of dramatic irony, and a bold move to throw doubt on a character that has basically been portrayed as infallible since his creation.