Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 finds the Heroes in a Half-Shell in perhaps their lowest point: not only has the Foot Clan made New York a living death trap for them, but they’ve been branded as murderers, forcing them to retreat to the last place anyone would expect them to go. That place? None other than Newark, New Jersey. But the Turtles are still fractured…and it’s up to Donatello to pull them together.
This marks the first return to Donnie’s POV since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4, and Jason Aaron doesn’t hold back with the emotional gut punches in his script. Despite his mind fraying, Donnie is determined to get his brothers on the same page…but it’s hard when Raphael is looking for things to hit, Leonardo is stubbornly trying to hunt down Karai, and Michealangelo is lashing out at the others. Once again, Aaron shows he understands the bond between the Turtles, and why breaking it does more damage to them than a legion of Foot soldiers ever could.
While Aaron may be delivering the emotional hits, Juan Ferrerya’s going for the physical ones. The very first page is proof of that; the Turtles are surrounded on all sides by Foot troopers and police officers loyal to the Foot, and they’re taking as many hits as they deal out. It only grows more intense as the issue goes on, culiminating in a page where Leo, Mikey and Raph each have a brutal encounter with a squadron of Foot soldiers; Ferrerya shows their heads snapping back from punches, blood flying from their mouths, and the various bandages holding together their wounds. Simply put, the Turtles are going through it.
IDW
But while the Turtles may be divided, Aaron and Ferreya work together like a well-oiled machine. Each of Aaron’s words are underscored by the violence or the emotions expressed in Aaron’s art. A great example comes when Raph visits a comatose Casey Jones. When Ralph growls “Whoever did this to you, Casey, I promise you bro…they’ve got some comas of their own coming their way”, he’s literally surrounded by red – a visual manifestation of the anger underlying his words and bubbling in his soul. Ditto for Mikey, who’s lit in the bright orange of New York’s lights, or Leo, who stands in a torrent of cold blue rain.
Eventually, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 leads to a whammy of a revelation that doesn’t just tie together all the seemingly seperate stories, but also gives more context to Donnie’s seemingly incoherent ramblings. I never saw it coming, but given how Tom Waltz and Sophie Campbell’s TMNT runs introduced sci-fi and mystical elements without losing the TMNT’s signature flair, I trust where Aaron is going.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 isn’t just the start of a new story arc; it’s an action-packed spectacle that delivers physical blows to the Turtles and emotional ones to the readers. It also cements Aaron and Ferrerya as a top-notch creative team, and I have no doubt the duo will continue to make their TMNT run worth picking up in the months to come.
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