2 out of 5

A gut-wrenching tale of loss and family and brotherhood leading up to a balls-to-the-wall action-packed 50th issue!!!  …Or a melodramatic, well-intentioned but over-written bit of generic comic actionry leading up to an “epic” 50th issue bloated with pages of stalling?

…Yar.

I am a fan until the end.  We know this.  Eastman and Laird could never touch the property again and I’d keep, keep buying.  People like me suck.  People like me also, maybe, grow up to take over the book / cartoon and fuel it with madcap fanboy glee, and I am grateful that the IDW team has their heart in the right place in trying to legitimize the boys while also paying tribute to all eras of their history.  But: people like me who grow up to take over books they love aren’t necessarily great writers, and ‘legitimize’ means different things to different people.  I might be soft on the old books – I’ll fully admit that the writing on Turtles has rarely been great – but there’s almost always, especially under the clunky toiling of Laird and the volume 2 Tales crew – been an unaware innocence to them, totally unconcerned with comic book machinations.  This mostly carried over to the 2003 Fox cartoon, which I enjoyed, and despite its bluster, informs the current Nick cartoon, which is probably the overall most consistently satisfying and smart version of the team we’ve gotten.  The IDW book has worked in fits and spurts; given us some interesting new artists to follow and a new history and fun nods along the way; and it’s generally turned into an entirely generic comic book, with an entirely generic villain who spouts villain bullshit and heroes who over-quip and have their wizened leader who comes across as woodenly tropey as the rest of ’em.

When the series leans more on fun than melodrama – there’s a moment in these issues when the team is beleaguered by flyborgs and mousers and there’s a bit of the old school ridiculousness – I dig it.  That’s been the rarity, though, and with the required EVENT of a 50th issue, m’fraid it’s gotten rarer leading up to it.

Waltz still can’t string together more than two pages without using the annoying lingering dialogue transition trick (last words of character A drift over to the second page to introduce character B); everyone narrates themselves to the extent that the cage battle of issue 50 would have to occur in slow motion to pack it all in.  I realize that’s how entertainment works sometimes, but it’s especially ridiculous in this issue as the fight takes place in a small circle and the quip/punch/quip/punch setup slowdown sucks out any possibility of belief suspension.

Santolouco commits some impressive layouts during the battle sequences.  Cory Smith is all-around awesome.  Ronda Pattison gives the art all the dimension the writing lacks.

I give the writerly creatives credit for pursuing the Shredder storyline to its end.  I’m hoping that this 50-issue revenge scheme, now drawn to something of a close, means the next chapter will be lessened of the dramaturgy, though I’m maybe not believing that’ll happen.  But god damn me, you know I’ll still be buying it.