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Creative team – Tom Waltz(Writer) Kevin Eastman(Writer) Peter Laird(Writer) Ben Bishop(Artist) Esau Escorza(Artist) Isaac Escorza(Artist)
Publishing – IDW Publishing
Brace yourself
Diving into the TMNT: The Last Ronin series, I didn’t realize what I was in store for. This first issue was a strong, strong start. Personally, I’m into the darker and grittier content, so this was perfect for me. The Last Ronin is extremely different from the TMNT comics that I’ve become accustomed to.
The Ninja Turtles have always centered around family, love, and brotherhood consistently. So, a comic run that is about the last remaining Ninja Turtle makes you experience something you’ve never felt while reading the TMNT comics; loneliness and despondency. In short, these comics will have you in your feels.
Time To Dive In
Starting at the beginning, The Last Ronin is set in the future. A dark and dystopian version of the future, that is. The Foot Clan has control and it shows in the worst way for the citizens. At the start, we see Mikey talking to his brothers about the toxicity and pollution in the water he has to cross to get to New York.
You’ll notice that i said he was speaking to his brothers. Yeah, about that. They’re there with him in spirit. I’m not sure if that makes it even more grim rather than them just not being there at all, but I will say it added impactfulness for me.
Once he starts going through the water, he sees the devastation of the pollution and global warming and deems the water not fit for human survival. Luckily our boy is a Mutant Ninja Turtle, so swims on and arrives at his destination. After taking a couple cameras out with flying ninja stars, he realizes that keeping citizens out isn’t as important as keeping citizens in.
He gets to the lower east side, noticing how busy and overcrowded the streets were. Motorcycles, homeless citizens, and gang members as far as the eye can see. Mikey dismisses the overcrowding and reminds his Ninja Turtle ghost brothers that the plan stays the same.
After some consideration on how he will make it to his planned destination, he steals a motorcycle from a girl by the name of “Jones”. At least, that’s what a fellow gang member referred to her as. She’s upset but as Mikey states, “adapt and overcome”.
Mikey Likes to Make Himself Known
Mikey arrives to his destination, and makes it known that he’s arrived. In need of a diversion, he pulls out a stick of dynamite. There’s really no better way to make yourself seen, right? After a bit of luck and an impressive catch, he spots a manhole out of the sewer.
He removes the manhole cover just to find out that there’s an alarm that sounds off when he removes it. It’s pretty clear who was in mind when that alarm was installed. That alarm gets the attention of the local police, which looks to be futuristic robocops. Mikey’s curiosity takes over and he has to check these robocops out. How can he not be curious? It’s a robotic cop carrying a katana!
A couple go-arounds with them, we see that they’re not just robocops. They’re synthetic cyborgs ninjas, or “synjas” as one of the brothers puts it. I thought this was a great way to show just how dark this comic run was going to get. Mikey takes out the part human part robot synja, and that alerts more synjas. After a heated exchange that involved a lot of punches and a flying car, we meet our Ronin-Verse big bad.
The Big Bad
Oroku Hiroto, the son of Karai, grandson of The Shredder, Master of the Foot Clan. This is the fight that the turtle’s father, Master Splinter, has been training Mikey and his brothers for. Ending the war between the TMNT and the Hiroto family was the turtle’s destiny, and now that responsibility falls on Mike’s shoulders.
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Mikey puts on an impressive show of getting through the platform that’s filled to the brim of robocop security in order to make his way to the entrance to the upper level floor. Mikey taunts and threatens Oroku through the security cameras. That’s when Ororku realizes it’s a mutant turtle that’s causing all this chaos. It’s pretty clear that Oroku thought he did away with all the mutant turtles. Whoops, must’ve missed one, Oroku.
Worked so hard to get up there, just to end up on the bottom
Our villain’s frustration becomes obvious when Mikey takes down each and every one of his soldiers. He sends the order to “activate the Stockman tech”, which means Mousers are on their way to get to Mikey. He takes out all of the small Mousers, and then comes face to face with one that’s as big as Mikey is.
With ramming into each other with too much momentum, they both explode out of a window. Mikey hits the ground and miraculously survives. The sinjas attempt to disperse the civilians and start their manhunt of our hero. We see the girl who goes by Jones, the former owner of the motorcycle Mikey has undoubtedly destroyed, going off to check on Mikey in the sewers.
She is flabbergasted by the amount of blood she sees, and follows the trail like it’s breadcrumbs and she’s Hansel and Gretel.
While Jones is looking for Mikey, Hiroto is in his office verbally wondering how any ninja turtle could still be alive. We get a pretty good look at his mindset, or rather his God complex, as he reassures what appears to be his comatose mother that he will be the winner of this war.
That’s when a soldier walks in a delivers the news that Mikey is still alive and on the loose. That’s where we leave Hiroto for this issue, but i promise, there’s so much more to come for him.
Hit us right in our emotions
Back to Mike, we find him in the midst of a dark despair. He feels he has failed his father and his brothers. Mikey lays down their weapons, laying each of their hakimachis on top. “Knew this was a suicide mission from the start”, Mikey says. He begs his father’s forgiveness and pushes a broken katana into his stomach.
Jones walks in at that exact moment and realizes Mikey is a mutant turtle. Mike flatlines briefly. Then we finally see the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles together. Is this a dream? Or is this Mikey’s heaven? We don’t find out because he is awakened by a surprise. None other than April, standing by him with a food tray in hand. This issue ends in a great couple of cliffhangers. It definitely makes you excited and anxious to read the next issue.
What would I rate it?
A 10, I give this issue a solid 10. It’s such a strong start to an excellent comic run. The darkness of it is something you just wouldn’t expect when reading a TMNT comic book. Although the “cowabunga dude” energy is nowhere to be found, it’s replaced by depth and the feeling of longing.
It feels like a grown up version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I read as a kid. It almost feels like I grew with the comics. Something I enjoyed is that in the flashbacks, it looks like a call back to the art style of the original comics. I think it’s a cool way to show where they started to where they are now.
The art through the comic is fantastic! It’s dark and gritty and fits the story extremely well. The dialogue was also excellent.
10/10
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