Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2024] #2 - IDW Publishing

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES No. 2, September 2024

Apparently the thirteenth best-selling comic of September 2024, at least according to “Icv2.com”, Jason Aaron’s script for Issue Two of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” surely thrilled fans of the ninja-fighting media franchise with its marvellous mix of tongue-in-cheek humour, suddenly all-too serious shenanigans, and plenty of utterly enthralling action. Indeed, considering just how big a cheer many a bibliophile must have made when Michelangelo finally shakes off his celebrity funk to fend-off a deadly squad of black-clad assassins, this twenty-two page periodical probably deserved to be even higher up the online trade magazine’s chart; “Go! Go! Extreme green ninja teen! Party dude supreme! You are the pizza master!”

Helping this book’s enjoyable assault upon the senses is the American author’s decision not to dwell too long upon Mikey’s high life as a big television star, and instead just swiftly establish the character’s increasing disillusionment with fame. Such succinctness, courtesy of a montage or two, genuinely sets the scene for the subsequent brutal battering the lone fighter faces, without bogging the audience down with any dialogue-heavy, dreary discussions about how the turtle misses his brothers, and yearns to be wielding something much more formidable than foam rubber nunchakus.

Furthermore, the Alabama-born writer quite neatly explains just how so lethal a combatant can nowadays be easily ambushed by having “everyone’s favourite” jokester’s regular convenience store pizza poisoned. Combined with his lack of recent combat experience, this plot device is pretty convincing when it comes to the wisecracking warrior initially getting his clock well and truly cleaned. However, once the martial artist begins to feel better, and desperately grabs a pair of diamond-encrusted hand-weapons, the fight most readers would have been anticipating is most definitely on.

Noticeably providing Michelangelo with a palpable longing for his former heroes in a half-shell is Rafael Albuquerque, who wonderfully pencils the ‘aging actor’ slowly realising that he is fighting for his very life. In addition, there’s a genuine ‘thud’ behind all the punches, kicks and strikes taking place within Mikey’s Tokyo apartment, which are so convincing that letterer Shawn Lee clearly felt that he didn’t need to add any SFX to these pulse-pounding panels.

The regular cover art to "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" #2 by Rafael Albuquerque