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For most older Millennials, your scariest movie theater experience wasn’t seeing Casey Becker get stabbed in Scream, it wasn’t Samara coming out of the TV in The Ring, and it wasn’t even when the Borg came back for Picard in Star Trek: First Contact.
It was feeling your parents tense up with shock when Raphael said “Damn” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After all, you came to the theater in 1990 after falling in love with the cartoon series and toy line that launched in 1987, all kid-friendly adventures in which sais and katanas were mostly for show. Nobody got hurt, nobody got scared, and certainly, nobody said, “Damn.”
But as the posters for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles promised, “This ain’t no cartoon.” The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was the first comic book movie to show deference to the source material, in a way that’s expected in modern blockbusters.
Shoving Nerd Stuff to the Back
An equally shocking moment for older Millennial and younger Gen X comic book fans was watching the Batmobile drive through the Axis Chemical plant in 1989’s Batman. In the comics, Batman has a strict “no killing” policy, and normally won’t even pick up a gun. But here he was, firing away and blowing up the factory, not concerned about anyone getting hurt.
But that was the norm with comic book adaptations at the time. The comics provided source material and a recognizable name. Everything else had to be changed for wider audiences. Thus, we get Joker killing Bruce Wayne’s parents in Batman, leaving poor Joe Chill in the cold. We get Marlon Brando’s Jor-El wearing an “S” shield within a crystalline Krypton in Superman. We get Adrienne Barbeau as Alice Cable falling for Ray Wise’s Alex Holland in 1982’s Swamp Thing.
To be clear, such revisions from the source material weren’t always bad. Famously, concepts such as Kryponite, the Daily Planet, and even Superman’s flight came from the Adventures of Superman radio show and TV series, not the comics. But it’s hard to imagine such major revisions flying today, unless they were done with relatively minor characters like Star-Lord or Drax the Destroyer.
More often than not, comic book adaptations acted like they were too good for the source material, and even felt embarrassed by the comics. The Incredible Hulk television series eschewed almost everything from the comics and changed the main character’s name to David Banner, for fear, according to Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno, that “Bruce” sounded “too gay.” The Arrowverse eventually became a bastion of wacky superhero antics on TV, but it began with Stephen Amell playing Oliver Queen as Bruce Wayne by another name, without the liberal politics or Van Dyke beard of Green Arrow comics.
But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn’t approach things the same way. It was a comic book adaptation first, a cartoon adaptation second, and a mass-market movie last.
From the Sewers to the Comics to the Screen
As most nerds know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started life as a Daredevil parody that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created to entertain one another. The first issues, which Eastman and Laird began self-publishing as black and white stories in 1984, were silly, but not in the same way as the cartoon show would be. The Turtles didn’t say “Cowabunga” or eat pizza, but they did amp up the melodramatic voice that Frank Miller brought to Daredevil comics.
While the Shredder dies at the end of the first issue, the Turtles went onto have goofy adventures involving evil genius Baxter Stockman, brain-like aliens called Utroms, and the masked vigilante Casey Jones. Most of the humor came from exaggeration of comic book tropes, presenting the silliest material with utter seriousness.
When the Turtles became cartoon and toy stars in 1987, that approach wouldn’t translate, so the Turtles became easily identifiable party dudes. Minor qualities from the comics get amped up into the cartoon, making Leonardo the clear leader, Raphael more of an unstable hot head, Michelangelo a non-stop partier, and Donatello a nerd with an inventive knack. Most importantly, they get rid of the matching red masks and each got their own individual color schemes.
All of those aspects make their way into the movie, especially the personalities and the masks. But so did much of the comics. The Turtles’ banter, their predilection for pizza, and even the movie’s logo all come from the comics. But outside of that, writers Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck and director Steve Barron went straight to the comics. The film’s story adapts several arcs from the comics and the Raphael one-shot, in which Raph and Casey Jones duke it out for the first time. Even the Northampton farmhouse where the Turtles go to recuperate after Raph’s beatdown is straight from the comic books, albeit with Donatello having received the beating.
Most notably to younger viewers and their parents, the movie retained the edge of the comics, in which the Turtles violently killed their opponents. The Turtles attack Shredder with shocking brutality, stabbing him with Leo’s katana and using Donnie’s Bō staff to knock him off the roof, where he explodes when his grenade goes off. The movie isn’t quite as violent, but Casey Jones does make a joke when he turns on the trash compactor to crush his enemy.
From beginning to end, the TMNT movie carried the spirit of the comics, even more so than the cartoons or toys.
Turtles Ahead of Their Time
Today, TMNT‘s minor changes from the comics seem drastic. We live in a world in which Red Ghost is played by an esteemed actor and Krypto’s arrival is a key point in the Superman trailer. Today, everyone knows what SHIELD is, and Commander Steel was a fan favorite in Legends of Tomorrow. Furthermore, you don’t have to go far online to find people still dissatisfied and griping that Guy Gardner’s costume isn’t quite right in Superman or that Daredevil still doesn’t have the “DD” logo in Daredevil: Born Again.
Not long ago, nobody would have even thought to complain about such minor details because just the fact that Bruce Wayne was Batman was a major concession to the comics.
TMNT didn’t get everything right. By trying to meld the comics with the cartoon and toy line, it ended up leaving everyone a bit dissatisfied, despite the solid story and amazing Turtle designs from the Jim Henson Company. But as the movie and its fans get older, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stands out for its mix of goofy comedy and gritty realism.
Adherence to the comics has made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles not just a bellwether for the modern state of comic book movies, but also a more engaging watch, 35 years later, now that our parents can’t get mad at us for watching a movie with swear words.
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