Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #40

by louis whiteford on November 26, 2014

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #40
Written by Tom Waltz
Art by Mateus Santolouco
Colors by Ronda Pattison
 
Comic artists take note. This is how you do a fight scene. Hob’s decided the part-human Hog and Rhinoceros aren’t fit for membership in the mutant army, and it’s going to take the talents of every mutant who’s ever shown up in TMNT to stop them. It’s a whole mutant army vs Bebop and Rocksteady in a brawl for it all.
 
Actually, this fight is kind of inconsequential in the grand scheme of the character’s plans. It’s just a nasty incident that could’ve been avoided if that dumb Pigeon Pete hadn’t gone looking for Bebop and Rocksteady in the first place, but that’s okay, because it makes for a great story.
 
This art is top-notch. It’s a little sketchier than Santolouco usually looks, but the clarity of detail is phenomenal. The characters fully inhabit these city streets. Nothing looks slapped together. No backgrounds suddenly vanish because somebody was pressed for a deadline. And the hits, the hits keep coming, with inventive panel layouts, some of the best motion lines in American comics, and some truly brutal, painful attacks. And yes, this is an issue where Splinter kicks some ass, so my enjoyment of it is officially doubled.
 
The writing’s sharp too. Even though this issue is almost entirely one long fight scene, every character gets ample time to show off their personality. Tom Waltz easily could’ve let this thing write itself, dragging things out till Bebop and Rocksteady are inevitably defeated, but he gives us teamwork, camaraderie and some tantalizing details that add a lot to the general personality of the book. Mondo Gecko and Herman the Hermit Crab come into their own as characters, instead of falling back on the tropes that have defined their existence so far. I don’t know whose idea it was to have Mondo Gecko offer a fist-bump when Splinter requests a handshake, but it’s a great detail, and the comic is loaded with tiny moments like this that push it past a good issue and into serious achievement territory.
 

Our Score:

9/10

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