3 out of 5

IDW and Boom!’s M.O. with adapting kid properties to comics over the past few years (stressing ‘kid’ so as to exclude Adventure Time and Regular Show) has been to stick with the single issue format.  Presumably, this is, in part, so as not to have to tangle too delicately with a show’s continuity, but it also seems like – sigh, I guess – a smart sales method for keeping every issue a jumping-on point.  All you have to do is like the show, and you can read the comic.  Alas, this means I should set aside my dream of ‘Animated Adventures’ becoming another Archie comics version of TMNT, and in accepting the dissipation of that dream (dreams dissipate when you set them aside, duh, dream logic), some of the appeal of the book piddles out a bit.  It will never be more than a loose pastiche of the excellently scripted Nick show, with some chuckles from dumb Mikey moments and weekly ‘guest stars’ of monsters.  I had initially been pleased with Dario Brizuela having a constant spot as a Turtles artist (a personal fave from Tales vol. 2), but as writer Byerly’s scripts get more complicated and Dario gets more used to the visual language of the book, the art has taken on a more slapdash look, so that even visually things don’t excite as much.

Fanboy quipping aside (…siiiigghhh…), the book does what it’s supposed to (ape the show) pretty well.  Byerly has a good grasp on encapsulating all the character’s personalities via dialogue, and though Brizuela’s quick-take affects those large-scale sequences, the flip-side is that the short-hand he’s developed for partnering with Byerly’s characterizations (and the show’s general look) and the stories frequent action sequences is effective: it gets the job done, and you never have a doubt as to what you’re looking at.

Book 1 is a low-key espionage-y tale with Donny and April investigating oddities at a junkyard.  It’s a surprising opener, lacking, as it is, any non-Turtle mutants, but Dario gets to do some neat battle sequences and the ish confirms Kenny’s take on the boys, which fairly balances the defining sass, silly, confidence and dorkiness of each Turtle.  Book 2 is more what we’ll come to expect: monster-of-the-week, this one featuring Snakeweed.  Again, some unique ideas, but a little too intense for Brizuela’s art, which loses any sense of spacing or detailing as things get more frenetic.  Book 3, by Scott and David Tipton, actually feels the most unique, mixing Kraang lore with a zombie theme that adds up to some good Mikey action (where he’s not full-on idiot), but then Erik Burnham balances this out with a “find the cure” quest storyline that ends up feeling sort of dumbed down as it reaches for gags.

It did take the Archie series quite a while to warm up, and even then there were occasional dumb issues, but the way things are gearing up for IDW’s Animated Adventures, I think we can expect these mildly entertaining, pass-the-time one-shots until sales or the show tanks.