The first thing you will notice when you pick up this book is the change in art style. After 12 issues, Dan Duncan has left as the lead artist of the TMNT comics to pursue a TV animation job. This trade paperback collects two 2-issue story arcs, Sins of the Fathers and Blood Brothers, which made a great time to bring in a fill-in artist until a new full time artist could be found. Hot off his Michelangelo micro-series issue, issues 13 and 14 were going to be done by guest artist Andy Kuhn. It was while he was working on issue 13 that IDW asked him to stay on to draw this whole book. This change was not permanent as the next arc was drawn by Ben Bates.
Sins of the Fathers picks up where the Casey Jones micro-series issue leaves off and tackles the theme of father figures, family, and how they impact or affect everybody differently. Casey, after being beaten up by his father, returns to the Turtles. Raphael has a difficult time dealing with the fact that Casey’s father has so little respect for his son that he intends to do something about it. Splinter steps up in this issue and teaches Raphael how to control his anger. Raph, being reunited with his brothers and father after a year of being apart, is still learning and adapting to his new family situation. In this story arc, he is made to feel more a part of the family than before, as are Casey and April who are both welcomed to the family. Being younger than in the Mirage comics does help when it comes to building the family unit. The Mirage “family-unit” was created more out of necessity whereas in the IDWverse, everybody is still maturing and developing personally and a father figure is important in this time of life.
Sins of the Fathers continues with a focus on Karai. We start to see her disappointing her “grandfather”, Shredder. We are also lead to believe that Shredder will be looking for a new number two sooner rather than later. Shortly thereafter, Shredder asks Karai to bring him Leonardo. And if this was not subtle enough, we later discover that Shredder, not believing in Karai, wants Leonardo as his second in command. Her character in the Mirage comics had a bit more on an edge to her and I am quite surprised that Karai lets herself be pushed around so much by Shredder. I am sure we will see her develop a bit more of a backbone in the Secret History of the Foot Clan mini-series, but it is still weird to see Karai like this. We have seen the Turtles work with the Foot in the past, during the Mirage City at War story arc as well as in the 4kids animated series, but Shredder trying to recruit Leonardo is very interesting twist and I am looking forward to seeing it progress.
Meanwhile, Baxter Stockman wakes up in a lab on Burnow Island and discovers a room full of Krang-type brains. This is the first time in the IDWverse that we start to get some history about Krang. We learn that Krang is an Utrom from Utrominon while he shows Baxter the portal he uses to go between Earth and Dimension X and gives a brief family history, with mention of his father. While Krang is explaining this to Stockman, a few Neutrinos come through the portal and are subdued by Krang fairly easily. We had already had a slight spoiler in the Fugitoid micro-series issue, but we then get the big Technodrome reveal. With the impending Krang War story arc, IDW has swapped out the Triceraton's homeland for Dimension X and the Technodrome. As much as it hurts some of us diehard Mirage fans that they are skipping the Triceraton for now (I'm talking about you TRexJones), I am glad that they will be breathing new life into the Neutrinos. Making any element of the Fred Wolf series more serious is always a good thing.
The second story arc in this book is entitled Blood Brothers and continues the family theme. We learn that something has escaped the Stockgen labs and it ends up hunting the Turtles. The four Turtles must work together, reinforcing their brotherly bond, to vanquish this foe. At first, I was hoping for Leatherhead, who we first met in Tales of the TMNT Vol 1. but it was later revealed to be Slash (which was also sort of spoiled by the April micro-series issue). Even though I really hope we see Leatherhead show up in IDW in about a year or two, this Slash story arc reminds me of him. Slash was more of an Archie character and like Leatherhead, he was an Utrom experiment that got loose. On the last page we discover that Old Hob is still alive and that he is trying to recruit Slash, kind of like Leatherhead when he started working for the Foot, by deception. Blood Brothers not only continues the “family” theme with the Turtles wondering about Slash and how he is similar to them, but with death and killing as Leonardo feel extreme remorse for what he “thinks” he has done.
The Turtles also discover their new lair in this book, a bomb shelter with access to the sewer. I am really excited about all the possibilities the bomb shelter has to offer them. This new lair helps solidify the “family” just like going to Northampton did in the Mirage series. This is also a topic I was hoping to see Tom and Kevin tackle, Northampton, and I guess for now everybody moving to this new home will work the same way moving to Northampton did for the Mirage Turtles.
Both of the 2-part arcs help set up an incredible 2013 planned for IDW's TMNT. We have the 4-part Krang War arc, 4-part Secret History of the Foot Clan mini-series, and an incredible 7-part story with a prelude by Kevin Eastman to close out the year. Not only that, but we have a set of four villain micro-series issues coming out, with the first one delving deeper into the father issues Krang has. It will feature the artist of the Casey Jones micro-series issue, Mike Henderson. The second issue will focus on Baxter Stockman and will feature two familiar names; Erik Burnham will write the issue and Andy Kuhn will draw it.
Currently, IDW is being heavily influenced by the Fred Wolf and Archie series, but there is still a lot to compare to the Mirage comics. It is funny how we are over 16 issues into IDW’s run and they are still touching on stories that happened in the first few issues of the Mirage run. There is so much more material for them to refer back to that this series will definitely have more twists and turns to come.
Stay tuned for my next review, IDW’s Krang Wars. The TPB will be released in June 2013 collecting issues 17, 18, 19, 20. If you want to know more about the artist of this book, please go back and check out my interview with Andy Kuhn.