Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #23 Review (IDW)

Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby, Curnow, & Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Mateus Santolouco with Dan Duncan, Ross Campbell, Andy Kuhn, Ben Bates, & Kevin Eastman
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Shawn Lee & Tom B. Long
Editor: Bobby Curnow

Spoiler!

City Fall continues with part two. This is a very different issue from the previous one. While the last issue was fast paced with a lot of action, this issue is more about exposition and set up. Sounds dull on paper, but here's the thing, when done right it can still be exciting.

The issue opens with some well done juxtaposition between Leo and the Foot, and Casey and the Turtles. A lot of times, juxtaposition can feel really cliched and choppy. Too often it's a tool used by poor writers to make it seem like they're most deep and artistic than they really are. But it comes together nicely in this issue. I like the differences in the language and the parallels in the art. Everything feels very intense in both stories.

The story then breaks off into two directions. The Turtles returns to the church to find a message from the grammatically challenged Hob. "EAST RIVER MIDNITE! CAN HELP U! HOB*".Really? He inherently knew English and could speak perfectly as soon as he mutated, but he can't spell "you"? It's a minor gripe, but still stands out as annoying.

The Turtles go and meet Hob who has teamed up with Slash. The more Slash we see the better. He's been used sparingly so far and I'd really like to see a lot more of him in the next few issues. Hob tells the Turtles that there is a street war coming, again reminding me of City at War, and that he wants the Turtles to join him against the humans. He says he will bring them to Leo if they will consider his offer. I'm curious to see where his Darth Vader logic is going, more than likely some kind of set up, but we'll see.

The best part of the issue is Leo getting brainwashed by Kitsune. Without going through it page by page, what happens is major points of Leonardo's life are retold, but in a twisted nightmare way that shows Splinter as cruel and Shredder as Leo's savior. There's also a large emphasis on how Leo needs to kill to protect his clan. All of the scenes that Kitsune shows Leo are drawn by their original artist. Usually when a comic has multiple artist in one issue, I hate it. There's typicaly no point aside from it being billed as an extra special super duper issue, but it's distracting and takes me out of the story. Having the artists come back and draw twisted alternative version
of their original art really works here. Plus I'm a sucker for having Kevin Eastman do any art in this series.

The issue ends with Leo being successfully brainwashed. With all the promotional art that's been released ahead of time, this comes as no surprise. The "TO BE CONTINUED!" at the end of the issue feels silly. Yeah, we know it's to be continued. Hell, we knew it was going to be continued before we read the issue. Again, minor gripes, but it's just unnecessarily silly and gives a Saturday morning cartoon feel to the end of a otherwise solid issue.

4/5