Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2024] #6 - IDW Publishing

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES No. 6, January 2025

Pouring the pressure on this series’ titular characters straight from the start, it must have been hard for many readers to imagine what more Jason Aaron could throw at Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo during their journey back to New York City. In fact, considering the lengths the Alabama-born writer goes to in order to show how dysfunctional a unit Splinter’s students have become, it is quite incredible the quartet of warriors don’t eventually succumb to the nefarious Foot Clan’s unrelenting assault waves before his twenty-two page plot comes to an end.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly however, it is precisely the four brothers’ aggression towards one another which makes this comic’s pulse-pounding pace so successful, with the likes of Raph even having time to slug Mikey straight across the jaw during this book’s sense-shattering shenanigans. Furthermore, the tenderness still shown towards a mentally deranged Donnie during these frustration-filled vents cleverly reminds the audience that despite all their bluster, bull-headedness, and eye-wincing in-fighting, the 'Heroes in a half shell' still care very deeply for each other; “I’m standing in a sewer! You call this being saved?! I was about to have my own action figure, you butt-faced --”

Easily this publication’s biggest hook though has to be the sheer grandeur of District Attorney Hale’s scheme to ‘frame’ the turtles as “a bunch of crazed mutants, wanted for murder, [who are] beating up public servants.” The corrupt lawyer appears to have infiltrated every emergency service department possible with his deadly ninja assassins, and resultantly helps provide this issue with one of its funniest moments when an axe-wielding fireman suddenly attempts to chop an unsuspecting Donatello in two.  

Also making an impressive “debut as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s new ongoing artist” is Juan Ferreyra, who quite sensationally imbues all this comic’s considerably-sized cast with plenty of enthralling, animated life. Of particular note has to be the protagonists’ leap across the Big Apple’s night-time skyline so as to evade the Foot Clan’s gas arrows. This entire sequence looks set to literally run on for several more panels, only for the “superstar artist” to suddenly pencil the New York Fire Department humorously hosing down the green-hued fugitives with water from far below.

Script by: Jason Aaron, Art by: Juan Ferreyra, and Letters by: Shawn Lee