4 out of 5

This was unexpected, in a good way, on several levels.

April O’Neil, prior to the Archie series, was not a very deep character.  During the Archie run, once the issues shifted away from cartoon adaptation, while I’d never say things got too complex, Dean Clarrain slowly started to add more mature emoting and concepts into the mix, and gave us a more capable and comparatively well-rounded April.  Still, that she would get her own mini-series was, to kid me, kinda surprising, and while I have zero recollection what I thought about it way back when – except that I recall I was missing an issue – reading it now, I’m also surprised how writer Steve Sullivan (working off of a Clarrain ‘idea’) went further with April’s independence.  And though the story slots in to Archie mutant misadventures, there’s also an odd grounded vibe to the whole thing that feels like a slight subversion of normal antics.

Returning from Japan with Chu, the old man, and Oyuki, the group part ways, Oyuki sticking with April as her new roomie.  Reality drops in pretty quickly: going on hiatus for X months without notice or info has earned April a pink slip from her job, so she decides to go the freelance reporting route, with Oyuki as her cameraperson.  Their mission: to document the upswing in gang activity.

Chris Allan and Sullivan give us a pretty wild subway fight, and a later confrontation between gangs with our lead duo in the middle, April completely holding her badass-own with her badass katana skills, kitted out in chill, 90s jeans and a jacket.  She is, in other words, wicked cool, and we even get some sobering relationship chatter for a kids book – about being on your own; about trust.

The three parter also sees – completing the list of ‘unexpected’ stuff – the return of a character from the main books, which was a pleasant addition, as I’d assumed said character was long gone; just another name on the list of random baddies.  His ‘origin’ is likely retroactive, but the forced mythology gets sloppy as the book chugs along, but it was a nice way of making this mini feel like it belonged in the TMNTA universe, and wasn’t just an aside.