4 out of 5

The Turtles continue their roundabout journey home, passing through Mecca and, like, telling a story about Muhammad (pictures included!) and a fabled white and black stone, the latter of which ends up being the focus of a tussle with… another unexplained mutant: the falcon Al’falqa.  Yeah.

Chris Allan’s art and the fight sequence in issue 35 is astounding, leading up to a killer cliffhanger with the return of a particular Shred-headed villain, who gets the spotlight for issue #36’s scuffle.

The lack of background of Al’falqa is similar to that of Charlie Llama and Katmandu in the previous issues, but it’s a little dumber here because they show the guy sitting in some kind of teched-out lair, watching the Turtles before he attacks them (thinking they have stolen the black stone, when of course it was actually Shredder), and it’s never quite clear what his whole shtick is.  Except, I guess, to hang out and fight stone-stealing folk; a job at which he’s apparently pretty crappy.  Still, I can’t deny that the pace clicks along really well and the book just feels fun, with the bits and bobs that end up accompanying Shredder’s reappearance – Foot robots, portrals, a time-traveling, cyborg cat! – an incredible tease of more weirdness to come.  And even though it’s not, at all, a complete explanation of how Shredder got from prison to mouse trap trappings to here, the fact that Clarrain at least nodded to one of those appearances helps to underline the feeling that we’re working in a somewhat cohesive universe.

Silly as usual, but also continuing on the title’s uptick of quality, without any downbeats.