The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is in a transitional phase, and it is making some major moves as one era ends and the next one gears up. That includes the return of one notorious character, with complicated ties to the Turtles. Life and death stakes have taken on a whole new meaning for the Heroes in a Half Shell, as they try to navigate “The City That Never Dies,” and this latest comeback is another curveball for them to deal with.
In TMNT’s latest hardcore turn of events, the veil between life and the afterlife has been pierced, allowing the dead to return to the material world and overrun New York City. That would be harrowing enough for the Ninja Turtles and their ride-or-die ally, Casey Jones, but now they have just come face-to-face with a resurrected character none of them are particularly thrilled to encounter again.
That is, Casey’s father, the criminal known as Hun, once and former leader of the Purple Dragons street gang. The last time Casey, the Turtles, and TMNT fans saw Hun, he actually died heroically, saving his son’s life. Now, though, he is back and planning on living long enough to see himself become a villain unlike ever before.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for TMNT: The Hunger and TMNT’s “The City That Never Dies!”
TMNT Serves Up An Unwelcome Family Reunion As Arnold “Hun” Jones Returns From The Dead
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #23, By Gene Luen Yang & Fero Peniche
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“How ya doin’, son?” Hun asks Casey Jones in the cliffhanger ending to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #23, the penultimate chapter of “The City That Never Dies.” “Long time no see,” he adds. That’s because Hun was previously killed off in the milestone 100th issue of IDW’s previous TMNT run. At the time, he gave his life to protect Casey, gaining a small measure of redemption in his final moments, after years of abusing his son.
In the afterlife, Hun didn’t exactly rest in peace, and when given the opportunity to escape back to the land of the living, he went for it, no matter the cost. This was depicted in the one-shot “City That Never Dies” tie-in, entitled The Hunger, which followed Hun as he came back and immediately set out to reclaim his position at the head of the Purple Dragons. TMNT #23 follows up on that, with the issue’s final shot putting the Turtles, and Casey Jones, on a collision course with a host of the living and the dead led by Hun.
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This is a potential paradigm-shifting moment for TMNT’s ongoing storyline, and for the Jones family in particular. There are a lot of dangling plot threads and open questions heading into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #24, and how exactly Hun and Casey’s reunion will play out is among the biggest uncertainties going into the finale of “The City That Never Dies,” and the “War All the Time” arc that is set to follow it.
TMNT Is Positioning Hun As Its Next Big Bad, As The Turtles Gear Up For “War”
Let’s consider the possibilities following Hun’s resurrection. There is a slim possibility he wants to reconcile with his son, but the Hun readers followed in The Hunger doesn’t seem like the reconciliation type. It is more likely that the two generations of Jones are going to come to blows in TMNT #24. Will that be a fight with a definitive outcome? There’s reason to believe the answer will be “no.”
In the wake of “The City That Never Dies,” TMNT #25 will kick off another major arc, “War All the Time.” The plot for “War” is being kept pretty close to the vest by IDW Publishing, but the synopsis for the first issue does mention “a newly resurrected old enemy,” who “is determined to make some noise.” Unless the series throws another twist at readers (which is totally possible), it seems like there’s a good chance this is referring to Hun.
Which suggests he’ll be sticking around as a major Big Bad in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lore, setting up another round of the deadly intergenerational conflict between him and Casey Jones.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #23 is available now from IDW Publishing.
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