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TMNT Revisited: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #8

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Walt

Wild Things

Plotted by: Dean Clarrain and Ryan Brown
Written by: Dean Clarrain
Penciled by: Ken Mitchroney
Inked by: Dan Berger
Colored by: Barry Grossman
Lettered by: Gary Fields
Cover: Steve Lavigne
Edits by: Scott Fulop, Victor Gorelick
Published by: Archie Comics
Cover Date: February 1990
Cover Price: $1.00

Returned to their proper time, Cudley the Cowlick has left the turtles on top of a building in the middle of a storm. Unbeknownst to any, his previous arrivals had opened a space/time hole that allowed a couple creatures from another dimension to Earth–a large humanoid bat-creature named Wingnut, and a giant mosquito creature named Screwloose. Together, the two have been hurling rocks at skylights, smashing them…and seeing the turtles, lob a rock at them as well. When they fly off, the turtles return to the sewers and home, only to learn that the trouble being stirred up by their new alien encounter.

Despite the storm, an Australian blimp was out and about, giving Wingnut something to pop on tv, prompting the turtles back into action with their own blimp. Which is also popped. Capturing the two, Wingnut cries and Screwloose pokes him, putting him to sleep for a moment. He explains to the turtles how the pair came to be like they are at present…including the fact that they have their own reason to be interested in battling Krang. Before much else can happen, Cudley reappears and takes the two, bound for Stump Asteroid despite the turtles’ questioning the (as they see it) kidnapping. With nothing else to do, the turtles again return home.

There’s something about this issue’s cover that really grabs me. And there’s almost a sense of deja vu or some such. This may have been one of the earliest covers I’d seen for the series, some time before I actually owned a copy myself. A friend had it, so I probably read it at his house, though it would have been a bit out of context. Whether this was before or after I actually “discovered” the series at all, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve seen any other covers done as homage to this, so it’s not iconic in that sense…it’s just an image I see that brings back fond memories and makes me smile, no matter how hokey the story itself seems.

I find myself reading the issue, this series, AS an adult. A 34-year-old re-reading comics possibly not read in 20 years, almost certainly not in the last 10-15, with an adult eye amidst reading contemporary TMNT comics from IDW and plenty of other comics certainly not AIMED AT a younger audience the way I believe these were.

So the stories seem rather simplistic and hokey, cheesey, and almost surfacey or shallow. I have no problem with four mutant turtles…but a huge space/time-travelling cow-head and giant humanoid bat with his giant mosquito-buddy give me pause…something’s not quite right with that.

And yet, despite all that…this works. Wingnut and Screwloose flying around breaking windows because surely Krang must be beneath one? That hardly makes sense except as some “out there” elevator pitch. But having recently seen the Turtle Power! documentary and that the entire (Mirage Studios) group was encouraged to contribute character ideas for the toys…this makes sense, and certainly works as a first appearance and initial foundation from which to build later characterization.

Also despite the hokiness, these characters’ background is actually rather deep. It’s glossed over and not particularly graphic, but Krang’s invasion of Huanu is full of potential for expanded story(ies) while working just fine here as a motivational factor for Wingnut and Screwloose, building Krang as that much more an interdimensional/intergalactic threat beyond simply some cliched villain on Earth.

For an 8-year-old, this seems well-paced and such…plenty of action and interaction with characters, giving and showing some detail while not delving terribly deep. “Reading between the lines” and thinking deeper on stuff as an adult, while the story itself is fairly silly, there’s a lot more depth just below the surface and begging for further development.

The art is good, and we’re back to Mitchroney. This issue has the appearance of an early TMNT Adventures issue, as it is, and the visuals get everything across that needs to be (even if not QUITE fitting the dialogue and gratuitous famous-buildings references).

I like the issue overall. Though the issue is #8, functionally it’s #4, and continues the seeming one-off stories throwing new characters into the mix and then being done with them by the end of the issue. As I came in with #25 and then the Winter 1992 collection of the Mighty Mutanimals mini, I never got to have the actual experience of reading these for the first time with no clue of where the characters would wind up…and that’s knowledge I can’t forget, so certainly colors my reading.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews, The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: Adventures, archie, Archie Adventure Series, Archie Comics, Barry Grossman, Comic Reviews, comics, Dan Berger, Dean Clarrain, Gary Fields, Ken Mitchroney, Kevin Eastman, Ninja Turtles, Peter Laird, Ryan Brown, Scott Fulop, Screwloose, Steve Lavigne, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, TMNT Adventures, Victor Gorelick, Wild Things, Wingnut | 1 Comment »

TMNT Revisited: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #7

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Walt

Plotted by: Dean Clarrain and Ryan Brown
Written by: Dean Clarrain
Penciled by: Jim Lawson
Inked & Lettered by: Gary Fields
Colored by: Barry Grossman
Cover: Ryan Brown
Editors: Scott Fulop, Victor Gorelick
Published by: Archie Comics
Cover Date: December 1989
Cover Price: $1.00

Now, this is a trip down memory lane! Unlike contemporary comics that MIGHT have a “previously…” page or some kind of recap…this is absolutely from the days when any given issue might be someone’s first, and acknowledgement would be given to that with exposition catching one up, or some sort of recap. This issue takes a couple pages to recap recent events (TMNT Adventures #s 5 & 6 specifically) right to the final panel of the previous issue, picking up immediately from there.

The turtles are spit out by a cow head, in front of a couple of living tree-figures. We as readers (along with the turtles) are quickly introduced to Stump and Sling (the trees) and Cudley the Cowlick (the cow head). Cudley can travel through space and time, carrying others in his mouth. Stump and Sling run Intergalactic Wrestling from Sump Arena, and they’re presently on Stump Asteroid. The turtles are forced to wrestle an alien named Cryin’ Houn’, while learning that Leatherhead is still alive (also grabbed by Cudley) and he’s facing Ace Duck. The wrestling matches end with the turtles and Leatherhead victorious, and Stump and sling are forced to send the turtles home (Leatherhead elects to stay, feeling he has no place back on Earth). Cudley accidentally returns the turtles first to Earth 100 years in their future (giving them a glimpse of a world ravaged by environmental disaster. Interspersed through the issue we see Shredder getting yelled at by Krang for losing his one connection to the Turnstone, and then of Krang lamenting the situation and getting further frustrated that he tunes in too late to catch the day’s Intergalactic Wrestling match (and thus we as readers see that he just missed learning of the turtles’ and Leatherhead’s involvement).

The art here is pretty good…not exactly my ideal, but it works quite well. I doubt I would have recognized the work as Lawson‘s as it lacks the visual style I’ve gotten accustomed to from his work since the TMNT vol. 4 Mirage run through to present. There’s a definite simplicity to the visuals of the issue–linework as well as coloring–that gives this the definite look and feel of something aimed at kids. That’s not to say it’s bad, just that it differs greatly from the original Mirage series and does not come off as overly detailed. I do like the turtles’ wresting costumes, and offhand they remind me a bit of the “superhero turtles” seen in later Mirage stuff.

The story is also rather simple and straightforward even while introducing a cosmic element to this version of the turtles. Stump and Sling remind me quite a bit of the X-Men’s Mojo, except not nearly so dark/villainous. Cudley’s an interesting figure…weird, yet not a mutant; just an alien…and a bit of a deux ex machina on the space/time travel thing.

The issue continues to add to the world of this take on the turtles, moving yet further away from the cartoon, Mirage comics, and forging its own continuity with its own take on existing characters while introducing characters unique to this series.

I enjoyed the issue, and while a couple details stick with me, I’d forgotten other particulars. I was also very interested to note copyright information in the indicia, differentiating Man Ray, Cryin’ Houn, Turnstone, Mary Bones, Stump, Sling, and Cudley as being creator-owned characters and not Mirage stock. That’s mostly a topic for its own post, but my noticing it here definitely puts that at the forefront of my mind and I’ll be looking for such details in future issues with other characters I recall.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews | Tagged: Ace Duck, Adventures, archie, Archie Adventure Series, Archie Comics, Barry Grossman, Cryin' Houn', Dean Clarrain, Gary Fields, Intergalactic Wrestling, Jim Lawson, Kevin Eastman, Leatherhead, Ninja Turtles, Peter Laird, Ryan Brown, Scott Fulop, Sling, Stump, Stump Asteroid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, TMNT Adventures, Victor Gorelick | Leave a comment »

TMNT Revisited: TMNT Adventures (Mini-Series) #3

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Walt

Heroes in a Half-Shell!

Written and Pencilled by: Michael Dooney
Adapted from the Scripts by: David Wise and Patti Howeth
Inked by: Dave Garcia
Lettered by: Steve Lavigne
Color by: Barry Grossman
Cover by: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Steve Lavigne
Published by: Mirage/Archie
Cover Price: $1.00
Cover Date: December 1988

This issue picks up with the rock soldiers interacting with Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady. Krang freaks out upon learning Neutrinos are loose on Earth. Meanwhile, the turtles have just about found the technodrome when they’re buzzed by flying cars and opt to chase these instead. The rock soldiers show up and rather than put up a fight, launch a weather-making device (which our heroes promptly ignore), and everyone meets back in the technodrome (where Donatello instantly figures out the alien controls, opens the portal, and the rock soldiers are thrown back through to Dimension X and the Neutrinos voluntarily follow, to continue the fight against Krang (but without ever dealing with Krang in the technodrome). Shredder and his forces leave rather than confront the turtles here in the heart of the technodrome, and the turtles simply leave rather than even trying to find and deal with Shredder or Krang.

The next day, the Shredder re-baits the turtles, who wind up fighting Bebop and Rocksteady again. The turtles and Splinter split up to deal with different facets of the current threat. Krang gets put into the stomach of an android body and electrocuted (er…the body is activated). Shredder then sends Foot robots after the turtles as a diversion until Krang wakes. After having the turtles on the run while growing to a gigantic size, Krang simply turns and punches his way to the surface so the turtles can follow him, rather than dealing with them where they were. Donatello shows up with a blimp he’s been working on, and turns it loose with the others while he and Leo enter the android body to shrink it down. Krang calls Shredder for help, Shredder abandons his imminent victory over Splinter and shows up to point his retromutagen ray at the turtles, Splinter shows up as well and destroys it, then the story shifts back to the technodrome where the Donatello finishes some complicated thing with the portal, and everyone gets out as the whole thing is sucked into Dimension X. We see Shredder and Krang bicker, the turtles chill at home…and the story (mercifully) concludes.

Much as with the previous issue, this is ultra-compressed with an extremely fast-pace and abbreviated scenes such that the characters–from simply reading this–seem interchangeable and inconsequential. As noted also with the previous issue, this is not so much a fault of the writing of the comic as it is a shared problem between the writing of the episodes this issue is based on and trying to cram the contents of more than one episode into a single issue.

The art continues to be good–it’s a welcome visual style that as I’ve said before, holds its own without mimicking the art of the animated series. Yet, the characters are all recognizeable and nothing’s so far off as to seem otherwise (except the coloring can be kinda iffy…especially on a comic that’s got slightly yellowed pages and carries a cover date from nearly 26 years ago).

The cover would make for a decent poster, and the image alone promises something a lot more dramatic than what I read inside.

While in recent years I’ve found the “classic” TMNT animated series rather hokey and have been rather put-off by it, revisiting this miniseries and the episodes themselves has admittedly made me rather nostalgic, and rekindled my interest in the old series. I may not binge-watch the entire thing or even finish tracking down all the seasons…but I’ve been reminded of how much my younger self loved this stuff, and failed to notice the level of hokiness my present-day adult self sees.

From looking at this simply as a comic series, it’s nothing special for the content by itself. What makes this special is that it’s a color series starring the turtles, designed and aimed at the audience of the 1980s cartoon, and is a #1 issue I can actually afford (and have a duplicate or two somewhere, too).

Though I missed this mini-series when it was originally published, it was still something I was able to track down relatively easily a number of years ago, far moreso than ever the original Mirage #1, which I content myself to this day with reprint editions of that.

I can’t imagine something like this mini-series–or this issue–being published today; but it’s certainly a product of its time, and quite worthwhile to get as a fan of the TMNT in general, and the Archie-published stuff in particular.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews, The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: Adventures, archie, Archie Adventures Series, Archie Comics, Barry Grossman, Dave Garcia, David Wise, Eastman, Heroes in a Half Shell, Laird, Michael Dooney, Mirage, Ninja Turtles, Patti Howeth, Steve Lavigne, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtls, TMNT, TMNT Adventures | Leave a comment »

TMNT Revisited: TMNT Adventures (Mini-Series) #2

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Walt

Heroes in a Half-Shell!

As noted in my post about the first issue, this mini is based on the first 5-episode mini-series/season of the animated TMNT cartoon. However, where that was 5 episodes, the comics adaptation is a mere 3 issues…leading to a couple weird issue-breaks that do not match up with the episode-breaks in the cartoon.

This issue picks up with the turtles facing some random/weird robots. After dispatching these, they deal with another deathtrap, and then find Splinter…and meet Bebop and Rocksteady. Escaping to the surface, the turtles are followed, but quickly trap Bebop and Rocksteady, and that’s that.

Continuing on, Shredder has a new scheme, and coopts bumbling scientist Baxter Stockman’s “mouser” invention. He sends some after Splinter, but the turtles rescue their master with no problem. However, Shredder’s built hundreds more and they do prove to be a problem. Michelangelo “volunteers” to infiltrate the mansion Shredder’s commandeered, but is captured the the villain…though set free behind his back by Krang. The Mousers are stopped, no one’s dead, and again, that seems to be that. Shredder still won’t give Krang a body, and initiates yet another scheme: opening a portal to Dimension X he lets a flying car into the Technodrome (which promptly blasts a hole and skidaddles), followed by a flying tank of sorts with rock soldiers…and that’s the end of the issue.

The art for this issue is consistent with the first…much of my thinking on the first issue applies here as well (cool to see the Mirage team on the issue, etc). While the visuals are stylistically their own thing, they are clearly based on the cartoon and fit well without seeming particularly “off.” Essentially they’re simply comic versions structurally, but based on the cartoon elements.

The story is where most of my problems lie…particularly where the cartoon itself seems choppy and just runs from points ‘A’ to ‘B’ to ‘C’ and following that so closely, the comic seems super-compressed, well beyond any preference I’d have to avoid “decompression.”

And therein I find the issue–it’s not so much the writing of this comic that’s the problem as much as it’s the source material. I’m consciously aware that this issue’s story is itself based on another story, and the writing keeps faithfully TO said source material. The faults come from the ludicrous, goofy, weird stuff that (in remaining faithful) had to be translated into this adaptation.

While the first episode of the cartoon–and therefore, the bulk of the first issue–was charming enough in its own way (and gave a roughly whole story without tying up plotlines and such), this is the middle chunk of the overall 5-episode arc and middle of this particular 3-issue series. Sadly, it’s really choppy and all over the place, and the only real fondness I find in it is the art as mentioned, and its “place” as an artifact of history.

Taken by itself, I had to force myself through the issue, and force myself not to just quickly eyeball the pages and move on.

Filed under: 2016 posts, 2016 Reviews, The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: Adventures, archie, Archie Adventures Series, Archie Comics, Barry Grossman, Dave Garcia, David Wise, Eastman, Heroes in a Half Shell, Laird, Michael Dooney, Mirage, Ninja Turtles, Patti Hoeth, Steve Lavigne, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, TMNT Adventures | Leave a comment »

TMNT Revisited: TMNT Adventures (Mini-Series) #1

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Walt

Heroes in a Half-Shell!

Written and Pencilled by: Michael Dooney
Adapted from the Scripts by: David Wise and Patti Howeth
Inked by: Dave Garcia
Lettered by: Steve Lavigne
Color by: Barry Grossman
Cover by: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird
Published by: Mirage/Archie
Cover Price: $1.00
Cover Date: August 1988

It’s rather interesting to consider that this was–I believe–the first color TMNT comic. Sure, First Publishing had colored the original black and white issues, but this issue began as a color production rather than the color being a conversion. And where the original Mirage TMNT comics were certainly of a more mature nature for violence and language, this is based on the animated series that was aimed fairly squarely at kids.

Reading back through the issue, it has–for this fan of 26+ years–a lot of familiarity, both from the cartoon as well as the visual style of the art. Which ultimately makes sense, given Dooney‘s involvement with the Mirage stuff in particular. The character designs are obviously those of the cartoon, though.

Being such an old comic–at least a quarter-century–it’s immediately clear some differences from modern comics physically; and my copy in particular isn’t a particularly clean copy…it definitely is a bit yellowed from age and all that, as the paper is classic newsprint, one can see the dots to the coloring, and so on.

As a whole, the art’s not bad in and of itself, though the style is a bit “interesting” having gotten used to more “modern” renditions of these characters. I rather like the realization that even though this was published by Archie, it was created by the Mirage folks…thus lending a certain authenticity to this as a Ninja Turtles thing, rather than just being some thrown-together adaptation of a kids’ cartoon.

Story-wise, this suffers the same as the cartoon itself does in my mind…overly-simplistic and full of glaring plot-holes and such, requiring a lot more suspension of disbelief than most comics I’m used to. There’s also something rather wonky about the pacing, with this first issue covering maybe an episode and a half of the cartoon, rather than just one episode. In that way it’s a rather “compressed” storytelling that (especially looking at it now) really needs a lot more room to breathe. And as a comic, it misses so much potential in terms of “enhancing” the cartoon with narration or thought balloons or such that just wouldn’t fit the cartoon but would a comic.

Other than some abbreviated dialogue and missing the show’s music, this is absolutely a straight up adaptation and it doesn’t begin to even try to be anything else–different or additional. In and of itself, unfortunately, I can say with honesty I find this issue rather hokey, choppy, and other than the art “working” it’s nothing particularly stand-out or impressive to me.

At the same time, this goes back to the very beginning of the TMNT in tv and “popular” comics, so it has a huge bit of historical significance and is in itself quite the “artifact” of its time. This is the first issue of 3, a mini-series, which adapts the entire first “season” or 5-episode mini-series of the TMNT cartoon. At a time when home media (VHS) was still relatively rare (especially compared to our contemporary age of everything being on DVD and so readily available to purchase and watch whenever we want) this was the closest I personally would get to “owning” the episodes to consume whenever I chose. Back in the late-’80s/early-’90s, though, I’d acquired a rather thick comic that came with an audiocassette, which actually collected all 3 issues into a singular volume…but was not itself a bookshelf volume or graphic novel…it was more an 80-page Giant or such.

Publish this as-is today and I’d be rather disappointed. But looking at it as a singular piece, and in context of its time, it’s not bad, and makes for a fairly interesting sort of read.