Broken Frontier

In 1984 Mirage Studios introduced the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and some of the greatest names in art history have never been the same.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, are most likely, right now, swimming through pools filled with money.  What started as a self-published endeavor borne on the back of a casual evening of brainstorming and funds scrounged together from various places (tax refunds, loans, etc) became one of the largest franchises in comic book, movie, and television history. 

That’s right, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those lovable miscreants who live in our city sewers, scarf pizza by the truckload, and fight anything from petty thugs to alien invaders to evil megalomaniacs with a penchant for can openers were small time when they started.  That didn’t last long.

Between their inception in 1984 and 2007, the Turtles have been incarnated in comic books, action figures, television, more comic books, movies, a concert tour, video games, food (that’s right, food), more comic books, and more movies.  Their latest feature film, simply titled TMNT, is a CGI animated adventure from Warner Bros. Pictures which debuted last week. The Turtles, it seems, are coming full circle.

And why not?  When TMNT first hit comic book stores as a sharp, witty, underground comic in 1984 it quickly picked up a cult following.  Drawing from, and in part parodying, some of the more popular 80’s comics like Marvel’s The New Mutants and the work that Frank Miller was doing on Daredevil (the cover of the first TMNT comic is an apparent parody of Miller’s Ronin and the Turtle’s sensei Splinter earned his name as a parody of Daredevil’s mentor Stick, also created by Miller), it was small wonder that people seemed to connect to the down and dirty themes of the book.

Eastman and Laird had taken teenagers and made them ninjas (every adolescent fanboy’s dream).  Then to make things a little dirtier they turned them into giant mutant turtles, introducing the same isolationist themes that teens have been experiencing since the dawn of time (who could love a giant mutant turtle?), and thrust them into the sewers of New York City.

Mirage Studios, also a construct of Eastman and Laird, released a limited print run of 3,000 books on cheap newsprint that introduced the Turtles in black and white glory.  Over the next couple of years they released issues of the regular series along with a bi-monthly companion called Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It was a hit to say the least, but the real whirlwind didn’t hit the Ninja Turtles franchise until 1987 when the first television series made it to the airwaves. 

With a TV series in place, the Ninja Turtles were set to take on not just the underground comics scene, but mainstream media as well.  Then in 1990, riding high on the success of both the comics and the TV show, Playmates Toys rolled out their first line of action figures based on the popular characters.  Turtle-mania hit hard and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rode the wave into pop culture history.  Not bad for four anthropomorphic adolescents and their giant rat sensei.

With the Turtles being such a popular commodity, it was only a matter of time until Hollywood stuck its ugly head through the door and yelled ‘Here’s Johnny!’ so to speak.  1990 saw the first major feature film, titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and introduced a brand of Ninja Turtle never seen until then.  They were real.  Well, they were as real as four guys in giant polyester and plastic turtle suits could be, but those Hollywood mad-cats successfully transferred the Turtles from cartoon fantasy to life sized reality (albeit movie reality, but it was as close as any giant mutant turtle could dream of getting).  Technically an independent film (it was released by New Line Cinema), it remains one of the highest grossing indie films of all time.

Between 1991 and 1993 the Turtles saw two more film releases (Ninja Rap anyone?) and became a merchandising powerhouse.  The Turtles were on everything from t-shirts to lunchboxes; they even had their own cereal (mmmmm marshmallow katanas).  Their success was palpable, it made Eastman and Laird millionaires, and it touched the hearts of countless children who loved animals but loved ninjas more.

However, mainstream success for the Turtles was not necessarily accepted by everyone.  In the original pages of the comics, the Turtles were grim and gritty; they were violent in a no-holds-barred, us-against-them sort of way.  But with mainstream popularity came a radical redesigning of the franchise.  They were significantly toned down and tailored to a younger audience.  This in turn alienated a lot of the fans of the original book who branded Eastman and Laird sellouts.  Eastman and Laird, however, have said that they always kept to their roots in the comic books.  And so in March, the Turtles get another revamp.  With their latest film, TMNT, the writers and producers have decided to bring the Turtles back to their indie roots and their gritty ways.

Naturally it can’t be precisely what hardcore fans of the originals would like to see, because now there is a generation of kids who grew up on the watered-down, cartoon series Turtles who will take their kids to see this movie.  But the essence of the Turtles is being revived, and with that a hope that the Turtles might see a bit of a resurgence if nowhere else than perhaps in the dirty, below-the-radar indie comics where they came from.