More of a 2.5. My main gripe with this volume is that it doesn't live up to its premise until the very end of the book. The Turtles and Splinter have seized control of the Foot Clan. Will the Hamato Clan be corrupted by association? Mikey seems to think so!...despite the Clan following orders and refusing to kill. I totally understand Mikey having a problem with Splinter killing the Shredder, but the book should have framed Mikey's disgust around *that* and not the Foot being evil. Mikey talks like he has the moral high-ground (he arguably does by the end), but without the Foot and Splinter doing anything questionable he just comes off as needlessly whiny and childish.

It also doesn't help that there's just a TON of dialogue to sift through during these portions of the book. The conversations with Kitsune in particular could have been trimmed down, and arguably could have been cut altogether, since most of her dialogue amounts to just her sizing up her opponents. It read like padding to reach a page count so I often just turned my brain off and breezed through the art.

What brings the book back up in my eyes is the introduction of Leatherhead and the Utroms on Burnow Island. Unlike the Mikey, everyone's actions and perspectives make sense for the characters, the dialogue is nowhere near as dense, and everyone loves a giant monster crocodile (or is he an alligator? I wasn't really watching the teeth...).

Anyways, by the end of the story, Splinter has the Foot execute one of their rivals and Casey takes over the Purple Dragons, effectively bringing them under Foot control too. Hopefully next volume explores this scenario more.