Mirage comics = Dark and Gritty?

[marcelangelo]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Outside of the first 11 issues, Return to New York, City at War, and a few select Tales issues....then no, the rest of Mirage isn't really dark or gritty.

Volume 2 feels like a Saturday morning cartoon despite some deaths. Baxter becomes a cyborg supervillain, Leonardo fights a fish mutant, the Turtles infiltrate the government who hold alien species captive, etc. The whole arc felt like something out of the 4kids cartoon.

Volume 4 doesn't have anything dark or gritty from what I can remember, it was just PL throwing a million plots to the table at once, none of which were all that interesting. Its not like Don fighting talking dinosaurs or Raph fighting Vampires, or Leo facing Aztec warriors is anything out of the ordinary for the cartoons.

Image is of course an exception, and some of the stronger Tales titles like Rat King's issue and some stuff from the second Tales.

volume 4 had many morbid subjects which I enjoy a whole (s)hell of a lot(excuse the pun)..these things at least to me brought the grittyness back into turtles comics in broad strokes..examples for what I mean are:
-the utroms digging into april and robyn's parents coffins to extract tissue samples
-splinters death and his sea burial..
-mind control between mr bronze and the young fellow that shadow was dating
-the utroms wanting to seize april and accuse her of smuggling in weapons with the foot as security guards..(that was pretty cool)
-april getting a glimpse into her own past and her parents fertility struggles...
not to forget her own shattering experiences..
etc etc etc