Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #102: “We Will Get By, We Will Survive”

Losing someone special hurts. Everyone reacts and deals with loss differently. Some keep moving on, while others recede into themselves for comfort. This is what we see with issue 102 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Still reeling over the loss of Master Splinter, the family has done nothing but grow apart in a time that each of them needs to grow together.

We left off with Jenna and Mona getting the business end of Diamond and a rogue group of Mutanimals, and the outcome not being in Jenn and Mona’s favor. That is until Raph steps in and the rest is history as Raph and Jenn together are much like Hawk and Animal of the Road Warriors. With Leo, Donny, and Mikey still not knowing how to cope. The back and forth from Leo, Donny, and Mike did nothing but solidify how spectacular this creative team is at capturing the pain, guilt, and love when dealing with loss. Seeing Mikey standing in the yard staring off into space, and then we see Donny leave home.

His note said he was going to the city and he’ll be back, but how will he be when he returns? Issue 102 continues the dark story of Old Hob and is unnatural creations of mutananimals. As things that surround Old Hob tend to do; they get out of hand quickly as Diamond releases what were to be Karai’s new mutants. This was the perfect end to this issue, as we start to focus on a world within a world. This new reality for not only the TMNT but for the former humans who now have to get used to a new life and a world rather quick with no time to reflect. We can only speculate just how many innocent human beings Old Hob has captured for evil financial gain. There is so much feeling in this issue that it demands multiple reads.