Was there a point to this?
It seems like creators think they have to legitimize things they enjoyed when they were younger by making them “dark”. Why do they feel this is necessary?
Then again, I guess the turtles started out “dark”. But this is “dark” for the sake of “dark”. There’s no reason for it other than to make the turtles more badass, to distance them from the cartoon.
The only character development we got was in book 4 when Raphael sees Casey get shot and suddenly doesn’t think guns are quite so cool. But even then he doesn’t really seem to be in character–he starts crying immediately, for example. I don’t think Raph is all talk; I don’t think he’s the type to bawl like that. Regardless of the fact that he’s a teenager.
The series is supposed to be funny, in a macabre way, and it’s full of homages to Hong Kong action flicks, but ultimately there was nothing there that moved me. Did I expect more out of it than I should have?
Final thought: for a story about a ninja turtle, Raph didn’t get as much face-time as I would have expected. But I guess that’s a good thing, because the artist sure made everybody ugly.