Set in a dystopian future where a major city is ruled over by thugs, the elderly but legendary hero returns for one last adventure - one last gasp to stand up to evil. Joining him is a young female sidekick, representing the future of justice - can the two of them bring hope to a bleak world? This is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Turtle Knight Returns!
That really is the concept behind The Last Ronin - a hackneyed TMNT version of Frank Miller’s mid-’80s Batman classic, The Dark Knight Returns. They even have a tank-like vehicle in the final act! Oy, it’s such a bad comic. And not for trying - and failing - to ape such a famous book, but because the story itself is so stilted and dull.
I’ve gotta go into SPOILERS for this nonsense guys, so there’s the warning. Really don’t waste your time with this crap though.
Manhattan is turned into a fortress - the walls are to combat the rising sea level, though we actually see nothing of the sort. But why is the US government seeding control of its largest, most iconic city with the most expensive real estate in the country to a Japanese cartoon supervillain??! It’s never explained and it’s representative of the shoddy world-building offered throughout.
The cartoonish supervillain in question is Hiroto, Shredder’s grandson, who does embarrassing things like monologuing in the rain and laughing maniacally to prove what a cliched bad guy he is. If you didn’t get how bad a bad guy he is, he appears in a robe via hologram to the citizens of New York a la Palpatine. Get it - he’s a VILLAIN, duuuuuuhhhh!
Hiroto’s just there for Mikey, the titular last ronin, to defeat because his brothers and father are dead, which we get via flashbacks - unimaginatively, they died fighting the enemies they’ve always fought, but lost to this time, because contrivance. It’s all to force a dark tone that’s never earned - but hey, that’s the tone of TDKR, right?? It really feels like if Zack Snyder were to write a Turtles comic, this would be the laughable end result.
It’s so riveting, reading pages of mindless action as Mikey throws himself at faceless legions of Foot Clan. What a memorable story - Turtles v Foot Clan. Never seen that before. Why did all of this happen - where’s Mikey been for 16 years? Up a mountain, meditating. Bravo. What ingenious storytelling. Golf claps all round.
April O’Neil’s also in this. She can do medical procedures, build anything, and is also an accomplished scientist in this book, all because the totally well-thought-out story needs her to do these things because there’s no-one else to do them. She was a journalist originally, wasn’t she…? Oh but anyone can become a doctor engineer scientist in no time guys, you just gotta move into the sewers and then it all magically happens.
I’m not a big Turtles fan so I didn’t get all the fanservice - like the robot thing at the end - but I remember Baxter Stockman. Another well-rounded thoughtful character… Just kidding. He’s ranting and raving like a mad scientist until he’s not. It really is such a predictable story. Everything you think will happen happens, and in the least interesting ways.
I appreciated the art team showing the different looks of the Turtles over the years, from the gritty mono-colour early years to the more colourful cartoony versions when they became world-famous to the darker, more adult looks they adopt in Mikey’s memory as he talks to them in the present.
The art doesn’t make the book any more compelling to read though and I was never the least bit interested in reading this childishly-rendered story that tries too hard to be dark and adult and falls far short of it because the writers simply aren’t up to the task. Boring and silly throughout, The Last Ronin isn’t just bad but it shows how limited this franchise is too.
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