Comics! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #16

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #16 

Story: Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz
Script: Tom Waltz
Art: Andy Kuhn

Solicitation and Preview

Review
If you wanted to see an issue long fight scene, this was your comic. If you came to see the turtles debate as they fight and come to different, opposing conclusions, then this was your comic as well. And if you came to find out if this was going to be Kuhn's last issue, the letter columns have a surprise for you!

I've talked before about a properly done and choreographed fight scene. When we got our establishing shot of the fight area for this comic, it didn't look like there was much room to go around. But, just like Slash's size, the space available became infinitely bigger and smaller depending on what was asked for in the scene. Big, just slightly taller than the turtles, and then gigantic where Leonardo crouching on his shoulders makes him appear about 20 feet tall, and back down to something smaller when Hob comes out at the end. Hell, even when Leo's sword is in Slash doesn't give us much of guess to how tall he should be. Then check out the size of the blood on the sword and how is magically goes from just about halfway to almost all the way to the hilt and back again. And that thing was in pretty deep to begin with anyway.

I am still liking how each turtle displays his own personality, even in the middle of the fight. I was kinda surprised at how Donatello wanted to put Slash down, but it made sense since it is the logical thing to do. If any one has a mix of Vulcan in him, it will be Donatello.

This is a Splinter sits on the sidelines and tries to play comic relief issue. I find it difficult to follow because then he will have great, inspiring speeches that try to show he can be serious, but moments like these drags it down.

Hobs showing up with a surviving Slash just seems like it was a "duh, I expected neither of them to be dead" moment, but it just seemed more eye rolling than anything. Slash hasn't related with anyone. So how will Hob reign him in? Actually, I take that back a bit. Slash did put on the face mask when he saw the other turtles with theirs on, which makes me wonder if he was more sparring with them in this issue than actually fighting. Maybe "kill" is just his way of saying "hi."

Speaking of the face mask, it should have been lost at some other point in the fight than just at the end. If you look at the fight as him just relating to the turtles as best as he can and not understanding that "kill" means what it does, then a good moment for him to make a character turn would have been with the mask coming up and then going full rage on the turtles.

Grades
Words: 8/10 - Some great character work was done in this issue.
Pictures: 5/10 - Sorry to see you go Kuhn, but for an issue that focused on a fight throughout, whatever you had done in the last issue to make Slash more dangerous in appearance was lost in this issue.
Buy Next Issue: New story arc and new artist? Color me intrigued.