TMNT The Armageddon Game
The long running revamp of the iconic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise at IDW comics barreling to a crescendo as The Armageddon Game begins as the brothers and their whole world face a threat the likes of which none of them have faced before – aliens, monsters, evil humans and more have been challenges to overcome but the stakes are now the annihilation of order across all creation and the spread of chaos, as The Rat King commences a deadly new move in the ancient game played by his mystical family of powerful beings, The Pantheon.
He has begun what he calls “The Armageddon Game”, a chess terms describing a game where there can be no draw and one in which black is given an advantage and white has only a limited time to take said advantage away.
TMNT The Armageddon Game: Opening Moves #1-2
Creative Team: Tom Waltz (story), Fero Pe (art), Ronda Pattison (colours), Shawn Lee (letters)
This two part micro-series does what its title suggests, as it shows us the pieces and stakes and tells of how the game board will be laid out. The perspective and focus is around the long-time nemesis of our heroic terrapins, The Shredder, who has recently returned from a journey through hell itself (literally) and emerged a seemingly changed man. Saki has come back to the land of the living after his experiences and making peace with his old enemy, Hamato Yoshi (a.k.a., Splinter) and now wants to make up for his past by helping the Turtles and keep them safe – something he is still trying to figure out.
Saki and his longtime companion, Kitsune, are visited by her Aka; she was last seen being killed by Kitsune in her failed attempt to resurrect their Dragon father but as they are all immortal, she is back in a new, younger form – coming now to do her part in what lies ahead by informing them that her and Kitsunes’ brother, The Rat King, has been scheming and has begun a whole new game. She informs them of the very willing and very dangerous new allies – Krang, Baxter Stockman and Madame Null. What follows is the premise of this mini-series as Kitsune and Saki embark on a kind of astral projection journey to study their new enemies and try and learn their fears and find weaknesses to exploit and try and give their side a more fighting chance in the fight to come.
The artwork is solid and definitely good and the transition between the different settings and from the calm moments on Saki and Kitsunes’ rooftop to the raging battle on an alien planet, all really show the quality and skill of the art team, in particular the colouring which really transitioned the vibe well.
The storytelling is very good considering they are fairly packed issues which gave a lot of information while also making time to give us some solid action sequences. Tom Waltz has found a great groove with the characters and world in the TMNT franchise and as the creative teams’ opening move, these issues made me eager for what comes after it.
TMNT: The Alliance #1-6
Creative Team: Eric Burnham (story), Will Robson (story and art), Junior Ba (story and art), Sophie Campbell (story and art), Paul Allor (story), Roi Mercado (art), Pablo Verdugo (art), William Soares (colours), Andrew Dalhousie (colours), Gigi Dutreix (colours), Ronda Pattison (colours), Brittany Peer (colours), Shawn Lee (letters), Nate Widick (letters)
The Alliance is a mini-series that can be read in the release sequence as it loosely ties back into the main series, but if you read if all together before you dove head first into the event series and the TMNT primary series, it wouldn’t take away from your enjoyment or understanding of anything.
Peopled by a huge plethora of rotating creatives over the 5 issues, the series has drawn talent familiar to the franchise and somewhat new to it – all to tell some intriguing stories that really add to the emotional weight and meat of this event. Each issue focuses on different characters, starting with #1 which tells of Karai making a choice to step out from the Shredders’ shadow to become her own person and seeing the upcoming dangers and the need for strength in numbers, goes on a recruiting drive; not to recruit soldier, but allies who can work in cohesion to keep things stable. The subsequent issues show us what is happening behind the major plot events in the lives of Casey Jones, Bludgeon, Venus, Alopex, Nobody/Angel Bridge and April O’Neil as they struggle to fight the good fight alone and we get to see their interaction with this old enemy and potential new ally in the form of the seemingly reformed Oroku Karai.
The storytelling is crisp and each issue feels like it has been lovingly crafted in both story and art. There is heft and gravitas to the characters as each of them has been through trauma and struggles and though the stakes each is facing in the issue could be seen as not equal, you feel for them all – be it Casey dealing with the fallout of his estranged fathers’ death and subsequent distancing from his Turtle brethren to Venus trying to come to terms with the body horror done to her over and above her mutation as she tries to find a spiritual centre with Bludgeon as her mentor and together they get sent on a timey-wimey jaunt that includes Donatello and his crystal powered gauntlet. The artwork style, the tone, the feel of each issue is different across the board except for the common thread of characters who are adrift and seeking something they don’t know – each finding small steps toward a better tomorrow and at the same time being potentially drawn into a massive conflict and a dangerous alliance.
Will they all accept and enter the fray? You’ll have to actually read the series to find that out.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #132-139
Creative Team: Sophie Campbell (story), Fero Pe (art), Pablo Tunica (art), Ronda Pattison (colours), Shawn Lee (letters), Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz (story consult)
+
TMNT: The Armageddon Game #1-8
Creative Team: Tom Waltz (story), Vincenzo Federici (art), Matt Herms (colours), Heather Breckel (colours), Alex Sanchez (inks), Shawn Lee (letters), Jake M. Wood (letters)
The main action of the series is between these 7 issues of the parent TMNT series and the 8-issues of the event comic.
We come into the beginning of things in a prelude in #132 as the Hamato Clan quintet concludes their training with Oroku Saki as he teaches them the mystic art of Kuji Kiri to help unlock each of their individual mystic skill – personally I found this a good issue that was a well handled and short personal journey for each turtle (some more than others) and the choices of each are good ones as they’re not obvious “powers” and are reflective of each turtle in some way. The issue also has a poignant goodbye to their father, Hamato Yoshi and is a good way to enter the big game.
Thereafter events in both series begins in earnest and pacing and content are quite intense! There’s a lot of moving parts and characters so I’m going to touch on them all as best I can:
- The Turtles are forced to split up to take on a variety of critical tasks – Leo, Mikey and Saki go to the planet Neutrino in Dimension X, seeking their aid in locating the Nova Squadron to combat Krang and the Utroms. A daunting task because the Nova’s are now called Nova Posse and are wanted in Dimension X, travelling the space-ways as bounty hunters.
- Eventually the nature of intergalactic politics prevent the royal family of Neutrino from directly helping their friends, but they indirectly try their best to help guide them and give support, leading to Mikey and the Neutrinos heading off to find the Nova Posse while Leo and Saki go off on another dimensional jump to try and find one threat that might help defeat the deceptively deadly Madame Null.
- Raphael goes on a hunt to find Old Hob, the one person seen as the biggest threat to and feared by Baxter Stockman – can Raph convince one of the Turtles’ deadliest enemies to join forces?
- Donatello continues his work to act as surveillance and stabilising coordinator while his brothers are away with the support of Jennika patrolling the streets and Sally Pryde and others trying to help keep the peace – while Sally tries to convince Man Ray and Herman to make accept their past misdeeds and join them to help and also to reveal whatever they know about Hobs possible hiding places to aid Raphs’ search.
- Rat King is putting his forces into play as Null finds and captures for him the merged entity of Krang and Leatherhead; a truly disturbing amalgamation. In turn Rat King has recruited “Doctor” Barlow to separate them both so that he may bring Krang into the fray to recruit his armies to their side – Barlow of course if the psychotic surgeon who caused some problems in mutant town and was responsible for the extreme surgery that made Venus into what she is now.
- Meanwhile, in New York all hell is about to break loose as a group of four masked “Turtles” begin a series of very loud, destructive and public attacks on Baxter Stockman and others – turning not only the public against the Turtles and other mutants, but also making the inhabitants of Mutant Town begin to question things and this leads to the already simmering situation in the walled off neighbourhood becoming a lit powder-keg just waiting to erupt. This is going to mean nothing but more problems for Sally, Jennika, Donnie and the rest.
- Of course, nothing can be all simple, so in the midst of all this, Donnie has been experimenting with the mystic crystals he found and his anti-gravity gauntlet as well as his new-found Astral Projection skills and is trying to reconcile it all with his general preference for science over magic while keeping an open mind. None of this is made easier thanks to the mayhem slowly unfolding and escalating around him.
- To make matters worse, the Triceraton Regenta who is in hiding with the Splinter Clan in Mutant Town, Seri, is being now actively hunted by the forces of Colonel Ch’rell of the Utrom who want to destroy her people completely and subjugate not just them but eventually humans and more – thereby adding yet another threat on the game-board for our heroes.
As the issues keep moving, the pace of the stories has been maintained extremely well. The writing teams bring in concepts from the original comics, as they have with largely solid success throughout this run and regardless of how it is reimagined, it works pretty damn well! Case in point is the introduction of:
- Torbin Zixx, the space bandit and rogue who was last seen in the 2007 animated series
- Cudely the trans-dimensional cow-lick who I remember most vividly from the Archie Comics TMNT adventures series.
- Cherubae and the Turnstone.
The artwork is wild and at times all over the place but never lacking. The use of such a vast team on these two series in fact somehow works extremely well as there’s a kind of cohesion in look at style for the most part and more than most comics, I find that there is a continuing look and feel that really sets this franchise apart under the IDW aegis. In particular, the colouring is gorgeous and really accentuates all the lineart and makes everything pop – and the one thing this team does really well, it’s dynamic action sequences that flow so very well!
Frankly, even the weakest art across all these many comics is better than a lot of other comics I’ve read in recent years that either tries to be too distinctive or too real or too out there and is hit and miss. Here in IDW’s TMNT world, they’ve developed a kind of house style that really works nicely.
From start to finish there is a constant sense of urgency and tension, something that is a hard thing to sustain over this many issues – but somehow the writing team is able to manage that quite well; it helps I think that over the years they’ve not just gotten a good feel for their characters, but that they’ve managed to find a way to very nicely balance the unfolding events with the occasional quiet moment that allows you to take a breath and let the heart-rate calm just a little between the moments of madness. It helps remember that it is not about the adventure or the action or any of that – these stories have been since the start of this series, about the four brothers and the found family they build along the way as well as the very nuanced and always changeable nature of people and how that plays its part in any story unfolding.
The hunt is on as the Turtles seek new allies while working overtime with their old allies to protect everyone they can – even if they are hated – and to stay ahead of the rising tide that has been wrought by the machinations of the Rat King
If you have been a fan of the TMNT in any capacity, this series has been brilliant, arguably their best incarnation since the original 80’s comics in my humble opinion. I would recommend the whole to you but even if you don’t read all the endless backstory, I would recommend strongly diving into this event. It is good. Plus, the main ongoing series has recently concluded at #150 and a new #1 written by comic superstar Jason Aaron has just kicked off and would make a kind of good jumping on point.
If you’ve never read or vaguely know about the Turtles franchise – it would be a hard deal to read this series as it is so dense and so connected to and driven by the events of the 100+ issues that have built up to this big blow-out. You could still read it if you were willing to just go with the flow that there are things you cannot fill in completely – because the writing team makes an admirable effort to drop in information in conversation to act as minor refreshers of sorts that it’s not all completely overwhelming. But it is a lot.
Bottom line: I loved this series and am now looking forward to the run-up to 150 to see how they send-off this run of comics that I am 100% certain will be amongst the best in the franchise.
One Happy Monk 
Leave a comment