The Last Ronin
When this first was announced we Debated who would be the sole surviving Ninja Turtle to carry on the legacy that the Hamato Yoshi Clan started. Who would avenge his brothers and father against the enemy who destroyed his family? I very much wanted it to be Leonardo, my favorite Ninja Turtle, but knew in my heart only one made sense. There was only one Turtle interesting enough to be left alone and develop into a cold blooded assassin hell bent on vengeance. Michaelangelo.
He is the one Turtle with more potential than the others, he just lacks discipline, self control, and doesn't take much serious before a chain of events blasts him into a new life and a new character. Focus is the orange headband wearing Ninja Turtles main issue, which is why Splinter gave him the nunchucks which requires a tremendous amount of focus. He's fast, strong, and could be the best Ninja of the bunch, and that's what happens when his family is gone, he's forced to push past his limits and become that ninja that his father always believed he could be.
The Last Ronin is a great telling of a story, a story of loss, pain, sacrifices, redemption, and revenge. It's also a story of perseverance and hope. Michaelangelo being the last Turtle standing makes sense and gives the most room for development character wise and as time goes on, he is just not the same fun loving character we all know and love, he's much different. He's a combination of all his brothers now, taking some of their best qualities forward against their enemies which have grown much more powerful after the deaths to his family.
They comics show the deaths of his family as each chapter goes on and it's a domino affect, once one goes down each follows a path of destruction until there's no one left. This all starts with an attack on their Master Splinter, which pushes Raph to absolute rage, making him rush to find the Foot clan by himself despite the odds, much like he usually does. He needs to make them pay and has the best ending of all the Turtles to be honest. Raph goes berserk and basically kills a ton of footclan Ninja, before Karai attacks him and giving a killing blow, but before that Raph puts Karai into a life long coma. It's a huge blow to the foot.
The other deaths were kind of eh to me, Leonardo and Casey Jones die together in an explosion trying to save Dr Honeycutt, Splinter and Donatello die during a potential ceasefire with the foot that was an ambush. They fell in battle, with Don doing what he could to protect his father against Oroku Hinato's forces. They did do some damage though.
Oroku Hinato is Shredders grandson who takes the mantle of Shredder and is probably more vicious, but doesn't really get his hands dirty like his father did against the Turtles.
I like how Michaelangelo goes through some dark times after the tragedies he went through and even attempted several suicides to end the suffering he felt. He's lost with his clan gone with no end to the suffering his heart is taking, until he finds his focus, focus in stopping the Foot clan and its leader once and for all.
It's a great story with some decent action, the final battle between Michaelangelo against Oroku Hinato is brutal and back and forth. It also has Michaelangelo using every weapon he has, as he wields Leo's Katana's, Donatello'd Bo staff, and Raphs Sais against this enemy with high tech armor that seems to be impossible to penetrate. The ending gives us closure to the story leaving both hero and villain dying. It's a pretty satisfying end, although like I said I didn't like the way Leo went down.
It all ends with Casey Jones Jr, who I didn't even talk about yet, who is more of a side character who is also against the Foot Clans ways since they have a stranglehold of the city. She's been training with books that Splinter left behind to become a pretty decent ninja herself, you see she has ability, and has Mutant enhanced strength due to April and Casey Jones being around mutagen and the Turtles who were basically giving out radiation from their change themselves. Being in close proximity against on a constant basis gave their baby strength. The final pages shows her and April trying to figure out how to use mutagen and off to the side is four baby turtles giving off the assumption they will use the mutagen to create a new ninja clan to follow Casey Jones Jr and the ways Splinter left behind. Pretty sick ending if you ask me.
So does this story interest you? Does seeing Michaelangelo being the last Ronin make sense? I think it does. If it's being scored I'd have to give it an 8.5 out of 10 or 85 out of 100 pizza slices for being original and epic, I just wish Leo had a better end.
#TMNT #TheLastRonin #IDW #NinjaTurtles #Michaelangelo #ComicBooks #Ninjas #OrokuHinato #Shredder