3 out of 5

Well, it goes out with a relative bang, or at least a higher-than-usual average of good to tolerable stories.  It’s been a middling path to here, and I’m fairly glad this series is getting canceled in favor of something with some more ongoing continuity, though time will tell if the new series is any better or not.  Overall, the stories in NAA just felt so inconsequential (because they weren’t allowed to fuss with the cartoon series’ canon at all), and leaned heavily on generic plotlines and dumbed down humor.  When the book started having back-ups, it got a little better, as the short format seemed to encourage a bit loopier yuk-based stuff, but the main stories still were rather tedious.  And the “faked” continuity of making them 2-parters over two issues didn’t help, it just extended the misery.

Something else that emerged over these 24 issues… is that the main team began to, uh, not be that great.  I’m not sure what happened to Paul Allor, but between his work on Animated and his recent Mutanimals series, the creativity I’d felt he brought to his other Turtles arcs has totally dissipated in favor of truly painful jokes and horrible pacing.  Burnham, Bunn, and the rest of the semi-regular contributors weren’t any better, mind you, seemingly not really knowing what the tone was for this book.  Which is, again, as much the book’s fault as the creators, in a way, but since there were occasionally bright spots, there’s evidence it could be done.

And.  Brizuela.  Whom I’ve complained about frequently.  He does the two-parter in issues 21 and 22, and I took some time to figure out why his art is so boring to me.  I believe it boils down to its transparency and stiffness.  Brizzy’s sketchiness makes the basic circles / rectangles shapes he uses for the Turtles incredibly obvious (you can almost truly see the sketched shape underneath the final art), and his characters simply never break from this format – meaning it’s always circles and rectangles.  They never look very fluid, and his panel compositions, besides some tilted angles, rarely vary.  Combined with his slap-ink-on-it shading style, the art forever looks like a sketch book.  And as he was a primary artist for the series, it definitely took a toll.  Combined with Allor’s dumb-as-tacks Spiderbyte / Baxter team-up, their contribution is atrocious.  Thankfully, issue 21 has a dumb but fun backup by Caleb Goellner with polished, cartoonish art from Billy Martin, and 22 has a pretty inventive and exciting tale from Matt Manning, with one of Animated’s best and most expressive artists, Marcelo Ferreira.

The two-parter in issues 23 and 24 – a Squirrelnoids / ghost mix-up – is a high point for the main stories in this series, as it feels like a fully thought out tale that would’ve translated well to an episode.  The “to be continued” doesn’t feel like a delaying tactic because each half is fun, and Chad Thomas should’ve been the go-to guy for the book, as his style is as consistent, visually, as Brizuela’s, but it’s much prettier to look at.  Manning handles the back-ups in both these issues, meaning they’re both good, with the one in 24 actually being great for how it truly steps outside of the limitations of the book by existing in Mikey’s imagination.  Plus: one is illustrated by Ferreira.

So, if not for that abominable Allor / Brizuela tale, this would’ve been a contender for one of the better 4 issue collections.  As it is, it’s not a bad way to go, especially since the final two issues are of such enjoyable quality.