Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #19

From Eastman and Laird's celebrated Mirage run comes this March 1989 entry kicking off the "Return to New York" trilogy. Kevin Eastman's pencils and Peter Laird's inks deliver a striking and unsettling cover: one of the Turtles lies battered and motionless in a grimy sewer tunnel, his torn wrappings and bloodied body sprawled across the stone floor amid scattered debris — it's a quietly devastating image that sets a serious, high-stakes tone. With the full creative team of Eastman, Laird, Jim Lawson, and letterer Steve Lavigne on board, this issue signals that the Turtles' homecoming to New York City is going to be anything but easy.