IDW TMNT Free Comic Book Day 2022

 By Mark Rodriguez

It's been a while since I looked at the IDW Ninja Turtles, who have now gone beyond 100 issues. From what it looks like, it will reference parts of the original Mirage TMNT first issue. Let's take a look.

The Turtles are being cornered by the Earth Protection Force, their only options being either being captured or to face death. The EPF thinks these are just guys in turtle costumes, as the turtles strike, they're about find out they're not wearing any costumes. 

The cool thing is, it's just not the new designs that change, but the positions of the Turtles based on who they are named after. Like in this version Leonardo is in the same position Leo from the Mirage comic, but using sais instead of swords and so forth.

The Turtles fight against the soldiers, though these versions looks a little different and use different weapons. In this case Leonardo is the one using the Sai, Raphael uses the bo, Donatello has the nunchaku and Michelangelo is the one with the swords. The turtles make short work of these men and vanish before the police can arrive. They strike hard and vanish in the night.

Venus has been watching these events unfold from the rooftops, confused as to what she just witnessed. The Rat King watches over her as this is all a prelude to the events of the upcoming Armageddon Game.

My Thoughts-

Well..... that was a super short read. So it's kinda difficult to understand what just happened here. Did the EPF mutate their own set of Ninja Turtles and they escaped? Mirage comics will recognize these events as a homage to the opening fight the Turtles had against the Purple Dragons in their first issue. In the original version Leonardo himself was narrating/monologue the events as they occurred. This was the first time the world would ever meet the turtles, so it was a good way to introduce the turtles, their names and their associated weapons to the readers. 

In this version Venus is witnessing the fight and she's the one doing the narration. I don't think she's met them yet, so maybe the wrong name/weapon association is just her not knowing them well enough? But then why would their overall look be so different? Also with the Rat King being possibly brainwashing her or at the very least using her as a pawn in his game, this could be brainwashing imagery she is seeing, similar to how Kitsune brainwashed Leo once before.

Just for a brief backstory, besides the Shredder, the Foot and Krang's forces, other villains the Turtles have faced are the Rat King and Kitsune. Those two, among several others, are members of The Pantheon, powerful beings who want to play this game between each other to see who is the most powerful. It looks like this game is finally about to begin.

As for Venus, she has been recently introduced into the comics. In the IDW version, instead of there just being 4 mutant frogs, there are actually a whole bunch of them. It seems one was captured and experimented on and and had some of her body parts removed and replaced with mutant turtle parts and whatnot turning her into some sort of Frankenstein monster hybrid mutant frog and mutant turtle. What they hell have they done to you, Venus???

Very short comic, but hey, it's free. I wonder if we're gonna see these versions of the Turtles running around in the main series or if they were just in Venus' mind? Also the book features the original re-printed pages of the Turtles fighting off the Purple Dragons. I do have to say, the part that stood out the most was when Raph gets a page to himself as he really got into the fight, so it stands out seeing him use the staff instead of his sais.