Rick Ray's Reviews > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, and Green #2

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, and Green is a new anthology series that features short stories from a variety of comic creators delivered in black-and-white with the occasional splashes of green. Stories collected in this issue include:

"Buddycount" by Gavin Smith - A titular homage to Kevin Eastman's and Simon Bisley's Bodycount, this story pairs up Casey Jones and Mikey delivering vigilante justice to a bunch of street hoodlums known as the "Viper Boys". While it doesn't have the true weirdness of Bodycount, Gavin Smith's artwork is still stellar and the use of green is quite spectacular here.

"If By Feast or Famine" by Tyler Boss - Mikey does his best Rorschach from Watchmen impression as he dons a trenchcoat and acts moody. I'm a fan of Tyler Boss' work, but this one didn't do much for me.

"The Green Dogū" by Javier Rodriguez - A strange totem that imbues hypnotic persuasion on its targets is used by April to negate the Shredder's assault on the Turtles. Silly and funny, but mostly silly. I do think Javier Rodriguez does rely a bit more on the psychedelic colors in his comics since this one doesn't really pop like his work on Defenders does.

"Deadly Delivery" by Mikey Way & Nikola Čižmešija - A urban myth of an entity known as "Pizza Face" threatens the Turtles' happiness. Even sillier than the previous story, and less fun too.

Overall, this issue was a bit of a step up from the much weaker first issue, and I'd attribute the improvement to having more single artist written and drawn stories. A few short pages per story can't really be done all that well by committee. Allowing one person to take the reins allows for creativity amidst the brevity.