Does anybody read Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[KameTen]

Since this is an indie board, I was wondering if anybody picked up the newest Ninja Turtle comic books. Or if there are any old-school readers who collect the back issues.

[The Adventurer]

I've read the new ongoing Mirage series since issue #1 two years ago. It's one of the most consitently excelent super hero books on the market. The B/W art is fantastic, the stories are entertaining, the action is intence, and the plotlines move along at a good clip with a number of subplots starting and concluding. It's the pefectly paced comic book accualy.

Check out the TMNT homesite for the master list of all TMNT comics, we're currently on Volume 4, up to issue 18 (http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/comic.htm)

Tales of the TMNTs is also entertaining, it's nice to see TMNTs back to basics these days, one of the best 80s revival comics, and the most under the radar apparently.

[Vegetarian Goat]

Heck yes!!!! I've managed to collect a complete run of Vol. 1, and am trying to track down any issues of Vol. 2 i can find... Vol. 4 is awesome, too!

TMNT is one of my fav. books ever. In ANY incarnation...
well, except the Image book. :D

[KingMixer]

I absolutely love TMNT. The original Mirage series was one of my favorites with Return to New York and The issues Mark Bode did. This new series is good, and I like seeing the turtles, but it just doesn't seem as experimental and fun. Lawson's art is different from the old days too. I still enjoy it though.

[KingMixer]

Heck yes!!!! I've managed to collect a complete run of Vol. 1, and am trying to track down any issues of Vol. 2 i can find... Vol. 4 is awesome, too!

TMNT is one of my fav. books ever. In ANY incarnation...
well, except the Image book. :D

I enjoyed the Image Series too, just because it was great to see them again, and mixed in with other characters. And if you like TMNT you might want to pick up the Amazing Joy Buzzards hehe. That's out from Image this upcoming month.

[Vegetarian Goat]

I'll have to check it out!
What does everyone think of Raph being... the way he is at the moment?
I think it's fun to see what he's been up to, but i miss him being good ol' Raph.
And isn't the mess with April's family going to be addressed soon?

[Tommy]

Did Raph come out of the closet?

[The Adventurer]

I'll have to check it out!
What does everyone think of Raph being... the way he is at the moment?
I think it's fun to see what he's been up to, but i miss him being good ol' Raph.
And isn't the mess with April's family going to be addressed soon?


I'm quite liking this "Split everyone up their seperate ways" bit their doing, though it's getting close to running a little long.

Raph's situation as the giant monster vampire turtle is great, but I hope he reverts back to regular Raph soon.

I'm enjoying Mike's little romance excapade, and Leo's dealings with the foot. Also Don's lab rat adventures are entertaining in a very classic Pulp way.

April's little trip will be explained soon in an upcoming issue I believe, the letter pages said as much a few months ago

Speaking of Letter Pages, TMNTs has the BEST FRICKING Letter Pages ANYWHERE.

[Vegetarian Goat]

Speaking of Letter Pages, TMNTs has the BEST FRICKING Letter Pages ANYWHERE.

Seriously. They're the first thing i read every month! Peter Laird is hilarious. He just don't give a damn.

[idwfan]

No. I read some of the early ninties series and wasn't very impressed. Just never gave the series any thought after that. Whats the current opinion on the series now?

[Musichead]

I was in the shop casually looking at the indy titles and I happened to see this title and started wondering about it. Are the stories gritty and dark or heavily sci fi influenced? I'm getting subscriptions for marvel and Dc comics for x mas so i'm looking to branch out and get some different stuff monthly.

[The Adventurer]

Yes on the heavy sci-fi infulances, it's not dark and gritty, but it can be dark and gritty, the art conveys it well when it is. It's a Sci-Fi/Superhero/Kung-Fu tale, with some good humor, fun, Adventure, Action, and a little romance. It's great.

[Vegetarian Goat]

TMNT does everything, and in my opinion, does it all well. That's why it's so successful.

BTW- I saw a preview of the next issue on the official site. More changes coming for Raph. :)

[mrhelm]

I just find it ammusing they still refer to them as Teenage despite the fact they're in their thirties.

[The Adventurer]

I just find it ammusing they still refer to them as Teenage despite the fact they're in their thirties.


They find it amusing too.

Really it's just branding, the Turtles age in relative real time, they're in their late 20s now.

[idwfan]

How long before they are called "Middle Aged Mutant Turtles"

Sorry!

[KameTen]

I thought they were already in their 30's when the series started again?

[Vegetarian Goat]

Did anyone get the new issue today? I really enjoyed that last page.. and i hope it means what i think it means...:)

[Vegetarian Goat]

Has anyone seen the 4-parter of the cartoon called "Big Brawl"?

[pennywisdom]

You know what's weird? Not many people ever talk about the Ninja Turtles anymore, but when I was growing up, that was one of the few comic books I picked up every issue. It was pretty influential, because that was when I was literally a new reader. TMNT reprsented my first exposure to Eastern culture, and my first exposure to foreign culture of any kind (outside mother goose).

Those were back in the days when I was six years old and the Ninja Turtles were being published by Archie. TMNT as I knew them (http://www.ninjaturtles.com/comics/archie/archie.htm). God, that was ages ago.

I haven't read a single one of their comics since.

Is the new series from Mirage still going? Who is Mirage, anyway?

[The Adventurer]

Mirage is just the independent company Peter Larid and Kevin Eastman started when they created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in the mid 80s.

The "Archie Years" are not cannon with the Mirage turtles, nor are the "Image years". If you've found the Ninja Turtle .com website, you can easily find Mirage TMNT Vol.1, 2, and 4 which make up the original Comic Turtles run (plus both Volumes of Tales of the TMNT, and a few other titles)

The Mirage Turtles are much much different then the Archie Turtles, as the Archie Turtles were more based on the original cartoon show, which changed quite a bit from the original comic to make the Turtles kid friendly.

It's great, today Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol.4 #25 hits stands, two years ago the new series kicked off, and I still can't get enough of it. It's just fun sci-fi action/adventure though and through. The best part was, though the series is very dense, it doesn't skimp on drawing off it's nearly 20 years of history to tell stories, it was very accessable. Within a few issues I'd been brought up to speed on all the little details that the cartoon failed to inform me off. (April and Casey are married, Casey has a daughter named Shadow, etc...)

Just a great series in general, made better by it's rich history.

[pennywisdom]

There's no doubt that the Archie Turtle comics were cartoony and kid-friendly (and pretty goofy, at that). But as the series went on, they started introducing more and more high-concept stuff. Have you ever read that series?

They introduced topics like logging in the rainforest and environmental responsibility. Then, as the series went on, it became more seeped in Japanese culture, religion, and mythology. I didn't even understand a lot of the concepts being presented. I'm a white American raised in a Protestant home, so it's not like there were books on Taoism just lying around when I was a kid. Take #31 (http://www.ninjaturtles.com/comics/archie/31/31.htm) for example. I can still remember reading these comics to this day, because, for a nine year old, that was quite a mindfuck. That stuff is like Grant Morrison on an acid trip when you're nine.

Granted, I'm sure you're right in that the "Archie" Turtles are probably total crap to a TMNT purist. I'm sure they just look like bogus kiddie-crap to someone who's schooled in TMNT history. But I was just a wee little kid, buying those comics because I loved the cartoon show. It was through those comics that I was introduced to a lot of philosophical concepts that I couldn't even appreciate until now. There was some really wild, creative stuff going on that might have been lost on a kid.

I think if I ever get a chance, I'll have to dig up my old Turtle comics and give them a re-read.

[pennywisdom]

By the way... check out the Wikipedia article on TMNT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles).

Archie Comics owned the rights to publish comics based on the 1987 cartoon series. This comic, TMNT Adventures, stopped following the cartoon story after issue 5 and developed its own storylines. While the 1987 TV series had much more humor, the Archie Comics incarnation was more violent and explored darker themes such as death, religious conflict and environmental issues. The Archie Comics series was published between 1988 and 1995.
That's what I was getting at. See? I'm not crazy. I've got the memory of an elephant.

[The Adventurer]

Well I'm far from a "purest" I grew up on the Cartoon turtles, and never read the Turtles in comics form until Vol.4 of the Mirage series.

So no, I never read the Archie series. (except, TMNT meet the Conservation Corps....did we ever find out who that mysterious last Corp member was the others went looking for at the end?).

[pennywisdom]

I have the memory of an elephant, but it's kind of a dumb elephant. ;) Seriously, I don't remember that.

Thanks for the info on the current series, though.

[Factor-X]

Can someone explain to me why in one of the comic series, One of the turtles turns completely black?

Ill have to check out the new series, Being that when I was young TMNT was my life.

[pennywisdom]

Can someone explain to me why in one of the comic series, One of the turtles turns completely black?

Ill have to check out the new series, Being that when I was young TMNT was my life.
If I recall correctly (which I may not be), he's wearing an all-black costume. They were transported to a planet and forced to fight in a reality-TV-esque pro wrestling tournament, and Raphael wanted to keep the suit.

One might also take a look at your avatar and ask why Spider-Man turned black. ;) It's nearly the same thing.

In fact, now that I think about it, that Turtles comic might have been a deliberate parody of Spider-Man picking up the symbiote on another planet, and deciding to keep the new all-black costume. That's pretty damn clever. That didn't dawn on me until just now.

[Factor-X]

If I recall correctly (which I may not be), he's wearing an all-black costume. They were transported to a planet and forced to fight in a reality-TV-esque pro wrestling tournament, and Raphael wanted to keep the suit.

One might also take a look at your avatar and ask why Spider-Man turned black. ;) It's nearly the same thing.

In fact, now that I think about it, that Turtles comic might have been a deliberate parody of Spider-Man picking up the symbiote on another planet, and deciding to keep the new all-black costume. That's pretty damn clever. That didn't dawn on me until just now.

Ah I could never figure out why the one issue I had from that era had a solid black turtle.

I have to admit I do like it. :D

[unkiedev]

WOW! Vampires, wreslters and lab rats?!

I was an Image Turtles junkie back in the day. I picked up the first few issues of the new book, but something didn't click with me. I thought it was cool that old characters where getting screen time, however.

Now it sounds like the book is chock full of FUN! You fellers have sold me! I'll go hunt down those back issues for sure!