Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #25
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Tom Waltz
Artist: Mateus Santolouco & Roda Pattison
Cover: Mateus Santolouco
“City Fall” continues, and while Casey is healing in the hospital Raph is out beating his way to some answers about where the Foot is keeping his brother. As for Leonardo, he’s still under Kitsune’s control and Shredder’s second in command. This still does not sit well with is granddaughter, Karai, who has plans of her own already in motion. The Savate also make it known that they are ready and more than willing to go to war with the Foot Clan. There’s also an appearance from some longtime favorites in this issue that should make fans pretty happy.
With so many characters, plots, and sub plots taking place, Tom Waltz is doing a fantastic job keeping everything together and fun with each issue of “City Fall.” This one seems to reinforce the theme of “family” as Waltz moves this issue along. The various dynamics keep things interesting as most of what’s happening is deeper than hundreds of ninja just fighting amongst themselves. Karai is very upset at being replaced by Leo as the Foot’s second in command, and there is an interesting scene where Shredder has to stop the two during an argument. It’s very reminiscent of when Leo would argue with his brothers and Splinter would step in. It was also good to see Mike step up and put Raph in his place. This was probably a long time coming, and it was a great change seeing it come from the youngest brother.
Once again Santolouco is back with some of the best visuals in comics. Along with Pattison’s colors, they bring the whole package to these pages as it’s not just one cool looking panel after another. The story moves along just as well as Waltz does with his words. The action scenes are some of the best, and no matter how many times you see a guy doing trick shots with arrows in comics, it’s always cooler when it’s done by a ninja! When the Savate attack Karai and her ninja there is a panel where she is just absolutely brutal. Now, when things need to slow down, Santolouco effectively pulls emotion out of any character he draws, Turtles included. It’s this amount of detail in his expressive characters that helps sell the emotional sequences in Waltz’s script.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a franchise that has been re-imagined, rebooted, and rewritten many times over. However, nothing like this has been done with them, and it’s one of the strongest interpretations ever to reach their fans and possibly snag a few new ones. I highly suggest giving the entire series a read and see what IDW has brought to the table!
Infinite Speech
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