How The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secretly Warped Children

By Chris Snellgrove
| Printed 1 second in the past

We now consider the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a film and tv franchise, however lengthy earlier than that, they have been born in comics. These comics solely grew in recognition with the rise of the films and the cartoons, and youngsters who have been TMNT followers sought them out and skim any Ninja Turtle associated content material they may get their arms on. And never all of it was as kid-friendly as the films or the tv present.

As all 80s youngsters bear in mind, there have been two completely different Ninja Turles comics again within the day: the unique black-and-white Mirage comics and the full-color Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics from Archie. For younger followers and their dad and mom alike, this arrange the belief that there was a transparent division that the Mirage comics have been made for adults, and the Archie comics (which have been based mostly on the 80s cartoon) have been made to be kid-friendly.

That assumption was very unsuitable. I lately re-read all 72 problems with the “kid-friendly” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comedian and found a Technodrome’s value of bizarre crap that successfully warped a whole technology of younger followers with out their dad and mom realizing what was happening.

The Ninja Turtles Versus Disembodied Brains And Genocide

Maybe essentially the most well-known instance of this was the revelation that the Ninja Turtles brought about Hitler’s demise. This was throughout a narrative the place the longer term turtles and their current selves met and engaged in some timey-wimey misadventures with villains who included Hitler’s mind with a robotic physique. After they meet the intact Hitler prior to now, future Raphael punches him, and future Leonardo claims they’re demons right here for the Fuhrer’s mind, inflicting him to commit suicide.

Whereas that’s the most well-known instance of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comedian being hilariously bizarre and decidedly not kid-friendly, it’s not the final. For instance, the comedian establishes early on that Krang (the franchise’s extra well-known mind in a robotic physique) isn’t just a few ineffectual chief from Dimension X. He’s truly a genocidal warlord accountable for wiping out total planets. 

Cannibalistic Strolling Eyeballs And The Satan’s Harem Aren’t Child Pleasant

The revelation that the goofy comedian aid villain was truly a mass assassin actually threw younger me for a loop, as did the later plot level the place Krang began working with a cannibalistic strolling eyeball and finally put in himself on Shredder’s head so he might use the evil ninja as a puppet.

The comedian launched different unusual unhealthy guys, together with Null, a person who claimed to be the satan and tried to create a biblical-themed apocalypse on Earth. Oh, and he threatens to forcibly make one of many Mighty Mutanimals’ moms a part of his “harem,” which means we are able to add “rapist Devil” to the checklist of baddies on this “kid-friendly” comedian.

Each Prostitution And Christianity Are A Large Half Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe

Talking of the Mighty Mutanimals, they acquired a briefly-lived spinoff collection earlier than they have been killed… simply brutally gunned down by some third-rate villains. Through the time-traveling future Turtles, the comedian makes it clear that these heroes have been killed resulting from unhealthy guys interfering with the timeline. Regardless of this, they’re by no means introduced again to life, however we’re handled to a imaginative and prescient from Null of those deceased heroes actually burning in hell. 

Maybe my favourite instance of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures being utterly insane is a multi-issue backup story by which April O’Neil discovers a literal angel who has been kidnapped and compelled into present enterprise servitude by a literal pimp. She makes use of her newfound ninja coaching to free the angel, however not earlier than a thug affords to place the reporter into an R-rated film (an grownup movie star known as April O’Neil… who might think about that?). The angel then flies again to heaven like Neo on the finish of The Matrix, the comedian having apparently confirmed that Christian theology is totally actual.

I joke that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures ruined my childhood, however at the same time as a kiddo, I recognize these comics regardless of (and actually because) of their innate weirdness. They took large inventive swings that didn’t at all times land, however any given difficulty of the comedian was much better than the 1987 TMNT cartoon it was nominally based mostly on. All this scrumptious weirdness was my very own private mutagen, remodeling me from somebody who anticipated easy tales into somebody who can recognize even the weirdest style content material.

In gratitude, I can solely say these three little phrases first popularized by Twentieth-century pop icon Vanilla Ice: “go, ninja, go.”