Slashed Heart — Reviewing ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus’ #5

Everything comes crashing together as the multiversal battle royale pulling Ninja Turtles from various dimensions comes to a resounding conclusion.

A bunch of hope, power, and kindness help save the day in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus #5. The final chapter of this miniseries from Erik Burnham, Tom Waltz, Paul Allor, Sophie Campbell, Caleb Goellner, Ben Bates, Luis Antonio Delgado, and Tom Napolitano.

<<Spoilers Follow>>

What a ride this miniseries has been. From the first installments that felt slow and too minimal, to some hefty middle chunks, followed by this big but also simple finishing movement.

First, I found some bits of this to be a bit too simplistic and too “Crap we’re at the end, gotta wrap things up and beat the bad guy” toned. Like the foundation building at the beginning took up too many pages leaving little room to really get to this point.

At the same time, overall, I found this issue to be quite solid. Much of that rests on how great it was to see Mikey be the heart and figure who puts the final crack in Savanti Romero’s master plans. Seeing how his connection with Slash and refusal to harm a friend be the deciding factor was so refreshing. Mikey is very much the heart but also someone that can be one of the most dynamic fighters.

His choice of the path of peace and friendship tracks.

Burnham does a solid job of scripting this all out and giving various figures their moment in the sun. Overall, the writing group did a good job to find ways to work with the main IDW Turtles and some of their dangling relationships, simultaneously having fun with the cameo characters who helped fill in the cracks.

A sharp, harsh texture is key to the artwork that Bates delivers. It leans into the hard tone of the story and how brutal the moment has become. Some lighter and bolder elements are incorporated into the pages in order to give things a more fun and visually distinctive identity. I love how kinetic and dynamic so much of the particular beats happen to be.

A lot of that comes from the different ways that Bates works with the paneling choices, eschewing more standard styles at times for different shapes, angles, and positions. Also, they are still giving each distinctive Turtle from varied media their particular style, without losing anything from the overall style.

For a moment, I thought there was an artistic change in the issue. Instead, there was a coloring change as Bates colored part of his own work next to Delgado.

With the harsher beats there are a lot more washed out and toned-down color palette elements. Delgado and Bates both utilize those heavier darker colors to establish the denser tone. Through them, the more vibrant flashes for particular characters and fantastical elements are given more space to breathe and stand out. Really mirroring more of the real world in some respects.

Lettering is such a grand craft. I’m so grateful to better understand and notice this at this point in my life. Napolitano happens to be one of my favorites, as he always really gives the different portions of lettering such bold and exciting life. Utilizing different colors, fonts, delivery systems, spacing, and more keep the lettering flowing and powerful. I love the way that the bubble shapes shift to fit characters from different universes, allowing their voices to instantly sound different.

At the end, this was a mostly satisfying miniseries. It took a bit to find its stride but it had some fun and crossed over some eras of TMNT well. Part of me wishes it had gotten to the battle stuff much sooner and brought in some more varied characters. The other part is find with what we got and how many character beats in the final three issues really defined the outcome.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus #5 is now available.