Volume 6 is all-around next-level good. But you really have to take it in two pieces: the first chapter and everything else.
The first chapter is almost a standalone story, and despite being solid action, it's the calm before the storm. Our boys spend the whole chapter tangling with a mysterious masked foe whose identity isn't exactly a major surprise when it's revealed -- especially once you realize that for all the combat no one is getting hurt -- but the reveal is still endearing. Kevin Eastman draws this chapter and it's a joy to look at because the Turtles are never more definitive than when they're drawn by their creator. Eastman may not have the chops of the bigger artists in comics but his style is uniquely and confidently his own and you'd recognize it a mile away. I like how gritty and heavy it is, how he spatters his panels with ink -- his art has so much *debris*. His layouts are basic rectangles, simple and old-school, making the whole chapter feel timeless.
With the calm out of the way, we get into Part 1 of the storm.
Before I knew practically anything else about this series, I had heard about City Fall. And because my first dip into the series was the City Fall aftermath (Volume 8), this story has been looming large as I've worked my way up through the previous volumes. And it isn't disappointing.
The seeds of Shredder's plan (sowed so early in the series!) are brought to fruition here in a way that feels gut-wrenching for our heroes. There is actual physical consequence: hits that hurt, punches that change lives. In a medium where we're used to hardly anything mattering, where death is an inconvenience, it's a testament to the writing and art that when you see Casey Jones on the end of Shredder's bladed fist you just want to cry. It feels different. It feels big.
Part of that is the writing, particularly the novel-like pacing: Tom Waltz gives this series so much breathing room. Scenes often last like twice as long as I'd expect them to last in other comics, and Waltz uses that space to let the characters feel and react, and thus us too. And part of it is the art, which in this volume is among the best I've seen in comics. Mateus Santolouco, wow; a new fave. I love the way he draws the Turtles and Splinter (somehow both a little cute and full of gravitas), I love the action; the layouts are nuts. It's high above the other art so far in this series, something that's especially evident during the long sequence of Leonardo's brainwashing where Santolouco is joined by previous-volume artists including Eastman and Kuhn and you can really compare; no one is remotely bad but no one is holding a candle to Santolouco either. The writing on this series has wowed me right along and now the art has been brought up to the same level.
Can't wait to see what happens in Part 2.