This week the Wednesday Comics Reviews team checks in on a continuing run with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8, delves into visual storytelling with G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero – Silent Missions – Spirit #1, does a historical true crime deep dive with Buried Long, Long Ago #1, and more. We also look ahead at new titles eligible for pre-order, including The Pale Knight #1, and Gehenna: Naked Aggression #1. Plus, as always, The Prog Report!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Review by D. Morris
We are eight issues into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book that feels under appreciated. It’s sort of understandable. This relaunch of the book came at the cost of a long running and beloved iteration. On top of that, the book was relaunched with big name talent Jason Aaron writing and superstar artists Joelle Jones, Rafael Albuquerque, Cliff Chiang, and Chris Burnham handling an issue for individual turtles. It looked like a case of talent known for work on Marvel and DC books brought on a book to “legitimize” it or boost sales before they all ditched and someone else took over.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. While those first five issues (Darick Robertson did issue 5 focusing on Casey Jones) were front loaded with talent, these were creatives who clearly are fans of these characters. Aaron clearly respected the run ahead of him while putting his own stamp on the heroes in a half shell. Unsurprisingly the Chiang (who did his best Jim Lawson impersonation!) and Burnham drawn issues were two of the best looking issues last year.
The book is now off and running. The table setting is out of the way and Aaron can put his foot on the gas, especially since he has artist Juan Ferreyra. The Turtles after being separated for mysterious reasons are back in New York City and on the run, hiding in Newark. They’re fighting amongst themselves. The Foot have installed a tyrant in the District Attorney’s office who is out to get them. Donatello is trying to hold them and himself together. Let’s be real in a story titled “NYC vs. TMNT”, things look real bleak for the Turtles.
Aaron has written some dark material before but something about his run on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so far reads as a little hopeless. The book opened with the brothers separated for yet unrevealed reasons. The Foot Clan relentlessly hunt and attack them. Casey Jones is out of commission. Maybe the most controversial decision remains Donatello’s mental state. He lost his mind after getting captured and being forced to fight anyone who paid to hunt captured mutants.
If anything though, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 seems to indicate this might be the case, this run feels like Aaron writing the TMNT equivalent of Born Again. He’s taking these heroes to the edge before they come back in stronger than ever. Donatello might be mad but he’s been holding the group together. The Turtles might be fighting New York City and the optics of who they fight might be bad, but the only way to go from the bottom is up.
What really cements the mood of the comic though is artist Ferreyra. He portrays New York City with dirty snow, smog, and polluted. A city, with a whole borough for mutants, looks ready to violently corrode at any second. There’s an action sequence that opens the book where he turns a subway car into the outlines for his page layouts. When Leonardo finally confronts Donatello, the page becomes diagonals and bent panels to better express the physical and emotional conflicts.
What might be most striking about how Ferreyra renders the Turtles is the inspiration from artist Simon Bisley’s work on the ’90s miniseries Bodycount. His work doesn’t get as truly unhinged as peak Bisley but the exaggerated musculature and character acting certainly lie in that exaggerated style. These turtles are all broken and bloody. This all results in both an expressive and explosive looking comic. This might be the grodiest looking Ninja Turtles comic since those early Mirage comics.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 continues what is a pretty dark take on the Heroes in a Half-Shell, both narratively and visually. It’s not that the Turtles haven’t faced darkness before. One of the early issues of the Mirage series featured Leonardo beaten to an inch of his life. But the Turtles always come back from the brink of defeat and seeing them come back from that keeps this being a compelling book.
Verdict: BUY! (Also buy a pizza)
G.I. Joe – A Real American Hero: Spirit #1
Writer / Artist: Leonardo Romero
Colorist: Cris Peter
Publisher: Image Comics
Review by Jared Bird
Ever since acquiring the G.I Joe license, Image Comics has gone all in on delivering interesting and exciting comics featuring the iconic characters of the franchise, prioritising working with fantastic writers and artists over anything else. Part of a series of Silent Missions one-shots, G.I Joe – A Real American Hero: Spirit #1 highlights one of the most underutilised characters in the franchise whilst also crafting an immensely readable and exciting action comic.
Plotted and illustrated by Leonardo Romero, best known for his recent work on Birds of Prey with Kelly Thompson, this one-shot is set in the continuity of classic comic series G.I Joe: A Real American Hero, written by Larry Hama. That being said, it stands alone and can be understood with very little outside context – and if you’ve been keeping up with the recent Energon Universe, you will understand this issue regardless if you’ve read the iconic title. The issue focuses on Native American G.I Joe character Spirit, who investigates a disappearance in a nearby forest alongside his pet eagle, Freedom. They quickly discover a Cobra experimental laboratory, and have to face a great threat together. The Silent Missions format, first utilised in the iconic G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21, has always led to fantastic work from artists, and this is no exception. Romero puts his all into telling this story as well as possible; every page is laid out in the most interesting way it can be, and he never pulls the same trick twice. It’s a great demonstration of why he’s becoming one of the most acclaimed artists in the industry, because every single page shows off a tremendous talent and eye for efficient, engaging storytelling that’s fantastic to see.
Whilst the story is a relatively simple plot, it gets the job done and has a certain timeless feeling to it, as if you could pick up this comic in 1990 or 2025. That being said, Romero still puts in the effort to elevate the material, adding elements of depth and nuance wherever he can, especially to flesh out Spirit as a character and add some personality to him despite the lack of dialogue. Romero’s keen eye for details and great understanding of visual storytelling means this is as impactful as it can possibly be, and my favorite moments in the issue were not actually the bombastic action sequences, but the small moments of characterisation that fleshed out the story really well.
Overall, G.I Joe – A Real American Hero: Spirit #1 is a fantastic read, an exciting action story told with incredible artwork and technique by one of the best artists working in comics right now. It has a universal, timeless appeal and is simply an instance of great utilisation of the medium of comics to tell a fun and engaging story, showing once again how fantastic the Silent Missions format can be.
Buried Long, Long Ago #1
Writer: Anthony Cleveland
Illustration: Alex Cormack
Letters: Justin Birch
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review by Clyde Hall
The cases of early United States serial killers accounts for a dark thread running through the quilted squares of our national identity. Whether it’s the murder spree of the infamous Harpe Brothers across the frontier Southwest of the 18th century or the grisly career of Chicago’s Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, many readers have a fascination for serial killer histories predating 20th century notables such as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy.
Buried Long, Long Ago is a five-issue miniseries exploring an early American serial killer very distinctive from those listed above. And in the first issue, we are introduced to Belle Gunness and her daughters. In the early 1900s, their family resided on a pig farm in La Porte, Indiana, and the residence would later be excavated as a veritable graveyard for Belle’s victims. It’s an introduction shaped in a shadowy, European fairy tale form which sets the right tone for one of America’s first female serial killers.
It’s a fascinating case, one which fits many of the male gender crimes of the same eras yet differs from the pattern of most female serial killers. Like the Harpes and Holmes cases, Gunness’s underlying criminal enterprises were financially motivated. The Harpes were highway robbers, Holmes a repeated insurance fraudster, and the best way to keep from getting caught was permanent silence from the victims or the accomplices. Belle obtained revenue to buy her farm after finding that insured properties suffering fires and insured spouses and children who died were great sources of funding.
Unlike many female killers before her time and since, Belle’s approach was more hands-on. While they tended toward poisoning or subtle but lethal methods of killing their victims, Belle was a stout, strong woman and had worked as a butcher. She was also rather a plain woman, yet with her own farm and a household of girls, Gunness’s newspaper ads seeking a husband to join her in running both was really all the appeal she required. The result was a steady stream of candidates to her pig farm bringing with them their own possessions and savings to the coming marriage. Every bride-price was accepted, and in short order the would-be grooms were introduced to the business end of a butcher’s block.
In the premiere, Belle’s daughters join her in Indiana from their previous home in Chicago with relatives. The oldest, Jesse, witnesses the Beta test for Belle’s homestead plans. There are already poultry farms and meatpacking operations in their Midwest setting. The Gunness spread will be a bit of both.
Writer Anthony Cleveland handles Belle’s speech well. English was not her native language, and both the wording and tone fit her Norwegian roots. More, Cleveland crafts her dialogue with turns of phrase building a steady undercurrent of foreboding. He shows that 1900s kids were still kids. And he expertly emphasizes this using the Old World style of fairy tales, those meant as couched warnings to children regarding dangers very much present in the real world.
The artwork of Alex Cormack impressively connects the spirit of Alice’s Looking Glass with the essence of the Lizzy Borden sitting room. From his first panel, you expect a coming collision between the dreamscapes of childhood and the nightmare fuel of a human charnel house. And with his last panel, you won’t come away disappointed.
Mad Cave promotional material says the story is based on the history and accounts of Belle Gunness, and hers is not always the most clear cut history given the passage of time. There are some variations here from backgrounds I’ve read about her, so readers well-versed in the case should expect them.
As with film, even good comic book adaptations sometimes need trimming to fit the history within the panels. As an armchair sleuth regarding the Gunness case, Buried Long, Long Ago has the right opening act to lure me in. And given the questionable real life final act of her killing spree, I can’t wait to see how Cleveland and Cormack draw the final curtain on Belle Gunness with their last issue.
FOC Watch
These books are available for pre-order now.
Gehenna: Naked Aggression #1
Writer: Patrick Kindlon
Art: Maurizio Rosenzweig
Colors: Matteo Vattani
Letters: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Image Comics
Due Out: June 11, 2025
Review by Clyde Hall
Working security is the worst of many worlds. I’ve done it, and it’s serving and protecting only in the sense of serving a business and protecting their liability while meeting insurance requirements and keeping costs in lost merchandise or broken furniture low. And not getting hurt or hurting a customer, because that’s a fast track for being disavowed quicker than an Impossible Missions team. It’s a tough balance and on a midland to shallow pay scale.
Patrick Kindlon penning the first issue of Gehenna: Naked Aggression creates a worst case scenario of just this sort of work. It’s the tinder that lights the fires of main character Gehenna’s personal hell and Kindlon cleverly and succinctly relates how the tragedy of that former life led the female assassin to her worst case scenario present.
Expect windburn from the pace set with the first panel. Then strap in for a gunpowder-scented and gore-strewn gauntlet run. Gehenna has a contract, a gangster probably obstructing her employer’s path to greener gangster pastures. Instead of an operation by the numbers, she runs into a heavily armed yet somewhat remedial bodyguard team for the target’s young son. Assassin switches to kidnapping mode, and the dialogue and plot afterward explores both Gehenna’s past and all sides involved grasping the evolving dynamics of their situation. It’s a tall order in three acts, especially with the bullet-play propellant seldom winding down. And it ends with a new player being dealt in amidst hopes she can counter the impressive improvisation skills of Gehenna. Someone serious.
If you know Kindlon from his work on the Frontiersman comics, how well he scores a bullseye with this opening issue shouldn’t surprise you. And if you don’t, that series deals with a superhero who survived his misspent youth of Bronze Age crimefighting only for the life to keep pulling him back in when he should be enjoying his AARP discounts. It’s a pulpish guilty pleasure series I never once felt guilty about enjoying. And Gehenna occupies a somewhat more noir corner of his universe.
Just as Gehenna, her enemies, and even her young hostage pull no punches regarding their street level pragmatism, artist Maurizio Rosenzweig infuses his panels with a similar visual spirit. His medium? The same grittiness, guns, and femme fatale formula that crime cover masters like Mitchell Hooks, Norman Saunders, and Robert McGinnis worked in. With Rosenzweig, that psyche and style blends, meeting at the intersection of Seedy and Sublime. And it never strays. Bandaged nose and scars on the otherwise sultry assassinatrix making sure the cost of doing her kind of business is never lost in ‘glamour’. A kid of soft form but sharp outlook who may get our empathy but who’s the farthest thing from cute. Streams of blood and eyeballs loosened by muzzle blast. These are the visual elements keeping us following along at the narrative’s pause-less pace.
Lastly, be sure to read Kindlon’s afterword. As someone who grew up still seeing the fun and excitement in less than perfectly executed films, comics, or paperbacks, I can relate to his outlook and how he addresses it with Gehenna: Naked Aggression. There’s merit in his observation that modern attempts at action stories, in comics or other pulpish venues, often try educating about everything, from an era or setting to underlying moral imperatives wielded like a Catholic school cudgel. If instead you enjoy your action darkly rendered and mature in content, the sort that comes with full-bodied ferocity and a Grindhouse flavor, this title delivers.
The Pale Knight #1
Writer: Peter Milligan
Artist: Val Rodrigues
Colorist: Cristiane Peter
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Due Out: May 28, 2025
Review by Tim Rooney
Though set in the middle ages amid the throes of the Black Death, writer Peter Milligan smartly grounds The Pale Knight #1 in the banality of the violence and horror beneath all of the glamor of knights in shining armor.
Our hero, Sir Hugh de Grey, is haunted by his battles and clearly suffering from what we would consider PTSD. But de Grey sees these recurring nightmares as divine retribution. That sense of his own damnation festers on his long journey home, around which most of this first issue is set. He argues with his fellow knights and chastises his cynical and callous squire, all the while dreading what awaits him.
When he reaches home and discovers his son is plague ridden, the feelings of God’s abandonment reach new heights. It is only at the very end that fantasy intrudes on the grounded, human story. The appearance of Death, with its temptation and dark deals, is fittingly creepy. The classic Reaper is transformed into a strangely beautiful apparition, a skeleton draped in sweeping violet robes that absorbs all of the vertical space on the page. It’s a haunting ending to the first chapter that sets up further human conflicts. To what ends will a man who believes himself damned go to save his child? In a post-Covid world, a story of losing loved ones to an uncontrollable plague, of the bewilderment and confusion at its senselessness, bridges the centuries in a new way.
Val Rodrigues’s art is a little sparse in detail but effective in giving the book a visceral, gritty feeling. The visuals do not shy away from the gore of battle or the bodily horrors of the Plague. Cristiane Peter’s colors are eerie and desaturated, painting a world devoid of life or joy. The lettering by Dave Sharpe adds texture to the narration with its scroll-like captions, and does just enough to make Death’s dialogue stand out without becoming distracting or difficult to read. With its questions of faith, the cost of violence, and the meaning of suffering, this is a rich and compelling first issue.
Exquisite Corpses #1
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Michael Walsh
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Letterer: Becca Carey
Publisher: Image Comics
Due Out: May 14, 2025
Finally, another big book has its final order cutoff this coming Monday, and while we haven’t had a chance to read it, it’s a new James Tynion IV/Michael Walsh comic, so you know the hype will be real for this one. Plus, look at that cover!
The Prog Report
2000AD 2428 (Rebellion Publishing): So, first things first…Chimpsky’s Law remains absolutely excellent. This story is by writer Ken Niemand, artist PJ Holden, colorist Jack Davies, and letterer Annie Parkhouse. And everyone involved with this knows what makes comics excellent…outrageous ideas brought to life by even more outrageous visuals. It’s such good fun, every page of this one gave me a little chuckle. I love it. Simply put, the Holden and Davies art in this one will remind you why you love reading comics, delivering the perfect mix of slapstick visual dynamite. It’s just perfect. The other show-stopper in this bunch of strips, though, is Silver by writer Mike Carrol, artist Joe Currie, and letterer Simon Bowland. Currie to me is one of the most interesting artists working in comics right now. Every little choice is fascinating. This is a comic ostensibly about an alternate history in which the world is remade by a war between vampires and aliens, and much of this installment is drenched in what I’d call sinister pastels. I never would have seen that coming, but it works and it works well. Both of these stories are must-read comics. Anyway, I promise next week I’ll write about Ghosted, which I’ve also been enjoying. This week’s cover (above) is by Joe Currie. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. —Zack Quaintance
This column is compiled and edited by The Beat’s reviews editor, Zack Quaintance. Read past entries in the weekly Wednesday Comics reviews series!
Next week, we’ll be looking at Moonshine Bigfoot #1 and first arc finale G.I. Joe #6 for real this time (delays not withstanding)! Plus, as always, FOC Watch and The Prog Report…don’t miss it!
