WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #3 by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau, Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, Samuel Plata, Luis Antonio Delgado and Shawn Lee, on sale now.
The Last Ronin continues to darken the dystopian future of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, echoing The Dark Knight Returns in as a full-circle evolution for the franchise. The world of the Turtles becomes darker than ever, with friends, family and allies dying left and right while old enemies come back stronger than ever.
The heightened threat manifests in an upgraded Foot Clan featuring ninja that, like Baxter Stockman's Mousers, are far more imposing than the usual pushovers. Here's how some of the Turtles' oldest foes come back with a vengeance, in the process dooming three of the family's siblings.
The third issue of the series has an extensive flashback involving the death of many of Michelangelo's old friends and family, namely Leonardo and Casey Jones. The catalyst for these deaths begins when the Foot Clan's ruse of peace talks is revealed for what it is, with the Foot ambushing the Turtles with stronger troops than ever.
Instead of being mere ninjas, these Foot Clan soldiers are robots with sturdy metal hides and the ability to fight more heartily than an organic combatant. Casey's blunt weapons are useless against them, and even the Turtles struggle with taking down all of them. Things only become worse when they are also attacked by a legion of Mousers, who attack them in order to retrieve the Fugitoid for Baxter Stockman. The battle ends when both the Fugitoid and the Mousers implode, taking Casey and Leonardo with them.
This massacre and the struggle beforehand is a huge step up for both the Foot Clan's foot soldiers and the Mousers, who are typically anything but a challenge. The Foot Clan ninja are usually a mere nuisance to the Turtles. Likewise, the Mousers are almost never a threat after their initial introduction of hunting Splinter, and their role typically diminishes after this first scuffle.
The fact that the foot all withstand the Turtles' assault speaks volumes to how much stronger these robots are, as well as how easily they could have taken down the Turtles even without the Mousers. Ironically, the design of these robotic Foot Clan ninjas is very similar to how they looked in the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. That show had notoriously weak versions of the Foot that were taken out in many humorous and fittingly cartoonish ways. This only highlights even further how deadly the Last Ronin iterations are.
The Mousers are also equipped with flight, making them a bigger threat than usual. They quickly flood the area, making it obvious that they are no longer merely a threat in confined spaces such as the sewers anymore. In the end, this combined threat is enough to take out one of the Turtles and one of their closest friends, something which the Shredder and the Foot Clan of old were never able to do. This means that the current futuristic Foot Clan that the Last Ronin must now face without his brothers is likely even more unstoppable.
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