Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3
Written by Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz
Script by Tom Waltz
Layouts by Kevin Eastman
Art by Dan Duncan
Colors by Ronda Pattinson
Letters by Shawn Lee
Covers by Dan Duncan, Kevin Eastman, Fred Hembeck, Peter Laird
IDW Publishing
Release Date: October 26, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

If you’re looking for pizza and shouts of “Cowabunga!,” you might want to look elsewhere. OK, there technically IS pizza in this issue, but that’s beside the point. If your looking for a great comic, you’ve found it here with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3. Some great character background stuff is revealed in this issue, so it’s one that you definitely won’t want to miss.

It’s nice to see a comic series that’s only three issues in that so clearly knows where it’s going. Writers Kevin Eastman (also Turtles co-creator) and Tom Waltz have clearly planned out what direction this title is going, how it’s going to get there and how fast. What’s refreshingly different in this incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the pace that the story is moving along at. Most comics take at least 6 issues to “launch.” By the end of the first story arc, you pretty much have your franchise’s origin told and everything in place for the book to proceed onto regular adventures. In this case, you pretty much have all those pieces in place by this issue, which is quite extraordinary, considering the way comics are written today. In this issue, Eastman and Waltz cram plenty of story, action, shocks and all out fun leading up to a pretty awesome last page cliffhanger

With layouts by Kevin Eastman, artist Dan Duncan delivers a solid gritty, yet clean, style that really works for the book. With a book like this, many artists would be tempted to go either too cartoony or too far over to the other end of the spectrum and deliver pages that were just too realistic, but Duncan finds the perfect balance of both. I really hope that IDW keeps him on this book for awhile.

Whether your a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, live-action movies, the actual comic series or just looking to have a good time, I really can’t recommend this title enough. Although the issue does feature a recap paragraph on the inside cover, you’ll probably want to pick up the first two issues just to be on the safe side.