3 out of 5

Hm hm hm.  This started out pretty intense.  It had a lot of great emotional elements bubbling: highlighting Donnie in a unique way for once in Turtles history as a trail-blazer and rebel; underlining Master Splinter’s narrow-mindedness regarding revenge (which fueled the first 10 issues of the original series but faded away to wise ol’ Sensei thereafter) and showing that he, too, is flawed; a big-ass built up threat looming via the frightening Utrom terraforming plans of Krang…  Plus, spoiler, the internet had inadvertently informed me that a death loomed at the end of the arc.  Whoosh.

(More spoilers below.)

And then it freaking backpedaled big time, and ceased making any sense.  The in-house squabble that Waltz and crew had been working on is rendered completely worthless in one flashback sequence.  This could’ve been more effective if it hadn’t been saved up as a “twist,” and it always makes some of the other dialogue bits – “Why didn’t you tell them?”s – pointless.  I read back over the relevant scenes to see if I was missing something, but if I am, then I feel like I’m missing it because the writing isn’t dealing with it well.  Otherwise, it’s a clumsy withheld-information scenario that reeks of cheap drama.  The same is true for a lot of the backstabbing that goes on in the issue, because I can’t rightly see why everyone wasn’t just open about what’s what – and another 11th hour explanation does nothing to justify this – as it would’ve prevented the Hob / Turtles team-up from going sour as it does.  But again: cheap drama.  I do like how Karai was handled amongst this, and does show the value of the writing when it’s focused – slowly evolving things, such as Karai’s potential to turn away from Shredder – instead of just forcing everything to align with some iteration of the old comic or shows.  Shredder, again, as was the case in issue #37s boat-meetup with Krang, boasts of being a master manipulator (and I think Eastman sees him this way; his plans feel very Loud & Proud Eastman), but comes across as rather dunderheaded.  The same is true with Krang, whose plans seem to come to fruition suddenly miraculously easily and then be foiled with a one-two punch.  And, uh, then Baxter, and a stupid sequence with mini-mousers, and a poorly handled jumbled fight for an off-switch to the terraforming.  So in summary: build-up – good.  The first couple of issues of this arc are madly exciting.  But once the curtain is pulled back, it starts to feel silly, and the final tussles just get sillier.

Regarding that death: I mean, we know key characters aren’t going to stay dead forever, but the internet way over-reacts.  No one actually says the “d” word.  Let’s wait and see.

Also hampering this arc a bit was the art.  Cory Smith is a great artist in certain regards: though he lacks Santolouco’s more dynamic action layouts, his traditional paneling serves the story very well, and he has a much better grasp of balance on the page than Santo, as his dialogue sequences are perfectly anchored by shading or off-setting to keep the flow going.  But… he’s sort of stuck in Image-esque characterizations.  This wasn’t as apparent in ish 37, since that was just Shredder and Krang, but with the whole gang visible here, they all look like adults.  Whether or not you’re a fan of Russ Campbell’s or Santo’s attributes they’ve added for everyone, I like that characters have looked age appropriate for the most part, and Cory Smith removes that.  So along with the clumsy plotting, the characters have another layer of identity removed via the art.

This sounds like a ton of negatives because I’m being picky.  This has been one of the best versions of the Turtles overall, and the creative team has continually bumped the bar higher, making big events like this one a bit more likely to suffer some scrutiny.