Summary
TheTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesare entering a new era of storytelling, with an updated team of Turtles —Uno, Moja, Odyn, and Yi— taking over for the OG crew consisting of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. In an interview with Tom Waltz, the writer of the first hundred issues of IDW Publishing’sTMNTand one of the writers ofTMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution, Tom explains what inspired the next generation of Turtles as well as what makes them different from those that came before.
Recently concluding its epic 150-issue run,IDW is on the verge ofrelaunching TMNT’s comic universewith a brand new first issue, written by Jason Aaron with art by Rafael Albuquerque, Joëlle Jones, Cliff Chiang, and Chris Burnham.
To tide fans over until this relaunch hits stands in July, Tom Waltz, in an upcoming interview with Screen Rant, reveals that not only did he want Uno, Moja, Odyn, and Yi’s dynamic to feel “familiar yet different,” but also took inspiration from “modern personality/societal traits” to craft these characters to perfection.
TMNT: Last Ronin Claims Title as Best-Selling Comic Collection of The Year
TMNT has maintained comic popularity with the impressive sales figures for the hit comic series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.
TMNT’s New Turtles Have More “Modern” Traits To Differentiate Them From The Original Team
TMNT Writer Tom Waltz Talks AboutLast Ronin IIwith Screen Rant
Speaking about the currentTMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolutionseries, Tom is asked, “What were your main priorities when developing a new generation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?” followed by, “How did you make them as distinct from each other as the originals?” Taking these questions in stride, Tom says thatthe main rule when writing this new group of Turtles was to “capture the same tight familial bond between our new mutant heroes” while infusing them with “modern” traitslike “social anxiety, autism, heavy integration of technology into everyday life, etc.”
Going on to say that he has to be careful about how he layers these traits “on top of the tried-and-true aspects of what has made the original Turtles so beloved for so long,” Tom explains that “Sometimes an old stew recipe works just fine, but tastes even better with a few new spices added,” nailing what makes Uno, Moja, Odyn, and Yi fit right into TMNT’s universe. Furthermore, with the new Turtles ditching the iconic colored bandanas of their predecessors, it makes their differing visual appearances and purposely assigned modern traits much more integral to focus on.
Uno, Moja, Odyn, and Yi Still Hold Familial Values Like Their Predecessors
Tom makes some great points about who the Turtles are at their core and what they mean to each other as brothers,with Tom’s want to do Leo, Donnie, Mikey, and Raph’s legacies justice directly translating to how he writes the new Turtles and how they’ll individually evolveby the timeTMNT: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolutionends. So while Uno, Moja, Odyn, and Yi are unique yet familiar additions to the overarching TMNT mythos, giving them some modern-day quirks and characteristics can only help these heroes become the best version of theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesseen thus far.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is a multi-media franchise that began with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s comics in the 1980s. Throughout the years, their comic books expanded to movies, TV shows, video games, and toys. Most notably, the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ran for nearly a decade and has become a nostalgic staple of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Several other movies have featured the four anthropomorphic turtle brothers (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael), including the trilogy of live-action films in the ‘90s and the more recent movies Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
