He makes quick work of his enemies and is great at making decisions on the fly. The Last Ronin is skilled, crafty, and conveys a cunning you'd expect from an aged Ninja Turtle. The pacing is also excellent and the nearest comparison I can make would be putting a quarter into an arcade machine and pressing start. The comic is equal parts action, exposition, and worldbuilding.
The story is about the Last of the Hamato Clan going on a quest for revenge against the Foot Clan who have taken over the city of Manhatten and destroyed his family. The story fits into the future of any possible TMNT timeline you'd like to drop it into.
The story is a collaboration between Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (Creators) and Tom Waltz, the lead writer of the groundbreaking IDW run. The Last Ronin is the first TMNT story that I've read in my 30+ years that gutted me emotionally. The darkest TMNT story I actually recall reading was from the Archie run that featured Michaelangelo being captured and tortured with a cattle prod.
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In the much-maligned TMNT, Vol: 3/Urban Legends series the Turtles were all maimed over the course of the series but otherwise it was business as usual. In TMNT #44 Donatello w as beaten within an inch of his life but he was back in the next issue. I've read the Mirage comics which was always gritty but I'm never really read a Truly dark TMNT story. TMNT has always been my favorite IP and regardless of incarnation I always default to the characterizations of the 80's cartoons. Whether It's Days of Future Past, The Dark Knight Returns, or Old Man Logan it is a popular story to tell because it takes our heroes out of the perpetual prime of their lives and places them face to face with their own mortality and roadblocks we all face in our lives as we age and begin to experience loss. Pulling our favorite heroes out of the present day and placing them in bleak and apocalyptic future states has been a comic trope longer than I've been alive.