Was I feeling particularly grumpy when I reviewed the first issue of IDW’s crossover series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs Street Fighter?

Though I acknowledged that the art was excellent, and that I shouldn’t have expected much from a series that mashes together the Turtles with Capcom’s long running fighting game series, I still seem to have been a little down on the issue.

Yet this second issue does seem to solidify the series as having a bit of self-awareness and humour about the fact that two disparate franchises are being brought together, seemingly without much reasoning beyond them meeting and fighting.

After the Raphael vs Guile match ends with referee shenanigans (directed remotely by the evil Bison and his new sidekick, scientist Baxter Stockman), the turtle just can’t let it go, confronting the American street fighter outside of the ring.

The other turtles, meanwhile, are entering the fighting contest themselves, and it soon becomes apparent that they’re going to need to team up with the World Warriors to take down Bison and Stockman. Can they stop bickering, punching and kicking each other for long enough to work together though?

The concept is daft and the writer, Paul Allor, knows it. Despite the wafer thin premise, he squeezes in lots of fun scenes, along with some genuinely amusing dialogue and character moments, which artist Ariel Medel illustrates beautifully.

Sure, it’s not exactly high art from a story point of view, but what do you expect from TMNT and Street Fighter? Despite the latter having surprisingly deep lore for a series based around one-on-one combat in video games, it’s still never been the most layered or realistic of sagas.

The campy setup and overall story is part of the point, though; we’re just here to see the action unfold. That it’s done knowingly, and fondly, is icing on the tasty and great-looking, if insubstantial, cake.

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