New York City is experiencing a rash of people going missing, and before the Turtles can go and investigate, they have some baddies to deal with themselves.
Mat continues, as best he can, going through IDW's current Infestation 2: cross-over book. Scores for everything are down below as well as the couple other reviews he did for the series.
The Good
I'm a turtles fan. I'm not caught up on the current on-going series, but I loved the first three issues of it, so diving into this put me in a familiar place with characters I already know and love. It's like getting into the shower at that perfect temperature. However, I wasn't prepared to love the issue as much as I did.
The first thing you'll notice is the art by Mark Torres and colors by Jay Fotos. I loved the stylized look and the heavy inks which reminded me so much of Mike Mignola. Besides the look of the art, the great heavy inks, and the great pop the colors have, the composition is fantastic. There is a great flow to each page, and the action is paced insanely well, and I love when certain elements are so intense that they can't be contained within a panel.
The final page of this issue, with Donatello digging through the rubble is one of the coolest pages this year, thus far. The panel set-up and character composition alone are so intense and have a chaotic and cinematic feel to it. Next time Mark Torres draws something, especially with Jay Fotos, pick it up... This book included.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are something the vast majority of us are already familiar with, and writer Tristan Jones does a great job at not over-explaining anything. You'll get a quick idea for who these characters are, who Splinter is, and the world these guys live in briefly, and then it's right on to the story. As I said before, it's paced incredibly well. There's no filler in this book, and there really can't be time for filler since it's only two issues long.
It's a pretty cool story that takes place completely underground, in the world of the turtles, as they battle some incredibly creepy looking creatures. Between this and Animal Man 7, I may have nightmares featuring insane looking baddies. The more eyes and teeth a creature has, the more it creeps me out, and the creatures in this issue had me feeling a bit unnerved.
No one said "pizza time." Yes, I know this is the Eastman TMNT, but I'm still glad no one said it.
Finally, a cross-over book I actually really like. It's incredibly rare to have a cross over book be this good.
The Bad
There are minor inconsistencies with the turtles' heads and necks a few times, but I loved this book so much that I let it slide.
The Verdict
This was the Infestation 2 cross-over I was looking forward to the most and it totally didn't let me down. To be honest, I thought it would be a 3 or maybe a 4 out of 5, but I was blown away by it. The art was breath-taking and it had me smiling ear-to-ear from start to finish. I loved Mark Torres art and Jay Fotos colors in this issue. It reminded me a lot of Mike Mignola with a bit more pop in the color department. It had some great character design as well. The writing was just as strong as the art and the story had a great solid pace to it. The end of this issue was great, and I cannot wait to continue reading. Even if you're not reading the Infestation 2 story arc, I still say get this book. It's my favorite thing I've read this week.
Other Infestation 2 scores thus far:
Infestation 2 #1: 4 out of 5
Dungeons & Dragons #1: 2 out of 5
D&D #2: 2 out of 5
Transformers #1: 4 out of 5
Transformers #2: 4 out of 5