Ronin’s latest creative team spills the beans on the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

There is a new crop of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles On the scene that flipped the dynamics of all favorite heroes on the half shell. The Last Ronin Introduced a dark future where Michelangelo was the last of his clan, after years of struggling, finally fell like his brothers.

But in the wake of the death of the Ninja Turtles, a new generation of the TMNT was ensured under the guidance of April O’Neil and her daughter, Casey Marie Jones. Now the new turtles Ai, Odin, Moja and Uno are grown, trained and learning what it takes to be a hero. Screen Rant sat down with the creative team behind the sequel series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin II Re-evolution To hear all about the new turtle team.

Screen Rant: One thing I really appreciated about The Last Ronin Series is as new reader friendly as it gets. How is this intended?

Tom Waltz: Very intentional. Kevin and I love The Dark Knight Returns, you know, big Frank Miller fans, and so you know what we wanted to pull from this. In the case of new readers, we wanted it to be something evergreen, like Dark Knight, where you can pick it up even if you’re one of the only few people in the world who doesn’t know what Batman is. So that was the framework. We went in saying we want this to be accessible. So to me that was their intention. And it’s also terrifying, just because it’s so revered not only by us, but by so many people who love The Dark Knight Returns. But I felt that if you’re going to try to copy someone you might as well copy the best.

Let’s talk about how great a creative team this is because I look at some of the people involved in this right now. Talk about your process and how it’s going for everyone.

Tom Waltz: That’s not the intention. In the beginning, we were working with Andy Kuhn as the line artist and Brittany Pezzilo as the colorist. Andy has already done 20 pages, Brittany has colored a bunch of them and this thing called COVID came along and just threw everything for a loop for everybody. I think Andy needed to step back and we panicked a bit because we were so far in if there was so much money invested in it. It was Kevin’s wife, Courtney, who remembers that Kevin worked with the Escorza brothers on several other projects. So when the Escorzas came in, they jumped right on it. While we were making up for lost time, Brittany said she needed to go do other projects. My first choice for coloring for any book is Lewis. I’ve been working with Lewis forever so I said “let’s get Lewis.”

Tom Waltz: As time became more of the essence, we realized that we needed help with the flashbacks and generally where there are flashbacks, you can bring in a new artist and it doesn’t ruin the story, so we bring in Ben. What happened by accident we found a way to make it work consistently through the books. So it really was just a matter of necessity to get the first issue over. That’s pretty much the pattern and structure we’ve stuck with ever since and as the team has grown and grown. My personal thing is that was fate. I think it made the book better and more interesting if it had continued the original way. We became like a family where and that’s kind of the magic of turtles in general.

Ben Bishop: In addition to that, we always set the bar high. I’m always like “we gotta do cruiser, cruiser!”. But we always make sure that it is the best quality.

Tom Waltz: The linchpin of all this being Lewis because the coloring is consistent. It is nuanced but consistent. Lewis keeps everything grounded. It gives it different looks so I think it appeals to the fact that there are so many different iterations of the turtles. So you look at Ben’s page and be like “It makes me feel like this version of The Turtles.” And then you see that Kevin is like you think about Mirage. Then the Escorzas bring the new modern look. So I think that really added to the appeal of the book and made it unique compared to other books on the shelf.

Ben Bishop: What was your thought process for thinking all along with color?

Luis Antonio Delgado: First of all, I have to adapt to the different artists because. It’s not like my style has to be consistent and I have to adapt with the kind of lines they do. For example, they mention the Dark Knight. My process was painting the line art because that’s the way they used to do it in the 80s. So I color everything else. And I get the pages in different ways. Sometimes Ben helps me with more references, the Escorza brothers let me do what I feel will work. For example on issue four we did the Hiroto clan and I had no idea what to do so Tom gave me a lot of old books and Ben helped me with a lot of different photographs and drawings of old Japanese samurai.

Ben Bishop: Kevin made me watch all the Kurosawa movies.

Luis Antonio Delgado: Tons of references and that was cool. And I’m always trying to make it easy for people to follow the story without actually reading the words. You can see depending on the coloring, that there are different things happening. So that’s what I’m trying to do and just do it as fast as I can. They say it’s an orchestra. And I believe that the job of a colorist is like being the drummer in a band. I’m the one in the back doing the drums and keeping everyone together and trying to step up.

Tom Waltz: It might be worth mentioning for the first series, Kevin did all the layouts and all the storyboarding. Kevin likes the big cinematic double page spreads. He really does a lot of that stuff. I think him doing all the layouts and stuff helped build a world and now we don’t need him to do that. We’ve been through this, we don’t need Coach anymore. Just tell us what you want and we know how to do it.

Isaac Escorza: It was amazing writing during the whole process. Kevin helped with layouts and was respectful of the art and the final result. He gives us an opportunity to do what we want the way we think it should go without stepping on it. The same with the rest of the team, it was quite fluid work. We have received a lot of support from all of them.

Esau Escorza: It is also important to mention that the whole thing was an adventure in itself. We didn’t know what the story was about, we weren’t fans of the turtles. We read the story page by page. We had no idea of ​​the end. We were only one page before the end and we didn’t know what was going to happen. So we were finally like “Okay, what’s going to happen next?”.

Tom Waltz: I have to admit, it was the same for the writers, we didn’t know what was going to happen.

And yet it works. Whatever you guys have, it works.

Tom Waltz: I’m glad you say. Of course, you know, there are delays and we hate to do that to the fans and the publisher. I think they know it works. It is not optimal, especially when they are scheduling solicitations but the proof is in the pudding and they know that and then they have been very supportive.

When we talk about The Last Ronin franchise, the biggest thing to come from it is the new generation of turtles. I can appreciate that when you look at the new turtles, you know exactly which is which, and each of them has a very distinct personality. Can you talk a little bit about creating all the new turtles?

Ben Bishop: We were at the CGC signing in Florida and Kevin and Tom were like “You’re going to be designing the new turtles.” So Kevin gave me this big pile of reference photos of every kind imaginable. I just stared at it for a couple of hours and then I put it away. Let it sink into my subconscious and I just went wild and ended up with 12 different designs. 12 babies and 12 teenagers because we knew throughout Lost Years you’d see them grow from three to six to nine all the way up to Re-Evolution, where they’re now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The big note though is that they need to be recognizable without bandanas of different colors and without different weapons because they will all use all four weapons. So we just worked really hard to pick from the 12 and I think there was a lot of crossover with everyone’s favorites. I showed them to other turtle artists and got all their feedback. I was trying to very subconsciously pay homage to all the other artists I looked up to. And Kevin’s big note on the first page I had in issue one was “Broader head! Broader head!”. And I started leaning into the Jim Henson look. It’s been crazy watching them grow and now we have toys that Lewis and I get packaging art for.

Luis Antonio Delgado: I chose the colors for the turtles and I remember having fun designing them. If you look at Odin, he’s the only one that has colors similar to the original turtles because I didn’t want to go “nothing similar to the original turtles.”. I enjoyed the warmer colors for Moja. Maybe this is the reason why she is my favorite because she is the only one who has warmer colors. The others are cooler colors. And I also remember really liking Ben’s idea to make Uno change colors between white and darker. So that was pretty nice, Uno is my second favorite design. I didn’t know there were so many different types of turtles. I thought they were just all green.

Ben Bishop: But now they’ve passed on to the Escorzas. They’re pulling the current stuff with the four new turtles and I’m back on flashbacks. So now they get to run with it all which is really amazing to see.

Esau Escorza: In the beginning, we were drawing without knowing what they were about, we didn’t know who the leader was. We did a cover and put Moja first and think she was the leader.

Tom Waltz: Obviously there are four personalities that we all know and love with the Turtles, so we wouldn’t copy that but we didn’t want to completely stray from this. What you find in the turtles is that it is a combination of​​​​things. So like the base personalities, Uno is the most like Leonardo but he is cocky as Raph can be. Moja is the moody rough character who is actually the best leader of the group. She is the one who can take charge. Yes is the Donatello but has some sensitivity that Michelangelo has. But Odin looked like Michelangelo but we’re starting to see a bit of Raph can come out of him too.

Tom Waltz: We decided “What are modern sensibilities that modern fans would relate to?”. Because the 80s were quite simple. To me, yes it seems like she is on the autistic spectrum. Moja has some emotional issues, she is very moody. Uno obviously has to get his ego under control. And Odin can be a little oversensitive, and that can be a bane at times and a blessing at other times. And these are the things that we wanted to dress in. And that’s why there is no clear decision “Who is the leader? Who is this? Who is this?”. Everyone can adapt, what kind of mirrors their weapons. We didn’t want it to be one note per turtle. It’s like an orchestra, everyone has a part to play. Sometimes they get a solo, but most of the time they play together and it’s fun. It was a fun challenge. But I also feel that this is what separates them from the original turtles and I like that because they should be different because we don’t want everyone to lose sight of the core four that got us to this point.

Ben Bishop: It’s all about his legacy. It’s like they’re living up to everything and trying to do their best work, and I know that’s how Lewis feels. That’s how I feel.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin II Re-Evolution #3 is available on October 9 from IDW Publishing.