Review – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3 (2024) (IDW Publishing)

October 23, 2024

2–3 minutes

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Cliff Chiang
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Release Date: 25th October 2024

For the third issue of IDW’s ‘soft reboot’ of their storied TMNT franchise, Jason Aaron is joined by Eisner Award-winning artist Cliff Chiang as the spotlight is turned on former ‘leader’ Leonardo, who now finds himself on the banks of the River Ganges in India, completely and utterly broken, on the brink of ending it all. As you might expect from that introduction, this is a fairly dark issue from a narrative perspective. Much like the previous two issues, Aaron takes great pleasure in getting deeply introspective with the latest brother, and just like Raph and Mikey, it’s clear that Leo is working his way through some powerful personal demons in the wake of the events of the previous series.

The overarching storyline is also threaded in rather nicely here as the Foot Clan interrupt Leonardo’s (possibly suicidal) contemplations, with Chiang cleverly eschewing a lot of the direct violence – we’ve seen enough of that so far in this series to make the point rather effectively – instead showing us the after-effects of Leo’s rather formidable skills with a katana, including one particularly glorious mid-panel shift between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’.

Speaking of visuals, Chiang does a great job throughout as you might expect, bringing his own colour work to the proceedings and using it skillfully as a way to convey the passage of time, changes of mood, and the eventual change of locale. There are some wonderfully creative flourishes with the layouts and panel compositions as I mentioned above, and a fantastic double-page spread near the end that perfectly captures the scope of Leo’s rage.

I also rather enjoyed the symbolism of the softshell turtles on the banks of the Ganges, and while Leo is perhaps being a little melodramatic with his desire to “find eternal redemption in the gullet of a turtle”, that’s certainly in keeping with his established personality, so it definitely works here.

The final pages see our first three brothers united (at least physically) and following the trail of breadcrumbs to Donny next month, with Chris Burnham set to pick up the artist’s mantle as our first arc reaches its peak. Honestly, Aaron and Chiang have managed something truly remarkable here – making a Leonardo solo comic the most thrilling and narratively interesting issue of the series so far. I absolutely loved the approach here, and can’t wait to see what comes next.

Rating: 4.5/5.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]