Publication date: July 29, 2015
Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Cory Smith
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
"Vengeance, Part 4"
"Vengeance, Part 4"
Summary:
Down in the lair, the Turtles and Splinter defend
Donatello’s body from Baxter Stockman’s Mousers and Flyborgs. Donatello-Metalhead arrives to the party and
contacts Harold to teleport his body to the Fugitoid’s lab on Burnow
Island. Once Fugitoid receives the body,
Metal-Don then asks Harold to call in Nobody and Alopex for back-up.
On the streets, Detective Lewis’ paddy wagon containing
Hun is stuck in traffic, making it a sitting duck for Old Hob and Herman the
Hermit Crab. The two Mutanimals blast
the wagon with explosives and escape with a confused Hun before Lewis can catch
up with them. Hob wants Hun to help him "bust in with the humans" and Hun doesn't really have anything better to do at the moment, though he's concerned about seeing Slash again.
At Foot HQ, Stockman uses his helmet to command his
armies to pursue the Turtles and Splinter into the sewers. Kitsune approaches Shredder and registers her
surprise that he would allow a gaijin to assist the Foot Clan. Shredder informs her that this is not Foot
Clan business, but his own personal vendetta, and once Stockman has served his
purpose he will be eliminated. Kitsune
reminds him that Karai does not approve of his methods, but Shredder insists
that when all is said and done he will put his Chunin in her place.
The Turtles and Splinter escape to the sewers and swim
out to the nearest river. The open space
affords them little advantage and they’re eventually corralled by the Mousers
and Flyborgs to a nearby bridge.
Luckily, Nobody and Alopex arrive in the nick of time and the united
team make their last stand against the encircling army.
Turtle Tips:
*Hun mentions his tussle with Slash which went down in
TMNT (IDW) #28.
*This issue was originally published with 4 variant
covers: Cover A by Santolouco, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RI by
David Lafuente, and Subscription Cover by Ryan Browne after Wally Wood’s Weird
Science #19.
Review:
This was an action-packed issue, no doubt about it, and I
love me some action… But the problem was that it felt a bit listless in spite
of all the action. It wasn’t that Cory
Smith’s art wasn’t full of energy (there are a couple of superb two-page
spreads and several splash pages), it was more that there’s only so many times
you can see a Turtle smash a Mouser or a Flyborg before the experience gets
repetitive.
It’s like, I dunno, playing TMNT Arcade or The Manhattan
Project on the NES. Those games are
beat-em-ups and consist of nothing but moving to the right and smashing robots
until the screen lets you progress a little further. It might be thrilling for the first two or
three levels, but midway through the game the energy starts to wear off and
you’re sort of just going through the motions.
Only the boss battles really spice things up (and those games had some
SWEET boss battles).
So that’s sort of what this fight with Stockman’s robots
was like. After a while, even when
there’s tension in the story and some kinetic layouts, it begins to get a
little tedious. It doesn’t help that we
had very recently seen the Turtles fight Mousers and Flyborgs at the conclusion
of “Attack on Technodrome”. Now we’re
seeing it again at the conclusion of “Vengeance”. Add in what I said last review about the
writers repeating the whole “the lair is being invaded!” shtick and I think
this pony could stand to learn a few more tricks.
Also, while I thought all the two-page spreads and splash
pages looked pretty, they inevitably feel like fluff to stretch the issue’s
thin story across 22 pages. That also
leant to the monotony of seeing the Turtles smashing robots over and over
again.
I’ve been enjoying “Vengeance” quite a bit; it’s an important
story culminating from years of buildup and I love it. However, I get the feeling they began the arc maybe two issues too soon. Now we’re starting to see that they didn’t
quite have enough material to cover 6 issues (more like 8 issues if you count
the Free Comic Book Day installment and consider that #50 will be double-length).
We’re sort of lingering in the doldrums right now. Maybe if they’d buffeted “Attack on
Technodrome” and “Vengeance” with a two-parter then this arc might have felt a
bit more economical in its final act.
But then, that would disturb IDW’s rigid “4 issues per trade” formula so
I guess the opportunity was never really on the table. (Though I WOULD like to see a return to
two-part stories sometime in the future, ala “Sins of the Father” and “Blood
Brothers”; not everything needs to be a 4 or 8-issue arc.)
I know it seems bizarre to say that an all-action issue
was dull, and hopefully I explained my lack of enthusiasm succinctly
above. But if you really want to
experience getting fatigued to death by dull action, pop in one of Michael Bay’s
3-hour Transformers films. By about the
2-hour mark, you’re pretty explosioned-out.
Grade: C (as in, “Can’t ignore that I spoke too soon in
my last review about Hun being written out of the story. Looks like he’ll be hanging in there”.)
