Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1-5

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1-5

Originally released in 2020

Written by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and Tom Waltz

Art by Esau Escorza and Isaac Escorza

For my last day of focusing on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this week, I thought it would be fitting to focus on The Last Ronin. This miniseries takes a much darker turn compared to other Ninja Turtles properties - it still takes inspiration from the works of Frank Miller, but in this case, it's more like The Dark Knight Returns.

Set in a distant future where Shredder's grandson controls New York City, all but one of the Ninja Turtles have died in the battle against the Foot Clan.  Now the sole survivor, the Last Ronin, has returned to tear down what the Foot have built and get his revenge. The Ronin (as I'll refer to him from now on) wears a black headband and uses all four of the Turtles' weapons, so his identity is deliberately ambiguous to begin with.  I'll avoid saying who the Ronin is or using images that mention his name to preserve the twist, but there are clues in the story that hint at his identity before the reveal at the end of issue 1.

The Ronin tries to infiltrate New York City, which has been separated from the mainland, with only the ghosts/hallucinations of his brothers for company.  In the years since the Ronin left and Shredder's grandson, Oroku Hiroto took over, it's become a polluted wasteland like something out of Escape From New York.

Hiroto rules New York City as a fascist dictator with cyborg police on every corner, looking for any sign of rebellion and responding with livestreamed lethal force to make an example of anyone who would act out against him.  He believes that he killed Splinter and the Turtles over a decade ago, so he's surprised to see that one still lives.  With the technology and soldiers at his disposal, even getting to him is difficult, though the Ronin does pretty well in the first issue even if it's clear that he's making up a lot of his plan as he goes along.

However, Hiroto's forces manage to knock him out of the window of a skyscraper, sending him plummeting to the ground.  A young girl helps the Ronin escape by pointing the soldiers in the wrong direction, and then she follows the blood trail to the sewers.

When the Ronin wakes up, he's face-to-face with April, the sole surviving friend of the Turtles from what we can tell. (April immediately knows who the Ronin is, though I'll try to avoid bringing it up) Interspersed with flashbacks about how the Foot Clan broke the truce with Splinter on the day that Casey and April were going to announce their engagement, Michelangelo meets another Casey Jones - April's daughter, who goes by Casey Marie.

In the flashbacks, we see as the other Turtles were killed, one by one, though one of them managed to leave Karai (the Shredder's daughter and the one who was seemingly responsible for breaking the truce) in a coma.

As the Ronin heals his wounds, Hiroto declares martial law on New York City.  The underground rebellion that April and Casey are running is gearing up to become more open, and April reveals to the Ronin that she has the head of the Fugitoid, a.k.a. Professor Honeycutt. (I was glad that I'd read some of the original comics; I could probably assume that Professor Honeycutt is a smart person that the Turtles worked with at some point, but I was otherwise unfamiliar with the character)

Baxter Stockman is working with Hiroto, providing him with technology, and Stockman's been trying to capture Honeycutt for years now. Only Honeycutt's head remained intact, and April can't risk reactivating it because it would be a beacon showing Stockman where they are, but the head is still crucial for their plan since they need to shut down Stockman's fortress before taking on Hiroto.  Meanwhile, Hiroto has been unable to find the Ronin despite the crackdown, and he's clearly going mad (well, madder - he alternates between rambling about being a god and being frustrated with his mother being stuck in a coma).

The Ronin helps to train Casey Marie, who's self-taught but lacks discipline, and becomes her teacher in a sense. He might not know what he's doing, but he tries to pass on Splinter's teachings regardless. It gives us more to work with for the Ronin rather than being stuck in misery and anger.

April and the resistance launch an attack on Baxter Stockman's fortress.  While the Ronin is more concerned with killing Hiroto and avenging his family, the resistance is going to launch the attack regardless, and he can't just sit by and let them go out on their own.

Once Stockman's forces are dealt with, it's time for the final showdown.  The Ronin pulls no punches, and he unambiguously kills his way up Hiroto's tower. It's a little jarring to see one of the Ninja Turtles killing, but after everything that the Foot Clan did, it's entirely justified.

The final battle definitely takes its cues from the Dark Knight Returns, with an older hero and a younger villain battling it out in a pit of mud. The contexts are very different, however - in the Dark Knight Returns, the battle is a matter of pride for Batman, and it wouldn't make a difference which gang leader he's fighting.  Here, it's personal for the Ronin - even if Hiroto retired to the Japanese countryside and kept to himself after being responsible for the deaths of Splinter and the other Turtles, the Ronin would seemingly still want him dead for what he did.

I'd read the Dark Knight Returns for the first time a few years ago after initially being put off by the art.  It was a good hypothetical epilogue to Batman, but some things about the writing felt off - there were times where Batman's internal monologue was childish and filled with an almost undeserved arrogance or smugness, especially when Superman was involved.  The Last Ronin lacked or justified that out-of-character feeling, and while stories in established franchises where most of the cast dies can feel unnecessarily grim or bleak (especially when the series is generally light-hearted), the deaths here seem fitting based on the characters' well-established personality traits, and this being an alternate/possible future takes the sting out of it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is an amazingly written and beautifully drawn gut-wrenching tragedy, though there are seeds of hope in there to keep it from being completely dark. (Also, I don't think I would have expected five years ago that I would ever use the phrases "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "gut-wrenching tragedy" in the same sentence) It's definitely aimed at older audiences compared to other Ninja Turtles material, but I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's familiar with the Ninja Turtles and wants to see a different take on the franchise.