“Yesterday’s” Comic> Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1

“That Bay guy is still hounding us!”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1

Archie Comics (August, 1988)

“Heroes In A Half-Shell!”

ORIGINAL SCRIPTS: David Wise & Patti Howeth

ADAPTATION/PENCILER: Michael Dooney

INKER: Dave Garcia

COLORIST: Barry Grossman

LETTERER: Steve Lavigne

Reporter April O’Neil gets a bigger story than she bargained for while investigating a series of high-tech robberies expert are convinced were done by ninjas. She’s rescue from thugs trying to force her to give up the story…by four humanoid turtles! They take her home to meet their master, a talking rat. It’s the first episode (and half of the second). Most of you know this story by now. The heroes narrowly miss the Technodrome but while searching for it Splinter gets captured as the Shredder, leader of the Foot, prepares to mutate two of the thugs with a rhino and a warthog. The Turtles find the Technodrome but upon entering what they know is a trap they find huge killer robots waiting for them.

What they got right: If they only had three episodes to do a five episode adaptation, then they at least attempt to hit the important details. While the art style isn’t in keeping with the show, they do attempt to get the designs right within their style, though the Turtles seem to be a combination of Fred Wolf’s design and the original Mirage designs, and frankly I wish the cartoons designs had been more like these.

What they got wrong: Unfortunately, if you were a fan of some of the sillier jokes, they were dropped to move the plot along. I actually didn’t miss some of them, but it loses some of the show’s tone. Also there are times who says what line, including the ones lifted from the episode, are given to the wrong Turtle. It’s weird “hearing” Don using Raphael’s sarcastic wit.

What I think overall: I’m not sure why Mirage didn’t do their own adaptation, unless maybe they thought Archie would have access to a larger distribution, but at least they seem to be faithful to their source material, the show, instead of replicating the Mirage style (except for obvious influences from the Mirage design in the Turtles along with the cartoon’s). I only have one more issue from the miniseries, the next one, and some random issues from the main run, a spin-off for April, and the Archie Universe crossover but it’s off to a good start.