The Ninja Turtles are heading to feudal Japan, and they aren’t mutants this time. IDW announced on Thursday, October 8, that Stan Sakai, the creator of Usagi Yojimbo, and Bram Stoker Award-winning artist Soo Lee are teaming up for TMNT: The First Ronin, a five-issue series that launches in comic shops in March 2027.
IDW calls it a spiritual predecessor to TMNT: The Last Ronin, the bestselling series in which Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and their collaborators imagined the last surviving Turtle in a grim future. The First Ronin goes the other way, back to 1600s Japan. General Kameyama, a fearsome warrior and tactician, is facing impossible odds in a great war. When his allies fall and he becomes the last man standing, four yōkai, supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore who look like humanoid turtles, leap in to save him. But a larger yōkai war is coming, IDW said in its announcement, as reported by The Beat.
“I have been a huge fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since 1984 when both the Turtles and Usagi made their debut,” Sakai said. “I enjoyed all of their incarnations, including The Last Ronin, so I am really excited to be writing The First Ronin. It will have new variations of the Turtles, not mutants this time but yōkai. That is just one of the surprises in store.”
Sakai is writing the series and doing page layouts, with new character designs and mythology. Lee handles the art. “If there ever was a TMNT story that I would want to draw, this spin on the Turtles team is it,” she said. IDW CEO Davidi Jonas added that expanding The Last Ronin “is not something we take lightly. But if there’s one person up to the task, it’s living legend Stan Sakai.”
Issue #1 has a main cover by Soo Lee and a variant by Sakai and Emi Fujii, plus covers by Ito, including a 1:100 retailer-incentive variant, AIPT reports. It’s available to pre-order at local comic shops. IDW also confirmed that TMNT: The Last Ronin III – Return for New York, the final chapter of the original saga from Eastman, Tom Waltz, and team, will also arrive in 2027.
Sakai has a busy winter. RCG also reported that his Usagi Yojimbo Winter Special is due January 27.
