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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game Opening Moves #2
- Writer:
- Tom Waltz
- Artist:
- Fero Pe
- Letterer:
- Shawn Lee
- Cover Artist:
- Fero Pe
- Publisher:
- IDW Publishing
- Price:
- $5.99
- Release Date:
- 2022-08-24
- Colorist:
- Ronda Pattison
For eons, the Pantheon of wicked immortals has indulged in a supernatural game of conquest and chaos. While Kitsune's quest to resurrect their dragon father ended in abject failure, her brother, the Rat King, sees this as an opportunity to resume the games and sow new chaos. However, spurned by his siblings and a reformed Oroku Saki, Rat King forms a new team with Baxter Stockman, Krang, and Madame Null. Before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles event of the year from IDW Publishing gets underway, Shredder needs to learn about the enemy to save the world from the Armageddon Games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game—Opening Moves #2, written by Tom Waltz with artwork from Fero Pe and Ronda Pattison and lettering by Shawn Lee, is the calm before the storm.
Kitsune continues to show her husband Oroku Saki the dreaded memories of the enemy in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game—Opening Moves #2. This time they venture into the mind of Mayor Baxter Stockman to see what makes him tick. A few months back, Old Hob had sneaked into Stockman's lab and threatened to destroy him and everything he had built. Shredder feels the need to exploit this avenue, but first, he needs to deal with the bad blood between Hob and the turtles. Lastly, the couple visits the memories of the businesswoman, Madam Null, who hails from the planet Hirobyl of Dimension Z, where they learn of her ruthless past.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game—Opening Moves #2 acts as a prelude for the upcoming TMNT event. Writer Tom Waltz has been building the story for a while now, carefully planning each narrative and supplying nuggets of information about each player on the board, essentially giving readers a comprehensive view of the matters ahead. Following that trend, this issue delves deep into the fears and perturbations of the scheming Baxter Stockman and the merciless Madam Null. Waltz spends most of the book on Null and her mercenaries on planet Hirobyl. He paints her as a cold-blooded figure whose relentless pursuit of her goal propels the plot ahead while also showing a glimpse of new allies who will aid Shredder in protecting the world he once sought to destroy.
The high-octane artwork of Fero Pe imparts a flurry of ferocious energy into the character movements while channeling the inner monstrosity inherent in each of them. Pe moves from smaller panels to full-on splash pages to keep the readers enthralled in the drama and thrill while creating space for the dialogue-heavy script. His thin lines only focus on the foregrounds leaving the backgrounds with minimal details. But colorist Ronda Pattison uses a wide array of colors to add a layer that electrifies the atmosphere. From the toxic green of Baxter's lab to the orange sands of Hiboryl, the colors latch onto the near and present danger.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game—Opening Moves #2 tells two separate stories that take place in entirely different settings with a distinct set of casts. The topsy turvy narrative, with the gripping action giving the issue an extra skip in the step, ultimately ends with a fairly predictable ending. That said, the book does what it set out to do in the first place: establishing backstories and adding new characters to the upcoming Armageddon Game roster. Bridging the two storylines is Shredder's redemption arc, as saving the world seems to be something new for the great Oroku Saki.