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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #71 Review

Comic Books

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #71 Review

A bunch of wildly powerful beings (including a giant toad) meet at their once-a-century dinner to discuss how much the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are pissing them off.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #71 Review
Underwinter #4
Writer: Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz
Artist: Dave Wachter
Publisher: IDW Publishing


First Read Reactions

  • Even with an army of helper toads, preparing for houseguests is still a nightmare.
  • Houseguest bringing rats: Bad
  • Houseguest eating rats: Much worse.
  • I don’t even want to know how this motley crew is related to each other.
  • Yikes. This dinner looks my Facebook wall during election season.
  • Stupid rats—always spreading diseases and giving your location away.

The Verdict

Oof. Calling this issue tedious would be an understatement.

Aside from the art (which is fantastic) and the multiple old school/obscure TMNT characters (which was awesome), the issue is pretty much one big circular argument amongst family members. It starts off interesting, but devolves into a rhythm of predictable dialogue. Even worse, I still don’t feel like I entirely understand what this group of characters hopes to accomplish. Even their goals regarding the Turtles are vague.

I do like what Tom Waltz is setting up here, but I’m not sure we needed what amounted to twenty some odd pages of exposition to get there. When the Turtles do finally show up, we have no idea why they came or what they’ve heard…meaning we might have to go through at least part of this all over again.

On the plus side, however, we did finally get an explanation for that terrible deus ex machina ending way back in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #60.

Let’s hope the ending to this story next month is a lot better than how it started.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #71 Review
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #71
Is it good?
Despite a promising set up, the issue quickly devolves into circular arguments among vaguely-motivated characters.
The art is superb.
Lots of great old school/obscure TMNT characters.
You know those arguments you get in with your family on Facebook during election season? Imagine that, but with even less defined positions.
3.5
Meh

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