By now, the secret behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nightwatcher is out: the person behind the Nightwatcher’s armor is none other than Jennika, the fifth Ninja Turtle. The only question left is “how exactly did she become the Nightwatcher?” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nightwatcher #2 turns the clock backwards to showcase the events that led to Jennika donning the Nightwatcher armor, and becoming Mutant Town’s de facto guardian angel.
In the same vein as his work on The Boy Wonder, Juni Ba brings readers a tale of someone who’s trying to figure out who they are. In the case of Jennika, she’s trying to figure out her place in the world now that she’s not part of the Foot Clan and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have split up. Even if she isn’t part of a group, she’ll still fight for what’s right; when the story begins its flashback she’s being arrested for putting a beatdown on a pair of thugs.
This leads to the encounter with the Nightwatcher armor. I say “encounter” because the armor was actually alive; Fero Pe draws it as a spindly mass of blades and metal, towering over his opponents. But there’s also a childlike innocence to the way it moves, and a rather sweet motive behind its origin. Pe depicts this in a series of panels that have a dreamlike quality to them, thanks to the lovely color art of Luis Antonio Delgdo and captions by Nathan Widick.
The real standout are the action scenes. Two in particular stand out: the moment where Jennika first encounters the Nightwatcher armor, and when she first dons it to face off against a SWAT team. Both of these moments are full of hard hitting punches, kicks, and general ninjitsu, but it’s the artistic flair that Pe and Delgado bring to the table that’s worth watching. The first sequence is arranged so that its panels form a spiral of sorts, figuratively and literally upending Jennika’s life. The second is a mass of shadows – save for Jennika, who’s shown with a smile on her face within the armor. It’s there that she truly becomes the Nightwatcher.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nightwatcher #2 continues to deliver on the promise of the first issue, serving as both origin story and mission statement. This isn’t your usual TMNT comic, but that’s what makes it fun.
