Would you say the Archie series has aged well?

[neatoman]

I didn't grow up reading the Archie TMNT series, my experience with it is mostly IDW's reprints, so I don't really feel nostalgic about it. Now that they only have one trade left, I feel like I might as well give my verdict. It's pretty long and mostly negative, so I'll put in spoilers.

Spoiler:

Aside from the problems with the trades themselves, it's not a good series. The artwork is often rushed, the story flows in an awkward way, many of the characters aren't memorable and kind of gets preachy. Admittedly, there are some good points. Environmentalism, a little bit of history, etc, aren't really bad for the intended target audience. And if nothing else, I guess I can it's one of the more imaginative versions? It's just that the good points don't really do anything for me as an adult, maybe if I was kid I'd like it better? I can't say I "hate" it or anything, it's just "meh" coupled with some clumsy excecution. Once I get the final trade I might reread it one more time to see if I like it better, if not I might donate it to a library or sell it.

Being a Murphy book designed to market the same toyline as the Fred Wolf cartoon, it's basically a version of the Fred Wolf cartoon that actually feels like it understands the characters. And comparing it to Fred Wolf cartoon at all feels a bit disingenuous. The first four issues use David Wise's crappy scripts, then Murphy takes over and drop the Fred Wolf status quo. Then it's basically all original concepts and characters that have nothing to do with the Fred Wolf cartoon. The brief return of the Fred Wolf main villains, a couple of toy characters that FW barely used in the first place, the initial few issues and the (surprisingly) rare reminders that April is a reporter and Splinter is Yoshi, aren't enough to make me associate this with the Fred Wolf cartoon.

I honestly wonder if Murphy hated the cartoon and deliberately ignored it, or if he just didn't care and just sort of drifted in another direction? Seeing how Krang's fate was to get stranded on a radioactive dump, I'm gonna go with dislike.

Anyway, do you think it holds up? Like I said, I can't really make that kind of judgement if I didn't read it as a child.