The following contains spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #4, on sale now from IDW Publishing
At the end of the movie, Footloose, the main antagonist of the film, Reverend Shaw Moore, has changed his mind about not allowing the teens in the town to attend a dance in one town over (since their town has banned dances, in a crusade led by Moore), after he saw some locals start to try to burn library books, and he realized that his moral crusade had become way too authoritarian. Meanwhile, though, there are some local jerks who don’t want the dance to happen, so the main ringleader of the dance movement, Ren McCormick (who moved to the town from Chicago with his mother), defends his buddy when the local jerks attack them at the dance. They fight off the hooligans, and it’s this big dramatic moment, but then Ren returns to the party after the fight and tells everyone, «Let’s dance!»
In other words, when things are at their most dramatic, sometimes you just want to celebrate with a big over-the-top experience, and just cut loose and enjoy yourself. That’s really what the final issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #4 is like. Writer Caleb Goellner has certainly had plenty of action in this series to this point, but he has also done a lot of world-building, and character development, and now that it is all in place, he and the art team of Hendry Prasetya and Raúl Angulo can now just cut loose, and have an awesome, almost all-action-packed finale with some awesome, over-the-top fights.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #4 is from writer Caleb Goellner, artist Hendry Prasetya, colorist Raúl Angulo, and letterer Ed Dukeshire, and it picks up where the last issue left off, with Shredder having used some stolen Mutagen to mutate himself into a monstrous form that plans to destroy both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Naruto and his friends, as well. As you might imagine, Shredder’s plan did not work out so well in the end.
How did Shredder come to be so monstrous?
As I’ve noted before, this fun crossover between the worlds of Naruto and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is based on the conceit that the Naruto world established by Masashi Kishimoto is the «main» World, and thus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been integrated into that setting, rather than any sort of multiversal deal. So the Turtles are still created by exposure to the Ooze, but they’re exposed while living in Big Apple Village, a clever combination of New York City (which has long been almost a fifth member of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and the traditional villages of Naruto’s world.
As we’ve seen over the course of the series, the Foot Clan has been experimenting with mutating various members of the Foot Clan, and that led to one of them, Alopex, to discovering the Turtles’ lair, which, in turn, led to Splinter and April O’Neil being held captive by Shredder who wanted to find the secret of the Ooze, but instead, they acquired a small supply of ooze, and after testing it, he uses it on himself, and this makes him a brilliant and deadly fighter who now has a body like a monster. That is a deadly combination…for the Turtles and Naruo and friends!
How do the Turtles and Naruto and friends stop Shredder?
Goellner has done some great work in this series with the fact that Naruto has a Nine Tails demon caged within him (which gives him access to some cool powers, but, well, you know, it’s still a freaking demon caged inside of you), and obviously, when things are dire, Naruto is tempted to turn to the dragon, but instead, he and the Turtles turn to something even better…TEAMWORK!
You see, while Naruto is hearing Shredder give his sob story about why he is such a villain, Naruto is struck by the fact that it’s not like HIS life story is so much different than Shredder, in terms of their origins, but the difference is that Naruto essentially created a new family with his friend, and in the case of Shredder, he HAD the chance at a found family with Splinter’s master, but instead, he betrayed him to form the Foot Clan. In other words, Shredder has never embraced the value of trusting others, and making yourself better through your faith in other people.
This then leads to the Turtles and Naruto and friends putting their heads together, and coming up with some clever plans to attack Shredder, and this leads to Prasetya and Angulo getting to draw some EPIC battle sequences, and Goellner is obviously having a blast coming up with names for all of these attack moves.
Half-Shell Rasengan Spiral Sphere?
I mean, come the heck on, how cool is THAT?!
This series has really been close to the platonic ideal of how these types of crossovers should go. You start with the whole «misunderstanding between heroes leads to a fight,» and then the second issue spotlighted the similarities between the various characters, and now, you end with a massive team-up against the big bad.
I love all of the nods to the history of both characters. It’s the sort of thing where you can absolutely tell that Goellner is a fan of all of these characters, and he expresses this in a fun, fun comic book series. This will read delightfully as a trade paperback collection, and, of course, it all ends with PIZZA!
