Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was born 40 years ago, as a parody of the then-burgeoning trend towards violent comics. Though it quite often became the very thing it was supposed to satirise, it made a huge impact on a generation of kids via its toned down, colourful cartoon series adaptation in the late 80s. It’s been rebooted numerous times since then, and a 2007 CGI-animated movie tried taking the best of both worlds, being a pseudo-sequel to the early 90s live action TMNT movies, with a darker tone (yet still some silly elements that didn’t quite make for a cohesive experience).

At the outset of the 2007 animated movie, the Turtles have gone their separate ways, and each of them has their own unique status quo before they get back together. Raphael, for example, has taken on the mantle of the Nightwatcher, nocturnally patrolling the New York streets in heavy armour, dishing out his own brand of vigilante justice.

That movie was the only appearance of the Nightwatcher alter ego. Until now, as the armoured vigilante is the subject of this new TMNT spin off series.

Set in the current IDW continuity, Nightwatcher gets off to a pretty good start; in between sequences of the disguised turtle taking on some very bad guys, we get narration and ‘to camera’ interviews with anthropomorphic animals, the mutant denizens of the city, who are fairly widespread thanks to the detonation of a mutagen bomb (back during the original IDW turtles run, which has just ended and been soft rebooted, the series having started again at TMNT #1).

There’s some neat social commentary here, which cleverly, albeit sadly, mirrors the current heightened xenophobia that’s being seen in the West. Though at times it’s in danger of getting a little too dark, Nightwatcher #1 is an excellent and intriguing read, and it’s great to see the underutilised character returning.

The Free Comic Book Day TMNT issue that was released earlier this year is actually a prequel/introduction to this story, and I feel like it definitely helps to have read it; however, it’s not that easy to get your hands on at the moment. It’s likely that this will be included when this first story arc is collected, however.

One other thing that’s worth drawing your attention to is that, right at the start of the newly relaunched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, Raphael is incarcerated in prison. This story does seem to take place at roughly the same time, which means it isn’t Raphael in the Nightwatcher armour, despite him being the man in the mask in the 2007 movie. So there’s an extra layer of intrigue here, before the big reveal at the issue’s climax.

A word of (hopefully non-spoiler) warning: that reveal may have little meaning to you if you’re not familiar with the prior run of IDW TMNT comics, but even so it’s a well handled twist and one that I’m keen to follow up on as the series progresses.

All in all then, this is an excellent read and another worthy addition to IDW’s consistently excellent range of TMNT comics.