Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 2: NYC vs. TMNT Review (Jason Aaron, Juan Ferreyra)

An evil district attorney has somehow replaced the NYPD with Foot and somehow turned the city against the Turtles! The boys have to battle Foot nightly while saving innocent civilians - but they will have their day in court for stupidity’s sake. Splinter’s still dead, Casey’s in a coma, and April finds herself drawn to a new persona because nonsense. Meanwhile, the boys are still divided - can they reunite for the good of the city? Duh.

The follow-up to the surprisingly decent first volume is disappointingly poor with an incredibly feeble and unconvincing storyline. But Jason Aaron still writes the Turtles really well and the characterisation is sharp and compelling, while Juan Ferreyra’s art is kinetic and well-realised throughout.

Donnie is still sorta out of it - he’s carrying around a dead rat thinking Splinter is talking to him through the decaying corpse - and his brothers are dealing with his seeming mental illness in different ways. The book came alive whenever there was a scene where the Turtles are talking amongst themselves and that’s entirely down to Aaron’s writing. I just wish that this level of character work was paired with a similarly brilliant storyline, but it just isn’t.

The new villainous DA Hale is cartoonishly silly and I didn’t buy his being able to turn everyone against the Turtles through some vague drivel about them being murderers one bit. The Foot and assorted thugs putting on mutant masks, committing crimes, and making it seem that the mutants of the city were the ones doing them was an equally absurd plot point.

The court scenes were likewise childish, April’s new role is eye-rollingly cliched and uninspired, and the fight scenes - especially the loud finale - were uninteresting to say the least. It’s surprising that a writer as experienced as Aaron would have so many half-baked and poorly constructed elements to make up the plot of this book, but there we are. And the final scene is a weak cop-out of one of the more unique plot aspects of this series.

This run really needs a better villain than a joke like DA Hale. I know Shredder is obvious but he could at least provide a potentially better storyline than the rubbish one we got in this book. The character work and art are good but the story is too overwhelming dumb and boring. If you’re going to check this one out, don’t expect as robust a book in this second volume as the first.