Anyway, like I said, we have here the trailer for the sequel to 2014’s financially successful and critically….less successful: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Produced by Michael “Boom Boom” Bay and this time directed by Earth to Echo’s Dave Green, the second installment in this new TMNT movie franchise stars Megan Fox, Brian Tee, Arrow’s Steven Amell, and Tyler Perry’s Tyler Perry.  The movie features both returning faces and brand new faces (well, brand new to the movie).

Listen, we’ve heard all the criticisms; and while I’m generally more forgiving of it, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first movie.  It did more things wrong than right, so understandably, there’s some trepidation going into this new outing.  So let’s take a look at the trailer and see if there’s even a glimmer of potential here.

…………..

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD THATWASTHEGREATETSFUCKINGTHINGSI’VEEVERSEENIN…….

….sorry, I’ll take it down a notch.  Let’s break it down shall we.

• THIS HAS ME X-STATIC

Sorry, bad pun, get used to it.  I know this looks like unused footage from Avengers, but giant portals in the sky and flying alien craft could only mean one this in the TMNT universe…DIMENSION X!  They teased this in the first movie and now it looks like they’re delivering on what we’ve been waiting for  for over 20 years now, Krang in a TMNT movie.  As for those flying ships, I’ve heard interesting theories that they may not be ships, but in fact smaller pieces that will combine to form the Technodrome!  Oh hell yes.

• “Y’ALL GOT JOKES, HUH”

The first TMNT movie was…kind of a mess tonally.  It looks like it started off more gritty and serious, but somewhere along the way, the decision was made to make it lighter and comedic.  Being that it was a hodge-podge of different scripts, that’s kind of understandable.  But this movie seems to be settled on a more fun and colorful tone, which is fine by me seeing as how the more humorous elements were the best parts of the first movie.  TMNT always works best when it’s not taking itself too serious, and this movie has sewer-lid launching trucks and mutant rhino riding a tank through water to shoot at mutant Turtle men.  They’re clearly throwing reality to the wind and I’m all for it.

• A FRESH NEW FACE

The biggest complaint lobbed at the first movie was the way the Turtles looked.  They said they were too ugly and weird looking.  Because god forbid giant mutant Turtle men would look weird.  This movie they mostly look the same, but there have been some pretty notable tweaks.  Their noses look more Turtle-like and the hue of their skin looks brighter.  Mikey in particular looks…almost cuter.  Honestly I never had a problem with the original designs, but I’m glad they tweaked them.

• GOONGALA!!!

Speaking of new faces, Steven Amell takes a break from playing vigilante Oliver Queen to stretch his acting chops to play vigilante Casey Jones.  This is my only real concern about  the movie (okay, not my only concern, but the biggest).  Casey Jones is supposed to be kind of grungy guy who’s kinda nuts.  In a world of mutants, robot ninjas, and alien brains, Casey Jones is the weirdest element.  He’s just a guy with a hockey mask and baseball bat taking on the world.  Amell looks a little too clean cut and down to Earth.  But to his credit, he’s not a bad actor and he supposedly had really good chemistry with Megan Fox, so I’ll give old boy a chance.

• A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES

Shredder is back, but this time he’s not just an unnamed and uncredited Asian actor brought in to replace William Ficthner because of fans calling “RACISM”!  This time he’s played by a very visible Brian Tee, who honestly looks pretty badass.  Karai is back as well, this time played by Brittany Ishibashi.  Since they went to the trouble of recasting the role, hopefully this means they’ll actually have her do stuff this movie.   Plus, we have three villains making their long awaited TMNT movie debuts.  First up is Baxter Stockman played by…Tyler Perry.  I was…initially conflicted (by that I mean infuriated) at this casting choice, but all that Madea stuff tends to overshadow the fact that Perry can actually act, and when he goes all in, he goes all in; and he looks to be going all in to the whole “mad scientist” thing for this role.  As long as he doesn’t put on a dress, we’ll be good.  Which leads us to the next two….

• “EARTH…MAKE WAY FOR BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY”!

Oh yeah…this is my jam.  After 25 years; After waiting so long; After being denied in Secret of the Ooze…Bebop and Rocksteady are live and in the flesh.  Well…CGI, but still.  IT’S BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY!  I know it seems weird to gush over the two dimwit henchmen from the 80’s cartoon who were honestly never that deep, but still, the characters mean a lot to us fans.  Played by human form by comedian and voice actor Gary Anthony Williams (Uncle Ruckus, y’all) and Stephen Farrely (aka WWE World Heavyweight Champion…sigh…Sheamus), respectively, the two look to be very much in true to their original portrayals.  2014-2016 seems to be the Bebop and Rocksteady Renaissance as the two have been given new life in both the current comic series and cartoon.  Now they look to make it a trifecta.  Expect them to be the highlight of the movie.

Overall: It’s too early to judge if they’ve fixed all the mistakes with the previous film, and I’m trying not to give in 100% emotionally…but god DAMN that trailer got my hyped.  They knew just what to show and kept a strong energy throughout.  If this movie is the insane, balls-to-the-wall, pure fun action-comedy I’m hoping it is, then we may have just gotten a taste of the best Ninja Turtles movie, yet.

Cowabunga.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fond of the stuff I used to like as a kid too, but most people romanticize the crap out of their childhoods as being a time where every cartoon and movie was perfect nothing will ever top it. “Destroying my childhood” is a phrase that pops up every time a reboot of some 80’s or 90’s movie or show comes up; a phrase I absolutely loathe (not as much as “raping my childhood”, but still). Look. We just have to accept the fact that a lot of the stuff we liked as kid mostly sucked. I grew up in the 90’s, and as much as I like to think 90’s cartoons were better, well….they were, I can’t lie. I’ve gone back and watched all the shows I grew up with, 90% still hold up but that’s a topic for another article.
All that being said, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comes out (as of this writing) in 2 days.   Once this movie was announced it’s had the sever misfortune of being skewered every which way from both critics who have every reason to be wary of a movie Michael Bay’s name is attached to, and butt-hurt fans who are fond of their nostalgia glasses. From the “Turtles are aliens now” aspect that has long since been removed, to Megan Fox being cast as legendary figure of all females in fiction and feminist icon April O’Neil, to the redesigned Turtles themselves, to the new tie-in rap “Shell Shocked” (which I’m with you is terrible, but infuriatingly catchy). This movie could make no right step in the eyes of the fans, and it’s not surprising, seeing as how everyone has already made up in their minds to hate it. They’ve seen how Transformers played out, they know the damage Michael Bay can do, and even though it’s been repeatedly stated he DIDN’T DIRECT THIS, his name is critical poison. This movie couldn’t have lower expectations, in fact, there are even those idiots claiming this would kill the franchise dead (a franchise that survived Turtles 3, Next Mutation, We Wish you a Turtle Christmas, and TMNT 2007). This movie could be no-less than Citizen Kane if it was gonna hope to sway the naysayers.

So how does it fair?

Well….It’s okay. Not great, but far from terrible.

It’s sad, because I really wish I could have been jumping for joy and telling you it’s better Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America 2 and you absolutely have to see it above anything else, but I can’t. It’s just a okay movie, a good movie. Nothing more, nothing less. And truth be told, that’s exactly what I was expecting given the creative team. Look, this was never gonna be a masterpiece, nor was it going to be the movie that killed 30 years of a franchise that started as a parody. All this movie had to be was a fun, 2-hour, distraction that made money. And that’s pretty much what it aspires to be.

FROM THIS POINT ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS…

The story is simple…really simple. April O’Neil (played by Megan Fox) is a journalist mostly assigned to fluff pieces who longs to cover real news. She begins investigating crimes committed around the city by the villainous Foot Clan, and ends up stumbling across mysterious vigilantes fighting them who are actually four, six-foot, talking, mutant Turtles who are trained as ninjas. As the movie goes on we learn more about the Turtles origins, April’s past connection to them, and together they battle the Foot’s armored leader The Shredder and his partner, the shady businessman Eric Sachs (played by William Ficthner).

There are no side plots here, or any real character arcs, it sets up a very basic story and stays with it through the end. It’s about as deep as an episode from the cartoon series; The Turtles and April save the city and foil Shredder’s diabolical scheme. It really does feel like the people who wrote this movie really were fans of the original cartoon because that’s exactly what it feels like. It’s pretty corny and is shallow as a kiddie pool, but it’s still fun and entertaining enough. Also, it moves pretty quickly. Once it starts, it doesn’t really slow down. I was actually surprised on how quickly this movie seemed to go by. I was kind of disappointed, but after sitting through 3 hours of the mind-numbing nothing that made up the latest Transformers movie, this was a breath of fresh air. The villains motivation goes no further than “money and power”. The classic vengeance backstory between Hamato Yoshi, Shredder, and Splinter that’s driven the plot of most TMNT incarnations has been replaced here by nothing more than “bad guy out for money”. Hamato Yoshi has been removed from the equation, instead the Splinter learns ninjitsu through…and I’m not kidding..a book he finds in the sewer (still no more ridiculous than a rat mimicking ninja movements from its cage). It’s an odd choice, but if you remember the original cartoon, the vengeance plot line was there either. Like I said before, it feels like an episode of the cartoon. Sachs and Shredder’s plan of unleashing a deadly toxin and selling the mutagen as an antidote is about as complex as putting a mesmorizer device atop the highest tower in the city to control people’s minds. There are a couple of side plots about April trying to find her big story to cover, and Splinter being afraid of letting his sons grow, but later is poorly set up and the former has no satisfying resolution. Once the main plot gets going, everything just gets swept up into it.

Contrary to what some people were predicting, Megan Fox is not the Anti-Christ. This is arguably her best performance, although that’s not saying much. She’s clearly trying, and to her credit, she’s not bad. But still, her talent level is up there enough to make the role more captivating than what is there. She hits her cues fine, but there’s not much she adds beyond “surprised face”. Will Arnett plays her cameraman sidekick Vernon, whose role has been changed from being a cowardly and pompous rival of April that he was in the cartoon, to being a lot more wisecracking and helpful. He’s amusing. He doesn’t steal the show like I hoped he would, but he gets a few good one-liners in there, and serves as a good foil for April. Whoopi Goldberg has a cameo as Bernadette Thompson, the rule 63 version of Burne Thompson, April’s boss from the cartoon. She’s….there.

William Ficthner, as usual, plays the villain. Eric Sachs is a brand new character to TMNT lore. And rest assured he is, at no point in this movie, The Shredder. Ultimately he’s kind of wasted here, as he has no real motivation and never gets any good moments to shine. One has to wonder why he was even created when the character could have been replaced by a character like Baxter Stockman, who is already an established TMNT villain with a lot more potential. I wish he would have been more over-the-top, or had better lines, but he’s just there, as is Minae Noji who plays Karai, who has so little impact on the story I forgot she was even in the movie. Shredder is still the main villain, and for the most part, he’s pretty cool. The armor he’s in looks cumbersome, but he moves like a ninja master should. He’s so shadowy and overly-diabolical it’s kind of funny, but still pretty badass. He even delivers a classic line from the cartoon that absolutely floored me with the delivery. If he had more of a story-arc, he’d be the best movie villain of the year. They may have gone overboard with the design, but when you beef up the Turtles it’s only natural that Shredder gets the same treatment.

Speaking of the Turtles, they are where this movie shines. The Turtles are all perfectly in character. When they’re on screen they quip, the bicker, and the absolutely command the spotlight. They’re never juvenile, or obnoxious, or vulgar like a group of certain giant robots from another Bay-attached film, they’re the same characters we all remember growing up. Leo is the straight-man of the group and the commanding leader. Donnie is the nerdy tech genius spouting technobabble and gets a few good “adorkable” moments. Raph is the snarky and sarcastic tough guy who thankfully doesn’t end up taking over the entire film. He’s not as emo as he was in the original movie, but the seeds are still there. Mikey comes out the best here, as they thankfully make him closer to his Mirage comics counterpart. He’s not hyperactive and spouting surfer slang, instead being more laid-back and actually funny. There’s a running gag with him attempting to woo April that surprisingly doesn’t feel forced and get old, and actually manages to stay both charming and humorous. All the best bits of humor come from the Turtles banter and interactions both amongst themselves and other characters. The actors and animators both deserve a lot of credit for how much emotion they’re able to convey. The designs for the Turtles caught a lot of flack, especially with all the added flair, but not only is it not distracting, they actually work here. They serve as quick visual indicators of each Turtles personalities and give this movie’s Turtles a unique look of their own. Splinter is also on point here, and the movie shows him as both stern and humorous when he wants to be. He’s portrayed as both a caring father and a badass warrior, and the best fight scene in the movie his clash with Shredder midway thorough.

The action scenes are good. My biggest disappointment here is that unlike the previous movies, the “Ninja” part of the title takes more of a backseat to the “Mutant” part. There aren’t really any intricate, well-choreographed martial arts fight scenes, the Turtles kind of plow through the Foot soldiers with sheer strength alone a lot of times. There are some kicks and weapons play thrown in here and there, but these Turtles are so strong it’s a wonder why they even need them. That said, the centerpiece of the movie is a giant chase scene through a snowy mountain as the Turtles, April, and Vernon try to escape a squad of Foot. It’s here where you can see where the budget mostly went. The Turtles are sliding through the snow at high speeds on their shells dodging attacks, flipping around, and bantering all the while. It’s fast-paced, it’s exciting, it’s where both the director and visual effects team sunk their hearts into and it pays off. If there’s any reason to see this movie in 3D, this is it. This movie also does something the original two movies never accomplished; it gives the Turtles an active role in Shredder’s defeat. Unlike the first movie where Splinter had to save them and the second where a pier falls on him, The Turtles, while getting their asses kicked through most of the fight, manage to get the upper hand on the Shredder in the end. I love this because it makes the Turtles look like actual competent fighters who can take care of themselves.

So overall, how does this rank? If Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t come out a week ago, I would have said this was the perfect summer movie, but it’s not bad. It may not have the same depth as Guardians, but has the same level of fun and charm. You can go to this movie with your brain off, and for two hours be entertained. It’s not gonna blow your mind, but it won’t offend you, it’s harmless. Kids especially will love it, and it’s clear they are the target audience here. But there’s enough humor that adults wont mind it either. In terms of other Ninja Turtles movies, it’s actually on par with the first one. Look, remember what I said before about romanticizing our childhoods? Well, time to face facts. The first movie isn’t a great movie either. It throws a lot of stuff at you at doesn’t really bother explain the rationale behind any of its choices, Shredder has less motivation there than he does here, and Turtles themselves are very underutilized. The best storyline in that movie is hands down April and Casey’s relationship as Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas are really charismatic in their respective roles. If your new to TMNT or just not a fan, it’s a very weird movie, but us, the kids back then, we ate it up. That’s ultimately what this movie will be for kids now. It’s weird and goofy, but fun non-threating. People who complain about the CGI over rubber suits need to get over it. Those original rubber suits were clunkly and broke apart a lot. The actors didn’t like being in them. They looked spot-on, but they were a hassle. Plus, this is 20-freaking-14 and movies like Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes exists. Motion capture technology has advanced and this movie uses it to the best of its abilities. If that isn’t good enough for your childhood, well, to hell with your childhood. It probably sucked more than you realize, anyway. If you liked the old cartoon, you’ll like this. If not, the IDW comic and Nick cartoon exist and they’re much better written.

So get some popcorn (or pizza if you’re a purist), sit back, quit your bitching, and enjoy it for what it is.

6 ½ Shells (see what I did there) out of 10.

I’m known amongst my peers as somewhat of a Ninja Turtles connoisseur, so my merciful overlord Aaron has graciously allowed me to cover it for this new installment of Tease Me, Baby.  And truthfully I’ve been waiting for a long while to cover this.  Ever since this movie was announced way back when and Michael BayBLAAA!!@#@#$*KILLRAPECHILDHOODBLAAAAAARRGH!!!

….Sorry, that seems to be the general reaction most people have to his name….and Michael Bay was attached as PRODUCER.  Not director, though this trailer does have a few certain Bayisms.  Needless to say I’ve been curious as to what this movie was gonna look like.  I try not to cry suck at movies before I see them, but with the inclusion of the guy who directed Cash of the Titans being at the helm, I’ve adjusted my expectations accordingly.  But enough jibba jabba, let’s dive into this shell-first.

–WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU MISS O’NEIL

Here we have multi-time Academy Award viewer Megan Fox playing TMNT mainstay April O’Neil.  Her attachment, too, was met with similar rage, but honestly I think she’ll do okay.  April’s role has never been too complex and layered, especially if they’re going by the old cartoon which it looks like they are given that she’s a reporter in the flick.  She’s feisty, adventurous, loyal, and get’s kidnapped a lot.  From all the behind the scenes stills she seemed to be enjoying herself, and reportedly she lobbied hard to get the role, so as long as there’s some personality injected into it, she’ll be fine.  Besides, it’s the Turtles we came to see, so they should carrying the lions share of the film.  Speaking of which…

-THE TURTLES PUCKER UP

Here’s our first true look at the Green Machines in full motion.  From what little we saw, their personalities remain intact (Thank God).  The real differences come in their physical appearances.  These Turtles are…jacked.  They’re big, bigger than ever.  Traditionally they’ve never gone past 5’10, but these Turtles tower over humans and make big thud noises when they land, which given the new origin (which we’ll get to in a bit) and producer, it makes “sense”.  They’ve also seemed to have taken a cue from the new TMNT cartoon and given the Turtles different body types.  Leo has the typical hero physique, Raph is more muscular,  Don is the tallest and lanky, and Mikey is the shortest.  That I really like.  The Turtles also have different attire.  I’m guessing that was done to make them even more distinct than incarnations in the past.  Given that we’ve seen literally thousands of Turtles figures of them wearing battle armor, sports gear, farmer overalls, etc…this isn’t anything new.  Onto the face, the Turtles have…*GASP* LIPS!  …Has the world ended yet?  Nope?  Yeah, go figure.  Honestly the lips aren’t a problem.  I can’t say this for sure, but I’m guessing the lips just made the mouth movements a lot easier to animate.  A human-like mouth is definitely easier to manipulate than a turtles beak.  So the lips, not an issue.  The nose, on the other hand, just looks dumb.  I don’t know why they did this.

-THE FOOT GO COMMANDO

This seems to be a holdover from that god awful script that leaked a year ago.  The Foot are less ninjas now and more black ops soldiers.  Which as I stated before, given the new origin and producer it makes…”sense”

-TURNING JAPANESE…I DON’T THINK SO

So yeah, The Shredder, traditionally Japanese archenemy to the Turtles and Splinter, here is played by traditionally NOT Japanese actor William Fichtner.  This was the bit of casting that made me scratch my head.  But at least the good sense not to put him in yellowface.  He’s playing a new iteration of the character named Eric Sachs.  By the look of that painting he seems to be inspired by the Japanese, though…

Cool armor, bro.

-THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY DON’T ACTUALLY CHANGE ALL THAT MUCH

So the biggest reveal of the trailer is that the Turtles, who look to still be mutants and not aliens so put your pitchforks down, nerds, owe their existence to Sachs and *DUN DUN DUUUUUN* April’s Dad!  This new origin…isn’t really THAT new.  At least if you paid too much attention to the TMNT franchise like certain people that totally aren’t me.  I have a life….

…

Shredder being responsible for the Turtles creation isn’t at all surprising seeing as how he’s always been either directly or indirectly responsible for their existences in every incarnation.  Hell, in the 1987 cartoon he was the one who exposed them to the mutagen (which this movie correctly labels as TCRI and not TGRI).  As for April’s dad being involved, yeah that’s an interesting little twist, though the new IDW comic has seemingly beat them to that, at least in terms of getting it out there.   When it comes to new origins, nothing gets more radical that the IDW comic origin (which involves genetic modification and reincarnation), so this one in the movie is pretty par for the course.  What this doesn’t explain is how Splinter fits into this.  I’m mentally preparing myself for the possibly levels of stupidity this may go to.

-COOL, BUT RUDE

Like I said before, the Turtles personalities seem to be in tact.  There’s a nice little bit where Don whips Raph shell first into a truck in their way, yelling “BATTER UP” beforehand.  This is good indication we’ll get some classic Turtle wisecracks going.  Which is a relief.  They should not try to go full on serious with this.

-OH HAI, BAYCOPTER

It wouldn’t be a Michael Bay joint, produced or otherwise, without his gratuitous military porn and…

BAYSTRUCTION!

What is interesting is that we don’t see what’s actually causing the destruction.  Which could either be saved for a future big reveal, or it might just be that in Michael Bay’s world things randomly blow up.

I’m guessing the latter.

————————————————————————————–

Overall: The extreme secrecy of the movie all this time had me worried, but this new trailer gives off…very slight hope.  As long as they have a good balance of action and comedy, they’ll be able to capture the feel of the original Turtles cartoon nicely.  It’s easy and understandable to be apprehensive about this, and you should, but there’s always hope.  As long as the movie is at least dumb fun, it’s done it’s job.

But above all else remember this, the Turtles have been around for 30 years now.  This movie won’t kill the franchise no matter how sucky it may turn out.

The plate for this week is filled with a multiple personality infested comic that entertains me to no end (this is untrue; there might be an end but I haven’t found it yet). I also attempt to use the word “personality” more times per paragraph than has ever been done before.

WARNING: Spoilers for Cowboy Ninja Viking follow! If you want to read this on your own, please do so before continuing on. I picked up the first issue of Cowboy Ninja Viking (written by AJ Lieberman, art and tones by Riley Rossmo) back in October last year based solely on the name and the cover. Upon reading, and with further issues, I have been more than pleasantly surprised with the story, humor, and character work in the series.

The story starts out, as stories are well-known for doing, with a tense standoff on a rooftop wherein our titular character (given name: Duncan) faces off against a group of agents, including his future love interest Sara Nix, who are working at the behest of Dr. Sebastian Ghislain. The standoff was brought about because a secret government project that had included Duncan and had been buried five years earlier has been brought back to light by a shadowy adversary and Dr. Ghislain needs Duncan’s help in order to stop him from making the world a more unpleasant place.

The “triplets” program, as it is named in the story, is the project in which Duncan was a participant. The program took people with multiple personality disorder, and as Ghislain explains: “We used experimental regression therapies, pharmacological enhancements, and attempted to train the group to retain the skills of your latent personalities.” In more plain language, they took individuals who had three distinct alternate personalities and trained those personalities to have certain skills associated with a profession in order to make highly effective and dangerous assassins, or “triplet”. This is where the comic book suspension of belief comes in.

It is hard enough to accept that a single alternate personality could house skills that could be useful, let alone applicable to black ops work, but that three personalities could be given unique profession-related abilities. As the book progresses, more of these “triplets” are introduced, but most, if not all of them, have at least one personality that would be completely useless in an assassin and are mostly put into the book for comedic purposes. The other triplet introduced in the first book is Yashitiko Ammo whose triplet personalities are a Pirate, Gladiator, and Oceanographer. These useless personalities are the source of most of the funny dialogue in the book. However, one of the big problems I have with the series is that when triplets are having a conversation with one another it gets confusing as to whom exactly is talking. Each persona in a triplet is represented by a symbol attached to their speech bubbles (i.e. Cowboy has a six shooter, Ninja has a katana, and Viking has a two-sided battle ax) but there are quite a few personas that are similar and therefore hard to distinguish. Also, there are a few personas that are not readily identifiable (as with Cowboy or Ninja) because either the symbol is vague (as with the Navy Seal persona which is represented by a pair of goggles) in or their appearance (as with the Demolitions Expert/Amish Guy/WWII Veteran looking a lot like the Hitman/Navy Seal/Roadie).

Aside from the few problems that I have with character differentiation and a few issues that plague most comics, like why the team flew to Switzerland, had a dramatic parachute drop only to leave for France three panels later because they forgot something, the story is very well written with storylines and character motivations being fairly solid. There are a few serious moments that don’t seem out of place in the overtly absurd world of the triplets, such as Duncan’s life saving efforts in issue two and the conversation between Duncan and Gary in issue four. The story has gotten a little hard to follow by issue eight, because there is a dramatic change in the conflict of the story, but it’s easy enough to follow that you can pick up any issue and not be so far out of your element as to not enjoy the read. Some of the dialogue does tend to get a bit bizarre as Lieberman looks for a joke anywhere he can find it: “You’re f**king me like a figure-skater trying to convince his wife he’s not gay.” I don’t know what that even means. Seriously, is that a good or a bad thing? The surrounding dialogue gives no help as to the context.

This transitions me awkwardly to the art. Rossmo is not going for photorealism here, but he has a distinct style that I quite like: black and white inks with a bit of dot shading and colored tones over most the page. The inks are gritty and the backgrounds are sparse, but there is a lot of work put into panels where there is more action or that there is something important to see so you really don’t miss out on much. Outside of the small amount of confusion that I mentioned earlier, it’s a fantastic job of visualizing the different triplets, each with their unique styles and eccentricities. Also, there was a definite color scheme that they kept for each of the first five issues. Whether this was due to budget, a deliberate move by Rossmo or that just being the way it worked out, I don’t know but it works to keep each “episode” of the story unified. From issue six on, where the direction of the story changes, more color per issue is introduced and more work seemed to go into the page layouts. I’m willing to accept the little maybe mistakes that I see in the comic, like proportions being crazy sometimes and the action looking a little stiff where it could be much more dynamic, but I really have little to complain about.

The series is now on issue number nine and I won’t reveal what’s going on exactly, but I can say that its more of the same crazy (literally) fun. All in all, this series is an incredibly fun read and I would absolutely recommend it for someone looking for something fresh to pick up (for $3.99 an issue). Cowboy Ninja Viking has been one of my most looked-forward-to comics and its one of the few comics I read that always puts a smile on my face (the others being Secret Six and The Walking Dead). Kudos Mr. Lieberman, kudos Mr. Rossmo. You’ve made me a very happy 22 year old.

Post Script:

I’ve read other reviews of this series where there were more complains but they seemed to have a pre-conceived notion of what the characters and story should be before they read it, which is well and fine for an established character like Spider-Man but entirely unfounded for a new series. One particularly irate reviewer called it “contrived” and went on to complain that the story arc of the first five issues of an ongoing series left the series as relatively unchanged.

First, I have to define contrived for him:

(adj) contrived (showing effects of planning or manipulation) “a novel with a contrived ending”

Now, contrived seems to be a popular word for reviewers, but does it make sense in this case. I know what he’s trying to say, that the conflict was manufactured and did not seem to flow out of a natural sort of progression. However, THIS IS A COMIC BOOK ABOUT MULTIPLE PERSONALITY ASSASSINS and THE TITLE OF THE BOOK IS COWBOY NINJA VIKING. Sometimes, I just gotta shake my head and wonder why the hell some reviewers even read comic books. They never seem to be able to just read a comic book and have fun reading it. Because it’s their job now, they analyze every aspect of it to death and create this world where their approval of a comic is dependent on an judgement that would make them respected rather than citing any real opinions that they might have. I love this stupid humor, I love this over the top story, and I still love comic books.

– Mike