Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10 Review

 

Writer: Erik Burnham

Artist: Dan Schoening

Colorist: Luis Antonio Delgado

Letterer: Ed Dukeshire

Cover Artists: Dan Schoening & Luis Antonio Delgado; Jack Ho

Publisher: IDW

Price: $3.99

Release Date: February 7, 2024

 

Artist Kai Eddiku used his family’s secret sword-making techniques and Shredder’s stolen alien ore to reforge the Forever Blade. Leonardo used a technique Master Splinter taught him to shatter Shredder’s sword. Then Leonardo got sucked into the time/space vortex Shredder summoned. Can Professor McGuffin, the head scientist at TCRI, help Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo rescue Leonardo from feudal Japan? Let's order a pizza, tune into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10, and find out!

 

Story

After analyzing shards of Shredder's sword, Professor McGuffin confirms Donatello’s suspicions. While he can offer no new leads, McGuffin provides a copy of his analysis on floppy discs. In feudal Japan, riders interrupt Shredder and Leonardo's argument over who is responsible for their incredible journey. Fate intervenes as a party accompanies the ancestor of Kai Eddiku to Lord Hayao. Shredder summoned the ghost of the original sword master before commissioning the artist to make his sword. The Eddiku Yuri's appearance helps Shredder realize how he can return home.

 

Beneath the streets of New York, Donatello assembles computer equipment to confirm Professor McGuffin's findings. The turtles must discover how to unleash the psychoreactive energy in the sword fragments. Renet arrives to deliver a warning of dire peril. Then she realizes that, yet again, she's arrived too soon! Thankfully, Michelangelo's got an idea. Who better to help them than the Mistress Of Time and Space? If only Renet weren't forbidden to interfere!

 

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10, the psychoreactive energy in Kai Eddiku’s modern-day replica forges a connection with the original Forever Sword. Erik Burnham also delves into Japanese folklore, suggesting the difficulties samurai and lords faced interacting with troublesome Earth spirits. Raphael may not know how a pinball machine works. Still, he proves an able negotiator, wielding reason rather than sai to overcome a seemingly hopeless dilemma.

 

 

Art

Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Professor McGuffin don goggles to watch a laser lathe analyze a hovering sword shard. An arrow flies between Leonardo and Shredder, interrupting their sword and claw battle. The riders' horses wear metal helmets. Above Shredder's helmet, his miniature interacts with the tiny ghost of the famous sword master. Leonardo slashes an arrow in midair but can't defend against a bonk from behind.

 

From the purple hues of Professor McGuffin’s laboratory to the greenery of feudal Japan, Luis Antonio Delgado’s vibrant colors infuse Dan Schoening's TV Animation-style art with life and energy in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10. Renet’s radiant appearance darkens the brick-lined lab. Later, her staff projects an equally luminous hologram. Unlike Kai Eddiku’s replica, Eddiku Yuri's original Forever Sword glows light blue, matching Renet and her hologram. Yet pink dominates the way Leonard returns home.

 

Ed Dukeshire’s uppercase black and colored letters inhabit white dialogue balloons in Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10. Shredder's thoughts appear in puffy Old School balloons rather than modern narrative boxes. Red-edged giant white letters steer us through time and space, while sound effects help us hear Leonardo’s battle with Lord Hayao, who commissioned the troublesome time-traveling katana. Thanks to my compadres at IDW for providing a copy of this cowabunga issue for review.

 

Final Thoughts

Leonard becomes a mythical Japanese being, Shredder tricks a feudal lord, Raphael overcomes his downbeat outlook, and Professor McGuffin needs to upgrade to CD-Roms in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #10.

 

Rating 9.6/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.