TMNT #50 Letter to the Editor

And now for something completely different.

TMNT #45-50 covers placed together to form an awesome poster. This really tells you everything you need to know about this story arc.

I finished reading TMNT #50 early, which drew to a close the feud between the Foot Clan and the Clan Hamato that has been building over the last four years of publishing at IDW. It was brilliant.

Variant for #48

Be aware that there are major spoilers to IDW'S TMNT in this letter. don't blame me if you they spoil something for you (why are you on the internet if you hate spoilers?). This is not a review of the series or any one issue. This is simply my letter to the editor praising them and asking a few questions. 

I wanted to write this with everything still fresh in my mind. This is OK to print, and therefore feel free to edit as necessary. 

I wrote in once back during "City Fall" , and decided now was the best time to do so again. I just finished reading #50 not ten minutes ago (and the entire IDW TMNT library over the last month as a refresher), and I am blown away. There were so many ways for that fight to go, but sometimes the most obvious is the best. This was definitely one of those cases. It seemed in his last moments, Oroku Saki was able to forget Takeshi Tatsuo, and also came to realize that although he lived through killing himself in the afterlife, his death would not be directly from his own hands. I loved Hamato Yoshi's use of his sons weapons while saying allowed what each of his sons stood for (subtlety is what this book has been built upon).  Brilliant writing! 

Thank you to the whole creative team since the beginning. The writing, art, colors, everything has been top-notch with this comic. Santolouco goes without say. I'd love to see more Cory Smith. Also the artists in all the mini-series and micros (too many to name here) have been awesome. Ronda - keep doing what you're doing. Your coloring has been one of the biggest things bringing this book to life for me. 

That moment with Koya and Bludgeon consoling one another after realizing defeat was touching and definitely brought a tear to my eye as well. I would love to see more of them in the future - they seem to have been neglected in a way since their first appearances. 

Why the decision not to show Leatherhead (if it really is Leatherhead)? He was teased back during "Turtles in Time", of course, but is there a reason he was hidden from view? I'm sure his story will be in coming issues, and I look forward to reading it.

I am so happy to see the return of Donatello. He has always been my favorite turtle. I was hoping to see Metalhead stick around for a while with Donnie still in stasis, but his return was pretty epic so I'll take it. Forget all the flak you guys got after #44. Donnie dying was one of the saddest moments I have ever read in a comic, and I would have been okay if it had stayed that way (obviously much happier with this outcome for him, though). 

The Battle Nexus. Will that be coming soon? Annual #2 said it would be a regular thing for great warriors. It's been a year since that annual has been published, and I eagerly await that encounter (though we all know time is not linear, so a year means nothing when dimensional travel and time travel both exist, right?). 

There were so many other things reading through the series again I wanted to comment on, but #50 has kinda clogged up my brain and emotions. My one real critique is the overuse of "panning away" (not sure what the industry term is for moving on to another scene while a character continues their sentence from the last scene). It seemed for a while in the 30's that it was happening 4 or 5 times an issue. It seems to have cleared up, though.

Thank you all for everything you've been doing. Keep up the tremendous work, all of you!

John from Fall River, MA

P.S. When will Pepperoni make her comeback! She was too damn adorable to only have appeared in the one issue! 

P.P.S. More Pigeon Pete! Comic relief for an entire series, is what he is!

The introduction of Pigeon Pete (TMNT #35), if you didn't know him.

The introduction of Pepperoni from "Turtles in Time #1"