Chris Cooper reviews Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe #3…
Cornered and injured, the Turtles have no escape from the forces aligned against them! Raphael must learn to compromise with his enemy if any are to survive!
Negativity. I’m still reserving any I have for the backup title. The dialogue isn’t quite as terrible but perhaps I’m just getting used to it. The artwork still fails to impress. It just feels tacked on and a waste of pages.
Otherwise we’re all good! Universe #3 manages to keep up its impressive run so far. This month may not push the story on far but it gives us some fantastic character moments. The previous issue had one very angry Raphael. Him being angry and uncontrollable is all fine and dandy but a lot of the time in turtles stories the only reason given for this is ‘well, he’s Raph’. IDW has built up such a fine history that when a reason does come forth it makes complete sense. It also makes him a much more relatable mutant.
This all ties in very nicely with how much Mikey has grown recently. That the supposed youngest of the brothers is now able to effectively call out the most fearsome on his decisions and make it stick says a lot about the team and their overall evolution. It’s great to see.
I’ve completely come round to the artwork. It risks coming off as quite awkward and gawpy (did I just make up a word?) with Raphael especially constantly shown mid-sentence. Instead we get a lot of emotion and some important admissions. There’s a lot of violence again too! More blood but it’s at a suitable level. We’re not talking Walking Dead and a baseball bat levels though. Here it’s actually used to make a point rather than being there for shock value.
Aside from the turtles we get more of a look at the various humans involved in this story this month. We get compassion, bravery, determination and delusion. They aren’t the focus (damn right) but they do round out the story decently. The turtles may know a lot of humans in various capacities but Agent Bishop sees things very differently. Is he right? I can see why he thinks he is. Hopefully in the future we can get more of a look at why Bishop feels how he does.
Universe is ticking along so nicely at the moment that learning more about the main adversary is the only thing I think can be improved upon.
Rating: 8/10
Chris Cooper
Originally published October 26, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
