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A review by crookedtreehouse
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 1: Change is Constant by Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz
2.0
Having just finished [a:Sophie Campbell|15265779|Sophie Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1530476807p2/15265779.jpg]'s first arc on TMNT, I was excited to find out how the story reached the point where she took over. I read through Wikipedia, and saw that the whole IDW Turtle universe was a reimagining of the Turtles, using their original series, the cartoons, the live action franchises, and the various other Turtle universes all folded into one streamlined story. It sounded great.
It's not great. What might be a solid debut for a promising writer with potential should be embarrasing for the series creator who's over thirty years into his career. Eastman's TMNT is just a series of cliches with no depth. It would be fine if the story was cliche but the dialog was strong or the art was interesting, but everything about this series is profoundly mediocre. Every character announces their intentions and their origin story in the stiffest ways possible. Eastman tries to poke fun at certain eras of the Turtles by having Raphael find a Cowabunga shirt in the trash and point out how silly it is. But the writing on the 80s cartoon version of TMNT is superior to the writing here. It reads like [a:Matt Wagner|9934|Matt Wagner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1308067280p2/9934.jpg]'s early Mage work. It wants to be edgy but it's just echoes of better stories.
The art isn't bad, it just isn't anything special.
Very few writers aget a chance to go back and reimagine their stories to a fresh generation, using the same medium they started out in. I'd like to think other writers wouldn't squander that opportunity the way Eastman has here.
This is a boring story with characters with Zero Personality, and no imagination. I'm going to skip all the way to [b:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 22: City at War, Pt. 1|43663954|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 22 City at War, Pt. 1|Kevin Eastman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563765660l/43663954._SY75_.jpg|67934981] to see if Eastman gets any better, but I can't imagine him improving vastly between 2011 and 2019, given how little he improved between 1984 and 2011.
It's not great. What might be a solid debut for a promising writer with potential should be embarrasing for the series creator who's over thirty years into his career. Eastman's TMNT is just a series of cliches with no depth. It would be fine if the story was cliche but the dialog was strong or the art was interesting, but everything about this series is profoundly mediocre. Every character announces their intentions and their origin story in the stiffest ways possible. Eastman tries to poke fun at certain eras of the Turtles by having Raphael find a Cowabunga shirt in the trash and point out how silly it is. But the writing on the 80s cartoon version of TMNT is superior to the writing here. It reads like [a:Matt Wagner|9934|Matt Wagner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1308067280p2/9934.jpg]'s early Mage work. It wants to be edgy but it's just echoes of better stories.
The art isn't bad, it just isn't anything special.
Very few writers aget a chance to go back and reimagine their stories to a fresh generation, using the same medium they started out in. I'd like to think other writers wouldn't squander that opportunity the way Eastman has here.
This is a boring story with characters with Zero Personality, and no imagination. I'm going to skip all the way to [b:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 22: City at War, Pt. 1|43663954|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 22 City at War, Pt. 1|Kevin Eastman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563765660l/43663954._SY75_.jpg|67934981] to see if Eastman gets any better, but I can't imagine him improving vastly between 2011 and 2019, given how little he improved between 1984 and 2011.