Back in 1987, TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird wrote an outline for story set thirty years in the future. The grim tale focused on a sole surviving turtle on a quest through New York City to avenge his slain family members.
Decades later, Eastman found the the outline and began reworking it for the modern era while also keeping the same themes and dark tone it began with. The result will be a five-issue miniseries this summer entitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin. The series will feature artwork by Eastman (layouts) and Andy Kuhn (inks). Long time TMNT scribe Tom Waltz has also come onboard to write the scripts.
In a press release today from IDW, Eastman explained the history behind The Last Ronin and why he’s so excited to finally bring it to life:
About ten years ago, I re-discovered a twenty page outline for a TMNT story that Peter and I wrote together back in 1987. The story was set thirty years in the future, which (as written then) was set in 2017. Reading through it again, I drifted back to a very different time in TMNT history — back when it was all about the comics, mostly just Peter and I writing and drawing the issues, pre-everything the world would soon come to know about these characters that we’d created and called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Eastman also provided a glimpse at how his and Laird’s original outline would be adapted for the current era
“A little over a year ago, as the ongoing series headed towards issue one hundred, I showed a rough revised and updated version of the story outline (now set in the year 2040) to Tom Waltz, who equally fell in love with the possibilities of it. The Last Ronin is a heartfelt love poem to all the TMNT universes of the past, and offers up an intense look at one possible future — firmly based on and adapted from an original thirty-three year-old idea, from the original creators.”
Each issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin will be 48 pages. The first issue will feature a regular cover by Eastman along with variant editions by Eastman and Mateus Santolouco.
You can also check out a preview of the first issue below, which pretty much sold me on adding this series to my pull list.
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