There have always been gods, and they have always played their game using mortal lives as chess pieces, and the world of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is no different. The Pantheon has been in the thin places of the world for the longest time, making their mysterious moves according to rules unknown. The Game seems to have stalled, though, and as the only one seemingly still interested in playing, the Rat King sets out to ask the question most mythologies seem to have ignored – what are the gods playing for? TMNT Annual scripted by Tom Waltz, penciled by Casey Maloney, inked by Maria Keane, colored by Luis Antonio Delgado, and lettered by Shawn Lee.
Let me tell you something about this review. I am writing it at 6:37 in the morning, after a night of broken sleep, finally rousing myself from bed because I clearly wasn’t getting any rest done and I have work to do. I had to ramble away for 20 minutes on another writing app that has pleasant clickety-clacky typing noises just to settle my brain down enough to be able to write clearly, and even then, the only way I was able to get started was by laying it out on the line and letting you know, dear reader, just how much of a mess things are right now. Now, I hate to say this, but IDW’s handling of the Pantheon has also very much been an unfocused mess, and I am delighted that Tom Waltz is using this Annual to admit that and lay out some clear goals for the storytelling to come.
The first real inkling of who the Pantheon were and what they were about in TMNT #36 – waaaay back in 2014. In a story scripted by Tom Waltz himself, the Rat King made himself known…well, mostly to the reader, as he erased Leonardo and Splinter’s memories of his scenery-chewing exposition. He spoke of his godly family, and the chess game they played between themselves using mortals as pawns, all in competition for the throne of the world. Since then, they all popped up sporadically in a number of places, not getting even a full introduction until much later, in TMNT #71.
In the interim, they made mysterious moves with no real discernible purpose, one of them breaking up April and Casey, another brainwashing Alopex, and one even instigating a multidimensional crossover between the Turtles and the Ghostbusters(something I’m gleeful is still considered canon). All the while teasing the big Pantheon Game, so mysterious, so intricate, so…indefinitely postponed. The series chose to focus more on developing its wide array of mortal characters, and while this was definitely the right choice, it left Pantheon fans like me waiting. The most we ever got out of it was the near-resurrection of the Pantheon’s father in the epic, era-ending TMNT #100 – and that was more Kitsune’s show than it was anyone else’s. The actual Pantheon Game was still, apparently, meant to happen at a later date – but at this point, does anyone still care?
It is in that context that the opening page sees the Rat King himself, beaming right at the reader in smug, playful glee, saying, “Frankly, I’m surprised as you that this meeting hasn’t happened sooner.” By the issue’s end, it’s revealed who the Rat King is actually talking to, but he’s enough of a cosmic, trickster character for his words to absolutely be directed towards the reader. I’ve been waiting for this story for a very long time (my patience seems to be being well-rewarded this month), but as he himself says, “…first, I suppose introductions and a bit of history are in order.”
Have you ever been the friend or family member desperate to make Board Game Night happen, but nobody’s that interested in playing anymore? I have been, and I feel the Rat King’s pain as he travels around the world, mixing exposition in between meetings with his siblings to perfectly lay out to readers both old and new just who the Pantheon is, and what drives them. Like much of the TMNT fandom, most of the Rat King’s siblings have forgotten the Game entirely, and the Rat King’s attempts to drum up interest again fall on deaf ears (for those of the remaining Pantheon who have ears, at least).
As the Rat King gets to travel, the art team gets to flex, from the snowy mountains of Manmoth’s home, to lonely, abandoned beaches from which Gothano rises, to the chaotic fever dream that is the Toad Baron’s bacchanalian realm. If you can imagine, just for a moment, that an image is a bubble in a bowl of water, then this Annual is boiling. Everyone in this Annual came to play – from Waltz’s delight with cramming as much wordplay into the Rat King’s dialogue as possible, to the wealth of characters, background details, and contrasting personalities that fill every page. The Pantheon may have been relegated to the background for the longest time, but in that time they’ve built up a rich mythology, cherry-picked from cultures around the world, and this issue joyfully celebrates as much of it as it can.
What I appreciate most about it, however, is the insight into the meta-narrative we’re getting. There’s a reason why interest in the Pantheon Game has waned, for the creators as much as the readers – there was never really any point to it beyond raising the stakes of *TMNT* adventures. Never were we told why anyone wanted to play, or what real purpose many of their moves served. As the Rat King observed, it was all chaos for chaos’ sake, with no real end in mind, and this issue neatly doubles its reintroduction of the Pantheon with these lessons the Rat King learns.
In the end, the Rat King meets with some of the Turtles’ biggest villains, who have all been amassing power behind the scenes of the main series – and promises another Game to come. This time, though, it’s a promise I’m able to buy into. We’re promised that this time, things are better thought out, that there’s a goal in mind, and stakes to lose. TMNT has always had grand ambitions, pulled off with varying degrees of success, but no matter how this spills out, I’m excited for the stories to come.
