Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #27 (IDW)

Via CBDB

writer: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz
artist: Mateus Santolouco

Like a lot of thirty-somethings, I grew up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Not so much the original comics, but the slightly later cartoon series and movies.  I loved those.  I was a Michelangelo guy, the freest of these half shell free spirits.  He was the one who loved pizza the most.  And I always loved pizza.  And because a lot of my early pop culture impressions had to do with color, this one stood out for me because his was the orange mask.  Green is my favorite color, and orange the second.  So, it just goes to stand.

Anyway, so I didn't grow up with the Turtles as a comic book phenomenon.  Like a lot of fans from that time, I wasn't even particularly aware of their origins, but of course the truth always was that they were among the earliest and most successful small press creations.  I watched as various efforts were made to make them relevant as comic book entities again.  Like a lot of '90s efforts, their Image incarnation was pretty grim.  I think one of the four was killed off, another maimed.  That sort of thing.  But I just never got around to reading any of this material.

Recently, they've become another of IDW's licensed properties.  One of the Turtles's creators, Kevin Eastman, is involved in this series (the other is Peter Laird), involved in the conception of the stories along with Bobby Curnow.  It's Tom Waltz who actually scripts.

This issue falls near the end of the "City Fall" arc, which rings fairly accurately with all those latterday Turtles adventures I've mentioned.  One of the Turtles has been turned (Leonardo, the one with the blue mask) and the others are trying to get him back.  A number of other familiar characters (Casey Jones, for instance, who is looking to get back into action, plus of course April O'Neil ) are present, while there are others present I don't particularly know.

It's disappointing, though, that the issue reads so generically, especially in terms of the villain.  Other than Leonardo's predicament, "City Fall" doesn't seem like a major arc as I know it from other comic book properties.  It won't convince anyone to care about this series if they don't already.  It seems much more geared to fans of the existing IDW landscape, which is fine.  I like being able to step into a story, any point, and feel at home.  That's not really the case here.  I don't feel like I'm missing anything.  I mean, I don't feel any compelling reason to continue reading, see what I missed, see how it ends.

It's disappointing.  But more power to the fans who have been a little more faithful to the Turtles' origins.