WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2022, available now from IDW Publishing.
Over the course of almost four decades, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have encountered some truly astounding foes, but no matter the threat, they have almost always managed to overcome it together. In fact, out of all the Turtles’ incredible assets and abilities, it is their bond with one another that has proven to be their greatest strength, something which has never been exemplified better than in the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2022 (by Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz, Juni Ba, Ronda Pattison, Shawn Lee, and Bobby Curnow).
Things have never been harder for the Heroes in a Half Shell than in recent months. Following the death of Splinter, the riots that nearly destroyed Mutant Town, and the vicious assault that cost them their home, the Splinter Clan is facing a time of unprecedented hardship. Not only that but each of the Turtles were caught up in their own endeavors. As a result, this left the team disorganized and disconnected. In a bid to bring them all back to the same page, Leonardo organized a field mission to take down a new kind of supernatural threat. As Leo explains after the heroes narrowly escape their first encounter with the hulking beast, their enemy is a Leech Spirit, one transformed by Old Hob’s Mutagen bomb into an even more menacing threat. Worse still, the Turtles’ own fears, doubts, and insecurities proved to be a substantial disadvantage as their enemy fed off of the same negative emotions. Thankfully, the Turtles also have plenty of positive experiences to look back on when they need a little faith in themselves.
In a brilliant callback to the Turtles’ origins, the team shed their color-coded bandanas, returning to a unified red ensemble before facing off against the mutated Leech Spirit once more. In the 1984 original Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series Mirage Studios, the titular heroes were only distinguishable from one another thanks to their weapons and personalities. While the 1987 cartoon series would give the Turtles their now-iconic looks, the IDW comics previously paid homage to the very first series with the same red bandanas at the outset. In the current continuity, this monochrome look is the one that the Splinter Clan wore during their very first days as the Hamato Clan, after their father Hamato Yoshi, better known as Splinter. It was his teachings that largely shaped the Turtles into who they are today, but even more importantly, it was his influence that taught them the importance of their brotherhood.
Splinter’s sacrifice to stave off a draconic apocalypse might be his most remarkable feat but guiding the Turtles into becoming the warriors they are now was his most important contribution. Together, the Turtles have learned and grown just as much, if not more than they did under their father’s watch. Still, those early lessons are indelible parts of who the Turtles are today, and as evidenced by their defeat of the Leech Spirit, their old tactics are just as effective as ever. None of what they’ve accomplished would be possible without their close-knit family origin story, however, which is something the Turtles themselves seem to be perfectly aware of.
With any luck, this latest mission will help remind each and every member of the Splinter Clan of what is genuinely important in the days to come. Considering how much they have lost, there has never been a better time for them to come together as a team and as a family. That they haven’t fallen apart even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and innumerable, otherworldly threats speaks to the depths of their connections to one another. Hopefully, that familial sense is one that the Turtles can impart upon Mutant Town’s next heroes in the same way they were taught that strength comes from your family and the resulting relationships and bonds.
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