Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (by Jason Aaron) vol. 2: NYC vs. TMNT

Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael are back in New York City.  They each had a rough time getting there, but the important thing is that these brothers are together again, right?  Well, they’re still at each others’ throats over past grievances, and Donatello’s insistence that their deceased father Master Splinter is speaking to them through the dead rat he’s carrying around isn’t helping.  Nor is the fact that the city is in the iron grip of the Foot Clan working at the behest of District Attorney Hieronymous Hale.  While the Clan’s leader Karai works some unknown magic, Hale is making sure everyone in town knows who the boss is and God help any man, or mutant, who gets in his way.

As expected, this volume concludes Jason Aaron’s time on the relaunched “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and it plays out as you’d expect.  There’s lots of big action, big drama, big character moments, with an entirely workable status quo in place by its end.  (More than you’d think as it apparently does away with one of the big changes from the previous series.)  It’s all delivered well enough, especially with Juan Ferreyra’s art that may not be as textured and detailed as his single issue in the previous volume was, but is still very nice here while also delivering some inspired layouts along the way.

These two volumes really did feel like a transitional work to get the characters back in place from where they were at the end of the previous series.  That’s not a bad thing in itself, until you start thinking about whether or not these two volumes make for a memorable story beyond that.  It has its moments yet, while I feel that how the brothers come together again is handled about as well as it could’ve been in the space it was given, it’s let down by a too-familiar-feeling villain.  Hale’s villainy may be of-the-moment, yet he’s really got nothing to distinguish himself beyond that – even with his transformation at the end.  Even though Aaron’s two volumes aren’t a bad read you could probably skip them and start with Gene Luen Yang’s run in vol. 3 without any issues if you were so inclined.