4 out of 5

One-shotty fun inbetween the brewing “more serious” arcs of TMNTA.  The plot is rather amusingly cluttered – the thugs from the previous issue try to hire the Turtles to protect a badass sumo wrestler and to rescue his dog (Inky) from the mobsters trying to extort a thrown match from him… – but Chris Allan executes some awesome layouts (even if his boys are still a little beefy at this point) and Clarrain (over a co-plot from Eric Talbot, who contributes a Tattoo pin-up in the back) keeps the story points juggling without going preachy on anything.

Chu Hsi and the old man sorta pop in and out rather distractingly (I love the shot of Warrior Dragon wielding two tiny guns…), and the TMNT Entity review rightfully points out that Tattoo is colored with a yellow skin tint… but I really dug the energy of the issue, and as it’s outside of the slightly moodier stuff, Allan seems to go a bit more cartoony with his character models and action and it looks pretty dang good.

(And a misleading but awesome Laird cover!)