By: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz (story), Mateus Santolouco & Mike Henderson (art), Ronda Pattison (colors)
The Story: Having pizza in hand is always a good idea, even when dropping in on a mutant psycho.
The Review: For a while now, I’ve been calling for Donnie and Mikey to get their fair share of the attention. It’s a sad fact of life that the most well-adjusted, retiring people are often the ones most overlooked, which is probably how the practical Donnie and good-natured Mikey got shafted in favor of their more temperamental brothers. Maybe it’s a bit of a lost cause; even though last issue ostensibly pu t Donnie in the spotlight, he ended up yielding it to Angel and Harold anyway.
Which is pretty much what happens to Mikey here, only with Hob, Slash, and Lindsey (Hob’s recent kidnapee) taking over the issue. As with Donnie, Mikey’s role is merely to connect with a different part of the storyline, then back off afterward. It’s sort of an awkward situation, really. Neither he nor Raphael, who accompanies him, have much to do in the scene except to stand around, offering their moral takes on the situation, which proves to be mostly irrelevant anyway.
As surprising as it was to see Angel and Harold suddenly acquiring new life last issue, it’s even more so to realize that Hob has actual, legitimate motivations behind his actions. His vision of a mutant army isn’t just about power; it’s about looking out for mutant-kind. Basically, he’s the Magneto of the TMNT universe, only with less brains, as his experiment-gone-awry with the disturbing Pete the Pigeon demonstrates. Less brains, but more heart. His protectiveness over Slash is unexpected, but it rounds out his character in a way that was completely absent before.
You can’t say the same of newcomer Lindsey, but as Hob himself proves, all characters on this series have to go through a bit of a learning curve before Eastman-Curnow-Waltz can figure out their place. For now, Lindsey exists solely as an info-dump, revealing the shortcomings in Slash’s development and adding fuel to Hob’s anti-human fire. As a means to Hob’s end, she’s not even that useful, since Slash ultimately takes Splinter’s blood sample into his own hands, curing himself and eliminating the only sample they have on hand.*
The other half of the issue is dedicated to the continuing drama of the Jones family, better known as Hun’s mission to be fiction’s worst father figure. Having made his last attempt at good parenting the previous issue, he switches gears completely by arriving with a full posse to kill his own son himself. And he nearly does it too, but for Angel’s timely intervention in her Nobody gear, Harold’s voice berating her remotely. Between her advice to rely on his support network and his flashback to his mom, gushing over his college acceptance, that should put to rest any worries April’s had about him drifting from her and school.
While my favorite thing about Santolouco on TMNT is how credibly edgy he makes the Turtles look, he proves perfectly capable of a gentler hand, too. Mikey and Slash’s pizza party would be cloyingly sweet if Santolouco didn’t pull off their chibi-eyed happiness with such commitment. It’s damn cute, is what it is. Then on the drop of a dime, Santolouco can turn it all around, returning to his usual fierce style, so that Slash’s psychotic rampage takes on Hulk proportions.
Conclusion: There’s a lot of talk, not all of it necessary, but it leads to some good developments for the remainder of the cast.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * That is, unless Hob reveals there’s more where that came from.
* So is Harold’s codename, “Kirbyfan,” a reference to Jack Kirby, of comic book fame, or Kirby, of Nintendo fame? It’s probably the former; I’d prefer the latter.
– I haven’t heard the term “whack job” in forever, so for that, Raphael, I salute you. Yes, they are indeed all a bunch of whack jobs.
Grade
Conclusion