3 out of 5

I didn’t think I would, but I enjoy the general conceit of SMA, which somewhat delicately juggles nostalgia for the Fred Wolf cartoon – in its look, tone, and references – with an awareness of the preciousness of that nostalgia, taking advantage of the show’s meta humor to poke at itself. The two stories in this Halloween special are of varying degrees of “not mattering” – i.e. there aren’t really any stakes or a sense of a greater TMNT world, but that is in line with the cartoon as well; however, the opener is definitely more involving than the kind of open-ended back-up story.

Artist Sarah Myer takes “A Very Creepy Sequel,” and goes with a nice Boom-esque approach to the SMA Turtles, giving the book (along with Luis Antonio Delgado’s solid colorwork) a fresh vibe that hits all the right visual marks without seeming too exactingly on-model. Burnham’s callback to some later-era villains is fun, although the setup feels way too telegraphed, like the story isn’t exactly balanced between being a kid’s book and one for adult readers. There are also some attempted lampshades of the nonsensical nature of the tale which… well, I did call them attempted. All the same: a solid, entertaining story with some good chuckles.

Dan Schoening’s take on “A Spirited Duel” is, unfortunately, almost too exact to the original look, to the point of seeming digital. The story also doesn’t hit the same tone as Sequel, feeling like partial classic Shredder hijinks nonsense, and partial setup for something else. It’s clunky, but, again, there are some quality gags in there, and of a different flavor than the opener, since it’s the Krang / Shredder love / hate relationship stuff.