Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe

It's been nearly five years since IDW's ground-up reinvention of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the publisher's line of Turtle-based comics have stayed strong as one of the most innovative and exciting licensed properties on the shelves right now. One of the coolest things has been seeing a generation of creators who grew up on Turtles get their hands on the property and the new issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe sees Michelangelo getting involved in a missing person's case that leads to the discovery and debut of the semi-obscure villain Wyrm

This week marks the launch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, a new spotlight series that kicks off with Paul Allor and Damian Couceiro for a story about the Turtles under siege. To find out more, we spoke to them about their favorite Turtles, the challenge of designing a new mutant, and the importance of battling evil with #TwoSticksAndAChain.

Ever since it first launched, IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has been too big for a single ongoing title. In what has to be one of the most impressive editorial feats of the past few years, the massive story that was being told over the course of the series was spread throughout multiple titles, weaving through the main title and then splitting off to books like the one-shot Micro-Series or minis like Casey and April - and as astounding as it was that it all held together, I'll admit that as a reader, it was a little bit of a pain to flip back and forth through at least two collections while trying to figure out a reading order. It seems like they're going ahead and putting everything into one official second ongoing series: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe, which kicks off in August with an issue that features Kevin Eastman and Bill Sienkiewicz teaming up for a brand-new backup story.