Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 1: Change Is Constant
Author: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz
Artist: Kevin Eastman, Dan Dancun, Ronda Pattison, Robbie Robbins
Back in the 1980's, the original TMNT comics by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, published by Mirage Studios, were some of the most popular comics probably ever written or thought of, and they're popularity led to a pop-culture phenomenon known as "Turtle Mania". It led to the release of comic book spin-offs, a cartoon series, and a live-action movie. Turtle Mania continued into the early 90's after the release of a not so great sequel to the original live-action movie and, seemingly, died altogether after the release of the third live-action Turtles film.
The hype did begin to pick up again in the early 2000's when 4Kids began running a new cartoon series on their Saturday morning cartoon block based off a new series of comics by Kevin Eastman, but it was nothing, IMO, compared to the more recent TMNT hype that was jump-started by Nickelodeon when they announced they were going to air a new CGI-animated cartoon series. This took place in 2012 shortly after the Micheal Bay blow up, I believe, and then directly afterwards, a new TMNT comic book series was announced.
The graphic novel I purchased today collects issues 1-4 of that new comic book series with art and story by Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz, and Dan Duncan. It's full of references to the original comics, movies, and cartoon series, which includes the art style in the book, which is characteristically Eastman. Or, at least, pretty close to it. Now, the art itself isn't a huge turn-off, but the fact that they decided to give all of the Turtles red masks is simply because it makes really hard to identify which Turtle is which. Even with the pages printed in color, it's not always possible to tell them apart by their weapons until you're a few panels into the fight scenes.
That aside, I am definitely feeling the new take on the Turtles' origins, but it is a little a confusing and I'm hoping everything will be explained in the second volume, which I hope to purchase soon. What's confusing about it, you ask?
Well, in this incarnation, we find three of the Turtles living with Splinter, desperately searching the streets of NYC for their lost brother, Raphael. Cool. I like that. It would be totally unsurprising if someone -- *cough*Leo*cough* -- pissed off Raphael to the point where he would actually run away for a while. In fact, he has -- in the movies, the 2003 cartoon series, etc., etc. So like I said, it's really not surprising and it's a great plot twist to the typical TMNT origin story.
The problem is that, according to what I've read of their origin story so far, none of the Turtles nor Splinter have had any ninja or martial arts training whatsoever and yet, they know ninjutsu. Or Splinter does, anyway, and even Raph, who supposedly got amnesia while he was lost in NYC, knows how to handle himself in a fight. Though, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Raph in this book only knew, like, street fighting that he picked up from random gang members who attacked him just because he was....Well, him.
So while I'm loving the plot twists that I've read about so far, I'm really not loving how confusing the story is at this point or the lack of multicolored masks, which just makes things even more confusing. I am hopeful, though, that this will all get cleared up in the second volume, which I'm hoping to purchase soon. Probably sometime next month. However, because of these little faults in the art and story, I'm only going to give a six out of ten.
I would still definitely recommend picking it up and giving it a good read, though, because even though the story was a bit confusing, it still does a damn good job at pulling you in and keeping you hooked. Not to mention, the Turtles are a household name a for reason. I've met people who have never set foot inside a comic book store once in their lives and know who the Turtles are. It's an awesome story full of unforgettable characters and unbelievable action. So if even you're not a Turtles super fan or just plan don't like them, I would definitely say that you should pick up this graphic and read it through. If you didn't like 'em before, I'm betting you would now.
Again I'm giving this book a six out of ten, but I'm extremely hopeful that the next volume will do better.
Thanks for reading guys.
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