A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Legend Is Returning After 24 Years

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comedian collection has taken the titular heroes and their half-shells on some wild adventures, taking part in with established TMNT canon in some fascinating methods. Now, their present story goes embody a serious shock to the system: the return of a controversial, main determine from the workforce’s TV previous.

io9 can completely reveal that the TMNT comedian’s present arc—from author Sophie Campbell, artist Pablo Tunica, colorist Ronda Pattison, and letterer Shawn Lee—will culminate with the return of Venus, the primary feminine member of the workforce launched within the 1997 collection Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation.

The Fox Kids collection, which ran for only a single season of 26 episodes, was set in the identical universe because the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films from the ‘90s, as Raph, Leo, Donnie, and Mikey went up in opposition to new foes within the type of the mysterious Dragonlord and his draconic hordes, the Rank. To battle new threats, the workforce discovered a stunning new ally within the type of Venus—full identify Venus de Milo, after all—a long-lost turtle who had likewise been uncovered to the mutagen that reworked the opposite turtles into heroes, raised in China and taught the shinobi arts.

When The Next Mutation got here to an finish after only one season, Venus vanished into the ether, seemingly by no means to be seen once more. Other TMNT collection and comics have made imprecise allusions to her existence (even with the broader stipulation that there might by no means be a feminine Ninja Turtle once more) however Venus was left to linger as a peculiarity. In 2019, Tom Waltz, Ken Garing, and Sophie Campbell created a model new feminine turtle named Jennika—with a twist, a human member of the Foot Clan who was mutated right into a turtle after receiving a blood transfusion from Leonardo—for the continued IDW comedian collection, who turned, and stays, a member of the workforce within the collection. But now, 32 points after Jennika was launched, she’s now not about to be the only real feminine Turtle on the block.

“I’d been trying to make a Venus comeback happen for a while,” Campbell stated in a press launch supplied to io9. “I almost can’t believe it’s finally happening!”

“It’s been amazing to watch Sophie Campbell continue our long-running TMNT series with such careful consideration and commitment to the kind of character-driven storylines that have always been the foundation for what makes all things Turtles so beloved and eternal,” editor and former TMNT scribe Tom Waltz, added in the identical press launch. “And now she’s crafted a clever plan to introduce a character from the past that many thought would never see the light of day again. She’s doing it in fine fashion, continuing the IDW tradition of making the old feel both familiar and refreshing all at once…just in time for our big Armageddon Game event, no less!”

Venus will make her first official debut in subsequent month’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #127, by Campbell, Tunica, Pattison, and Lee. As a part of the continued arc that has seen the Turtle brothers battle to maintain the peace in Mutant Town—a quarantined part of Manhattan’s East Side populated by the mutated human victims of a mutagenic bomb explosion—the workforce has been investigating a mysterious surgeon named Dr. Jasper Barlow, a mutant physician who has been working a beauty surgical procedure lab providing to graft human pores and skin grafts onto keen mutant residents of Mutant Town. As they discover deeper, properly… you may see for your self what they’ll uncover in Pablo Tunica’s cowl for TMNT #127 under, making its debut right here on io9!

Although the present storyline will wrap up in TMNT #130, Venus’ story will proceed within the type of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Free Comic Book Day problem, due out May 7 as a part of the annual comics celebration, which itself will set the stage for a serious occasion within the ongoing collection, the aforementioned Armageddon Game, set to start later this yr. Check out Sophie Campbell’s full cowl paintings for the Free Comic Book Day Release under, which sees Venus stalking her fellow Ninja turtles from the shadows.

TMNT #127 will hit cabinets on March 16.

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