Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #24 Review (IDW)

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, & Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Mateus Santolouco with Mike Henderson
Color: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow

City Fall part 3. While still interesting, this story is starting to feel bloated. And honestly, it might not be the story. I think it has more to do with IDW blowing their load with all their TMNT promotion and pretty much letting us know how this is going to end. While not everything is known, I feel like a lot the overall story has been laid out. Hopefully something will surprise me along the way, but I really don't know.

The issue opens with Karai training. The Shredder essentially tells her to stop whining like a child and come be useful. We then get another family moment with Casey have a dream sequence with his dead mother. If this issue has a theme, it's about broken families. Karai looking for acceptance, Casey needing to get away from his abusive father, and the Leo turning against his family. For as potentially deep as this subject matter could be, the issue reads flat for whatever reason.

We then see the Turtles following Hob to a warehouse. And it has taken a very long time, but Hob is actually interesting. I was more intrigued with him than anything
else in this issue. He's playing both the Turtles and the Foot, and I'm looking forward to seeing what his ultimate objective is. The highlight of the issue is Mikey trying to make friends with Slash. He gives Slash some candy, being the first kind act done towards Slash. Slash goes from a snarling monster to over-excited child in just a few panels. It's a different take on Slash, but that's a good thing not to just rehash what's already been done. I always like seeing when Michelangelo is portrayed as just generally decent instead of just a "party dude".

The Turtles might be ninjas, but seriously lack common sense. They walk into yet another trap, a reoccurring plot device in City Fall. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that the Shredder is there with "Dark Leo" (a really uninspired name) and he fights his brothers. Leo quickly defeats them all, which is fine by me. Leo has been shown to be a superior fighter and lets assume his brothers aren't trying to kill him. The Shredder has a really cliched moment where he tells Leo not to kill the Turtles, you know, so the comic can continue beyond this issue. But what's really weird is that four panels later, he tells Leo to kill them all. What? This is all on the same page, why tell him to not kill them and then to kill them with literally nothing happening in between those orders.

Dome-atello

Slash then busts in, looking for candy and fucking up a bunch of Foot soldiers in the process. It's another cliche moment, but it works. The Turtles escape with the mandatory "TO BE CONTINUED!" and the issue ends. Typically, I praise Mateus Santolouco's art, but this issue was not his best. He took a different approach to drawing the Turtles and gave them heads that look like domes without a lot of dimension. They look more like parody drawings of the Turtles. Hopefully this is not a trend that will continue.

2/5