“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto” Issue 2 Review

The second issue of the highly enjoyable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto crossover comic book shared a lot of information about Splinter’s past and his connection to Shredder.

With the debut chapter making Team 7 and the iconic turtle brothers clash because… why the heck not? Their confrontation came to a halt after Kakashi called Splinter out by dropping the name Hamato Yoshi. From writer Caleb Goellner, the second issue of TMNT x Naruto issue 2 explained Splinter’s past and the present predicament he and his turtle sons were under.

While Kakashi recognized Hamato Yoshi due to Splinter’s attack pattern, he was a bit suspicious about Splinter’s actual identity. Hamato Yoshi was supposed to be human and Splinter was shorter than him. Goellner did a nice job of allowing Splinter to share his backstory, complete with flashbacks (yay to show, don’t tell), about being Hamato Yoshi’s pet rat.

Splinter’s journey involved seeing his owner being attacked and killed by a former student named Oroku Saki aka Shredder, managing to escape from the destruction, and finally finding four baby turtles covered in mysterious green ooze. Splinter trained the young turtles to become powerful ninjas. However, Shredder and his Foot Clan also gained a whole lot of power during that time. Splinter, understandably, wanted to avenge his late owner and retrieve a family scroll Shredder stole.

The mysterious ooze or the mutagen is what connected April to the turtles because of her investigation concerning the eccentric scientist Stockman. He accepted funding from Shredder who wanted the mutagen’s body-altering abilities for himself and that led to Stockman trying to break ties with Shredder but instead getting stomped out.

It’s an easy enough story to follow and it fits the “dangerous science experiments” and “betrayal” vibes present in Naruto. And again, I liked how the backstories came with flashback visuals instead of just having Splinter and April offer said information in giant speech bubbles.

Along with setting up the main story, TMNT x Naruto issue 2 also allowed the two teams a moment to bond. Sasuke spent time with Leonardo while meditating. Naruto strengthened his relationship with Donatello and Michelangelo over video games, skating, and inventions. Sakura was with Raphael during a training session against a bunch of punching bags.

Now, I would have liked to see Sakura (a curious girl) showing interest in Donatello’s inventions instead of hitting the gym, but oh, well. I do like Goellner showcasing Sakura as an actual threat. I mentioned in my review of the previous chapter that, as depicted in Naruto, no one should be capable of surviving a direct punch from Sakura. Issue 2 mentioned her brute strength again.

It’s always nice to see other writers having a go at portraying Sakura Haruno across different mediums. While Masashi Kishimoto created Sakura and allowed her to develop a lot during the Naruto/Boruto era, it’s safe to say basically everyone in the fandom would agree she could have been handled a lot better as a character, especially during her younger years. So, yay to creatives like Goellner doing so.

The artwork by Hendry Prasetya and the colors by Raul Angulo continue to do justice to the two long-running franchises. The action panels are dynamic and the panels zooming into certain characters facial expressions do a good job of complimenting the dialogue or story beat. The use of black, white, and gray while highlighting the color schemes of the turtles and certain other characters during the flashback visuals made those scenes hit different.

With how things ended on the final page, I can’t wait to see what will happen next!

What did you think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto issue 2?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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