The following review contains some spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12, on sale now from IDW Publishing
Jason Aaron and Juan Ferreyra’s run on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came to a close this week, and it both nicely resolved their particular run, while also setting up the book well for the incoming creative team, which was a nice treat to pull off, but it also marks a really impressive feat by Aaron in his twelve issues to both tell a strong overarching plot while still having each individual issue stand alone on its own, both as an individual issue, but also as interesting commentary on modern society.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12 is from writer Jason Aaron, artist Juan Ferrerya, letterer Shawn Lee, and designer Nathan Widick, and it wraps up the return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles both to New York City, but also to each other as a family. Of course, as is often the case in life, this first has to involve fighting a giant monster.
How did Jason Aaron and Juan Ferreyra make the subtext very much text in this issue?
As noted, one of the things that is the most impressive in Aaron’s run is how much each issue explored certain universal topics while also tying them all in into the theme of, well, you know, talking turtles who fight crime using ninja weapons. I noted this in some of my past reviews of the series, particularly Leonardo’s visit to the Ganges river to visit the turtles of the areawhich brought up some interesting questions of what it means to be a “turtle” when you walk and talk (and fight crime). Also, the bit in the second issue where Aaron cleverly explains how mastering the Nunchuks means that Michaelangelo INHERENTLY works on beating himself up constantly. That’s the sort of sharp observations that Aaron has been doing in these comics.
However, he has also done a good job exploring the very idea of modern-day fascism. What freedoms are people willing to surrender to feel “safe?” Would you let the military invade your city to make you feel “safe”? Well, what about the Foot Clan? Meanwhile, how easily can the public be swayed by disinformation? Can you make the world turn on the Turtles, these heroes who have done nothing but protect New York City? I made a post a while back about how Silver Age Superman and Marshal Matt Dillon had a lot in commonas both of them were heroes who constantly saved their cities, and yet their cities would always turn on them at the slightest provocation. And we saw that happen in this story to the Turtles, as well, and they were framed so well that they had to escape into New Jersey!
However, in a clever recent issue from the perspective of the villainous District Attorney Hale (who is working with the Foot Clan), we see how fairness sure looks like an attack when you’re inherently UNfair like Hale. In addition, the people of New York City finally came through for the Turtles, and when the RATS of New York City chipped in, Hale was able to be proven as the monster he really was, and the Turtles’ names were all cleared. We have seen Hale be monstrous for so long, but at the end of the last issue, after he confronted Karai, the new head of the Foot Clan, she turned him from a figurative monster into a REAL one, and so now, the subtext has become outright text.
Here is where Ferreyra is so amazing. He is always so good at drawing monstrous stuff, and here, the Hale magic mutatation is just astonishing in terms of just how WEIRD it is. You have to have a keen idea for the unsettling to create a monster like this. It doesn’t make sense in all the right ways. You see, our brain is so good at making sense of designs, so if you make someone a “monster,” our mind can soon make sense of the concept, and that’s how you’ve seen so many “monstrous” characters sort of redeemed. Here, though, Ferreyra makes sure we can’t make sense of Hale’s design, and he just stands out as so OFF PUTTING.
Of course, he also NAILS the action scenes throughout the issue. His colors support his art really nicely. He really knows how to lay out a page beautifully.
How did the issue set up the incoming run?
There is a good deal of magic in this storyline, specifically the actions of the new Foot Clain leader Karai, who has been obsessed with breaking through the afterlife. Meanwhile, a key player in this story arc has been the dead rat that Donatello insists is the Turtles “father,” Splinter. It’s absurd, and yet, over time, each of the other Turtles ALSO heard their father’s voice.
In this issue, we learn that Splinter HAS been connecting to the Turtles from the afterlife, but at the end, he doesn’t WANT to come back to life, and the Turtles let his spirit go. That, though, doesn’t mean that KARAI will let him go, and sure enough, he is brought back to life at the end of the issue, but that is going to be something that the new creative team of Gene Luen Yang and Freddie E. Williams II will have to deal with in the series.
This volume kicked off with the Turtles all split up, and even when they came back together, they weren’t REALLY back together, as they were only working together because the Foot Clan has decided to attack them all, but now, there is no reason for them to HAVE to be together, but they have realized that they WANT to be together, and with their name cleared, they are heroes once more, and the whole thing is a great starting point for any new creative team. In a world of Ultimate and Absolute comic books (which are awesome in their own right), it’s cool to see a “new” series that really ties into the established continuity of the previous 150 issues of IDW’s Turtles comics, while still feeling fresh and ready for a new creative team to take the book in its own direction.
Source: IDW Publishing
