Publication date: October 5, 2016
Writer: Paul Allor
Artist: Damian Couceiro
Colorist: Ronda Pattison
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Publisher: Ted Adams
"The War to Come, Part 2"
"The War to Come, Part 2"
Summary:
MAIN STORY:
Inside the T.C.R.I. Building, Leonardo orders his
brothers to split up; he and Michelangelo will find April while Raphael keeps
the unconscious Donatello safe from the EPF Soldiers who are about to storm the
place.
Outside, Detective Lewis spreads a bogus story among the
NYPD that the building is just dealing with a chemical spill. Agent Bishop is pleased and has more
perimeter defense orbs dispatched. He
then convenes with Colonel Knight and Sergeant Winter who reveal that scans
indicate that there are two humans in the building.
Inside, the EPF storm the lobby but are immediately caught
in a smokescreen by Raph. The scorpion
mutant appears in the smoke, killing soldiers, and offers an alliance with
Raph. He refuses and she abandons
him. Raph is quickly overwhelmed by the
EPF (meanwhile, Donnie has been stashed in an air shaft).
Elsewhere, April sneaks away while Baxter Stockman begins
to gear up in his armory.
He receives a call from Bishop and, as soon as both sides establish the
other’s identity, Baxter offers to cooperate.
Bishop immediately hangs up on him.
Detective Lewis asks why he rejected Stockman’s help and Bishop reveals
that he knows how traitorous Stockman is and that he would only double-cross
them. In fact, Bishop says that once
they’ve won the upcoming “war”, Stockman will be first in line for
execution. Lewis begins to think Bishop
might be a little unhinged.
Back inside, the scorpion bumps into April and takes her
hostage, exchanging the sword she stole from Leo for April’s gun. Leo and Mikey run into them and the scorpion
drops April and heads for the roof. Leo
gives chase, but as the scorpion tries to leap across the rooftops, a defense
orb tazes her and sends her plummeting to the asphalt. As EPF soldiers swarm her, Mikey decides to
save her and swoops in to rescue her before she’s beaten to death.
Down in the lobby, Stockman arrives in his armor, kills
all the EPF soldiers and booby-traps the entrance with landmines. He reluctantly agrees to work with Raph and,
along with Donatello, they convene with the others.
Baxter takes them to his central command center and April
helps him to get the system online so they can monitor what the EPF is up
to. Meanwhile, the bound scorpion mutant
begins mocking Raph, saying that it’s his fault Donnie is out cold. Raph loses his temper and begins beating up
the scorpion, threatening to kill her.
BACK-UP:
Story: Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Layouts: Kevin Eastman
Artist: Bill Sienkiewicz
Colorist: Tomi Varga
“Inside Out, Part 2”
Leonardo escapes the Foot Soldiers and lands in the park,
but it isn’t the park he recognizes. He’s
soon beset by weird floating Utroms and thinks he hears Alopex calling out to
him.
Leo wanders into the woods and emerges in front of the
farmhouse in Northampton. Before he can
get it together, he’s attacked by Koya who wants revenge for her previous
defeats. Leo races back into the woods
where Koya can’t fly after him, but she sends the weird Utroms to pursue
him. Leo finds a sewer tunnel and stands
his ground at the entrance, calling for Koya to come and get him.
Turtle Tips:
*The Turtles fought Koya at the farmhouse in TMNT (IDW) #32. They most recently defeated her in
TMNT (IDW) #50 and she hasn’t been seen since.
*This issue was originally published with 4 variant
covers: Regular Cover by Freddie E. Williams II, Subscription Cover A by Damian
Couceiro, Subscription Cover B by Eastman and Varga, and Incentive Cover by
Antonio Fuso.
Review:
There are a lot of “strange bedfellows” in this storyline
so far, with multiple factions first at each other’s throats and now having to
work together. It’s one of those “hard
to keep score” type of stories and I’m a fan of those.
One of the bits I enjoyed was seeing what it took for
some of these alliances to stick. The
scorpion (again, identified online by the artist as “Zodi” though she still hasn’t
been called that in the comic) suggests an alliance to Raph when the fight with
the EPF soldiers in the lobby starts, but he outright denies her and she
leaves. Fast forward a few pages and Raph
has been jacked up by the EPF. So when
Baxter Stockman steps in and suggests an alliance, hey look at that, Raph’s a
little more open to compromise.
I enjoyed the almost casual familiarity the Turtles treat
Baxter with. They’ve been dealing with him
a LOT, since the first issue of the series, so they’re almost at the “frienemies”
stage. They hate his guts, but they’re
so fuckin’ used to him that they can crack jokes to his face and there’s no
more shock and awe when he steps into their lives.
As for Bishop, we’re getting a little better of an idea
about how IDW plans to portray him, now.
Looks like he’s a tad more fanatical than his 4Kids counterpart, less “shadow
ops mad scientist” and more “saber-rattling general”. The bits about there being a “war” on the
horizon were a little cliché, but it is something the IDW book has been working
toward for a good while. Old Hob and the
Mutanimals have been gearing up for a “war” since they got together, and the
EPF have been shown monitoring them in the pages of the ongoing series. So all this stuff about an upcoming war is
nothing new. Hope we get it sooner than
later.
Couceiro’s art is still right on top, and you know what,
it reminds me a lot of Dan Duncan’s work from the beginning of the series. The way the Turtles gnash their teeth or
grimace, along with the heavy inking, just screams “Duncan” to me, but of
course its textured with Couceiro’s own aesthetic fingerprint. Also, April has the same sort of long hair
that she sported at the beginning of the book; another bit of a throwback.
The back-up is starting to make a little more “sense”
now. And by that I mean it’s making less
sense, but in doing so, is making more sense.
So it’s clear that Leo is in some sort of fantasy, be it a dream or a
hallucination or whatever. Now we
know why the Foot were attacking him last issue and why it was “okay” for him
to kill all those dudes (when the book thus far has made a big deal about the Turtles
having a No Kill policy).
So with that out of the way, I think we can let our guard
down and enjoy a weird tale where Leo fights creepy floating zombie
Utroms. Sienkiewicz keeps it nice and
spooky and his rendition of Koya is particularly monstrous (he didn’t
anthropomorphize her head has much as other artists and the less expressive bird
features actually make her look more fearsome).
Universe continues to be a fun read. That said, I think the $5 price point was a
bad move on IDW’s part. I’m digging the bonus back-up, but I think a lot of comic readers draw a line at $4 for their books,
to say nothing of the casual fan. Kind
of hard to convince someone to try out a book on a whim when it costs as much
as their lunch.
