Among the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Michelangelo is best known as the carefree joker – capable in a fight, but rarely the first to resort to violence. The nunchaku-wielding ninja is far more interested in hanging out with his siblings – a fact which was tragically twisted in the recent TMNT: Last Ronin, where he was depicted as the last Turtle left alive. Now, Michelangelo is being confronted with his greatest fear in a way that makes that final fate even more heartbreaking.
Slash was a mutant snapping turtle that originally debuted as a brutish foe of the Ninja Turtles, but through time and compassion became an ally and friend. This was especially true for the biggest-hearted brother, Michelangelo. He was the first person to show Slash empathy, offering the giant mutant a candy bar – in return, Slash saw Mikey as his personal hero. Over the years the two became close, until Slash was brainwashed and used as a weapon by the evil Earth Protection Force. The EPF forced the mutant snapping turtle to commit brutal acts, and they implanted him with a nuclear bomb. Slash was eventually freed from their control but couldn’t bring himself to live with all the terrible things that he had been forced to do. He heroically sacrificed himself, detonating the bomb inside him while over the ocean, where no one would be harmed. Before he died, his friend and hero Michelangelo once again gave him a candy bar before bidding him a tearful goodbye.
At least until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #131, by Sophie Campbell and Pablo Tunica. While training under a resurrected Oroku Saki aka the Shredder, Mikey experiences a vision that taps into his ultimate nightmare. In the vision, he is confronted by a zombified vision of his former friend which attacks him and demands that he fights back, but the ninja brother refuses. The vision melts away, leaving Michelangelo alone, missing his friend.
The Last Ronin series portrays a world in which the brothers’ bond was fractured, with each being killed off until only Michelangelo remains. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Casey Jones, and Splinter are all dead, and Michelangelo sets out to avenge their murder at the hands of Shredder’s grandson, Hiroto Oroku. Throughout his mission of vengeance, it is shown that Mikey has a hard time coping with their deaths. No longer the immature, cheerful youth he once was, the loss of his brothers has turned him into an instrument of violent retribution on a mission that ultimately costs him his life.
Michelangelo’s dependence on his friends and his reluctance to turn to violence are core to the vision he experiences in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #131, and yet in The Last Ronin, it’s exactly this loss that turns him into a lethal specter of vengeance. It’s heartbreaking to see Michelangelo’s empathy for a dead friend bring out the best in him in this issue, when fans know that in the future of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, it has the exact opposite effect.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #131 is available from IDW Publishing now.
