Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1984)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 1984 action fiction title.
Mirage Studios printed the first issue in 1984, black and white, as a one-shot parody. Four turtles mutated in the New York sewers and trained in ninjutsu, named after Renaissance painters, invented by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a joke about the comics they were reading at the time.
The joke was drawn straight, which is why it worked. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo live underground with Splinter, the rat who trained them, and carry on a long and bloody feud with the Foot Clan and the Shredder. The art is scratchy and heavy with black, the fights land with real weight, and the brothers bicker like brothers in between. Almost nothing in the original run resembles the pizza-and-catchphrase version most people met on television a few years later.
Mirage kept publishing it until 2014, and by then the one-shot had turned into one of the most adapted properties in comics: five television series, seven feature films, a long line of video games, and a merchandise operation that dwarfed the book it grew from. Read now, the original is still the version with teeth, and it is startling how much of the eventual empire is already sitting there in the first few issues.
Quick answers
What is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles about?
Mirage Studios printed the first issue in 1984, black and white, as a one-shot parody. Four turtles mutated in the New York sewers and trained in ninjutsu, named after Renaissance painters, invented by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a joke about the comics they were reading at the time. The joke was drawn straight, which is why it worked. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo live underground with Splinter, the rat who trained them, and carry on a long and bloody feud with the Foot Clan and the Shredder. The art is scratchy and heavy with black, the fights land with real weight, and the brothers bicker like brothers in between. Almost nothing in the original run resembles the pizza-and-catchphrase version most people met on television a few years later. Mirage kept publishing it until 2014, and by then the one-shot had turned into one of the most adapted properties in comics: five television series, seven feature films, a long line of video games, and a merchandise operation that dwarfed the book it grew from. Read now, the original is still the version with teeth, and it is startling how much of the eventual empire is already sitting there in the first few issues.
When was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles released?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1984.
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A few thoughts on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The adaptations pull in opposite directions, so pick by what you want out of them. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the one that made them famous and the one furthest from this book: bright, harmless and built around a catchphrase. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gets closest to the comic's tone, with Jim Henson's Creature Shop suits and a properly grubby New York. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem earns its place by finally drawing the brothers as awkward actual teenagers. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection bundles the arcade and console years for anyone who wants the version they played rather than the version they read.
Every animated version of the Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic spun off decades of cartoons, each reinventing Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael for a new generation. These series run the range from goofy Saturday-morning pizza jokes to sleeker modern action. If the sewer-dwelling brothers and their ninjutsu feud are what you came for, this cluster tracks them across every animated era.
The Turtles on the big screen
Eastman and Laird's comic became one of the most-adapted franchises in film, and the Turtles have crashed into theaters again and again. These movies carry the brothers from rubber-suit brawls to modern animation, Shredder and the Foot Clan usually close behind. If the comic's fights and family squabbles are the appeal, this cluster gives you the cinematic run.
Action-packed shonen manga about fighting brothers-in-arms
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic mixes martial-arts action with squabbling brotherhood, and these manga share that blend. They follow young fighters training hard, facing masked enemies, and leaning on the bonds that keep them alive. If you love the Turtles for the combat and the found-family loyalty, this cluster of battle manga hits the same notes.