3 out of 5

Pretty weightless, but it kind of reminds me of how DC / Marvel annuals function – often as standalone beats – as opposed to the even lead-ins IDW TMNT have employed. While there’s probably setup being done here, it works on its own, and that’s nice. We could wish for a more substantial story, but so be it.

In a prologue, we see a future, grizzled Raph popped out of the timestream into our modern setting, with the remainder of the tale bringing this old, armless variant to the sewers to confront our boys. There’s an interrogation, during which Don susses out what’s going on – that maybe future Raph ain’t here as a friend – and then some scuffling.

Time travel plots don’t have to be especially complex to be fun, but this is very basic, requiring writer Michael Walsh to spend some pagetime on flashbacks so that Raph can “prove” he’s who he says he is, and both this and the eventual reveal of his reasons for time-traveling are pretty cookie cutter. That said, Walsh does do a good job of giving everyone their own voice, and doesn’t drag anything along unnecessarily – it’s just enough panel time to get us to the next logical step in the story. That this has light Last Ronin vibes with a future turtle is definitely weird, but I’m not reading the main IDW series closely enough to know if this is intended to tie-in or is just, like, because both books have angry old turtles in them.

We have three artists: Vlad Legostaev on the prologue, Santtos for the bulk of the story, and Walsh doing an epilogue. Vlad and Walsh’s art both appeal to me, being weighty and blocky and inky; some Image vibes. Santtos… Santtos’ work is cool, aping manga notes and with lithe figures, but they do approximately zero backgrounds and their linework is a bit too sketchy for my tastes, with very simplistic shading. Plus, there’s not much differentiation between the boys. Reviews seem to be digging it, and I get the appeal from a standpoint of the art’s energy, but it also looks like a style that’s young, and needs some more time to develop.