There’s been an awful lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics this year. This includes the end of the years-long IDW series, only for it to be relaunched with a new status quo, as well as a sequel to the stunning The Last Ronin (The Last Ronin II, which is currently still ongoing), some fun Saturday Morning Adventures, crossovers and more besides.

Of course, the Turtles don’t tend to be absent from the comic book scene for long in any normal year, but they do have a reason for being especially prominent this year.

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the very first issue of TMNT, which is remarkable; a weird little indie comic, which poked fun at the then-contemporary trend towards ultraviolence (and ninjas!) in mainstream comics, somehow became a multi-generational, multimedia franchise that spawned numerous TV series, live action movies, a vast number of video games, and countless comic books (not to mention all of the associated toys and merch).

So here we are with IDW’s 40th Anniversary Celebration issue, a single issue anthology with lots of stories featuring the heroes in a half shell.

In fact, it has a bewildering range; there’s eleven short stories included, with an astonishing eight different TMNT universes covered. Three stories from the original Mirage universe (named after the comic studio owned by creators Eastman & Laird, with the first run of Turtles comics being published by Mirage) kick off the issue, then we have a story each from Urban Legends, TMNT Adventures, Saturday Morning Adventures, the 2003 TMNT animated series, the 2012 Nickelodeon series and Rise of the TMNT. Finally, we have two stories from the IDW continuity, with some stunning pin-up style art pages to close the issue.

Oh, and it has a line up of no less than 12(!) variant covers; I opted for the Anniversary Cover, but there were several others I was torn between!

Not every story lands, not every story has enough time to breathe, and the shifts in the different details between universes can be especially jarring if there’s one (or more, as is likely!) that you’re not familiar with, but there’s an impressive array of tones, with some stories being deadly serious, dark material, and others being incredibly light hearted and humourous. The same goes for the different art styles, which do a great job not just of capturing the differences between each universe’s Turtles (along with their supporting casts and settings), but also just look massively, appealingly varied too in their techniques and colours.

It’s a real love letter for TMNT fans, especially those of us who’ve been around since (almost) the beginning; I myself discovered TMNT shortly before it became (almost inexplicably, given what I knew of the comic at the time) a children’s cartoon and merchandise behemoth. Though I’m not always a fan of the various reinventions and revamps TMNT has undergone over the decades, it’s always great to see that it lasts, to witness it, appropriately, mutating into something new every few years.

This comic, though a little inconsistent, is a nicely sized tome that does a great job of having at least a few stories for you, regardless of when and how your interest in TMNT began, or even how it continues. It’s a wonderful tribute to, and celebration of, the four misfit brothers; here’s to the next 40 years!