Batman/TMNT Adventures #2 Review

Pretty in Pink Triangles 

Writer: Matthew K. Manning

Art Team: Jon Sommariva, Sean Parsons, Serge Lapointe, & Leonardo Ito

IDW/DC  

Release Date: 12/14/2016

Price: $3.99

Review by: Branden Murray

What would you do if you could hop between different cartoon worlds at will with the help of triangle shaped portals that randomly arise? Did you answer; that you would cause enough trouble in both the worlds to make Shredder blush while filling your pants pockets like the monopoly man? If so I might assume you read and took your cues from the Batman/TMNT Adventures series.  So with our premise established lets dive into issue two and see if Batman and the Turtles can get their brains to stop acting like noodles and get to accomplishing some actual heroing shall we.

This issue kicks off by filling us in on exactly how Harley Quinn and the Joker escaped from Arkham Asylum since they were the cliffhanger reveal at the end of issue one.  After these brief flashback scenes time flashes forward to present day, where it appears the Joker and Harley have opened date night to threesomes, and the Shredder’s in line filling out an application.  The interview session between the two evil alpha males goes about as well as a colonoscopy. This results in Shredder ordering the Foot Clan to attack but the Joker reveals he ultimately has the upper hand thanks to his extensive rubber chicken collection filled with bombs hanging from the ceiling.  Joker just jumped 100 points on the creepy scale too, in this reviewer’s opinion, because rubber chickens are the most utterly frightening toy known to man and he has a hundred of them!

Back in Gotham Batman awaits Robin on a rooftop after Alfred set the two up for a meeting last issue.  Robin finally arrives and appears to have brought company, a spicy little red headed number called Batgirl, with him on this emergency call. Batman grins and the group heads out to track down the Triangle portal they’ve gathered to locate.

We catch up with the second half of our title characters, the Turtles, as they too stare into the other end of this glowing red portal, wondering just what the hell is going on.  Mikey decides to be the brave one and stick his hand into the red glowing thing horror movies are made of only to find he’s touching “a really angry gargoyle”?  This really angry gargoyle happens to be none other than Batman standing on the opposite side.

But of course, this leads to the typical hero misunderstanding that devolves into a pretty generic battle scene between the two groups.  This fight goes on until some poor lady in jogging pants, comes running out of the woods, as she’s screaming, and being chased by a giant plant monster who’s familiar to the turtles.  It appears none other than Snakeweed is after this poor jogging citizen trying to stay fit  forcing  the entire crew to set aside their differences and gather together to prepare for battle. Just as they’re ready to mix it up Batman senses the mutated monster is not alone which leads to the cliffhanger reveal that Poison Ivy seems to have Snakeweed under her control.

There really wasn’t a whole lot that occurred this issue, other than the giant misunderstanding and fight between Batman and team Turtles, which took up the majority of this issues page count.  We are now two issues into this series and I don’t have a great idea of the overall purpose of this story yet, other than pink transporting triangles take people places.  If you ask me a big knock against this book right now is that we are now one third of the way through it and should at least understand the rules for this crossover by now but all we’ve done is introduce familiar and popular characters for two issues.

The art continues to be the selling point in this series and I am still charmed by the mixture of animated series Batman and Nickelodeon TMNT together on a printed page.  Batman’s smirks and expressions are straight out of the cartoon from my childhood and the little details like that are what I’m finding I love about this series so far.

Bits and Pieces:

It difficult not to compare this crossover to the one done by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams but it’s really two totally different animals altogether. Batman/TMNT Adventures has a much more kid friendly feel than its predecessor at this point, which is ok. However if you’re an adult here looking for enjoyment from the crossover, it would be primarily for the art because the story beats provided, up to this point, need to pick up. 

6.5/10