Hello and welcome to the World of Bats, the Batman Book Club!
For the next two weeks, in anticipation for the upcoming movie TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, we’ll be looking at the two series that finishes the Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy, written by James Tynion IV with art by Freddie Williams II, with additional art in series 3 by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman!
When Donatello opens a portal to Gotham City in search of the Turtles’ recent ally, Batman, he accidentally gets sent to Gotham City and someone else comes through—Bane! The villain who broke Batman finds a new world to conquer, developing a new strain of Venom to inflict on the Big Apple’s unsuspecting population. Donnie manages to bring Batman and Robin (Damian Wayne) to his world to join the fight, but when they, Master Splinter, and the rest of the Turtles—Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael—disagree with his plans, the dejected Donatello takes matters into his own hands…with disastrous results!
Our heroes have battled the Foot Clan in Gotham City and Bane in New York, but now Krang has gotten his hands on the most dangerous technologies in the DC Universe-and no universe is safe from his wrath! As Krang’s true power is revealed, it’s up to Batman and the Turtles to stop him, but their only hope lies with a strange, yet familiar, visitor from another world!
The first Batman/TMNT crossover was fun. I enjoyed it even though TMNT never really connected with me and I really don’t know those characters. Hoping to enjoy crossovers 2 and 3
We’ve reached the half-way point! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and if you’re like “OH SHOOT I FORGOT,” there’s still plenty of time to give these a read!
Agreed on the first – I haven’t read a lot of TMNT prior to this but between these and the upcoming movie it did inspire me to try out some of the other material.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
That is a BOLD claim but after reading through it, I can’t say I fault someone for saying that. It’s just wild to think about considering how crossover comics back in the day were…up and down in quality, shall we say.
Oh, and since I mentioned it – I’m heading out to see the new movie in a little bit, and if anyone wants to talk about that, go ahead! Just be sure to throw your thoughts in spoiler tags in case there are people who haven’t seen it yet or are waiting for streaming.
Both of these crossovers are really good. Batman and the turtles go great together
For II, Bane was compelling as a villain and I liked that Donatello was emotional center for the story. I would have liked to see more of the Batman and Shredder fight
III was my favorite, though. The turtles being full members of the Bat family was great, the whole thing being a Crisis on Infinite Earths Lite was great, and Batman’s story was pretty much perfect
Yeah, Bane was a great villain for them, and I liked that Donnie got the big character focus. I haven’t read a lot of TMNT comics, but from what I’ve seen of the movies/shows, it seems like typically Leonardo of Rafael are the ones who get the big stories most of the time.
But three was really fun to see how things got mashed up and Batman’s arc through the story was surprisingly touching for a bi-company cross-over.
One thing I like about ensemble casts (for tv, comics, and other long form media) is that you get the opportunity to highlight different characters along the way. It can be difficult for the writers to give each character something to do all the time but when it works, it really works. In a lot of ways, Batman is almost an ensemble comic at times. The Bat family has grown so large and we get to explore Batman’s connections with so many characters (all the various Robins, Azrael, the Batgirls, Batwoman, the Foxes, Alfred, Gordon, and his many and varied rogues). Probably a bit of a tangent, but I feel like the writers did a good job servicing a lot of characters in these crossovers while still choosing one to highlight for each arc
