Leo'Jet Ski Fuel'nardoSee, if a baby dinosaur clearly hated me, I'd reflect on some stuff.
"Hey, who's your favourite Turtle? Mine's DONEatello."
Campbell is up there with Jim Lawson for drawing the TMNT, some of the most out there comic characters ever created, in the most mundane settings and making it stick with you.
Underrated Campbell detail: the way she not only draws the lads in normal clothes but makes sure to depict how their shells would raise the neck and back a little.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a stupid joke made from pure love for its pulpy medium, and the punchline is that this means when it's sincerely emotional it's devastatingly effective. It's rarely actually good, so when it is, it's the best.
But then, kinda always been the way, hasn't it?
Campbell could make a whole comic of characters just walking through dilapidated cities and isolated Massachusetts countryside and I'd read it back to back.
Seriously, Ninja Turtles doing mundane things. Best vibe in this world.
"Firstly, I did not tame the legendary buffalo; it was already tame, I merely shot it!"
I like this as a sort of belated inciting incident. Donnie, the one who Does Machines, can't fix this collective mourning in the wake of their father's death. So he's packing up and heading off to something he -might- be able to fix. Ties into Campbell's theme: sometimes the best thing you can do for your family is -not- try to force a solution. Let 'em come to one if they can.
Things get better for these poor kids soon, I promise.
A) God, what a perfect TMNT's NYC building that is. Could be a set from the first movie.
B) Okay, so putting aside the fact Hob is most probably firing Diamond because he's a paranoid control freak who doesn't like people he can't control; all we've seen of his Mutanimal cops is them oppressing other mutants and Raph beating them for it. What the hell kinda lines was Diamond crossing that -Hob- considers her a loose cannon? And where exactly is he drawing his line?
(Don't like Hob, in case you couldn't tell.)
So fucking glad Campbell doesn't buy into Hob's bullshit. This is a guy who spent a hundred issues and Christ knows how many miniseries justifying everything he does in the name of mutant rights, and now that there's a couple blocks worth of them we see how he actually treats them. Diamond's a bully, but she was a person with a life until this asshole holding her at gunpoint turned her into a walking weapon and set her loose on his (also coerced) people.
Seriously. Cannot stress how refreshing this kinda thing is after years of the people who brought you "Shredder was never 100% evil and it was just, like, a dragon or something."
1) So Hob, Mr. Bigshot mutant rights activist, is trading with the Foot clan, giving them mutants in exchange for supplies. Weaponizing his own people. Classy.
2) Koya! She's a mutant falcon who hates Leo, because he cut off her wings! She has ghost ones now! I have absolutely no strong opinions on her! (Even though she gets the best line in the run.)
Just everybody's favourite "complex" character selling mutant child soldiers. No biggie. There's been a lot of repetitive shots of Diamond following this attempted send off, and I think the one at these last two would be the only ones you'd really need.
("There's been a lot of repetitive shots" he said, needlessly posting practically every panel of a comic book)
TMNT is one of those IPs that's defined by a lotta noise and also hit hard and deep when it does something in complete silence.
That's Shredder watching them, and I'm okay spoiling this because A) you probably already guessed, B) because his lame redemption arc has so little to do with this storyline that it doesn't matter if I do or don't spoil.
Pretty sure I must've made the "why nerdy men hate this" joke before now, but seriously. Raph, surrounded by women trying to do something productive and being told to sit down and contribute. C'mon.
And Raph's been beating on the Mutanimals for a weeks now with no impact. Hob's running a mutant arms race/slave ring right under his nose. Al just told him Mutant Town is running out of food and medicine. If he had any intention or ability to contribute to any of this, you'd think he would instead of attempting to walk out mid-conversation.
Jen's gonna call him on this again in a few panels and it's gonna be great.
A) Raph, friend of a vigilante, asks why their cop friend doesn't just tell everyone to knock it off, because yeah, that'd work.
B) Sally Pride's response is to get into how the TMNT and Mutanimals have actually worked up 'til now. Small groups of friends and family pursuing their own agendas. And that blatantly isn't going to work anymore. Which is neat. Hob and Splinter had their ideological war, Hob won, and the results suck.
More like "Mood", amiright? Anyway, these're the Weasels, Zink, Zanna and Mushroom. They're adorable. If Lita is the ultimate question of the TMNT's family theme, the Weasels are a further question of the boys, Hob, Aloplex and the whole Mutant Town era.
They didn't ask to be here and their guardians don't know what they're doing. The adults of this series need to step up for these girls, and none of them other than maybe Al are gonna pull it off.
They're what's in that crate. Diamond sets them free to get back at Hob. I'm not really sure the sequence is worth posting.
♫Carefully on tip-toe stealing, breathing gently as we may♫ but for real, Campbell has a great gift for motion and personality. Not only can you see exactly how the Weasels would move if this was animated, you can discern their personalities even when they're in full shadow.
Eh, what the hell, for completions sake. Do have to figure out how to get more concise, though.
Gotta wonder if Diamond's go-to insult of other mutants being "ugly" is projection. She seems the type.
Gonna try to remember to post covers for each issue, help break things up.
Love for this to be just a random nightmare, but pretty sure what Donnie's having here is a flashback to his brutal death (as in meaningless comic book death) at the hands of Bebop and Rocksteady in the lead up to issue# 50.
His soul was rescued because of the whole reincarnation deal and temporarily placed in the IDW version of the Metalhead android, before being returned to his mostly healed original body. Ever since, he's had to wear a synthetic shell.
Donnie's "death" is one of the major points where I realised I just do not mesh with people who think those first 100 issues are peak TMNT, because next to not finding it at all emotional...c'mon, this is just cape comic shit. You knew this wasn't going to be permeant. Even the overwrought mourning and melodrama were entirely stock for both the series at that point -and- the worst habits of American comics. Drama isn't derived from theme or character, it's just a big, loud thing that happens.
Point being, I grok with Campbell's portrayal of a vulnerable Donnie not only coping with this soap opera shit that happened to him but the -actual- consequences of it. Barometric pressure means his shell hurts, and he isn't conveniently "over" what happened to him.
It's almost as if, uh, writing about stuff characters go through has more weight than just TELLING US HOW SAD AND BADASS IT IS, huh?
TMNT is great because you can have all this '80s dinosaurs and lasers bullshit and then someone will draw the most mundane, lonely in the woods comic panel ever, and this will make total thematic sense.
brb, joining Sophie Campbell's patron exclusively to commission pages of the Ninja Turtles walking sadly through the woods.
Canadian and or Scottish followers; this is how I shall visit you.
Hate traveling, but nothing gets to me like fictional characters meeting up after a long absence. That kinda "Caught up in the moment after a shitty vacation" feeling is a running theme in Campbell's work. Storywise, sure, but also damn if the lady can't draw a run down apartment.
♫Donatello, home invader♫
TURTLE POWER
Probably a coincidence, but the Rise cartoon Donnie was depicted as a soft shelled turtle, compensating for it with a metallic "battle shell" that could fly on turbines and had Doc Ock arms and all sorts of other stuff. The show woulda been going off the air when this was coming out, but yeah, wonder if there's a connection.
And of course, there's Image Comics Donnie, who was dropped out of a helicopter after being blown up with a rocket launcher, and was turned into a cyborg after one fell on him. A fascinating experiment in determining what's too much even for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
(Might do that one some day, if there's ever a scan where the black and white art is legible, but don't hold your breath even if there is)
For real, Campbell TMNT has such great, cozy vibes. It's nice when this goofy ass franchise feels like it was written by an actual human being.
Ready for things to get more painful than any Raph and Leo spat?
Question to anyone scrolling; did you spot this the first time you looked at the above scan?
A) Some of the background mutants, like the hippo, dog man and the rabbit-mum and bear(?)-child are background characters in the first issue, dining at the tables while Raph and Al talk.
B) Love how Mushroom's all normal when she's darting inside and immediately turns demonic in the presence of stew.
Seriously, the Weasels have a surprisingly consistent amount of personality for characters that've been on less than twenty pages worth of story so far. Zink being a hellbeast trying to take Jen's head off, Zana just eatin' and eatin' and eatin', Mushroom having the foresight to grab some cans.
Also, that's Alopex, their future mum, hurling bowls at them.
Mushroom is my favourite and I feel sorry for the lift she's been born into and the two idiot sisters she's been saddled with.
Oh, also, dunno when it comes up in-story but Jen was either wrong or just speaking in general terms, the Weasels are all female.
Huh. Noticed this after finishing dinner and an episode of Benson, went back to check. Yeah, the Weasels do have little ear tags. Wonder if that means they might've been lab animals before being mutated, like the TMNT and Splinter in this continuity.
Surely we ALL remember where we were when the New Mutanimals graduated, forming Mutanimalx-Force, adding a third title to Uncanny Ninja Turtles and Turtle Factor.
Charlotte Ariel Finn@LeoJetSkiFuelnardo I see they spent their BIO-E on the weasel trait that means you have to eat your weight in food every day
@Charlotte I mean, if you're developing a child soldier to kill Michelangelo, presumably what Hob was doing, it's just good strategy to pit him against someone with an equally insatiable appetite.