Titan’s new Battletoads comic attempts to fill in the gaps between the trio’s last game – Battletoads Arcade in 1994 – and last year’s reboot, which made an appearance on Xbox consoles and PC.

It does a good job of getting readers up to speed with the three heroes, especially as – likely because there hadn’t been a game for 26 years – their lore isn’t exactly widely known. The art style takes it’s cues from the reboot, which is certainly no bad thing – though I wasn’t blown away by the 2020 game by any means, the wonderful animation and Cartoon Network-esque attitude and style was definitely something that was done right. Another aspect that worked well in last year’s game was the meta nature of the plot and jokes, which carries over to the comic nicely.

Unfortunately, it has the same problem that the game has (and that the series as a whole has had in general): there’s nothing particularly memorable or original about the Battletoads, who were initially a pastiche of the then-contemporary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s composed of a few fun fight scenes and has some nicely cartoony character designs, but there’s nothing that makes it a must read.

It does end on an intriguing cliffhanger though and – here’s the important part – it’s actually free to download, so you don’t have anything to lose by checking it out. It’s a reasonably fun diversion, after all.

Issue 2 is also available and is free too; I’ll be reading and reviewing that as soon as I have a chance.