“Yesterday’s” Comic> Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie

Ah, there’s a full Shredder out tonight.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures or that’s the name in the publishing notes. The cover and probably every listing just calls it Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie

Archie Comics  (Summer, 1990)

ADAPTATION: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

LAYOUTS: Kevin Eastman

SCRIPT: Peter Laird

PENCILER: Jim Lawson

INKERS: Eric Talbot, Kevin Eastman, & Peter Laird

LETTERER: Gary Fields

EDITOR: Scott Fulop

As you can guess, this is a comic adaptation of the first live-action Turtles film. Reporter April O’Neil learns of a clan of criminals she believes is behind the “silent crime wave” hitting New York City, and isn’t afraid to challenge the police chief for answers. Meanwhile, she’s saved from muggers and later the ninja clan, the Foot, by four ninja turtle humanoids. Learning of their origin she befriends the four turtle brothers and their rat father/ninja master, Splinter. One of the Turtles, Raphael, also makes a connection with Casey Jones, a masked vigilante, who comes to their aid when the Foot and their master, The Shredder, captures Splinter and chases our other heroes out of the city. After licking their wounds and pulling together as a family, the Turtles return and with the help of April’s boss’s son, who was part of the Foot but had second thoughts after meeting Splinter and having his eyes opened to his surrogate “family”, Splinter is rescued and finally gets revenge for his master, who Shredder killed many years ago.

If you’re reading this, odds are you already know this story. The first movie and its sequel, which we’ll get to next week, are beloved movies by Ninja Turtle fans, combining elements of both the comic and the cartoon and partially adapting April’s introduction to the Turtles in the show and the “Return To New York” storyline from the comics. The problem is the adaptation, probably based on the latest available draft of the script, doesn’t always combine the same elements. April in the movie is a reporter for channel 3 instead of channel 6. Neither are actual New York television stations (though there is a Channel 3 in Connecticut, a CBS affiliate and so carried the show’s CBS seasons), and I don’t know why the movie changed it since April being a reporter isn’t from the comics, so the change doesn’t come from there. Some of the deleted scenes, like an end gag where April and Danny (her boss’ son) attempt to get her drawings turned into a comic, but is rejected for being silly. There are also comic only elements like the Daredevil reference in the Turtles origin and Oroku Saki having a brother who was Hamato Yoshi’s rival while the movie cut a bit of time by having Saki be the rival.

I do find it neat that both this and the sequel comic feature Eastman and Laird’s art style from the Mirage comics rather than trying to emulate the look of the movie. It’s actually a good homage having them come in for the adaptations, but the pacing has issues. There are too many panels on the page, the opposite problem of today’s comics were there seems to not be enough, meaning everything is packed together. And yet it still suffers the usual problem of comic adaptations, reference events but not really capturing the nuance of them. When Casey tries to rally the city youth against following the Foot it doesn’t carry the same weight, and neither does the attempt to show the Turtles’ recovery, with Raphael taking Leonardo’s spot as the Turtle injured in the “Escape From New York” portion of the adaptation.

It’s not bad but like other comic adaptations suffers by the necessities of adaptation. It’s worth checking out if you’re curious but for the most part it’s better to just watch the movie again.