Don’t Call It A Crisis — Reviewing ‘TMNT: Battle Nexus’ #1

Imagine that feeling that comes from grabbing a bunch of different action figures and smashing them up against one another. It’s like playing out some kind of multiversal crisis that sees these different universe’s characters given toy form coming to blows for the fate of their world.

Comic books have utilized this tactic in a great many ways over the decades. IDW Publishing is diving into it with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus — a five-part miniseries focused on pitting the publisher’s version of the Turtle quartet against variants of friend and foe alike. It is a story told by Tom Waltz, Paul Allor, Sophie Campbell, Caleb Goellner, Erik Burnham, Esau Escorza, Isaac Escorza, Luis Antonio Delgado, and Tom Napolitano.

This first issue is very much a lot of setup with very little of the aforementioned toy-smashing action. We get some solid post-fight beats between the Turtles and Bebop and Rocksteady, as well as a minor scuffle with new henchfoe Ninjara. For a debut setup issue it’s mostly fine.

Some good dialogue and moments, with a lot of captions that are telling more than showing. It’s a bit of a lore-drop meets foundation-building. There are a lot of veteran hands and minds in the group of writers that helped craft the story, with Waltz scripting the whole thing. Enough is going on to pique interest and desire to check out the rest, especially with the ending and proposed fights to come. I mean, seeing Leonardo have to battle original black-and-white Mirage Studios Shredder is worth the price of admission for the second issue.

I’ve enjoyed work from the Escorzas in past Turtles-centric stories, most notably The Last Ronin story from a few years ago. It’s a very bold and dense artistic style that lends itself to the heftier action and firmer world structure of TMNT. Panel choices really reflect the depth of the world and characters of this line, giving everything a good foundational footing and burst of kinetic energy.

Just like in the aforementioned story, Delgado provides a great color palette to compliment the artwork. It is a great blend of darker heavier color and the more vibrant ones expected of these characters. Each chosen tonal shift brings a spark to the page, really allowing it to feel authentic and fantastical in equal measure.

Plenty of words need some life in this story and Napolitano really delivers, as he always does. The lettering infuses everything with power and uniqueness. It hits the right tone and volume at all times, adding little modifiers to the lettering to achieve those beats. I love it when the size shifts for dialogue to fully indicate the volume or emotional level that we should hear.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus #1 is now available from IDW Publishing.