TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #30
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTMNT Vol. 4 #30 occupies a genuinely poignant place in Mirage history: published in May 2009, it appeared just months before Peter Laird sold the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to Viacom, making it one of the final issues released while Laird still controlled the property he co-created. The issue is also notable for being among the extremely scarce later installments of Volume 4 — a tightly serialized, black-and-white continuation that advanced dual ongoing storylines involving Casey Jones, Michelangelo, the Triceratons, and Karai — produced at a moment when the original Mirage creative era was effectively drawing to a close. Because it has never been collected in a standard trade paperback and for years existed only in its strictly limited print edition and a free digital release, it represents one of the most difficult-to-access chapters of the entire Mirage continuity, a gap that IDW Publishing's TMNT: Journeys reprint series is only now beginning to address.
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Volume 4 had already been through a lengthy hiatus: after issue #28 in June 2006, the series paused for two years while Laird focused on the 2007 TMNT animated film, resuming with issue #29 in April 2008. Recognizing that pre-hiatus sales had declined sharply, Mirage deliberately capped the print run of each returning issue — including #30 — at just 1,000 copies, simultaneously releasing them digitally for free via WOWIO. Issue #30 (May 2009) was written and edited by Peter Laird, penciled by Jim Lawson, and inked and toned by Eric Talbot and Laird himself, with a cover by Michael Dooney. Laird later noted with 'some slight hint of melancholy' that the issue's letters page contained an announcement about a fifth TMNT film project that the Viacom sale — finalized shortly after publication — permanently cancelled.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published May 2009 by Mirage Studios as part of TMNT Volume 4, the final original-creator-controlled volume of the Mirage series.
- Written and edited by Peter Laird; pencils by Jim Lawson; inks and toning by Eric Talbot and Peter Laird; cover art by Michael Dooney.
- Print run strictly limited to 1,000 copies — a deliberate production decision by Mirage in response to declining pre-hiatus sales on Volume 4.
- Simultaneously released digitally for free via the WOWIO platform, making it one of the earliest Mirage issues distributed online at no charge.
- The issue's two story threads follow Casey Jones waking up to a confrontation with Karai's 'pet' hammerhead shark, and Michelangelo standing before the Triceraton High Council as that empire prepares for war with the Styracodon empire.
- Published just months before Peter Laird sold the TMNT franchise to Viacom (Nickelodeon's parent company) in October 2009, ending the independent Mirage publishing era.
- The issue's letters page announced a planned fifth TMNT live-action/CG film that was cancelled as a direct result of the Viacom sale.
- Never collected in a standard trade paperback; IDW Publishing's TMNT: Journeys reprint series (launched 2025) is the first effort to reprint all of Volume 4, including this issue, in collected form.
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