doombutton's Tales of the TMNT #59 - Expose review

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    From Comicrelated.com

    Reviewed By: David O' Leary
     http://www.comicrelated.com/news/1888/tales-of-the-tmnt-59   
     
    "Expose"

    Truth be told, it has been many years since I picked up a copy of this title. I am a child of the nineties so saw the full colour cartoon of which I was a fan of though I never paid the comic much attention. I was aware in passing though that the comic was another entity. I knew it was black and white and a different product than the cartoon, darker and more complex. But after reading this I now see that there is a cohesive continuity laid down over the run and these are not the turtles I remember.

    A fairly comprehensive recap page at the outset was very helpful in bringing me up to speed. The famed Shredder is dead but the foot clan is far from gone, it is just fractured and the clan is at the centre of a power struggle.

    We are introduced to a reporter named Lauren, a lady not afraid of taking risks but she is in danger of going too far for the truth. She took the air of a person who is trying to make a name for herself early in her career. She had that impetuous feel to her personality and I could see that getting her in trouble.

    Tristan Jones is a relative newcomer to comics writing. He was involved in Modern Gentlemen, an Australian undergound comic that got a limited North American European release in 2007 and earlier this year. He fashioned a darker toned story here that follows Lauren as she attempt to find out if 'King Cobra' exists. The title characters are used sparingly but when they show up they are used to good affect. As I particularly liked how they were used as the shadowy champions rather than the bombastic out there turtles that I knew them as.

    Paul Harmon uses the washed grey tones of the art superbly. When I finished the story it was obvious that this technique used to present the story was a correct one. Actually the feel of the story was quite similar to the one used by Alex Maleev in his Daredevil run with Bendis, just to draw a comparison to something that people may know more than this book. That is not to take away from this books merits as it holds water really well and people shouldn't dismiss it as I would have done until now.

    This was a pleasant surprise as I wasn't expecting this book to be as strong as it was. The fact that it quietly got to number 59 of this volume shows that somebody is reading it and based on the back of this issue, I should be too. Commendable effort.

    Other reviews for Tales of the TMNT #59 - Expose

      More than just Ninja Turtles 0

      Tristan Jones has brought back the grit to the TMNT Universe.  For a long time the Turtles stories in Tales have off and on lost some of their original essence of down and dirty stories that seemed much more likely (as far as anamorphic turtles go!).  Now, Tristan Jones has reintroduced that into the series by bringing in new characters like Hun, Lin Takahashi, and King Cobra during the era of the City at War story arc from Vol. 1. So, you may be afraid that if you were to pick up this co...

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