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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin (Single Issues)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #4
With a few key allies, the Ronin takes on the greatest risk yet to infiltrate Baxter Stockman's tech island! What happened many years ago to set the Ronin on this quest for vengeance? Find out in this action-packed penultimate issue!
48 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 22, 2021
About the author
Kevin Eastman
1,107 books366 followersKevin B. Eastman is an American comic book artist, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
August 5, 2025
(A-) 82% | Very Good
Notes: Tough-love training (torment-feigning), caution abdications, cocky youth, distressing truth, and sword decapitations.
*Progress update
Notes: Tough-love training (torment-feigning), caution abdications, cocky youth, distressing truth, and sword decapitations.
*Progress update
October 4, 2021
Another great issue. Here we learn what happened to Splinter and Donatello. Plus we get the big attack plan put into motion. Bring on issue 5!!
April 27, 2024
Açık ara sien sevdiğim kapak 🗡️ Az daha bir hayal kırıklığına sebep oluyordu. Kapaktaki #zen hissi içeriğe tam yansımış diyemeyiz. Seri (aslında gayet tutarlı olarak) bu ciltte de aynı görsel estetiği kullanmaya devam ediyor. #sonronin genelinde flashback’lerde kullanılan siyah beyaz anlatı Japonya’da geçen bölümün tamamında kullanılsa, işte o zaman hayal kırıklığına uğrayacaktım. Fakat o yöntemin akabinde renkli anlatı ile devam etmişler. Dramatik yönü de güçlü denebilecek bu sayıyla finale gidiyoruz.
January 4, 2022
Heartbreakingly good.
September 29, 2021
Another great instalment in this consistently good series. I’ve really enjoyed the fact that each issue has presented us with a well timed revelation that hasn’t been at all forced, and this one is no exception. The art is again lovely and the expected “events” hit no less hard for being expected.
Without spoiling, I particularly loved - Donnies outfit art, and Mikey Sensei. My heart is in my throat for the last issue.
Without spoiling, I particularly loved - Donnies outfit art, and Mikey Sensei. My heart is in my throat for the last issue.
March 25, 2026
The start of this issue shocked me a bit and made me feel like I accidentally skipped a chapter, and is it just me or do the deaths of the rest of Mikey’s family fall a little flat compared to the emotional highs of Ralph’s death? But I will say that ending, even without fulling understanding or knowing the backstory of the characters involved, really brought it home for me, that almost made me tear up just thinking about the weight and implications of it, great job and I’m excited for the finale. So what did I mean by the start of this issue feeling like I skipped an issue? Well the start of this comic is Mikey and Casey, in her best Stephanie Brown cosplay, and a whole slew of other resistance fighters in the middle of a fire fight against the robotic army of a massively “upgraded” Stockman as we have been dropped right into the middle of April’s plans from the end of the last issue. I kinda felt that a lot of the emotional resonance from Mikey getting a chance to train Casey and bring her under his wing and the no doubt emotional moment where all of the resistance fighters from across the city are brought together under one banner to lead a final fight for freedom was lost by jumping right into the action…luckily the book decided to take an immediate step back to give us at least one of those things, as we jump back to see Mikey begin to train Casey, who has a very fresh hair cut. Mikey isn’t the best teacher but he is trying his best with everything Splinter taught him. Except his way of things involves calling out her weaknesses to get her riled up so she attacks him and then he can show off with his skills as to what aspects she is failing in…splinter would probably love it, lol. But even with how aggressive they get with each other, they end on phenomenal terms as Mikey promises to be her teacher, a real sensei for once in her life…if only they had the proper amount of time to really train. But April, who was standing by for most of their impromptu training sesh, couldn’t be more happy that he was doing this for her as she had been in desperate need of a way to direct her skills and sooth her anger.
But April also comes to Mikey to find one more thing out about the past…what happens in Japan, she is family and deserves to know. After the plane landed in Japan, Mikey used the loose information he knew about Clan Hamato to make his way out to the countryside where he eventually trudged through the snow long enough to find their compound. Before he even made it there he was surrounded by real deal samurai, but after explaining who he was they led him to the compound where he met Master Shinichiro. Shinichiro brought Mikey inside to share tea and talk further, taking a few moments to delay the inevitable moment where he must tell Mikey what happened.
“There are people, creatures, teachers, warriors, heroes, and legends…your father, master splinter, was all of these.”
Splinter and Donnie arrived on good terms, splinter was happy to see Shinichiro after such a long time and they were welcomed with open arms. The two masters remained hopeful, but vigilant, about Hiroto’s call for peace and Shinichiro has made sure to utilize his forces as scout to catch any signs of deceit by the foot clan. As the morning came around the group met at the location of peace talks, which happens to be a resting place for the dead. Splinter hoped that this location was chosen out of ignorance, and not malice, but Shinichiro assures them there are still no signs of foot clan deception. Moments later an ambassador for the foot clan and two guards approached offering Hiroto’s warmest wishes. Splinter is taken aback, he assumed the young master would be leading the delegation and thus is an incredible display of bad faith. The ambassador assures them that the master is overseeing the final preparations for their grand feast to enjoy once the agreement has been confirmed and is in his way now for a proper greeting. But before then the ambassador hopes to finish the terms of the agreement…but the group declines, they would rather wait for the master to arrive. And it seems like that was the right call as suddenly the master appeared on the nearby hill…clad in heavy armor and surrounded by warriors on horseback. Splinter immediately calls off the “peace” deal by slicing off the heads of the ambassador and his two guards in one swoop. Hiroto immediately begins to mock them as fools, claiming it was easy to get them here and that they will be destroyed here like the rest of their family in New York. Hiroto orders the foot clan to attack and suddenly the tons of guards, Shinichiro’s soldiers apparently missed hiding under the graves, pop out to begin the attack. splinter and Donnie do not hold back, I never realized a bo staff could be stabbed into somebody before, and splinter is especially on point as he slices his way to Hiroto. But the numbers are not on their side as the foot clan’s strategy of throwing as many soldiers as possible at them until they collapse seems to be working…but with splinter still gaining ground towards Hiroto, he orders the archers to be brought out. Shinichiro tries to call out for splinter to come back as the battle is not theirs to win…but splinter stands tall, calling out to Hiroto to face and meet his blade like his grandfather before him. This gets Hiroto to come down on his horse to face Splinter personally, but this more so seems like a plan to draw splinter closer…right into the firing range of his archers. Donnie tries to protect splinter from the volley of arrows, but both of them end up in the crossfire between the foot clan and Shinichiro’s soldiers. Splinter is able to throw his sword, lodging it into Hiroto…but his armor took most of the strike. As Hiroto and the rest of the foot clan retreated, all that was left was a field of bodies and Splinter and Donnie dead among them. Now that Mikey knew the truth he realized he was truly alone. He took his brother’s bo staff and his father’s journal, and even with the offer to stay with Shinichiro’s clan…Mikey found that the warriors served as a constant reminder of everything he lost…so he started walking in the snow instead. This seems to get us back to the ending of the story he told Casey and how he eventually got here as he finally became the last of his kind, a ronin. But as we’ve seen before with these story swapping sessions, Mikey shared some of his and now it’s time for April to spill the beans as Mikey has finally figured out something April has been keeping from him…Casey has powers and he wanes to know how. April wasn’t keeping it from him but she took blood samples from him last issue to confirm. As it turns out Casey has had strength, speed, and healing abilities since birth, which only increase with age, due to trace amounts of the mutagen which changed the turtles found in her herb parents DNA due to lifelong exposure from the company they kept. The turtles contaminated April and Casey and thy passed it down to their daughter to make her an even more powerful badass than her already awesome genetics would have allowed. She literally has the best of every part of the world she came from.
Now with everything out in the open the time for talk has come to an end as the time for action is at hand. April leads Mikey into the kitchen where he finds a whole slew of the other resistance groups waiting as they pan their attack on Stockman’s fortress on Roosevelt island. As we’ve already seen a glimpse of this fight at the beginning the planning stage of it beforehand cuts between the fighting itself. Turns out Stockman and Hiroto despise each other but understand their need for one another to keep going, but that also means the last person they would call for help is the other. And as we’ve seen countless times already…power goes to the head. So when Stockman’s already limited forces started reporting alerts about an attack, for the longest time stockman dismissed them as something his automatic guardians will easily deal with. The plan was very well orchestrated as all of the resistance groups split up to attack the compound from all sides, even having a group of them use wing suits to come in from the air. I have to admit, for most of this fight I spent time wondering if they even need Mikey. But he still provided important help by taking down air defenses and generally acting like a living tank to carve their way through to make way for the real tank…the AFV April will be driving right into the heart of the power grid to hook Honeycutt into to finally give him enough power to wake up and take over Stockman’s entire network. Funny enough, Hiroto paid more mind to the attack against Stockman than Stockman did. He actually sent a squad over to make sure the old man wasn’t blowing himself up, at least not before they secured his tech. But that wasn’t going to be near enough for what this group already had planned. With April rolling up in the AFV, she was able to charge into the center of the complex, acting as a mobile EMP to take down the mouser drones along the way. Once she finally broke into the middle to surprise the hell out of stockman, she jumped out of the AFV with Honeycutt’s head in hand and immediately plugged it into the central power grid. The surge of power even threw her back as Stockman started to realize what was going on…burnt was already too late. Stockman rushed over and knocked April away, but only after she got in a nasty punch for her husband. Stockman took Honeycutt in his arms to try and finish the to it off for good…but Honeycutt was already waking up. In a mumble which turned into a shout, he yelled at stockman: “you shall not PASS!” Suddenly Honeycutt began to electrocute stockman into dismantling and vaporizing him in the name of his family, friends, and everything else stockman touched and hurt. As stockman evaporated so did Honeycutt as he evolved into a new form as a swam of nano bots which immediately worked to take over all of Stockman’s technology and infrastructure. This does not just include the island…but all of the technology walking around New York. In one instant all of the robotic foot cops began to shut down as the city erupted in FULL REVOLT! Hiroto immediately ordered everyone with a weapon to come to the tower now to defend him as they are now officially offline and now it’s time for the last ronin to finally end this war.
But April also comes to Mikey to find one more thing out about the past…what happens in Japan, she is family and deserves to know. After the plane landed in Japan, Mikey used the loose information he knew about Clan Hamato to make his way out to the countryside where he eventually trudged through the snow long enough to find their compound. Before he even made it there he was surrounded by real deal samurai, but after explaining who he was they led him to the compound where he met Master Shinichiro. Shinichiro brought Mikey inside to share tea and talk further, taking a few moments to delay the inevitable moment where he must tell Mikey what happened.
“There are people, creatures, teachers, warriors, heroes, and legends…your father, master splinter, was all of these.”
Splinter and Donnie arrived on good terms, splinter was happy to see Shinichiro after such a long time and they were welcomed with open arms. The two masters remained hopeful, but vigilant, about Hiroto’s call for peace and Shinichiro has made sure to utilize his forces as scout to catch any signs of deceit by the foot clan. As the morning came around the group met at the location of peace talks, which happens to be a resting place for the dead. Splinter hoped that this location was chosen out of ignorance, and not malice, but Shinichiro assures them there are still no signs of foot clan deception. Moments later an ambassador for the foot clan and two guards approached offering Hiroto’s warmest wishes. Splinter is taken aback, he assumed the young master would be leading the delegation and thus is an incredible display of bad faith. The ambassador assures them that the master is overseeing the final preparations for their grand feast to enjoy once the agreement has been confirmed and is in his way now for a proper greeting. But before then the ambassador hopes to finish the terms of the agreement…but the group declines, they would rather wait for the master to arrive. And it seems like that was the right call as suddenly the master appeared on the nearby hill…clad in heavy armor and surrounded by warriors on horseback. Splinter immediately calls off the “peace” deal by slicing off the heads of the ambassador and his two guards in one swoop. Hiroto immediately begins to mock them as fools, claiming it was easy to get them here and that they will be destroyed here like the rest of their family in New York. Hiroto orders the foot clan to attack and suddenly the tons of guards, Shinichiro’s soldiers apparently missed hiding under the graves, pop out to begin the attack. splinter and Donnie do not hold back, I never realized a bo staff could be stabbed into somebody before, and splinter is especially on point as he slices his way to Hiroto. But the numbers are not on their side as the foot clan’s strategy of throwing as many soldiers as possible at them until they collapse seems to be working…but with splinter still gaining ground towards Hiroto, he orders the archers to be brought out. Shinichiro tries to call out for splinter to come back as the battle is not theirs to win…but splinter stands tall, calling out to Hiroto to face and meet his blade like his grandfather before him. This gets Hiroto to come down on his horse to face Splinter personally, but this more so seems like a plan to draw splinter closer…right into the firing range of his archers. Donnie tries to protect splinter from the volley of arrows, but both of them end up in the crossfire between the foot clan and Shinichiro’s soldiers. Splinter is able to throw his sword, lodging it into Hiroto…but his armor took most of the strike. As Hiroto and the rest of the foot clan retreated, all that was left was a field of bodies and Splinter and Donnie dead among them. Now that Mikey knew the truth he realized he was truly alone. He took his brother’s bo staff and his father’s journal, and even with the offer to stay with Shinichiro’s clan…Mikey found that the warriors served as a constant reminder of everything he lost…so he started walking in the snow instead. This seems to get us back to the ending of the story he told Casey and how he eventually got here as he finally became the last of his kind, a ronin. But as we’ve seen before with these story swapping sessions, Mikey shared some of his and now it’s time for April to spill the beans as Mikey has finally figured out something April has been keeping from him…Casey has powers and he wanes to know how. April wasn’t keeping it from him but she took blood samples from him last issue to confirm. As it turns out Casey has had strength, speed, and healing abilities since birth, which only increase with age, due to trace amounts of the mutagen which changed the turtles found in her herb parents DNA due to lifelong exposure from the company they kept. The turtles contaminated April and Casey and thy passed it down to their daughter to make her an even more powerful badass than her already awesome genetics would have allowed. She literally has the best of every part of the world she came from.
Now with everything out in the open the time for talk has come to an end as the time for action is at hand. April leads Mikey into the kitchen where he finds a whole slew of the other resistance groups waiting as they pan their attack on Stockman’s fortress on Roosevelt island. As we’ve already seen a glimpse of this fight at the beginning the planning stage of it beforehand cuts between the fighting itself. Turns out Stockman and Hiroto despise each other but understand their need for one another to keep going, but that also means the last person they would call for help is the other. And as we’ve seen countless times already…power goes to the head. So when Stockman’s already limited forces started reporting alerts about an attack, for the longest time stockman dismissed them as something his automatic guardians will easily deal with. The plan was very well orchestrated as all of the resistance groups split up to attack the compound from all sides, even having a group of them use wing suits to come in from the air. I have to admit, for most of this fight I spent time wondering if they even need Mikey. But he still provided important help by taking down air defenses and generally acting like a living tank to carve their way through to make way for the real tank…the AFV April will be driving right into the heart of the power grid to hook Honeycutt into to finally give him enough power to wake up and take over Stockman’s entire network. Funny enough, Hiroto paid more mind to the attack against Stockman than Stockman did. He actually sent a squad over to make sure the old man wasn’t blowing himself up, at least not before they secured his tech. But that wasn’t going to be near enough for what this group already had planned. With April rolling up in the AFV, she was able to charge into the center of the complex, acting as a mobile EMP to take down the mouser drones along the way. Once she finally broke into the middle to surprise the hell out of stockman, she jumped out of the AFV with Honeycutt’s head in hand and immediately plugged it into the central power grid. The surge of power even threw her back as Stockman started to realize what was going on…burnt was already too late. Stockman rushed over and knocked April away, but only after she got in a nasty punch for her husband. Stockman took Honeycutt in his arms to try and finish the to it off for good…but Honeycutt was already waking up. In a mumble which turned into a shout, he yelled at stockman: “you shall not PASS!” Suddenly Honeycutt began to electrocute stockman into dismantling and vaporizing him in the name of his family, friends, and everything else stockman touched and hurt. As stockman evaporated so did Honeycutt as he evolved into a new form as a swam of nano bots which immediately worked to take over all of Stockman’s technology and infrastructure. This does not just include the island…but all of the technology walking around New York. In one instant all of the robotic foot cops began to shut down as the city erupted in FULL REVOLT! Hiroto immediately ordered everyone with a weapon to come to the tower now to defend him as they are now officially offline and now it’s time for the last ronin to finally end this war.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2021
Wow what an epic way to go out for Don and Splinter. Loved this issue.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2021
What an excellent series! 5-issues? Let's go for 12.
If 5, then we only have one more thriller to look forward to. Love the story, the plot, the art, and the characters. Will the collected hardback edition be plus sized?
If 5, then we only have one more thriller to look forward to. Love the story, the plot, the art, and the characters. Will the collected hardback edition be plus sized?
January 6, 2023
It's actually 3.5 stars.
The conclusion I came to is that the writers wanted to check plot points, and this issue is a big check. When you have an old, wise and battle weary Splinter make at least 2 super big mistakes just to move the plor forward and check the remaining event from the past, I can't give this issue more than 3 stars. Ben Bishop's art is a saving grace, so the extra 0.5 is from him.
I haven't read the last issue yet, but while the premise is great (there remains a single turtle, a ronin) the execution is spotty. First issue is formulaic, second issue is the highlight when a certain turtle dies, the third one carries the momentum from the second one, albeit weaker, and this one falls flat, where the dispatching of the last remaining members of the family is forced and unrealistic because of the situation they get themselves into (which could've been easily avoided).
Here's hoping the last issue is better and ends it well.
The conclusion I came to is that the writers wanted to check plot points, and this issue is a big check. When you have an old, wise and battle weary Splinter make at least 2 super big mistakes just to move the plor forward and check the remaining event from the past, I can't give this issue more than 3 stars. Ben Bishop's art is a saving grace, so the extra 0.5 is from him.
I haven't read the last issue yet, but while the premise is great (there remains a single turtle, a ronin) the execution is spotty. First issue is formulaic, second issue is the highlight when a certain turtle dies, the third one carries the momentum from the second one, albeit weaker, and this one falls flat, where the dispatching of the last remaining members of the family is forced and unrealistic because of the situation they get themselves into (which could've been easily avoided).
Here's hoping the last issue is better and ends it well.
April 30, 2023
I was saving this story up for a time I needed something really fun and good to read. For that it was disappointing. The main theme, that only one turtle were still alive, is the main draw, the rest is average at best.
I do like the flashbacks to earlier times that are drawn in the very early TMNT-style though.
I do like the flashbacks to earlier times that are drawn in the very early TMNT-style though.
November 18, 2021
My favorite issue since the first!
Man oh man! This issue is ACTION PACKED! The non linear story-telling is done in surperb fashion and it kept me totally engaged in the story! This is an amazing series and I can’t wait for the conclusion!! 🔥🔥🔥
Man oh man! This issue is ACTION PACKED! The non linear story-telling is done in surperb fashion and it kept me totally engaged in the story! This is an amazing series and I can’t wait for the conclusion!! 🔥🔥🔥
February 26, 2022
So I rounded up. The art style used to tell the background story was really hard for me to read and see. I liked the story but the art 2as just hard to process. The story was a wee bit more jumbled over all but still great.
September 22, 2021
Now we wait
Think we're ever going to get a series of a wandering mutant's adventures through Japan? That would be pretty cool.
Think we're ever going to get a series of a wandering mutant's adventures through Japan? That would be pretty cool.
September 25, 2021
Wow! Just wow!
Again, I'm satisfied but hungry for more! Love the art, story and ending! The next issue will probably cause me to 😢 but it'll be worth it.
Again, I'm satisfied but hungry for more! Love the art, story and ending! The next issue will probably cause me to 😢 but it'll be worth it.
October 4, 2021
3.5 stars
Expected a bit more but it was okay
Expected a bit more but it was okay
January 2, 2022
This is just so good :)
April 27, 2022
(I'll review after reading the last issue)
May 8, 2022
Bittersweet
Reading this series has been emotional! It is so compelling and well crafted. Thank you Kevin. Very well done story.
Reading this series has been emotional! It is so compelling and well crafted. Thank you Kevin. Very well done story.
Read
May 9, 2022Essential Canon Completion
I love it when properties that I know continue the mainline story into the future and this was amazing, a great capstone send off!
I love it when properties that I know continue the mainline story into the future and this was amazing, a great capstone send off!
May 19, 2022
Best one yet
June 3, 2022
What a change
I'm caught in this story. I forgot all about the turtles until this story, now I can't get enough. Can't wait for
more
I'm caught in this story. I forgot all about the turtles until this story, now I can't get enough. Can't wait for
more
October 21, 2022
Enjoyed the training sequence and the flashback to Japan had some beautiful artwork. Master Splinter was a badass. Another touching death scene. Extra abilities!? Ooo…
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2024
RIP to this ninja turtle
December 29, 2024
Love it!
Very good and a lot of action. Page turner that keeps you wanting more and more. Its a little sad how the others died but very interesting.
Very good and a lot of action. Page turner that keeps you wanting more and more. Its a little sad how the others died but very interesting.
May 8, 2025
The final battle is underway but can Mike handle the mounting pressure?
June 13, 2025
Crying over a rat and some turtles
Normal 1am shenanigans
Normal 1am shenanigans
August 29, 2025
5/5
held my breath half the time. lfg.
held my breath half the time. lfg.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews