Review by Frank Plowright
The Rat King is one of a number of immortals known as the Pantheon, each of whom has encountered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the past. He’s a persistent threat, and perpetual player of his Armageddon Game in which he seeks to eliminate his siblings. He now has an even bigger purpose, and readers of The Armageddon Game: Opening Moves will know what that is. They’ll also have seen Oraku Saki learn of people who might prove troublesome for the Rat King’s allies. These are the being General Krang has become, New York Mayor Baxter Stockman and the lesser known Madame Null.
We begin here with the Turtles aware the Rat King’s up to something apocalyptic, but not sure what it is. It’s decided the best way of foiling the plan is to target the Rat King’s allies, and to this end Leonardo and Michelangelo accompany Oraku Saki to Dimension X to unite the enemies of General Krang, while Raphael and Jennika attempt to locate Old Hob, whom Stockman fears.
Tom Waltz plots an ambitious story throwing in surprise after surprise, so many people from the TMNT history books and a variety of moods. There’s SF, crime and the superheroics of the Turtles, but this collection of the core eight chapters isn’t the best place to read it. That would be in hardback either as Armageddon Game: The Deluxe Edition or spread over Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume 17 and Volume 18. That’s because much happens in other places, notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Reborn: Isolation. What the hardcovers do is sort the material into a running order providing the smoothest flow. Reading the core story alone, as with superhero crossovers, results in sudden leaps forward.
By the time Waltz has introduced those surrounding Mayor Stockman and assorted groups from Dimension X there’s a massive cast, further engorged by the Dimension X mission leading to another mission and then another beyond that. What we discover from them are that the Turtles don’t mix well in space opera. Not that their part is large. The Turtles are sidelined, largely playing the back-up roles to the supporting cast for the first five chapters, which disappoints. The bloated cast also impact on the art. Vincenzo Federici has so many people to draw it’s a wonder he can keep them all straight, and over eight chapters the art is workmanlike and tells the story, but without any great style.
The various strands Waltz weaves are eventually connected, and in a surprising way putting the recently developed Mutant Town under threat. Combining political manipulation with more physical threats is a good idea, and the plan of targeting the Rat King’s minions plays out well, but for someone who’s received such a build-up the Rat King himself is undersold. So is the ending. Everything builds toward an appropriately desperate state of affairs, and then *poof* we’ve reached the epilogue without seeing the climax.
There’s no faulting the ambition of The Armageddon Game, but it definitely drags in places and the art’s not as good as it might be. However, it is a game changer, for which see Mutant Town.
