A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comic: “The Last Ronin”
Great story, beautiful ending. I didn’t grow up reading the comics, but I had the first movie on DVD and loved it as a weird, but entertaining movie. I liked the mix of creepy costumes with funny dialogue. I liked the New York and hip-hop vibe to it. I remember watching it a lot on a portable DVD player that was a birthday gift. I even remember watching the cartoons a little bit here and there. What connects me to the turtles the most is the memories I have being introduced to them by my stepfather and stepbrother. I think they bonded over it and tried to let me in on the turtles’ sarcastic coolness and bad-ass-ery. My brother would even buy their action figures for me. I remember one trip, how important it was for me to get Ninja Turtle Legos from Time Square’s Toys R Us store. I remember how I begged to build it on the late night flight back to Miami, negotiating for the reading light so I could play. Maybe the turtles symbolize that trip to New York City in Winter. Central Park under a magical amount of snow. I remember the kids who ambushed us with snowballs there which forced all of us to retaliate. Suddenly, my new family members and I were on the same team. A brief moment of camaraderie between me and my new stepfather and stepbrother. The actual turtles remind me of them, too. They’re similarly funny, cool, artsy, street-smart, sometimes a little mutant-y, maybe a little dangerous—like Raphael.
This comic is a limited series spin-off of an alternate reality. Mikey’s out for revenge as the lone survivor of Shredder’s grandson’s vicious ambushing. He’s lost the other turtles, his brothers, to horrible explosions, gang attacks, and lies. He succeeds in the end to kill this grandson, but dies right after a half-fatal electrocution, out-surviving the shock till his wounds collapse him. A semi-robotic April and her daughter, Casey, end the series with a plan to mutate more turtles with Mikey’s mutated blood. The most emotional part was when Mikey hands Casey his father’s Ninja manual with a new lesson, added by himself, instructing her to “Know Peace.” These words are scratched into the last page of the manual where Mikey had written “No Peace” originally, before he started the suicide mission which is this story. After he dies, he reunites with his dead brothers, father, and friend in a heavenly bright version of his home, New York City.
Revenge stories are beautiful, they show us how following anger to its conclusion disrupts a person’s sense of self worth. The deaths never seem like enough. The anger never fully satisfies. The stories I loved growing up were Kill Bill and The Count of Monte Cristo. Later, I read Hamlet which is great, but Richard III seemed more evil, he became my favorite. However, the story that really surprised me was The Last of Us Part 2. Playing that game, I felt that the villain’s death would be truly justified, but was wrecked when I witnessed the change in the main character. Ellie sees the person she hates with their own innocent child and she can’t physically follow through killing them. Which makes me think: When innocent people get hurt, like in TMNT: The Last Ronin, how could anger ever turn into relief? It all feels like shame and inner pain. I relate so hard that I feel like I’m the best that I know at those emotions. In the end, Michelangelo dies and lets go of the pain that comes from survivor’s guilt. Honor inexorably tied to his suicide. The little Peace that comes is in his final moments. It sometimes feels like those two things constantly out-do each other. Fighting because you’ve been wronged, but needing to forgive because the fighting keeps ruining you. I relate, like I said, and hope I can learn what I really need to so that I can also, “Know Peace.”
Rolling Ferro
