BW Media Spotlight

This was the last of the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics I managed to pick up. So I don’t know what happened between that issue and the two I’m about to review. So last I heard Splinter took over the Foot (but I don’t know what happened to the Shredder), Krang was about to go on trial for all of his many war crimes, and Raphael and Alophex were a cute couple. The last comic I was able to buy before my job loss was issue #37 so if I don’t know what’s happening in these comics you know why.

My friend Sean seems to insist I get new comics even though I have so many of my old ones to go through. Knowing I enjoyed this comic he has offered to grab these issues for me in place of the Titan Robotech comics. I certainly appreciate it and with most of the other titles I was collecting or interested in either ended or in unwelcome hands it was really the only choice left. Apparently #81 starts a new story arc according to his checking so we should be starting off on a good point. For those of you who haven’t been following the series, here’s what I do know.

In this version Splinter and the Turtles are reincarnations of a family of ninjas who broke off from the Foot Clan after Oroku Saki corrupted them. Oroku and Hamato Yoshi competed often but it was Yoshi’s love of Tang Shen that drove the wedge. If memory serves Saki thought she was too positive an influence on Yoshi, who was fighting his own rage issues. Saki killed them all. Later Yoshi and his sons were reincarnated into a rat and four turtles respectively, all part of a series of intelligence-boosting by Baxter Stockman, a greedy scientist working for an alien named Krang who was out to conquer the universe and thus far pretty good at it. One of the lab assistants, April O’Neil, rescued them from a fire but they had been exposed to a mutagen that when she next saw them had mutated them into anthropomorphic ninjas. They made a friend in Casey Jones, had all sorts of adventures, and dealt with the modern incarnation of the Foot Clan, which included a resurrected Oroku Saki, now calling himself The Shredder and in conflict with Krang and his Utroms. There were also gangs, other aliens, more mutations, and a whole lot of action. Now I’m curious to see where our heroes are nowadays. Let’s find out.

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