Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection, Volume 8

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection #8

by Dustin Weaver (Writer/Illustrator), Ben Bates (Writer/Illustrator), Paul Allor (Writer)

Bebop and Rocksteady stumble across a time-travel scepter, kickstarting the craziest, most destructive adventure yet! Then, when a mysterious new mutant targets Baxter Stockman, it will be up to the TMNT to reluctantly save him, but little does anyone know that a larger trap is being laid by a new arch-foe. Plus, Donatello reboots a new and improved Metalhead only to find that the robot no longer functions entirely as designed. Collects the Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything mini-series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe issues #1-8, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles issues #65-66.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Fiction, Science Fiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published December 4, 2018

About the author

Dustin Weaver is an American comics writer/artist.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

(B+) 78% | Good
Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included volumes can be found here:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, Volume 1: The War to Come
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 16: Chasing Phantoms
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, Volume 2: The New Strangeness
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 17: Desperate Measures

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This master volume is a little different in that it's only 2 issues of the ongoing series along with Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything and TMNT Universe which is an anthology title for different creators to come in and tell stories set in the TMNT universe. One of the original issues, #65, is a Christmas issue and one of the best TMNT issues to date.

My reviews for the smaller collections contained in this:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything ★★
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 16: Chasing Phantoms ★★★★
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, Volume 1: The War to Come ★★★★
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, Volume 2: The New Strangeness ★★★

[Will Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly fun read compared to the last omnibus! Most of that is due to 2 stories with *very* different tones.

Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything is a time travel action/comedy of Bebop and Rocksteady just looking for a gang to join and nearly destroying all of space and time in the process. It reminded of all the crazy, stupid, inconsistent time travel shenanigans that went on in old Flash stories that made me *DESPISE* time travel as a concept.

Here's why I still like Bebop & Rocksteady.

While Flash stories take their premise seriously and never consistently play by the rules they establish for how time travel works, Bebop & Rocksteady never takes itself seriously, and *SOMEHOW* still stays true to all the rules B&R's story establishes about how time travel and alternate timelines work from from beginning to end. All while telling a hilarious story about 2 dummies becoming better friends and nearly destroying reality itself. That's damn impressive in my book. And I haven't even touched the art yet, which does Spider-Verse before Spider-Verse and uses different art styles to communicate what timelines we're looking at.

Now lets talk about the other story, TMNT Universe. This arc sets up the foe for the Turtles, a shady government organization called the EPF that is hellbent on capturing the Turtles and using them for biological warfare against alien invaders.

The resources and manpower alone are enough to communicate the threat they pose, but like their tactics thematically make them an interesting opponent to the Turtles. The black-ops soldiers they deploy are essentially modern ninjas: people who value pragmatism over honor and will use anything at their disposal to achieve victory. The difference is that these soldiers use guns and modern technology, while the Turtles are still using old weapons like katana and kunai. The addition of Agent Bishop as an antagonist also just makes my nerd heart happy, as I grew up with the cartoon from 2003.

Overall I just loved this book so much more than the last one. I'm noticing a trend that these limited series end up being much better than the main Ninja Turtle book, so here's hoping the next omnibus contains even more of them, because this is the most fun I've had from TMNT in a while.

[Judah Radd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great one. I loved the inclusion of the Universe stories. They really expand the lore and supplement the main arcs well. It feels like the overall narrative is paused, which would typically annoy me, but in this case, it’s a well placed breather. I’m still really enjoying this world. Can’t wait for more Turtle drama.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume started less than good, but really made up for it in the end. The Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything story just wasn’t enjoyable for me. I’ve never been a fan of Renet and time travel, so I just didn’t dig this one. I did dig Scorpion and the agents interacting with the Turtles and conflicting them to the point where all of the violence that was being inflicted really had the Turtles at no choice but to turn a blind eye to it. Throughout the rest of this book, the characters of the main team are displayed so well though. Raph’s anger and caring war with each other so well. Mikey’s humor is on display well. Donnie’s smarts show up in big way. And Leo’s leadership is tested a bit more in this. There are a couple looming threats (Dark Leonardo - awesome Bill S story by the way and Metalhead) in this book that I’m excited to see what will happen in the future. The TMNT Universe issues highlighted some great stories including a wholesome Christmas issue, an always-good-to-see Leatherhead story, an actual horrifying story with Wytm and the “rot”, and a really solid issue where Alopex makes some progress in working to realize who she is and where she belongs in this family. Really continuing to enjoy this series!

[Joey Amorim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easily my least favorite volume of this run so far. I didn’t enjoy how this collected mostly auxiliary material, and I found myself mostly just skimming it because I want to get back to the main plot.

[Jens Deprez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as great as the other volumes.
I'd say 3.5 stars, bit rounded up for some of the great stories in this one.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entry into the series you can skip like an anchovy-pineapple pizza. All filler side stories that don’t really progress the main storyline. That was mostly jarring as well.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one I wasn't excited about when I looked at the contents page. There's only a couple of issues of the Ongoing, with one being a Christmas special (basically a throwaway) included and the Universe issues didn't wow me when I first read them.

Luckily almost everything reads better in trade than individually. Take the start of the book, Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything. Having to wait each month for a new issue wasn't the best way to read the mini at all, it felt disjointed and just chaos for the sake of it. In trade it flows so much better and actually tells a coherent story.

That's really the story of this volume. Since they were released alongside the main Ongoing it wasn't always easy to work out the best way to read them, plus there were odd mini-issues added, more on them later. Luckily these hardbacks put everything in a recommended reading order and once again the story flows much better.

As for the stories themselves, it's Raph's turn to get some extra development, seeing how he's always been my favourite of the brothers I have no complaints about that. He's had anger issues for a long, long time and exploring the reasons behind it is a welcome inclusion. I also really enjoyed his issue with Angel and Aloplex....

Oh and we got Pepperoni back!!! She's as cute as ever and I LOVED seeing her thought process when she saw Raph again.

This one isn't perfect. As I said at the end of the Universe books we'd get little mini-issues that never really made much sense. I hoped having them presented as a full comic would improve them but alas it wasn't the case. The first set were alright but nothing to write home about. Then you get to the second half, What is Ninja and oh they suck. I understand the final page being a payoff but we could have very easily just had it shown during a regular issue, cut out all the guff and we'd not have missed anything. And the Pepperoni issue (while still so damn cute) wasn't really necessary.

[Jack Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

A volume with at least three excellent stories, especially the wildly fun Bebop and Rocksteady Break Everything, this series continues to impress.

[Jesse VanDeWalker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was long on fun, the opening third deals with everyone's favorite henchmen almost hench-ing all of reality.

[Koen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, really loved this one! Big fan of Bebop & Rocksteady, so this was right up my alley :)

Also the Inside out was immediately a big win for me, starting with the amazing graphics here!

[Tomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun side trip through the TMNT Universe that fleshes everything out, even if it doesn't move much forward.

This volume is a strange collection of stories. There are only two issues from the main TMNT series included here. Otherwise it's mostly stuff from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, Vol. 1: The War to Come. The Universe series had a bunch of different stories spread out over multiple issues. This collects those stories together in a way that's much more satisfying than the original releases which is good. Theses stories all help flesh out the universe and add a bit more depth to the characters, but a lot of them are very episodic. The main story mostly takes a pause here. There's a bit with Baxter Stockman and Agent Bishop, and an issue with Alopex that all pull things forward, but for the most part we're just hanging out with the turtles.

After the sheer amount of story that was has come before this is a refreshing break. In fact a lot of this feels very reminiscent of the original TMNT series from the 80's. The crazy time travel adventures from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything to a story about Donatello fighting a creature made up of hundreds of leeches, all reminded me of the non Eastman and Laird issues from the original series. They are fun, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes series, all a bit different, and yet all somehow unmistakably the Ninja Turtles.

While none of these stories blew me away, this collection was probably the most fun I've had with the IDW iteration of the Ninja Turtles. While I really enjoy the main story arc I hope there are more of these fun side stories to come.

[Rolando Marono · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ya habíamos logrado llegar hasta el octavo tomo de esta colección sin tener un tomo malo, que mal que ha sucedido. Este tomo incluye la miniserie de Bebop y Rocksteady, la miniserie de TMNT Universe que tiene dos mitades, donde la primera es una historia que se conecta con el final del tomo y vemos algunos cambios de status en personajes. Y luego tenemos números sueltos donde exploramos a algunos personajes y también hay cambios de status. Especialmente los dos números finales de esta colección. Igual trae dos números principales de la serie el 65 y el 66 donde vemos una aventura de navidad y la aventura por recuperar a Alopex.
La pertinencia con la saga principal no está mal, incluso en TMNT Universe si vemos lo que viene a continuación y la historia si avanza. Pero la calidad de los números y de los guiones principales da mucho que desear. La miniserie de Bebop es ilegible, me tuve que saltar muchos de los diálogos y sólo ver las ilustraciones. En una sola página pronuncian siete veces el nombre de Renet. Si. Y la historia no tiene sentido y está llena de diálogos innecesarios. Tan innecesarios que puedes entender perfectamente todo sin leer nada.
De ahí comienzan los números de Unierse que son una sola serie y de nuevo hay muchas cosas que no quedan bien explicadas. Por qué vigilan a Stockman de nuevo, que está tramando April queda vagamente explicado y luego aparecen los SWATs y luego Null y hay una especie de guerra o todos hablan de eso, pero de nuevo no sabes bien nada de Null, etc.
El resto está bien.
Me quedó con el número de navidad, la recuperación de Alopex, los últimos dos números de Universe y la historia donde vemos el origen de Jennika.

[Bryan Fischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was probably the least enjoyable TMNT book so far in the series. Not loving the direction of TMNT Universe sub-series, it feels both mandatory and skippable at the same time. But it does let them explore new characters and concepts which is nice.

Book was too all over the place. Focusing on a handful of stories instead of just the main plot. Nothing was great, nothing was bad. Few hints at things to come, but it could also be for naught. I did enjoy the writing of the characters and the turtles especially, felt like all the writers did a good job with that.

Felt the same way about the art as I did the stories, ranged from solid to meh. Majority was average though.

[Tony Foxhoven · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times like these the Turtles, basketball and the Grateful Dead are what keep me going. I have been obsessed with the Turtles since I was a kid (Michelangelo forever) and this was a perfect escape from the corona, trumpism, and all the other shir going on in the world. If you are into comics/graphic novels along with being a child of the 80s/90s I would recommend

[Neil Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually, the strength of these "IDW collections" is the volume of material included in each volume and it's "no stone unturned" in terms of not missing anything from the regular single issue publishing - but sometimes it includes a stinker. In this case it's the opening story arc that features a bebop and rocksteady time travelling adventure. Unfortunately, I've disliked every time-travel story in this series with the exception of one where they went to a near future of the turtles. There are some support characters that are ridiculous even if they'd been in the 80s cartoon and I really can't stand them. I found myself skimming these pages after one issue so the best I can say about it is the art does a good job of conveying the story and that the writer captured Bebop and Rocksteady's characters well, and was doing a fairly complicated time travel story within a ridiculous setting.
As for the rest of the collection, it's some of the strongest material in the entire series. I don't know if the "universe" comics were a limited series or an ongoing secondary title but it debuts really strongly, arguably supplanting the regular title in importance and quality. There's a great "die hard"/"office under attack" story arc that sheds more light on an anti mutant military group (feels a lot like some X-Men villains in terms of "hate and fear them") as well as a surprisingly deep follow-up to metalhead/metal-o-Don which had a star trek style "what is an individual/alive"? Pop philosophy vibe to it.
So, I think this shows how the amount of material can be a curse and a boon to these comic collections. If anything it shows how diverse the stories and genres can be in the world of TMNT and that's, ultimately a very healthy thing for a comic franchise, even if it means the occasional story is 100% not for me.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this as 3.5 stars.

I felt the first half of the book was a tough read.

I love time travel and would have thought bebop and rocksteady destroy everything to contains a recipe for all things I love.

This proved not to be the case. I understand it’s supposed to be a chaotic roller coaster ride of fun, mayhem and paradoxes. The presentation is what turned me off.

It’s akin to watching an action movie and there is a chaotic fight scene and to aid in helping the audience feel this, the director of photography decided to just throw the camera down a stairwell.

Yep it’s chaotic, it’s hard to get your bearings, but I’m coming to see what’s happening and throwing the camera down a stair well just seems like a poor man’s answer to a low SFX budget and no fight choreographer.

The second half of the book is spectacular. An analogy of a bunch of short stories and one shots.

[Rick Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume suffers mostly from having very little of the TMNT ongoing run collected. Much of the bulk of this volume is made up of the Bebob & Rocksteady: Destory Everything miniseries and issues from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe anthology series. The two ongoing issues collected were enjoyable but don't really advance much plot.

I generally found the Bebob & Rocksteady adventure to be quite boring and forgettable. Most of the anthology issues were also not the best, but some of them were fun overall. I quite enjoyed the Hob/Leatherhead issue - it felt like the best change of pace to the stories collected. The Christmas party issue was also quite heartwarming and felt very much like classic Turtles to me.

Overall, a fairly lackluster addition to the IDW series, and this is probably the volume most easily skipped in a re-read.

[Stephanie Farnsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once Bebop and Rocksteady's story got going and wrapped up, this volume really becomes great. Volume 7 was an incredibly grim affair from start to finish so it was inevitable that 8 would balance that out with some lighter stories: namely a Christmas party and the return of dino pet pepperoni. But it's IDW so it still has its gut-wrenching moments - the panels of Raphael reflecting on his abandonment stating "I was alone" was a gutpunch, and Donnie's trauma is also revisited. That's what this series does best: exploring mental health issues over a long term, working through accountability and trust issues but in a realistic way (except for the fact everyone is a mutant animal). A wonderful addition, but I hope nobody ever trusts Donatello to arrange a light display again.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts out with Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything which is a wild romp through time that exemplifies why fans love the duo. They are big tough dummies who love each other in their own big dumb goofy ways.

We also have the debut of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe" spin off series which... I am not exactly sure why it exsits(existed?) Not that it is not good, it IS good, it just seems like you didn't need a side series to go through the plotlines it has. It seems like they could have just been in the main series? I guess we'll see as it progresses.

Anyway, there is lots of fun to be had here, this continues to be an AMAZING series. I love that this comic exists.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this Volume as much as I did! It really only has 2 issues of the mainline story, but it turned out to be good to have a breather. The side stories were pretty darn fun. Rocksteady and Bebop have a pretty funny romp through time, and the Universe collection stuff is pretty darn good. The Metalhead arc, in particular, I really enjoyed.

Also, one of the main issues is a Christmas Special, and darn it if it didn't get me wistful and nostalgia-tinged happy feeling. Usually those "Tonight, on a very special episode of..." things do nothing for me, but this one was amazing.

Highly recommend.

[Darik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Y'know, at this point, the Turtles universe may be getting just a tad too wooly to keep track of.

This collection contains a miniseries about Beebop and Rocksteady, and nine issues of an anthology series featuring random characters from around the Turtles mythos... but only TWO issues of the actual Turtles ongoing comic. The comic that you presumably bought this large, expensive collection to read.

The detours and miniseries are really getting to be a problem with these collections. I DEVOURED the first six of these in rapid succession, but it took me a year each to get through the last two. Too much padding, not enough STORY, dammit!

[Bram Ryckaert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first weak volume of the series. Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything had some fun gags but I'm kind of done with the 'Turtles in Time' issues now. The TMNT Universe side-series is just okay... Judging from these first issues I'm not convinced it adds a lot of value to the main series. At least the Metalhead story had a good idea behind it. I also really liked the Xmas issue #65, that was very sweet and heart-warming.

But overall... Not the best issues, hoping it picks up again.

[Wouter Dhondt · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a collection of short stories that don’t push the main story forward. Some great ones ( War to come and Metalhead 2.0 ), but most I didn’t care about all that much. Conflicted to score this. Let's make it 3.5 stars rounding down as unfortunately it's a decrease in quality of what we are used to by now.

[Langston Lardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a surprise here, but another solid entry in the tmnt world. While definitely the weakest of all the volumes so far, that doesn’t mean much when all the books are so dang good. Still some solid beats in here and great stories. The weakest part was the beginning stories about B & R and time travel, overall a good read.

[London Heady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theres a bunch of mini-series in here and like two issues of the main line. Luckily, Universe is mostly amazing and issue 65, the Christmas issue, is genuinely maybe the best single issue of the entire run. It's dragged down by a Bebop and Rocksteady mini I didn't care for, but it's still TMNT excellence.

[Doug Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

While enjoyable, this was a bit of a struggle to get through as it is almost entirely full of spinoffs that while good, felt a bit disjointed. It was nice to get some quieter moments and there is still good stuff here, like the story with Wyrm especially, and nothing is bad by any means, it just feels like a weird read.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a little bit of plot developing here between all the tangents and side characters. The revolving art style is kind of distracting, would be nice to stick with one for a bit longer before changing again and again. I'm going to keep reading but I'm not sure how much value there has been since they got rid of Shredder and Krang.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easily the worst collection in this series so far. Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything was cheesy nonsense and the TMNT Universe stuff was very hit or miss (The War to Come and Metalhead 2.0 were the only passably readable ones.) Overall, a massive disappointment after the last book.