Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume One (2015)
Reprints Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011) #1-12, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Splinter Micro-Series one-shots
Written by Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (with Bobby Curnow, Brian Lynch, Erik Burnham
Art by Kevin Eastman, Dan Duncan, Mateus Santoluco, Franco Urru, Andy Kuhn, Valerio Schiti, Sophie Campbell, Charles Paul Wilson III
Since their debut in 1985, there haven’t been many instances where there wasn’t a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being published. Since 2011, the Turtles’ adventures have been published by IDW. They are the 5th largest comics publisher in the States, having made their way with many licensed books, and currently publish a handful of Star Wars comics outside the Marvel banner. The Turtles have been one of their biggest successes, with a major reboot happening over the last year that has expanded them into a whole line of ongoing books. We’re returning to where it all started with this volume of the first year’s worth of issues.
When making a brand-new take on the Turtles, one of the biggest questions is: what of the previous incarnations will you retain? Our story begins in media res with the three turtles and Splinter in a street fight with mutant cat Old Hob and his human gang. You might have noticed there are only three turtles. Their adoptive father, Splinter, raised and trained Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo. There is a fourth brother, and through these issues, we get brief flashbacks to the events that led up to where the series begins.
April O’Neil is back as an assistant to Dr. Baxter Stockman, who is conducting experiments on various animals. April becomes attached to the little turtles and rats she oversees, giving them names they will use when the mutagen accident occurs. In cat form, Old Hob shows up and takes Raphael in his mouth, exposing him to the mutagen. Raphael eventually gets free and ages into a teenager like his brothers, though he only has vague memories of them. His only ally is a teenage Casey Jones, who helps Raph track down his family.
The significant change explains the deep connection Splinter feels towards these turtles and takes some elements from the animated series. In this version, unlike the original series, Splinter and Hamato Yoshi are the same person, rather than one being the pet of the other. In medieval Japan, Yoshi was a married man with four boys who wore some familiar colors. He comes under the ire of Oroku Saki and his Foot Clan, which ends in the massacre of the entire family. Yoshi is reincarnated as this rat and, through fate, reunites with his boys, who are now turtles.
Because original co-creator Kevin Eastman is on board, there is a slight sense of nostalgia without the book ever veering too far into just references. Writer Tom Waltz is the likely balancing factor here, helping make sure everyone, old and new, can jump on board and not feel like they are in unfamiliar territory. Things like Old Hob, while new, feel perfectly at home in the mutant-populated worlds of the Turtles.
The book also understands the key themes that draw people to these characters. It’s mainly the family dynamics of the Turtles and their father. Much like the Fantastic Four, while we find the adventures compelling and exciting, it wouldn’t amount to much without the connections between our heroes and the moments at home where we get to know them best. Some of this is accomplished through one-shots reminiscent of the original series. Here, each brother and Splinter get a spotlight story, which Eastman and Waltz make sure to weave back into the ongoing series’s plot. The first appearance of Shredder in this reality happens in Leonardo’s book, for instance.
The original Turtles series has very gritty, dark artwork, making the animated series feel incredibly different in tone. Most of the art is handled by Dan Duncan, who does a good job. Some panels were rougher and not defined enough for my tastes, but he captures the seedy nature of New York City I felt when I read those original Eastman & Laird issues. Unlike those, this one is in color but never too bright or distracting. The one-shots are handled by different artists, and in such instances, I liked some more than others but never felt any were terrible.
The Turtles and Splinter are pretty much how we would expect them; they are the same personality types with some complexity added to a series aimed at slightly older readers. Someone like Baxter Stockman has been given slightly more to do but retains his identity as a Black man as he was in the original series. As an adult, it feels very upsetting that the animated series reworked him as a white man, something I have never seen the same complaints of diverse casting ever complain about. I remember when Tyler Perry was cast as Stockman in the Michael Bay-produced movie, seeing one of these reactionary chuds who only ever saw the cartoon complaining.
The threats in this collection are kept to random criminals, Old Hob, the Mousers, and the Foot Clan at the very end of the book. As far as the Turtles’ greatest enemies, Shredder and Krang, they are here but hinted at being more significant threats down the road. It’s made clear that Oroku Saki has been reincarnated in a style that reminded me of what inspired this whole concept – Frank Miller’s ninja group The Hand during his Daredevil run. It’s made clear that Shredder is going to cause great trouble in our heroes’ lives soon.
As for Krang, he’s introduced with his true nature revealed – he’s a brain-like alien that lives in a humanoid robotic body. When he visits Earth from his homeworld, he poses as a general of some foreign army who has contracted Stockman to help him create super soldiers, hence the mutagenic experiments. I sort of wish they had held back the reveal of Krang for the readers for later. Most people picking up the book probably know what’s coming, but from a dramatic perspective, I like the tension the reveal could create. Again, like Shredder, Krang is operating more in the background with the promise of a bigger threat later. Unlike the cartoon, Krang and Shredder are not intertwined, but I expect they will later.
This is a pretty good example of decompressed storytelling going too far. This is a trend in which stories that used to be told in one or two issues are stretched out over an entire year. The good thing about this is it can allow for more novelistic tales like Al Ewing’s The Immortal Hulk or Grant Morrison’s JLA. The pages of TMNT draw out Raph’s quest to find his family and reveal the origins of the Turtles for far too long, in my opinion. I had the same feeling I get when watching a movie that insists on retelling the origins of well-known comic book characters. I don’t need to see Superman’s origin ever again; he has become like Sherlock Holmes or Robin Hood. They exist, and their origin can be provided in a sentence or two.
I will continue reading this series; the following review will be in May. I’m looking forward to seeing how the threats of Shredder and Krang are developed, which is how I expect we will get many more mutants introduced to the narrative. I hope we see some colorful characters introduced in the cartoon & Archie Comics series, like Mondo Gecko and Man Ray. I’d also love it if some of those characters that only existed in the toy line were finally brought to life and given stories that fold them into the grand narrative of the Turtles.
