Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II #4 Review

Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II #4 Review 

Writer: James Tynion IV, Ryan Ferrier
Art Team: Freddie Williams II, Jeremy Colwell
DC Comics/IDW Publishing
Release Date: February 21, 2018
Cover Price: $3.99

The Venom is Calling

Four turtles and a 'Bat" were surround at the hand of Bane at the end of last issue. To make matters worse Bane is in control of the Foot Clan, has turned Baxter into a fly, forcing him to develop a new Venom along the way.   So ya our heroes are in dire straights. Lets jump in here and see how they get out of this one ... if they do at all.



The issue starts of course with this rag tag team up of heroes, surrounded of course, being taunted by Bane ... which is what he does best, besides punch everything into oblivion.  A poke to the chest of Damien by a Venomed up Beebop kicks off the events leading into the all out melee you would expect in this type of crossover issue.  There are a few highlights among all the punching taking place but even though I love Freddie Williams art normally, Bane at points looks like his head is coming out of the middle of his chest, his traps are so big, and hes drawn so Hulk like. 

The fight in the beginning takes up roughly half of our page count and ends when Bane brings a part of the building down on Splinter, forcing a rescue, before the Turtles and Batman retreat for now to regroup after being very over matched.

Back at the Sewer lair everyone tries to come up with an idea to prevent the further madness under Bane. Donnie suggests to test a sample of the Venom he took from the lab, and possibly use it to counter the power on the bad guys side.  Batman and Leonardo agree that is not the best course of action, in what Donnie takes as another L among a series of L's, hes taken in this series.  This leads us to a two part cliffhanger, one where see Bane has taken control of the Statue of Liberty, masking the statue like himself to let everyone know where he's at, while Donnie slips away and takes some Venom himself to finally starting getting a few W's of his own. 

Overall, I enjoy this book enough but the sequel to me has been a mild let down.   I don't get a sense we have as interesting a story dealing with Bane, as we did in the first series, dealing with Shredder as the ultimate big bad.  I still enjoy the art a lot but some of the giant renderings of Bane can be a bit over the top, making other characters look like they are Micro Machine size in comparison.  While I still tentatively recommend the series I'll really need a strong closing last two issues to get fully back on board here.

Bits and Pieces 

The series while still mildly enjoyable has just devolved into a series of over long fights, that look great, but don't lead to much actually happening in the issue besides some interesting cliffhangers again.  Williams art is always a treat to behold even if Bane is over the top Kiju levels of huge.

6.0/10