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News · 2026-07-28

Matthew Rosenberg Says His TMNT Run Goes Back to the Streets: One Night, One City, Every Villain

By ninjaturtles.tv news desk

Matthew Rosenberg Says His TMNT Run Goes Back to the Streets: One Night, One City, Every Villain

Matthew Rosenberg has given his first interview about writing IDW’s flagship Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing, which he takes over with issue #25 in January 2027. Speaking to AIPT’s TMNT Tuesday column on July 28, he laid out a run built on the original Mirage template: street level, outmatched, and set almost entirely in a New York City he wants readers to recognize block by block.

Cover art for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #25 by Juann Cabal, showing all four Turtles in a tight group against a deep red background, weapons drawn, with Donatello in his purple mask at left, Leonardo in blue at center with a sword hilt over his shoulder, Raphael in red baring his teeth with a sai raised at upper right, and Michelangelo in orange at lower right gripping a weapon shaft in both hands.

Source: IDW Publishing, art by Juann Cabal, via The Beat

“I kept coming back to the original Mirage comics,” Rosenberg told AIPT. “The Turtles always felt outmatched and were fighting for their lives. That’s the energy I want. It’s a street-level story and a love letter to New York City, with real neighborhoods, subway lines, and locations woven throughout.”

That is a deliberate turn away from where the book is heading now. Gene Luen Yang’s run closes with issue #24 by the end of 2026 on a storyline involving the afterlife and gods. “Gene went cosmic with the afterlife and gods, so I wanted to bring things back down to the streets,” Rosenberg said. He added that the finale leaves the door open for characters from across TMNT history to return, and that the new team’s rule is “no idea is off the table,” pulling from the comics, cartoons and movies.

The premise matches what IDW teased at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, when the creative change was announced: the greatest roster of villains, new and old, assembled to hunt the Turtles across a single night. Rosenberg framed it the same way. “The premise is simple: the Turtles need to cross New York City before they’re taken down. It’s a fight for survival from beginning to end.”

On artist Juann Cabal, whose credits include Daredevil, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Elektra, Rosenberg said he wanted “someone who could make every fight compelling even without dialogue and who could draw creatures as well as people,” and predicted Cabal’s Turtle designs “are going to become iconic.”

He also explained how the job came to him. Former Punisher editor Jake Thomas moved to IDW and offered him the book, which he initially turned down because he was too busy. Months later, after Yang stepped away, Thomas called again. “When someone offers you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you say yes.”

Rosenberg said the Mirage books’ balance is what he is chasing: humor alongside genuinely brutal action, with a few upcoming moments he says surprised IDW at the pitch stage for how intense they were. He also described the differences between the four brothers as the engine of the book, with Leonardo’s leadership, Raphael’s anger, Donatello’s problem-solving and Michelangelo’s optimism shaping how each one meets a problem. “At its heart, TMNT is half action comic and half family drama.”

For collectors and readers tracking the IDW line, this run starts a fresh jumping-on point in January 2027, the same year Rosenberg’s collaborators wrap the Roninverse with The Last Ronin III - Return for New York in the summer. Our comics catalogue tracks the wider TMNT publishing history the new run is drawing on, from the Mirage originals forward.

Sources

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