Last Ronin II Re-Evolution #1 Preview
 

Preview of the first issue of The Last Ronin 2:
https://www.ign.com/articles/teenage...lusive-preview

Ok, so….

As a big fan of this series, I didn’t think that was the best issue. A lot of the layouts are cluttered and it’s exposition-heavy throughout. What saves it are some intriguing advancements to the concept as well as some stellar coloring and panels in general.

Kevin Eastman said he isn’t doing all the layouts anymore and mostly leaving that to the pencillers. I also noticed that Tom Waltz was credited before Kevin, which I believe is a first when it comes to TLR. Maybe I’m creating a pattern in my mind but I’m wondering if these are where my issues with the Re-Evolution are coming from.

I don’t want to sound overly negative because I’m quite looking forward to issue #2 but I was hoping for a more promising start and a juicier hook by the end of the issue.

Oh, so I think we now know which Turtle will turn out to be evil or something, the clue is in the clothing:


I wouldn't say he's back as much they decided to use him for the origin again, though I must admit the decision to make him the father instead of the brother, considering it sure puts the whole love triangle thing into question if he already had kids.

... Do Yakuza types have an equivalent to Goomahs in Mafia culture?...

I don't see any hints to something like this happening

He's making a joke about his shirt being a Red Ribbon shirt.

Can't help but feel they're just milking the success of the Last Ronin. I know they're trying to do something interesting, but it just isn't to me. It feels unnecessary.

Honestly i get the exposition dump here. Too much time has passed between this time and the Lost Day one-shot that the world should be different. Though I think we could have done without the TMNT recap (though the fact we got Nagi is cool)

See you guys in six months.

Why did they make Oroku Nagi into Saki's father instead of brother? Was it always like this in the previous Last Ronin issues because I don't remember. Considering The Last Ronin started off as a Mirage story before they changed it, I'm surprised they changed Nagi like this. Making him Oroku Saki's father is a weird change.

I agree that it was strange, but Karai wasn’t the Shredder’s daughter in the Mirage comics either, so…why not?

Finished it, artwork is really nice and you can tell its a high production. My issue is these Turtles don't really have much personality, or at least, I can't tell any of their personalities apart. With our original Turtles you know their personalities individually, but these 4 all blend in with one another. One of them feels a little like Raph, but I guess that's it?

Granted it's probably hard to make 4 more unique personalities for new Turtles, in addition to having Venus, Jennika or Slash in the main timeline. There's only so many personalities you can give to Turtles.

I think the personalities need a little more time to form just like the Mirage ones did.

Odyn is somewhat of a softie, Uno seems quite moody, Moja seems driven, and Yi seems kind and curious. That’s not much but it seems they’re on their way to fleshing them out.

The book outsold Batman again this week. It’s twice the price. Wild.

I never like "weapon determines personality" fan theory. So the new 4 turtles can use all weapons, which could be an interesting trait of this book.

I agree with you about their personalities. Instead of wasting time going over the last ronin’s turtles origin (which is only a little bit altered from Mirage and every one on the planet already gets the gist of it), spend those pages giving the new turtles some extra needed space to show who they are. I still can’t remember their names or who’s who. I kind of wish they would have done a series with them training to be the new turtles. Maybe traveling the world a little bit with Casey Marie and doing something different then just being stuck in New York, because it just seems like a retread of the first series.

I was pretty bored with this. The art was fantastic, but the exposition didn’t really stick in my mind. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the major conflict is other than some dudes tried to rob a food pantry. It also drove me crazy how most pages were two page spreads because I kept reading down the left page expecting it to be like most comics. Eventually I’d remember that all the pages must be two page spreads, then I’d get hit with single pages, and then get mixed up again right afterward.

If Kevin Eastman isn’t doing layouts, pencils, is he actually doing any of the writing? Is he completely out at this point except covers?

Another question is does the city really need another 4 mutant turtles? If Mikey was still alive, he would never agree with Marie and April's actions of mutate for 4 baby turtles and train them to become ninjas.

I mean keep in mind the only reason this, and The Lost Years mini-series before this exists, is it's all piggybacking over the huge sales success of the original The Last Ronin series. I always said that should have been a one-and-done thing like it was intended, and trying to make a series out of this wasn't a good idea.

But apparently it's selling extremely well especially to casual fans, so I imagine it'll continue even after this mini-series as well. We'll probably get The Last Ronin III and beyond till sales tamper off.

I'm actually concerned at the sucess of the Last Ronin, because I'm worried it will ultimately send the wrong message. A lot of people here say that this shows evidence that people are still interested in gritty TMNT, which it does.

However, I'm worried that the Last Ronin will actually just reinforce the same sort of overly kiddy stuff that we've gotten as of late. Because the Last Ronin is a future elseworld, it's "okay" for it to be violent and gritty, because it's not the "real" TMNT. The "real" TMNT is bright and colorful, and for kids! The "real" TMNT's primary influence is the 87 show!

I'm concerned that at the end of this, the only message this will send to the people in charge is to relegate any gritty TMNT to this elseworld, which in turn gives them permission to double down on exclusively kid stuff in all other aspects of the brand. I'm worried that because Last Ronin is an elseworld, it will become the ONLY place where the TMNT are allowed to be gritty.

Well, look at it like this, The Dark Knight Returns was obviously never intended to be a canon story, and yet it may very well be the most influential Batman story ever written.

True, but the Batman brand has always been incredibly varied, with multiple iterations going at once, and many different influcences. It's never been nearly as stymied as TMNT seems to be in general, especially by wider public perception.

I agree that it should have been a one and done. It left the series on sort of a hopeful note, but now the tone is just back at square one and if the series is just written by Tom Waltz the writing and world just feels like the same thing you get in the regular IDW series before Campbell took over. I’d like to know if Kevin decided to take a break or was sort of pushed out. I’m sure we’ll never know because Kevin will only say that this is amazing haha.