“Hide, before that Bay guy comes back wanting a third movie.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1
Dreamwave Productions (June, 2003)
“Things Change”
WRITER: Peter David
PENCILER: Lesean
INKER: Erik Sander
COLORIST: Rob Ruffolo
FLATS: Kenny Li & Sigmund Torre
LETTERER: Matt Moylan
Honestly I don’t have a lot to say about this issue beyond “it exists”. In theory it’s an adaptation of the first episode of the 2003 TV series from 4Kids, my favorite incarnation of the cartoon side of the franchise. In practice it doesn’t really work. Instead of following the story it follows two of the characters: the leader of the Purple Dragons we see in the episode and the cop based off of Kevin Eastman. In this telling they were friends as kids who were there when the Turtles were knocked down into the sewers as part of the original comic’s Daredevil homage. One became a cop, the other a criminal, and we see events of the episode from their perspective. In theory it sounds okay.
In practice this isn’t David’s best storytelling. He doesn’t really do anything with the connection between the gang member and the cop. There’s one point where they catch sight of each other, another where the cop is reminded of the friend he lost, and that’s it. The gang member’s story is just the events from his perspective. On the officer’s side he gets flack from his jerk of a partner (who by the way was styled after Peter Laird, and both would have recurring cameos in the show prior to the Fast Forward season) for seeing the Turtles and for wanting to actually investigate potential crimes. It’s more characterization than they got on the show but it’s not GOOD characterization.
In short, ignore this issue and watch the superior episode it’s vaguely based on. It’s not a very good introduction to this incarnation since the Turtles are an afterthought, so if you don’t know the show you won’t care about this story. Next issue should be the April debut and hopefully will be better than this.
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