Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time #1

The Good

One word comes to mind while thinking about artist Ross Campbell and colorist Bill Crabtree's pages: lovable. As we saw in theNorthampton story, Campbell's character work is brilliant. It's a slightly cartoonish style that fills these individuals with so much expression. He does a terrific job with the look of every creature and the end result is a lot of adorable scenes. To top it off, there's also a brief moment which allows Campbell to once again prove his talent isn't limited endearing illustrations. It's a panel that's simply badass. Writer Paul Allor packs a lot of visual comedy into the script and these wonderful pages absolutely deliver the laughs. You can try and resist it, but eventually this book will make you smile. And the new character, Pepperoni? Every single look at Raph bonding with the little dinosaur melted my heart. It's an overwhelming amount of cuteness. This character needs to become a plushie. It's that simple. Crabtree's bright and energetic coloring then serves as the perfect compliment to Campbell's style and the tone Allor establishes for the story. These visuals are consistently vivid and very pleasing.

As for Allor's script, it's basically a joyful adventure. There's a consistent flow of levity (everything from slapstick to banter), and while some of the jokes may not make you laugh out loud, they're guaranteed to at least make you smirk. After all, how can you not when they're being complimented so well by Campbell and Crabtree's work? There even appears to be a nod to Jurassic Park thrown in there. While the standalone story is primarily lighthearted, there's a little more substance to be enjoyed here, too. Based on TMNT: UTROM EMPIRE, Allor obviously has a whole lot of love for the franchise and wants to help it expand. This chapter may not make big strides in that department, but it does successfully tease the origin story for a certain group of characters. Said group may not be playing a big role in the current IDW universe, but they're a fan favorite and it's hilarious to see they're a direct result of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' actions.

The Bad

The timing of this book is a little odd since it follows the 2014 annual issue, but that hasn't come out yet. They even joke about this in the recap page. For longtime fans of the franchise, this will be no big deal since we're familiar with Renet. For new fans, it might be slightly jarring to get a randomly glimpse of this character.

The Verdict

For many of us, the title of IDW's latest limited series delivers a whole lot of nostalgia. The video game was full of amusement as it guided players from stage to stage. This comic is clearly aiming to deliver the same level of enjoyment value, and, so far, it's succeeding. It seems like each chapter will serve as a new "level" which places the heroes in a half shell in an all-new setting for an all-new standalone dose of entertainment. This debut issue is every bit as lighthearted and delightful as you'd want it to be. The artwork is beyond lovable and the story's a total blast. This is absolutely a must read for any TMNT fan that simply wants to enjoy an awesome serving of fun.

This was great, it was like I was reading an episode of the tv show

Can't wait to head to the comic shop and pick this up, TMNT is consistently good with their Micro and ongoing series.

The Renet part was the only thing that I didn't like...yes I'm familiar with her from the original Mirage series but her randomly popping up and having the Turtles know her was definitely jarring...I had to stop mid-issue and look at issue 35 to see if this picked up from that and then check the wiki to see if there was something I missed, then had to pm Gregg to make sure that I wasn't missing something

Couldn't get into the art personally. The turtles I grew up with aren't babies who have adventures.

I want more Raph and pepperoni

@danhimself: I'm almost wondering if the whole Renet thing happened because of the 2014 annual getting pushed back. Maybe the annual comes first chronologically.

@greenlucario: it does...there's a small bit on the credits page that says that they meet her in the 2014 annual

I hope that after they leave prehistoric time that Pepperoni was abducted by the Utroms and they meet up with a mutated humanoid Pepperoni in the future somehow

Turtles in Time on SNES as well as the Arcade version is one of the greatest games of all time, so I thought about picking up this book. However, I flipped through it, and I really couldn't get past the art. Would have rather had the art done in a style that was a throwback to the game, which is of course based on the original cartoon art.

I loved this issue.. going to collect all of them.

It would be neat to see Pepperoni end up being somehow related to the Seri character from the Mirage comics.