Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II #3 – James Tynion IV, Ryan Ferrier, Writers; Freddie Williams III, Artist; Jeremy Colwell, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 7/10
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
It’s rare to see a miniseries switch writers midway through, but that’s what happens with Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 #3 as Ryan Ferrier takes over on script for James Tynion IV. Tynion has a lot of new work coming up, per his Twitter, which makes me wonder if this was a workload issue.
Unfortunately, it shows. Ferrier is a capable writer who’s done a decent amount of indie work, but his writing style is jokier and the issue loses a good deal of the nuance and emotion of the first two issues. Damian, Casey, and April are staying with the three younger turtles at the lair while Batman, Leonardo, and Splinter go after Bane. While they’re getting along at first, Damian and Raphael quickly get on each other’s nerves, and the verbal sparring turns into physical sparring, which soon turns into violence. While these two are always aggressive, here it feels like it’s turned up to eleven.
Donatello continues to struggle with his guilt over bringing Bane to the world, but other than that he doesn’t have that much to do this issue. Bane, meanwhile, is back at his lair, plotting to get his hands on more Venom and creating a hybrid technology that transforms Bebop and Rocksteady into stronger, dumber Venomized versions of themselves. Baxster Stockman gets transformed too, becoming his fly mutant version from the classic cartoon. There are definitely a few fun callbacks in this issue, but overall it feels like a bit of a placeholder issue. Not much happens in the way of plot advancement until the ending, when the group unites against Bane and confronts him at his lair.
We’re at the halfway point of this miniseries, and while it’s still fun, it feels like we don’t have the plot or intensity of the first mini just yet.
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Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
