By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Now we think of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a movie and television franchise, but long before that, they were born in the comics. Those comics only grew in popularity with the rise of movies and cartoons, and kids who were TMNT fans sought them out and read any Ninja Turtle-related content they could find. And not all of them were suitable for children like movies or television shows.
As all 80’s kids remember, there were two separate Ninja Turtles comics back in the day: the original black and white Mirage comics and the full color Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics from Archie. For young fans and their parents alike, this established a clear distinction between the Mirage comics being made for adults, and the Archie comics (which were based on 80s cartoons) being made for children.
That thinking was very wrong. I just re-read all 72 issues of the “kid-friendly” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic and found the weird Technodrome madness throwing off an entire generation of young fans without their parents realizing what was going on.
Ninja Turtles Versus Brains Disembodied And Genocide
Perhaps the most famous example of this was the revelation that the Ninja Turtles caused the death of Hitler. This was during the story where the future turtles and their present met and got involved in some past adventures with villains that included Hitler’s brain and robot body. When they meet the perfect Hitler from the past, Raphael from the future beats him, and Leonardo’s future says that they are demons here in the Fuhrer’s brain, causing him to kill himself.
Although that is a lot famous example of TMutant Ninja Turtles Adventures the comic is insanely weird and decidedly not suitable for kids, it’s not the last one. For example, the comic finds out early on that Krang (the franchise’s most famous brain in a robotic body) isn’t just some dysfunctional leader from Dimension X. He’s actually the mastermind of a deadly war responsible for wiping out entire planets.
Animal Eyeballs And The Devil’s Harem Are Not Kid Friendly
The revelation that the comic’s modest villain was actually a mass murderer indeed it threw me for a loop, as did the last point where Krang got to work with the multi-human eyeball and finally put it in Shredder’s head so he could use the evil ninja as a puppet.
The comic introduced some unusual villains, including Null, a man who claimed to be the devil and tried to create a biblical-themed apocalypse on Earth. Oh, and he’s threatening to make one of the Mighty Mutanimals’ mothers part of his “palace,” which means we can add “rapist Satan” to the list of baddies in this “kid-friendly” comic.
Both Prostitution And Christianity Are A Big Part Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe
Speaking of the Mighty Mutanimals, they got a spinoff series that lasted a while before they were killed off… brutally shot by some third-rate criminals. Using the future ahead of the Turtles, the comics make it clear that these heroes were killed because bad guys interfered with the timeline. Despite this, they are not brought back to life, but we are treated to a vision from Null of these dead heroes. burning in hell.
Probably my favorite example Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Total Madness is a multi-story back-up story in which April O’Neil discovers a real-life angel who has been kidnapped and forced into corporate slavery by a real-life informant. He uses his new ninja training to free the angel, but not before a thug offers to put a reporter in an R-rated movie (an old movie star named April O’Neil… who would have thought that?). The angel then flies to heaven as Neo at the end The Matrixthe comic book has apparently confirmed that Christian theology is completely real.
I’m joking about that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures ruined my childhood, but even as a kid, I appreciate these comics despite (and often because of) their inherent weirdness. They took major creative changes that didn’t last often, but any release of the comic was far better than the 1987 TMNT cartoon it was nominally based on. All this delicious weirdness has been my personal mutagen, turning me from someone who expects simple stories into someone who can’t appreciate even the weirdest genre content.
Thankfully, I can only say those three little words first popularized by 20th century pop icon Vanilla Ice: “go, ninja, go.”
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