Slowly working my way through my pile of Free Comic Book Day titles, I’ve managed to get through IDW’s TMNT offering for this year.

It’s headed up by an extended preview of the first issue of TMNT: Nightwatcher #1, which brings the mysterious, titular vigilante figure out of the 2007 TMNT movie continuity (which it debuted in), and into the IDW Turtles universe.

Though his identity isn’t revealed within this preview, it’s known in the animated movie that Nightwatcher was introduced in. However, as it’s not yet confirmed here, I won’t be spoiling any details.

This is a turtle who operates in a pretty extreme manner, though, with an unforgivingly violent sense of justice and righteousness. The way it’s set up is cleverly done, given that he appears to be attacking a group of mutants when the story opens. There’s a twist, by the time the preview ends, which does turn things around a little. It fulfils its purpose too; with The Last Ronin and its sequels currently seeming dominant when it comes to the buzz around TMNT comics, I did wonder if we need another lone, dark turtle saga, but I can’t wait to read more of this story. Issue one arrives in mid-August.

The backup story in this issue is a much more lighthearted affair, and sees the teenagers annoying their father so much that he sends them out on patrol to practice their vigilance. Both the turtles and Splinter get into individual scrapes, and the contrast between the two simultaneous situations is amusingly done. It’s got a great punchline too.

It’s an excellent comic overall then, especially as it was a freebie for this year’s Free Comic Book Day. A nice taster for an upcoming series and a cute little done-in-one story too; what more can you ask?

The 40th anniversary of TMNT is clearly going very well indeed, and IDW aren’t resting on their laurels, it seems.