“What, did BeBop and Rocksteady’s agents ask for too much?”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze official movie adaptation
Mirage Studios/Tundra Publishing (1991)
SCREENPLAY: Todd Langen
ADAPTATION: Dean Clarrain
ARTIST/COVER DESIGN: Jim Lawson
COLORIST: Richmond Lewis
COVER PAINTING: Michael Dooney
LETTERER: Mary Kelleher
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE CREATORS: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird
The Shredder didn’t die after falling off of the building (the previous adaptation forgot about the garbage truck Casey crushed him in), ending up in the same junk yard the defeated Foot has retreated to under Tatsu. Shredder’s return coincides with a discovery by April of a company called Techno-Global Research Industries of a clean-up operation of buried chemicals, led by Professor Jordan Perry. An agent of the Foot working as April’s cameraman discovers its mutagenic properties, while Splinter recognizes the name from the canister that turned himself and the Turtles into mutants. Tatsu captures the scientist and the last vial of ooze before it could be disposed of, and Shredder uses them to create his own mutants, the snapping turtle Tokka and the wolf Rahzar. Aided by a pizza delivery boy named Keno, Raph finds the Foot while the others try to find a new home, unaware of Shredder’s return or the new mutants. They do find a new home in an abandoned subway terminal that is their home in future movies and a crappy TV show. Rescuing Raph and the scientist, our heroes develop an antidote based on the Professor’s corruption of the ooze, leading to a fight that takes them into a nightclub and a final showdown with a mutated “Super-Shredder”, in which our quartet are the only survivors. The Shredder is finally shredded.
What they got right: With a few minor errors this is a good adaptation of the movie. It captures the important beats of the movie and doesn’t skimp on the emotional parts, or at least not as much as most other comic adaptations, but still subject to the page count. Some of the less interesting jokes are lost but a few still make it in to get the flavor of the movie. Using Eastman and Laird’s style like the first adaptation is still a good choice.
What they got wrong: There are a couple of panels where the dialog flow isn’t quite right, but it’s rare. While the rest of the fights are fairly decent, including the mall fight where Keno first meets the Turtles, Tokka and Rahzar themselves are kind of stiff in their fights, even for the more brutish fighting style they use. Some of the banter moments have dialog attached to the wrong Turtle. The comic’s interpretation of Super-Shredder is kind of underwhelming.
What I think overall: This is one of the better movie adaptations I’ve seen in comic form. While it’s still better to see the movie (and they must not have gotten the final lyrics to Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” in time) this gets to fit more of the movie in than some comics and gets at least some of the comedy and Donatello’s disappointment that their origin was an accident, moments most comic adaptations don’t have the room for.
And with this I’m out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, having reviewed the IDW run when they first came out in the Today’s Comic format and none of the other Mirage comics getting a free release before Nickelodeon took over, at least that I’m aware. I’ve got one last series I can go over in physical comics I came across in collected form and then I’ll have to decide what to do next for Tuesdays.
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