Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #34
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #34
Script by Tom Waltz
Art by Mateus Santoluco
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Who’s your favorite Ninja Turtle? Mine’s Splinter. He’s wise, he’s cunning, and he doesn’t need a weapon to fight those other ninja punks. Splinter’s a survivor, the cranky old man who’s seen it all, did it all, but issue 34 really throws his methodology into question. He only shows up for a page, but it’s a crucial moment used to throw the comic into perspective, and it also gave me a break from the issue’s exceptionally annoying main story.
Donatello is out with April and the humans, trying to gather team members for his technodrome assault project. Donnie pays a visit to scientist friend Harold looking for aid deciphering notes from a super-intelligent alien, and it is not a pleasant encounter, nor is it aided by being the only active thread in this issue. Harold must be the most unreasonably rude character in TMNT. The writers seem to harbor no intentions of making him more pleasant, either. He immediately scolds Donatello for bringing friends, and fumes throughout the rest of the issue, as Donatello tries to convince him it’ll be a good idea to help save the planet. The guy’s just not fun to be around. It’d make sense for him to become a villain sometime. As shown in this issue, he’s already building killer robots and exo-suits.
Splinter shows up about halfway through as he discusses the end-of-the-world matter with Leonardo. Splinter thinks Donatello’s concerns are valid, but is more worried about destroying The Foot Clan. He really wants to strike now, when they’re at their weakest, but doesn’t seem to get Leonardo’s hint that the Turtles are at their weakest too. Donatello’s search for help is probably the best move for them to make right now.
After this brief detour, the issue returns to Harold’s lab, and for better or worse, things have escalated o the point where Harold’s turtle-bot-thing starts attacking all of them because it’s programmed to kill Stockgen employees. At first, I wasn’t sold on the sequence, but then the turle-bot transformed into a wheeled-mode, and usually I am all against transformers, but Santaluco pulled it off. He pulled it off quite well. A+ on the art. Solid C for the writing. Of course, this is but one piece of a greater whole, so I won’t get too hung up about it. Besides, next issue seems to promise some Old Hob and Slash, and that is something we should all be looking forward to.
Quick Notes –
Is Metalhead a character? Or was he just a toy? These character call-backs are getting too obscure for me.
Okay, how can Slash sneak up on anybody? I hate it when Hulk-type characters sneak up on people.
Script by Tom Waltz
Art by Mateus Santoluco
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Who’s your favorite Ninja Turtle? Mine’s Splinter. He’s wise, he’s cunning, and he doesn’t need a weapon to fight those other ninja punks. Splinter’s a survivor, the cranky old man who’s seen it all, did it all, but issue 34 really throws his methodology into question. He only shows up for a page, but it’s a crucial moment used to throw the comic into perspective, and it also gave me a break from the issue’s exceptionally annoying main story.
Donatello is out with April and the humans, trying to gather team members for his technodrome assault project. Donnie pays a visit to scientist friend Harold looking for aid deciphering notes from a super-intelligent alien, and it is not a pleasant encounter, nor is it aided by being the only active thread in this issue. Harold must be the most unreasonably rude character in TMNT. The writers seem to harbor no intentions of making him more pleasant, either. He immediately scolds Donatello for bringing friends, and fumes throughout the rest of the issue, as Donatello tries to convince him it’ll be a good idea to help save the planet. The guy’s just not fun to be around. It’d make sense for him to become a villain sometime. As shown in this issue, he’s already building killer robots and exo-suits.
Splinter shows up about halfway through as he discusses the end-of-the-world matter with Leonardo. Splinter thinks Donatello’s concerns are valid, but is more worried about destroying The Foot Clan. He really wants to strike now, when they’re at their weakest, but doesn’t seem to get Leonardo’s hint that the Turtles are at their weakest too. Donatello’s search for help is probably the best move for them to make right now.
After this brief detour, the issue returns to Harold’s lab, and for better or worse, things have escalated o the point where Harold’s turtle-bot-thing starts attacking all of them because it’s programmed to kill Stockgen employees. At first, I wasn’t sold on the sequence, but then the turle-bot transformed into a wheeled-mode, and usually I am all against transformers, but Santaluco pulled it off. He pulled it off quite well. A+ on the art. Solid C for the writing. Of course, this is but one piece of a greater whole, so I won’t get too hung up about it. Besides, next issue seems to promise some Old Hob and Slash, and that is something we should all be looking forward to.
Quick Notes –
Is Metalhead a character? Or was he just a toy? These character call-backs are getting too obscure for me.
Okay, how can Slash sneak up on anybody? I hate it when Hulk-type characters sneak up on people.
A Look Inside
