cyclonus_the_warrior's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: City Fall, Part 1 #6 - City Fall, Part 1 review

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    It's time to bring the city to its knees.

    The Turtles are on patrol in the city and they quickly notice that things are taking a turn for the worse. Soon, they're attacked by a highly skillful enemy. The Shredder then puts his plan into motion which involves taking the fight to the Turtles. -summary

    Collecting TMNT issues 21-24, the City Fall storyline begins here when the Shredder makes his big push to takeover the city. The Turtles realize something big is going down and Splinter realizes its time to take his students training to the next level. This volume is every bit as intense as the earlier stories as things build up to another very personal encounter.

    I will say that this storyline as a whole is the most ambitious of the bunch as it borrows older ideas from past TMNT incarnations that older fans will recognize yet adding a newer twist to them. It's amazing reading heavily derivative stories that have an amazingly fresh feel to them. New readers whom were already gripped to this series after reading the previous arcs will enjoy these stories just as much.

    The plot involves Shredder still in pursuit of a new second-in-command due to him quickly losing faith in Karai, after he witnessed her being bested in combat by Leonardo. I like Shredder a lot in this reboot. He is nowhere near the clown that the original animated series made him out to be, nor is he so easy to be defeated like in the original Mirage Studio's version. He is a ruthless master planner with the ninja skill to back him up. He truly seems like there is no real way of defeating him. I like my villains built up in this way.

    The character interactions are still just as entertaining; the Turtles still feel like a real family, plus Old Hob returns with a new agenda. One thing I noticed is that some of the characters do grow, while others are in need of some growth. There's plenty of room for overall progress.

    The artwork features various artist across the board that may cause things to feel quite disjointed for some readers. The opening story is quite gritty, murky, and dark. I see the point that it's attempting to make, but I can imagine some feeling put off despite it being very action packed. The visuals in other issues are outstanding and boasts the best character designs in the series at this point. These issues have very clean and meticulous designs and backgrounds; it all feels very lively and I can see readers falling in love with this. The action panels still maintain that sense of urgency and are very sharp.

    Overall this is a very strong volume with the only flaw being numerous references to the Micro-Series that runs alongside these events. There are plenty of things mentioned and by this time it really does cheapen the book; IDW added only 4 issues to these TPB's, and it feels kind of wrong to not add at least two of those Micro-Series issues for a better cohesive narrative. It's not that these issues feel like they're missing anything, but there was no harm in adding that content either. In any case, if one jumps into this series blindly this volume will probably rope them in. However, I would not advise to start here, definitely read this series from the very beginning.

    Pros: Lots of good action, solid narrative, different artistic approach worked for me

    Cons: Some artwork may distract readers

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