Nostalgia Hero Turtle

IDW Archie Reprint: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 7

Issues 23-27

“Search & Destroy” Aug 91

“Gimme Danger ” / “It Started In Chinatown” Sept 91

“Raw Power” / “ Dragon Rage” Oct 91

“The Keeper” / “Questions” Nov 91

“In The Dark” / “The White Ninja”Dec 91

Released early 2014, IDW’s TMNT Adventures reprints, 5 issues.

It begins with what’s dubbed “The Slash Trilogy”, named after a supporting character that debuts in the story. The Turtles are after Shredder, but so is a returning Krang, who escapes his prison planet with inmates Slash & Bellybomb, reuniting with Bebop & Rocksteady, along the way. A downside to this popular story, is it’s over too soon. Krang makes some big promises for revenge & although we get a dramatic cliffhanger in issue 2, he’s defeated an issue later. Bookending this trilogy is the debut of artist Chris Allan, who would go on to illustrate more TMNT Adventures than anyone. Gareth Ho & Jim Lawson, illustrate the middle issue, which maybe Lawson’s weakest contribution.

The next two issues are standalone stories, illustrated by a returning Ken Mitchroney. It’s the 1st time since TMNT Adventures started original stories, that Dean Clarrain doesn’t write. Neither is bad, but neither gathers great praise. The 1st focuses on Splinter, while the 2nd is about April, with the Turtles not appearing till the final act. This makes it a heavy April issue, as the last 4 comics, with some extra pages, feature a 4 part backup story centred on April. Illustrated by Allan, then Ho, April - now with long straight hair & a more skilled with a sword - sees Fu Sheng & Chu Hsi /Warrior Dragon kidnapped. With Splinters help, she finds out they’ve been sent to Japan, setting up the next major TMNT story arc.

Due to the vast content, one of the better value for money IDW TMNT Adventure collections, that transitions from the old era, to the new era in the series.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Live Action Music Shows (1990-94)

The original animated Turtles show comes under a lot of flak from mature TMNT fans, who prefer them to be gritty & serious, blaming the show for the poor fortunes of the TMNT, intellectual property from the mid-90s, despite it initially bringing the Turtles to mainstream & been responsible for the hit 1990 live action movie.

At the time the movie came out, something else would be launched from the Turtles IP, that - certainly in America - should take more of the blame for turning young audiences off TMNT. This was the ‘Coming Out Of Their Shells’ live music show, that saw costumed Turtles, in outfits inferior than the Jim Henson movie ones, with rock accessories, designed by someone whose music reference point didn’t go beyond the mid-80s, who would mime along to songs onstage, with faux music instruments. The songs were terrible, with scarce reference to the Turtles themselves & strung together by a vague plot about the Shredder trying to steal all the music in the world.

There was a lot of initial hype & investment in the show, with a pay-per-view special & talk show appearances, including one with Oprah, that due to the cringe factor has become a YouTube hit. What’s most noticeable in these appearances is the blank & embarrassed looks on children in the audiences, who were likely thinking of throwing out all their Turtles merchandise & deciding to watch Simpsons & Wrestling instead of Turtles.

As well as launching a VHS of the show, they’d be a ‘Making Of Special’ which played it straight as if the Turtles were real, minus any redeeming humour, as stage crew marvelled how Don had made a one string bass for the two fingered Leo to play.

The live tour over time would lower its budget & already strained quality, yet it wasn’t quickly put of its misery.

A ‘Getting Down In Your Town’ Tour would launch in 1993, with two short VHS’s the following year, including the Christmas one.

It’s gained a cult following since, with even toys of the Turtles from the show, made.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Hoping that this Christmas will be a much better one than last year for everyone & you can spend it with the people you love.

“Secret Santa”

From TMNT: New Animated Adventures comic issue 18. Dec 2014

Based upon the first Nickelodeon Turtles cartoon & published by IDW, this was a story, that featured in the last 8 pages of the comic.

The Turtles are drawing secret Santa for each other, but Mikey is dismayed at picking Raph, the most difficult to buy for. He tries swapping with Leo, but when he finds he’s drawn Mikey, his disappointed reaction is, he himself, is a terrible gift buyer.

Going out on patrol on Xmas Eve doesn’t help, as Raph is just sulking that there’s no action.

As they’re about to leave Mikey sees something inspiring through a roof skylight.

The next morning, Mikey enthusiastically wakes everyone to exchange secret Santa. Don gets Leo a collectible action figure, which he loves. Don Is excited about Raph’s gift of discarded electrical & computer equipment. Leo gets Mikey what he thinks is a months supply of pizza vouchers, though Leo tries to correct him it’s meant to be a years supply.

Mikey gifts Raph an address on a piece of paper. They head out to the address, where the gift is, the rooftop they were on the night before. Raph is told to look through the skylight & giddily hugs Mikey in response, with the others stating he’s won secret Santa.

Raph jumps through the skylight, where some unsuspecting Kraang Droids are, who are promptly attacked.

While clearly not a serious story, there’s some good humour & character moments, as each Turtle reacts the way you’d expect when doing secret Santa. It’s mainly a Mikey story, which is no bad thing, as writers now know, his fun loving character works best when not merely spouting catchphrases, as his 1st cartoon incarnation did.

Is the closing joke a little weak? Well so is the closing joke, on nearly every funny comedy sketch, when you think about it. Though if you overthink it, it’s irresponsible of Mikey to merely leave Kraang Droids he’s discovered, overnight, without telling the others.

That aside it’s a fun & short Christmas themed Turtles story to enjoy reading.

Michaelangelo & Klunk custom figure, based on the “Christmas Aliens” one shot comic from 1985, from Mirage Comics.

Figures were created by Kevlar Palsh, in 2012 & came 3rd place in a Figure Realm contest.

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Annuals 1990-1992

Annuals in the UK have been a staple of kids pop culture at Christmas, in the UK for decades. Traditionally consisting of 62 pages, in A4 hardback format, these colourful, if not necessarily wordy books, will inform kids if something is popular, as to whether by Autumn months they get an Annual released in shops.

That’s not such an absurd statement. If a popular kids franchise, that has released Annuals in previous years, finds their toy sales dwindling & their cartoon shows struggling, don’t get an Annual on bookshelves one year, kids will interpret that as the franchise is over.

Turtles, with Hero instead of Ninja, released their first Annual in 1990. It was their biggest seller, but wasn’t necessarily a strong Annual, as unlike many other franchises it didn’t bring in writers & artists who worked on the comic book, to appeal to established & casual readers. The 1990 Annual published by Grandreams, who previously printed a series of Turtles colouring books, essentially recycled their artwork, but now in colour format, as the book reinterpreted stories from series 2 of the TV show.

The 2nd & 3rd Annuals had more of a feel of the Fleetway UK Turtles comic, though mostly from featuring fill in artists from the comic line.

While many 80s & 90s kids franchises struggled to make it to three Annuals, the Turtles did the trilogy, though by 1992, diminishing returns would result in a Turtles Annual few had, or wanted under their tree.

Big sellers, but never big reads, it’s hard to explain the appeal of kids Annuals in the UK, that has remained a tradition of Christmas shopping for children, even in an era of tablets & I-Pads.

These easy to wrap Annuals, whether based on a reboot of TMNT, a video game, sport, TV show or app, will continue to be unwrapped by kids for some time yet.

This was a variant cover for issue 3 of the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, that due to the festive release date, has a Christmas themed cover.

Considering the comic was just establishing the IDW Turtles universe, it’s clearly influenced by the original cartoon, with April O’Neil dressed in the trademark yellow jumpsuit her character wore in the show.

Through the window, the shadowy figures of the real Turtles can be seen, having probably gifted April with the soft toy versions of themselves.

Art by Brian Shearer.

“The Christmas Aliens” is both the title of the 1985 Mirage, Michaelangelo ‘One Shot’ comic & a season 3 episode of the FoxKids Turtles series in 2004.

Both follow a similar plot, with neither actually involving sci-if as the title suggests.

It centres around Mikey, in disguise, as he excitedly wanders around New York City at night in the build up to Christmas, where he gets to be the big kid he is at heart.

He borrows a sled from some kids to go sledding in the park, rescues a stray cat, he named Klunk, plays with some toys in a store then gets caught up with some heavily armed gangsters who are stealing a truck load of ‘Lil Orphan Alien’ Dolls, to sell on the black market. He eventually apprehends the truck, having to chase off several police cars, who thinks he stole it, before hiding it & relaying his story to the others, to decide what to do with the truck. Each story concludes with the Turtles in festive disguise passing the Alien toys onto their intended destination, the kids at the city orphanage.

Obviously there’s some slight changes between the original comic book & the cartoon episode nearly thirty years later, whether it’s Splinter been present at the orphanage, dressed as Santa instead of Mikey, or the crooks been the more threatening Purple Dragons, but both are Mikey centric stories, with a feel good Christmas ending, that readers & viewers can come back to every December.

From the inside covers of the 3rd & final Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual, released Autumn 1992.

Artist I believe is Rex Archer, who illustrated a few of the original stories in the early Fleetway published Turtles Adventures stories, then after that generally was a fill in artist on many of the specials such as this.

Seemingly the Nickelodeon cartoon wasn’t the first time Donatello had an eye for April O’Neil, as seemingly evident by where his eyes are looking here.

While the word isn’t as Covid free as we’d like it to be, fingers crossed this Christmas should hopefully be a massive improvement on last year.

Intending to do a lot of Christmas themed Turtles post over the month.

Incidentally the soundtrack to ‘We Wish You A Turtle Christmas’ to which this calendar image is taken from, is not available on Spotify.

Batman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comic. (Dec 2015 - May 16) 6 issues

This was the 1st of the DC, IDW crossovers that brought together Batman & TMNT.

Rather than have these characters exist in the same universe, there’s a retread of the trans dimensional storyline from the previous Ghostbusters crossover with TMNT. It’s not as necessary to the overall plot, with some backstory having to later be explained by exposition, as the Turtles, Splinter & their enemies Shredder & the Foot have been in Gotham for some time. It also doesn’t sync into a timeframe of the IDW TMNT comics, as it’s explained mutual enemy Krang sent them to an alternate universe in mid battle.

But by putting this aside, this is an enjoyable crossover. The art by Freddie E. Williams is brilliant, both intense & serious enough, but with enough visual expression to allow the more comical moments to not seem jarring. It’s dark, but with enough shades of bright colour to not be bleak & more importantly allow the visuals & action to be clear, a necessity during the big battles, particularly the surreal climax at Arkham that could have easily looked cluttered.

While the emotional subplot about Bruce Wayne opening up to a surrogate family & connecting to the Turtles family, as he mourns the anniversary of his parents murder, could have come across contrived or randomly shoehorned in, it’s subtly built up throughout each issue.

There’s a noticeable absence of any female characters, with no Batgirl, April not showing up until the closing pages & the female villains given little to do. Also the subplot about the Turtles mutagen becoming unstable, if they spend too long in an alternate universe is never really explained. Leo falls ill in the penultimate battle, but recovers & none of the characters mutagen threats or hinder them in the final battle. This could have been completely left out & it wouldn’t have affected anything.

With 6 issues the story is allowed time to breathe & not feel rushed.

IDW Archie Reprint: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 6

Issues 21-22

“Space Junk Face Funk Cyber Junk Thief” June 91

“Rat Trap ” July 91

The Mighty Mutanimals 1-3

“The Wild Angels” May 91

“Under A Big Black Sun” June 91

“Ride Of The Ruthless” July 91

Released late 2013, IDW’s TMNT Adventures reprints, takes in 5 issues, though only the 1st, two are TMNT, the rest, the Mighty Mutanimals mini-series, which serves as the official follow up to the cliffhanger from TMNT Adventures 19, concluding the impending alien invasion storyline & explaining what happened to Raph during his absence, as he & several other mutants that had featured recently, form the Mighty Mutanimals.

This kind of leaves the Turtles, spinning their wheels in their own comic, with Vid Vicious, been a villain of the month in issue 21, as the comic continues to experiment with new artists, as Bryon Vaughns, gives too much of an abstract, cartoony style. It does have a dramatic finale as Shredder returns to kidnap Donatello.

Issue 22, brings this arc to a close. Dean Colan’s, dark art is the best of the 4 part series. Shredders ‘Rat Trap’ plan doesn’t provide enough peril for Don’s rescuers, with only Mikey having to fight in the maze. Even if Raph hadn’t made his timely return to save Splinter. It’s hard to think Shredder, would have then defeated the others.

The Mutanimals story is the highlight of this collection. It’s not without flaws, as there’s still a lot of world building, as many of these supporting characters have never met each other before, with Mondo Gecko, not even properly interacting with any of his fellow Mutanimals, until the final page.

Theres a couple of odd plot holes, perhaps due to it been a kids comic, such as the moral conflict of not killing Maligna’s children when they were cocooned & Maligna, just deciding to leave & stop her invasion, as Kid Terra spared her remaining tentacle to communicate with her children. But then again it was established her actions honour deals she makes.

Bandai (Ban) Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Information Cards

Between 1990-1991, Turtles merchandise was everywhere, but within a couple of years it was gone, even though the series & to some degree the Archie comic would last till 1996.

TMNT probably came closest to its 90's popularity with the launch of its 3rd cartoon series in 2012. Even now in 2021, TMNT still has a presence & a marketable brand, which is a combination of been familiar to several generations, but ultimately there's only one generation at a time, that is going to keep them in the toy aisle (or should anyway). Why I think they've maintained their popularity longer with the younger generation this time around, is that it didn't blow up as big & it didn't get pushed heavier than every other youth pop culture phenomenon going, probably because now TMNT has had more TV & movie merchandise franchises to compete with, so it's not gotten overexposed to the point people got sick of it early.

Though even with that & a more sociable acceptance to be into geek chic culture of comics & fantasy than in the 90's, I don't think even today they have Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Information Card Collectables? Granted, this partly due to the internet, where if kids wanted to read profiles on characters from their favourite show, they’d be an official website. But still as far as merchandise goes, it’s somewhat reaching, with 4 sets of 4 cards for £1.99 each.

Lego TMNT

Published in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles New Animated Adventures; as backup story.

Issues 11-13 May-July 2014

Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the debut Mirage comic of TMNT, this Lego collaboration, adapts that origin issue, portraying the characters in Lego form.

While the 1st page, homages the black & white style from that comic, it then switches to full colour. The Turtles appear as their Mirage counterparts, but with their multi-coloured bandanas, while other characters, like Splinter & Shredder, are very much based upon their Nickelodeon designs.

Adapting a 40 page story into 22 pages, means a lot of things had to be cut & with Lego & the New Animated Adventures comics, been family friendly that means much shorter fight sequences, with violence, threats, swearing & references to death all considerably toned down.

Shredders older brother is referenced to disappearing instead of been killed. Yoshi is described as been no more, after his battle with Shredder. It even retcons Yoshi’s girlfriends fate, by stating she escaped.

The story even leaves Shredders fate open (something perhaps the original comic should have done). As he falls from the building, Shredders clearly seen avoiding the blast from the explosion.

Lego TMNT is an inoffensive adaption, published as a tribute to the story that started it all. There’s a few additional snippets of humour, which could have been expanded upon, but due to space restrictions, it’s understandable why not.

In light of the different interpretations of the Turtles they’d been by this point, no one could consider this sacrilege to the origin comic.

When people refer to bad designs for the Turtles appearances, they’ll automatically refer to the ‘teenies’ live action reboots.

But something about the flailing limbs & dead eye expressions of the Turtles, in this often recycled UK artwork, is my mind viewpoint quite disturbing.

Originally used for the first Poster Mag issue for the Fleetway Hero Turtles comic, in the Summer of 1990, it was reused for the inside cover of the UK Turtles Movie adaption, then surfaced on several comics across Europe. I’m certain there’s a version where the background is plain & the Turtles skin tone is a lighter green. Still not much less unsettling.

“Monsters Are The Rage” written by Scott D. Fulop, illustrated by Doug Crane. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, Special 3: Winter 1992.

(Part 2: Review)

While the TMNT Adventures comic strived to establish a reputation in the 90s, for been an outlet for kids to still enjoy the characters from the Turtles cartoon, when they were starting to get too old for it, the quarterly TMNT Adventures Specials, more often betrayed the spirit of the comic.

Rarely featuring the writers & illustrators from the comic, while often contradicting the continuity of the main series.

“Monsters Are The Rage” is a pleasant exception, perhaps as main writer Dean Clarrain, gets an edit credit. Seemingly set between the “Slash Trilogy” & “Midnight Sun” arc from 1991, due to absence of future ally Ninjara, a reference to Shredder, who had escaped & April been a more than competent fighter in battle, the story sees the Turtles battle seemingly invincible creatures that appear & disappear every night. They discover they’re manifestations from a troubled child, who brings them to life when he has nightmares.

As the kid has been watching horror films constantly, it addresses the issue of how forms of entertainment are often to blame for when youths act out, or worsts do something horrendous. Obviously the Turtles franchise certainly had a right to address this, as parent groups predicted that kids watching Turtles would lead to them trying to fight like Ninja’s, raid the kitchen draws to find knifes to emulate the weapons & even go into sewers, as the Turtles lived there.

In the story it’s discovered the kids single mother, was responsible for her kids troubles. Through no fault of her own, she had to work a second job as he was watching horror movies, but would then be verbally abusive to him, thus unintentionally contributing to the decline of his mental health.

Along with this message, it’s not a rushed story, with art that appropriately bossiness between lighthearted & dark.