Review by C.J. Bunce
From San Diego Comic-Con 2026 this past weekend we saw the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers give their annual Scribe Awards, which included Adam Cesare’s movie novelization of The Toxic Avenger, one we liked and reviewed last year here at borg. Like that novel, Erik Burnham’s new tie-in novel The Last Ronin: A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Novel should get similar consideration next year. Available now here at Amazon and via all bookstores, it adapts the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doomsday story in a more detailed manner with elements not easily conveyed in 224 pages of primarily art.
The biggest comic book limited series of 2021, it featured a rare end to the beloved comic book heroes, while serving as both a love letter to the cinematic action that permeated everything in the 1980s and an homage to the kind of storytelling Frank Miller shepherded into the minds of teens and twenty-somethings back then. Kevin Eastman returned with co-creator Peter Laird and Tom Waltz and a league of artists to wrap up nearly four decades of sci-fi fantasy antics and drama. But fans will learn more details about the past, about character motivations, and many missing scenes from the comic version in Burnham’s novel.
Set in New York City thirty years into the future, the underworld of tunnels and sewers in the graphic novel didn’t look much different than the bowels of a big city today. But Burnham’s novel is far more futuristic, more leaning into the Syd Mead look of the 1982 Blade Runner and the doomed New York of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Burnham doesn’t forget Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns was still the primary inspiration for the story. Turtle pal April is now a cyborg, swapped in for Oliver Queen from Miller’s story. Cyborgs and robots take center stage as the Foot Clan of the future.
Readers will get a better view of how Michelangelo, the last surviving mutant Turtle, is haunted by the ghosts of his brothers. More than in the comic, this feels like a cerebral, emotional experience for Mikey. Somehow it reads better as a ghost story, and Mikey’s brothers, Raphael, Donatello, and Leonardo, are not very nice to him as they harass him from beyond. Is that because Mikey is conjuring only the images of his brothers to help him in his story of final revenge? Or are these brothers some kind of demons until they get their revenge through their brother?
Either way, I’m not sure the villain, Hiroto, is worthy of this last dance. This time the death of Splinter and Donatello seems somehow unworthy. These guys get duped by their better nature and die for it. But I do like the new Casey, a mutant-enhanced daughter of sorts for both the April and Casey fans used to know. I liked the graphic novel, but this story is better. If you must take on the trope of killing off every superhero, at least this is a well-told story. Are there enough Easter eggs referring back to specific TMNT stories? I don’t think so. But the other pop culture references might make up for it.
Readers are told the story from the perspective of the last Ronin, referred to as the Ronin, without a hint to which Turtle is the survivor. But anyone familiar with the characters will probably figure it out via the dialogue alone. Grim Mikey is probably the best character to tell this story, simply because of his ability to brood at a level that rivals Ben Grimm of The Fantastic Four fame.
The book includes a little more than a half dozen illustrated pages, created by artists The Escorza Brothers.
It’s a worthy read, and a great adaptation of a prior story that elevates its source material to something more. The Last Ronin: A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Novel is available now in hardcover via good comic shops like Elite Comics. Or if you don’t have a local shop pick up your copy here at Amazon.
