Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a Daredevil parody, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a pop culture staple for 40 years, but the franchise reached a new peak in 2020 with The Last Ronin. Just like Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird originally created the TMNT as a Daredevil parody, in classic Turtles fashion, The Last Ronin parodied Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s Dark Knight Returns. The Last Ronin was a huge hit, and even the writers were shocked by how successful it became.

The Last Ronin was penned by an all-star creative team, uniting Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau and Isaac Escorza, and Ben Bishop. The story follows Michelangelo in a dystopian future, where his brothers have been killed, and he wanders the world alone as a jaded warrior. When he returns to New York City, he is confronted by the Foot Clan for one final battle. Recently, Tom Waltz, a long-term writer on IDW’s TMNT series and co-writer of The Last Ronin, gave an interview to Screen Rant in which he explained the experience of seeing the series become a smashing success.

Tom Waltz was the mainstay writer of IDW Publishing’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing series that launched in 2011, and penned the first 100 issues. After Eastman and Laird, few creators have brought as much to the Turtles franchise, and his work remains one of the best entry points to the franchise.

How A Second Printing Clued Creators In On The Last Ronin‘s Success

During Tom Waltz’s interview, he broke down the exact moment he realized The Last Ronin would become a hit. In his own words:

“My initial clue that THE LAST RONIN was going to be much bigger than we’d expected… was when I first learned we were going to a second printing even before the first printing was out to stores. Ironically, IDW was getting accused of deliberately shorting the first issue, but the truth was that IDW had deliberately OVER PRINTED the issue in the hopes its sales numbers would surpass the initial pre-orders once curious folks saw it on store shelves…and we still didn’t have enough to meet the demand — not even close! “

Waltz’s made a point of explaining that he and Kevin Eastman “had high hopes for it from the very start,” but it’s hard to deny the surprise sensation the series became, exceeding everyone’s expectations. The fact the first issue’s demand surpassed an intentional over-printing from IDW is something of a rarity in comics, and speculation about intentional scarcity is abundant. The writer expounded on his experience writing the stealth hit, adding, “It still shocks me how popular it’s become. I’m sincerely humbled by it all…and couldn’t be more grateful.”

The Last Ronin Is A Masterclass In Fan Service

In The Last Ronin, Eastman, Laird and Waltz took all the core elements of the series to their natural conclusion. Just as the franchise started by parodying Frank Miller’s early claim to fame, Daredevil, its magnum opus was a parody of Miller’s own masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns. In this sense, the franchise has come full circle, giving TMNT a cyberpunk-meets-Old Man Logan makeover. Taking one of the most upbeat franchises in indie comics and turning them dark proved to be one of the most successful and profitable ventures in modern comics.

With The Last Ronin II currently hitting shelves, as well as the prequel miniseries, The Lost Years, readers have more than enough of this dystopian Turtles future to sink their teeth into. Retaining the same creative team as the 2020 series, the first issue of The Last Ronin II has delivered on everything its audience could want, continuing the darker path of Turtlemania. The expansion of The Last Ronin‘s story owes everything to the juggernaut success of the first miniseries, and how the dark Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tale took the comics world by storm.