Thread by @Comrade_Bullski

Oh hello there. I think it's high time we kicked off 2022 properly with a nice thread dedicated to a comic that shaped my childhood.

Yes my friends it is finally time. We're finally going back to that dreamlike border between the 80s and 90s, back to the world of licensed comics

It's time to explore one of the great pop culture phenomenons of that troubled era, a franchise that reached beyond comics into video games, toys, merchandise and into the pop culture vernacular of the present.

It's finally time to adress a franchise that's been the center of legal troubles, fan outrage, live-action movie adaptations, questionable reboots and crazy tonal shifts in a story about funny animals.

That's right, today it's finally time we talked about Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, one of my favorite childhood comics.

...what? You were expecting something else?

It all begins with a dream. A silly sketch on a napkin in a New York diner. Two young men eager to write and draw comics that are a weird, heady hodge-podge of science fiction, fantasy and superheroes.

Those silly ideas suggested in joke become reality. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles number one becomes an overnight hit for Eastman and Laird's Mirage Comics, ushering in an age of imitators, parodies and wannabes.

Merchandise opportunities start trickling in. Slowly at first. A roleplaying game, some metal miniatures, knick-knacks with the turtles on them. But then, the unexpected happens.

Eastman and Laird through toil and good fortune manage to sign two fantastic licensing deals which would change not just comics but pop culture in general, one for a toyline from Playmates and the other for a cartoon from Fred Wolf.

A comic book from a small publisher breaking through to national TV as a cartoon is such an uncanny success story that it sent the industry reeling. Blood in the water, so to speak. Ninja turtles expanded explosively in 1987 and 1988, becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

Of course given the sanitized and even silly nature of the cartoon and toys there was no way they could be used to promote the original comic. Eastman and Laird's dark, violent and philosophical epic was far too dark for the 6-year olds now attracted to the turtles.

The solution was simple. Launch a new, more kid-friendly comic which spun out of the animated series. Eastman and Laird selected Michael Dooney who was already a skilled artist at Mirage to head the project.

The full history of Archie Comics is beyond the scope of this thread but they are one of the cornerstones of the US comics industry, and by 1988 they were certainly aware that there was money to be made in the field of licensed comics.

This led to Archie repurposing the "Archie Adventure Series" branding which had previously been used on their own superhero comics as an umbrella to published licensed comics apart from their Riverdale lineup. And yes this eventually led to some comic about a blue hedgehog.

The initial premise of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures" as the series was named was simple. Dooney would adapt stories from the cartoon into comics, altering them in whatever way he needed to make them work as sequential fiction.

The series started off as a three-issue miniseries in 1988 which adapted the first batch of episodes of the cartoon, including the cartoon version of the origin of the turtles, Splinter and Shredder.

The miniseries looks and reads great, with Dooney's exceptionally on-model and detailed art enhancing the narrative. I was hooked from the first issue, and I had at this point not even seen the cartoon!

The adaption adapts the episodes "Turtle Tracks", "Enter the Shredder", "A Thing About Rats", "Hot-Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X" and "Shredded and Splintered" and thus covers the entire mini-season that compromises season one.

By the final issue, the familiar status quo for the second season is established with the Technodrome stuck in Dimension X and the turtles, Splinter and April celebrating. You have also no doubt noted that Eastman and Laird contributed all-new covers to the series.

The mini-series was a hit and thus Adventures was quickly greenlit to become an ongoing series with an all-new issue 1 hitting in spring of 1989. With both an adult and a kid-friendly comic available, TMNT had a flavor for everyone.

Inside the first issue lurked an unfortunate surprise, however. Michael Dooney chose not to continue doing the series, returning to more adult fare, and the first few issues were instead written and drawn by Dave Garcia.

Garcia's art is much more goofy and cartoony than Dooney's but at least fit the style of the new season 2 scripts that the comic was now adapting where the tone of the cartoon changed to become more light-hearted and gag driven.

The creative flux did not stop there. Garcia was out after two issues (adapting the "Return of the Shredder" episodes) and #3 was instead written and drawn by Beth and Ken Mitchroney, whose art is a bit strange looking but rather appealing.

Issue four continued the adaption of the first episode of the "Eyes of Sarnath" series of episodes: "The Incredible Shrinking Turtles". Shredder and Baxter Stockman using an alien gem to shrink the turtles, you know the deal. And everyone expected this to continue in #5.

But when issue five hit the stands, there was no Eyes of Sarnath sequel and in fact no cartoon adaption at all. Instead we were treated to an all-new story by new writing team "Dean Clarrain" and Ryan Brown with Mitchroney still doing the art. What happened?

As it turns out, it seems nobody had actually asked Fred Wolf Films if they had permission to do adaptions of the cartoon and they were not happy, contacting both Archie and Mirage and demanding the practice stopped, as they owned the rights to the scripts.

So that was it! TMNT Adventures had to literally shift their entire paradigm overnight, drop the Sarnath plot entirely and start creating all-new stories. Not that Sarnath would remain forever mysterious... but that's for later.

So what happens in issue #5 instead? A marine biologist investigating illegal pollution gets mutated by some stray mutagen and becomes Man Ray, who allies with the turtles in stopping Shredder. This seems rather like a trivial tale, but in fact sets a lot of things in motion.

Let's talk briefly about the new creators because this will be very important. Ryan Brown worked for Mirage mostly for their licensing department and was responsible for a lot of concepts that got turned into action figures, however he did not stay on Adventures long.

As for his co-writer, Dean Clarrain, the person with the most writing credits on TMNT Adventures who would stay with the series until it ended...

...well he doesn't exist, and never did.

However Stephen Murphy exists, and "Dean Clarrain" was his nom du plume while writing TMNT Adventures. Murphy mostly worked on very adult titles over at Mirage such as Puma Blues, and would bring some of those themes into the book.

Issue #6 introduces a character who actually already existed into the new universe - Leatherhead. Still a mutant alligator, the Archie Leatherhead is a thief who tries to rob the witch Mary Bones and is transformed into a gator-man by her magic orb. This too will become important

Issue #7 is the first to feature the art of Mirage mainstay Jim Lawson with his very distinctive style and introduces the Stump Asteroid, home of an intergalactic fighting ring run by plant aliens Sling and Stump. I'll let you figure out who they are caricatures of.

The issue also introduces a character iconic to the Archie run, Cudley the Cowlick. A giant floating cow head who can travel through space and time and carry passengers in his mouth. He briefly shows the turtles a future New York destroyed by global warming. Put a pin in that

#8 introduces two more characters in the unhinged bat-man Wingnut and his sensible partner Screwloose, and the issue is notable for having a very dark tone new to the series, with the two being the only survivors of a genocide enacted by Krang. Far from the cartoon's tone!

The apparent one-shot stories continue from #9 to #11, introducing seeming one-shot characters like the mutated spy the Chameleon, Scumbug and Wyrm and the eerie alien Sons of Silence. #11 ends with the turtles abducted by Mary Bones and Krang and Shredder pursuing.

At this point Brown had departed, leaving Murphy as the sole writer. It's also worth noting that the comic continues to distance itself from the cartoon canon by having "Dimension X" be a galaxy in normal space rather than an alternate dimension.

#12 and #13 bring together all the plot threads in the "Final Conflict". Mary Bones reveals that she is really Cherubae, one of Krang's rivals and keeper of the all-powerful Turnstone which Krang has been seeking for years. Unfortunately she is quickly captured by the villains.

Fortunately Cudley delivers Wingnut, Screwloose, Leatherhead and Trap to help the turtles, leading to a giant brawl against Krang, Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady and their new ally...

...Queen Maligna! Supreme ruler of an insectoid swarm that devours entire planets. Through this story arc, Maligna becomes aware of the existence of Earth which will have dire consequences later.

The villains are defeated by the turtles and their rag-tag band of allies, Cherubae reclaims the Turnstone and uses it to exile Krang, put Shredder in prison and send Bebop and Rocksteady to a paradise planet, before sending the heroes home to their respective planets.

To little me this story was mind-blowing. It's not that special today, especially after reading later TMNT comics, but the way the story had progressed from silly cartoon adaptions to an ongoing cosmic narrative really blew me away. In a way TMNT was already doing what the Sonic

...comic from Archie would be doing a few years later. Perhaps it's just the inevitable outcome of putting comics creators who worked on adult stories first to work on such a property? Either way, I was hooked.

So where do you go from here? Krang and Shredder are defeated, the Turnstone vanished into nothingness...

Well this is really where Murphy's run kicks off, as issue #14 would be VERY indicative of things to come.

"Leave Heaven Alone" sees the turtles return to earth in the Amazon rainforest and get embroiled in a plot about slavery and illegal deforestation, joined by their new ally the jaguar-man... Jagwar. The environmentalist theme will become THE theme that defines this comic.

The following issues introduces the wolf-man Dredmon and the mysterious businessman Mister Null and his cowboy henchman Kid Terra who seem to behind all this damage to the rainforest...

Issue 16 sees the team reunite with Man Ray against Kid Terra and sees the first on-screen death of the series when Ray's little friend Bubbla gets... well. He gets shot to death. With a gun. Oh dear.

We are now well into 1991 and it's clear the comic has far transcended its roots as a quick licensing comic, acquiring some deeper plots and characters from its Mirage progenitor through Murphy's writing. The comic also starts to run pages devoted entirely to environmental causes

There's issues about whaling, sea turtles choking on plastic beer holders, deforestation... when issue #18 brings a story of a mutant rocker gecko trying to save his girlfriend from leftover foot soldier robots it seems almost quaint, but it does finally bring the turtles home.

Plots are slowly coalescing once again. Mister Null is shown to be in league with Queen Maligna, and in issue #19 (with art by Garret Ho), Jagwar, Dredmon and Man Ray all meet with an ominous portent for the future...

Before I continue let me talk briefly about the "new" characters that get introduced in this comic. Some you may remember from the cartoon or the toyline, but where did they originate?

Interestingly, Mirage had an agreement with Playmates where the Mirage staff were allowed to pitch concepts for new action figure characters to expand the meagre roster from the Mirage series, and so artists and writers all pitched in with pages and pages of weird ideas.

This endless creative outpour also resulted in many characters who never got a toy, for example Jagwar! Since these same Mirage staff members worked on the Archie comics, many of these characters found a new home there, and sometimes it was their only role in the franchise!

The plot finally boiled over in the first spin-off of TMNT Adventures, the Mighty Mutanimals mini-series! This series was the brainchild of Murphy, who wanted to bring together many of the new characters in their own team.

With art duties shared between Mitchroney and Ho, Mighty Mutanimals has the various characters introduced in the main series team up to stop Queen Maligna and Null from utterly stripping earth of life by ravaging its environment.

With a little help from Raphael, the new team manage to repel an all-out alien invasion, thus once again raising the stakes for this continuity! As a side note, the Swedish reprints skipped this series entirely, and I had to buy the collected English edition to read it!

The day is only barely saved when a repentant Kid Terra turns on Null and Maligna and the heroes manage to force the swarm to leave earth. Firearms to the rescue once more!

Mister Null of course simply walks off, having been revealed to be of a rather... devilish persuasion. He'll be back.

Back in New York, TMNTA #20 sees the remaining three turtles, Splinter and April escape from Null only to end up embroiled in a kaiju fight between newcomer Warrior Dragon (known as "Hothead" in the action figure line) and a monster-size foot soldier!

Seemingly back to shorter stories, issues #20-22 sees a series of guest artists including Bill Wray and the legendary Gene Colan, and introduces rather lame side villain Vid Vicious and sees a return bout with an escaped Shredder.

Issue #23 is the next watershed issue as it finally introduces an artist who is willing to stick with the title, following Mitchroney's departure. Chris Allan also started at Mirage and brings a clean, sharp style to the comic which will become THE iconic look for it.

#23-25 features one of my all-time favorite arcs as new misguided villain Slash (a dark mirror of the turtles) and alien monster Bellybomb save Krang from his exile, hijack and spaceship, retrieve Bebop and Rocksteady and return to earth... for revenge!

The highlight of this arc is Bellybomb grafting Krang onto the unwilling Shredder's body, something that really freaked me out as a kid. With no allies this time, the turtles have to use all their skill and strength to defeat the villains.

This story has so many cool moments - Bebop and Rocksteady's new attitude, Slash and Bellybomb being scary, the Shredder reluctantly agreeing he now owes the turtles his life... all great stuff. I think this was the story that sold me on continuing with the book.

Another subplot that's been percolating since the turtles returned is that April has been training with master Splinter to be able to defend herself from kidnappers and attackers. As a result she's now taking up a sword and joining Splinter in investigating a kidnapping.

However, before we continue into the "Midnight Sun" arc we need to adress the matter of spin-off comics. By this point TMNT Adventures was a good seller for Archie, and had enough pull to be able to get spinoffs and specials published, like the aforementioned Mutanimals mini.

Early 1991 saw The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet Archie, a one-shot in which the Turtles went to Riverdale to solve a crime and in which the respective casts were drawn by the artists of their main series. A fun, goofy issue I never saw when I was young

1992 saw the launch of an ongoing quarterly 64-page comic which featured a selection of stories which by and large were totally unrelated to the main series.

This series ran for 11 issues into 1994 and featured work by oddball artists like Bob Fingerman and Milton Knight, and stories which frequently veered into the surreal, much like the various Mirage "Tales of the TMNT" series did. It's a weird, mixed bag of a series.

Later issues of Special saw a single longer story in place of a bunch of short ones and some attempts to at least vaguely incorporate elements unique to the Archie series like Cudley, but I'll talk a bit about that later on.

Before we go ANY further on our journey through the second half of the series we need to talk about this comic. TMNT Meet the Conservation Corps, a one-shot published in 1992 sporting Archie's new "recyclable paper" cover icon.

Who are the Conservation Corps? Well created by Paul Castiglia and Dan Nakrosis they are a bunch of animals turned into superheroes to save the environment by a benevolent alien from a pollution-choked world.

They're also extremely lame and the story is as heavy-handed as one of Murphy's about pollution, with the "villain" being a giant mutated duck covered in oil spills.

SOMEHOW these guys got a three-issue miniseries in which the turtles didn't appear.

With no offense to mister Nakrosis, the art in this series is just painful to watch. The Conservation Corps never reappeared after this mini, and for once I'm thankful.

I'm going to take a quick break before we continue with the second half of TMNT Adventures, but while you wait you can feast your eyes on Sky Shark, the female member of the Conservation Corps. Hubba hubba. I'm sure she awakened something in some readers.

Issues #26 and #27 of Adventures were inventory filler stories but in #28 the Midnight Sun arc kicked off with the turtles, April and Splinter pursuing the ninja who abducted the Warrior Dragon to Japan! This introduced the mysterious Chien Khan and someone... else...

Yes, she's finally here. Chien Khan's chief enforcer, the mysterious fox-woman known only as Ninjara! Ninjara is by far the most iconic character from the Archie TMNT run and clearly a favorite of Murphy and Allan. Though she debuts here as a villain, that will change quickly.

"Midnight Sun" is another great arc that had me hooked, with Chien Khan plotting to use the Warrior Dragon to unleash demons from youmi, the underworld by smashing a nuclear power plant in Hiroshima. It's got kaiju battles, ninja, face turns, the works.

There's some heavy stuff about nuclear warfare and a cameo by the Shinto creator gods... this story is a riot. And by the end, Ninjara has realized how evil Khan is and joined the turtles. I wonder how that will go?

After the conclusion of "Midnight Sun" in issue #30, the turtles and their friends start their long journey home which includes several detours involving characters like the wrestler Tattoo, the many-armed tiger-man Katmandu who protects an infant reincarnation of Buddha...

Issue #35 sees the turtles arrive in Saudi Arabia and includes a controversial page where the comic depicts the prophet Muhammed. While very respectful, this caught the creative team some flak. The following issue also saw the return of Shredder.

In #36 the turtles also help the bird-man Al Falqa (another abandoned toy concept) stop Shredder and the new cyborg villain Verminator X from stealing the legendary Black Stone. Calling in the favor from the Krang storyline, Shredder departs, but will return.

Now is the time we discuss the most famous Adventures spinoff and the many twists and turns surrounding it. As promised by the good sales of the Mutanimals mini, the team received their own comic in early 1992, written by Murphy with art by Garret Ho.

Most of this series consists of Jagward's search for his missing mother, Juntarra, who has vanished on the legendary Path of the Four Winds in South America.

I also wouldn't bring this up if the series didn't CONTINUOUSLY remind us but Jagwar's dad is a jaguar spirit. Like an actual jaguar creature, not a humanoid or anything. Juntarra is one kinky girl I'll say that.

While on the four parts of the Path the Mutanimals cross paths with challenges like the hypnotic Snake-Eyes (implied to be the serpent from the garden of Eden)...

...and the ancient dragon Glyph, the only survivor of a planet that once existed between Mars and Jupiter and is now the asteroid belt due to the warfare of the dragons and a rival species.

Each issue features flashbacks to the origins of the Mutanimals as they face their demons, and often some kind of environmentalist message wrapped into the narrative.

Meanwhile Juntarra was actually kidnapped by a mysterious skeleton who turns out to be in league with none other than Mister Null. They hang out inside a giant skull in a desert, it's very heavy metal.

The funniest moment in the series is the end of issue #4 where the team TOTALLY misinterpret Glyph's cautionary tale about war and load up with 90s style guns to go fight an army of robots! I cannot imagine this wasn't a piss take at other comics of 1992.

The team join with the bird-witch Azrael, the steward of the final Path to fight Null to free Juntarra, but are overwhelmed and captured. And that leads us to the first and only crossover between the two titles.

Returning from a side adventure in space, Adventures #38 sees the turtles literally drop in just after the final pages of Mutanimals #5, ready to kick Null's butt.

The team-up is necessary because Null's allies this time are none other that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse themselves, with the skeleton revealed to be Death. Their goal in the "United We Stand Together We Fall" arc is nothing less than global devastation.

Even if you never read this comic you may know this cheerful fellow because War was featured in the fighting game TMNT Tournament Fighters. Completely off the wall, the character never appeared in a comic after this arc.

This story goes absolutely metaphysical, with the turtles and Mutanimals drawn into horrifying scenarios of injustice and death by the Horsemen through most of Mutanimals #6...

...only for the tables to turn in #39 with the heroes figuring out Death is controlling the other Horsemen, with Kid Terra sacrificing himself to distract him. Also Null is a huge misogynist who wanted to keep Ninjara, Azrael and Juntarra as his harem, so yeah.

The Horsemen are defeated, Null escapes by sprouting wings and flying away, and Kid Terra barely recovers. Death rides off to wait for another day, and the two teams part as friends.

There were only three more issues of Mutanimals following the crossover. #7 introduces the enigmatic mutant shark Armaggon (who may also be familiar) while dealing with the aftermath of the battle with Null.

#8 featured the whaler villain Captain Mossback while the final issue featured a return appearance of Slash, and the revelation his obsession with palm trees comes from his planet being logged to devastation. More environmentalist messages are no surprise by now, no?

Issue #9 featured an extremely frank note stating that Mutanimals just didn't sell well enough to continue but that plans (already mentioned a few times) were in the works for a Mighty Mutanimals CARTOON! And when that would debut then the comic would also return. Boy...

I was still solidly hooked on the story when the next arc of Adventures picked up in issue #42 (after a few filler issues) with the Future Shark Trilogy. This would give Armaggon some backstory as well as feature a very important plot point coming back.

Remember that flooded New York City that Cudley accidentally showed the turtles all the way back after their first return to space? This arc brings them back there through their own future selves who return through time to stop the time-altering plans of three villains.

Shredder (from the present) allied with future villains Verminator-X and Armaggon plan to use their time-slip generator to rule all space and time, and the "present-day" turtles and the two free future turtles only barely prevent it. Another classic story!

Before we go into the final stretch of Adventures and its fairly weighty material I'm just going to quickly cover the remaining spin-offs. April had her first mini in 1993 in which she masters her martial arts and thwarts the revenge scheme of Chien Khan. A solid series!

A second April series followed in 1994 and this one is infamously so bad that it was officially retconned out of the Archie continuity by Murphy in a later story. April frees an ancient sorceress who is her ancestor and turns into a giant robot. It's bad, don't read it.

There were also a handful of very short mini-series teaming up a turtle with a supporting character such as "Merdude and Michelangelo" and "Donatello and Leatherhead" which served as ancillary stories to the main run.

1993 also saw the release of the Mutant Universe Sourcebook (inspired by the Marvel Handbooks of course) in which Murphy and excellent artist A.C Farley presented profiles of information about the many many characters that had appeared thus far.

There was an additional "Update" issue in 1994 and the joy of this series is just seeing Farley trying to draw really out-there characters like Milton Knight's Kid Cortex from the weird-ass Special issues. Totally worth checking out!

Back in the main book, #46 sees Raphael accompany Ninjara back to her hidden village of fox-people, and we learn her real name (Umeko). This story also features the villain being cursed to falling forever which is... dark. And this legendary page.

While this is going on, #47 kicks off the next story arc with a giant robot rampaging through New York while screaming a familiar name... Sarnath! Yes folks it's time to FINALLY put that dropped plot thread from issue FOUR to rest!

The "Black Hole Trilogy" runs between #47-49 and reveals Sarnath to be an artifical warrior on the run from an oppressive galactic regime. The story sees the turtles and Ninjara go to space again and engage in some good old-fashioned space opera.

The heroes join an intergalactic armada centered on Stump's Asteroid to fight the evil emperor, and we're introduced to a Guardians of the Galaxy-esque team of rag-tag resistance fighters.

Correction: The story runs through issue #50 because issue #49 is a side story about Donatello and Sarnath finding the long-missing Turnstone inside a black hole. And this page happens which scared the crap out of me when I was young. We're long past the gag comic days!

In the end Sarnath sacrifices himself to end the conflict, using the Turnstone to send Donatello back and destroying the enemy armada before collapsing the hole in on itself.

The Black Hole arc is spectacular, but it pales in infamy to the back-up feature that began in the title at the same time... that's right, the Mutanimals are back in a story called "Megadeath".

So, remember that Mutanimals cartoon and the promise of a new Mutanimals comic? Starting in 1992 Murphy and Ryan Brown (co-creators of the concept) were heavy in negotiations to try and make the Mutanimals cartoon happen. They even had an interested party in Ruby-Spears animation

They put together several increasingly refined pitches, some of which explicitly involved the turtles and some which didn't, but all mined the existing Archie comics for villains and heroes to feature, such as Maligna.

The cartoon was also to feature Ninjara, presumably because Murphy really liked her and the Mutanimals could use a female member to round out the team.

Unfortunately due to a variety of complex legal and trademark issues there was just no way for the cartoon to happen. Too many parties involved, Playmates already having made several of the characters as toys, Fred Wolf having the cartoon rights to the turtles...

By 1994 it was clear that the Mutanimals cartoon was never happening, and instead Brown and Murphy decided to return them to the comics where they began, while putting them up against a thinly veiled set of parody villains created for the aborted cartoon...

With the help of the time-traveling future turtles the Mutanimals set up their base and then... in issue #54... they died.

No joke. The Mutanimals all get SHOT TO DEATH and we see their SMOKING CORPSES while the future turtles are shocked because this never happened in their timeline. Rather than keep the characters around, Murphy and Brown decided it was better to just... kill them off.

To say that this was an unpopular decision is mild. The letter pages were filled with upset readers who had followed the mutanimals and waited for their return. Many thought this was a fakeout that would be reversed due to time antics, but nope. The Mutanimals died.

I'm all for upping the stakes, but this storyline just felt unpleasant to read, especially when I realized it wasn't going to be undone.

Backtracking a bit, the main story from issues #51-52 saw the return of long absent characters like the Chameleon and Wyrm and Scumbug (both of whom ALSO die in this story, man the comic was just getting real dark).

#53-54 sees the turtles travel to Israel to take on racial tension and sees them team up with returning Katmandu and Al Falqa against the supernatural Animus as well as the Israeli superheroine... Golani. Yeah that name uh. That name is a bit...

#55-57 sees the team take on the architect of the murder of the Mutanimals... Null and Maligna. This story arc is at least some closure to the death of the team as the turtles soundly destroy their cyborg killers.

"Terracide" concludes in issue 57 with the team slaughtering their way through Malignas troops. Uh yeah, remember how this comic started?

The arc ends when Slash drives Maligna's hive world into the sun, killing himself, her and her entire species to save the Earth and avenge his friends. Uh. Yeah. At this point young me was starting to feel awkward. I didn't like that all these colorful characters were dying off.

Terracide is followed by a couple of fairly forgettable issues about the childhood of the turtles and then how the turtles escape confinment in Area 52 after the Maligna affair. The series then has its absolute weirdest issue even with issue #61: "Once again, always"

The turtles mourn the Mutanmimals, say goodbye to their future selves and hear about a native american legend in what is essentially an acid trip of an issue. This could have been a Mirage issue, especially the ending which I won't spoiler here.

With 1994 ending and turtlemania already waning under the onslaught of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, issue 62 kicks off an unprecedented five-part storyline called "Dreamland" which deals exclusively with the post-apocalyptic future of the turtles, seen several times before.

This arc introduces the very toyetic new Cyber Samurai armor for the future turtles and features Verminator X once again using time travel to try and rule the world with an army of cybernetic corpses. Yeah, things are just dark full-time now.

Apparently this arc was a feeler to see if the readers wanted a full-blown ongoing about the future turtles, but the title was already waning. The turtles fight a brain-snatching alien and his army of evil brains...

...and future Raph gets to punch Hitler, who is trying to save his own brain from the future. Yeah you've seen this page before.

"Dreamland" concludes in #66 with the villains thwarted, Hitler's brain squashed and Verminator X having the damage that turned him into a villain repaired, restoring him to the benevolent Manx. Another character has their arc concluded.

The final big storyline of the comic begins in #67 and "The Mooneyes Saga" would turn until issue #70. In this story the turtles and ninjara investigate strange wolf-like creatures that seemingly menace a town .

Our heroes discover the wolf-people are only aggressive because local hunters shot and killed one of their kind, and in fact live in a secluded civilized community much like Ninjara's village. And then Ninjara gets shot. With a GUN.

FORTUNATELY Murphy's love for Ninjara is stronger than his love of murdering supporting cast, so she survives and is nursed back to health by Mokoshan, the clan leader of the wolf-people whose mate was killed by the hunters.

When the turtles reach the village, Ninjara has already fallen in love with Mokoshan and Raph takes it... badly. I want to point out that Mokoshan's alleged life-mate and love has been dead for a few days and he's already putting the moves on this fox-woman he's known for a day.

And so issue 70 ends with Raph and Ninjara parting, both in tears. Funny how Raph is usually the turtle to get romantic pairings and they usually also end in disaster. And this was it for Ninjara in this comic!

At this point, Murphy and Allan knew that TMNT Adventures was going to be canceled. This knowledge allowed them to clear the deck, finish off outstanding suplots and aim to resolve everything in a big story arc called "The Forever War" which was advertised at the end of #70.

When #71 actually arrived, however, there was no sign of the announced five-part epic. Instead the last two issues of the comic were devoted to a fill-in story by Steve Sullivan and Brian Thomas with yet another flashback to the early years of the turtles.

Issue 72, published in late 1995, was the final issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures. The final issue carried an ad for an upcoming limited series, done by an all-new creative team, but no word what had happened to Murphy and Allan's final story.

"Year of the Turtle" is a pretty fun series in its own right, mind you, written by future superstart Dan Slott with art by Hugh Haynes. It features possibly some of the coolest Shredder moments ever in the Archie series.

We only learned later that "The Forever War" was close to being finished when Archie decided to pull the plug on it. Murphy and Allan have tried several times to get the story published, the latest being in 2019, but to my knowledge only the first issue of it exists so far.

The issue sees the "present" turtles and the future turtles team up against Shredder, who this time has reshaped history to make himself lord of the world. Cool stuff, I hope to see the rest someday.

With 72 issues, 11 specials and many many spinoffs and side series, Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures had a good run for a licensed comic. It featured an interesting progression from a simple tie-in comic to a long-running unique narrative.

Murphy's writing was defining for the comic, and while it could lapse into pure cheese when it came to the environmentalist messages, it had a sense of dramatic gravitas and relatable characters which elevated it above many similar comics of the time.

The amazing art by Allan and others also kept me reading and made this the first comic I actually followed from beginning to end. It still holds a soft spot in my heat to this day. But what of the legacy of the title? Surely it has been overshadowed by the cartoons?

Interestingly, individual creators retain the rights to some of the characters in the book, and so Murphy and Allan took Ninjara from the world of the TMNT to her own solo story in the pages of Antarctic Press "Furrlough". Yes this was a an all-furry comic.

In this story, Mokoshan has been murdered and Ninjara is forced to resume mercenary work to provide for her daughter all the while seeking revenge. It's labeled as a mature story meaning there's some f-bombs and some nudity involved, but nothing that made me raise an eyebrow

Despite Allan killing it on the art and consistently ranking among the most popular Furrlough strips, "Ninjara" only lasted for three issues, #47-48 in 1996 and #52 in 1997 where she was the cover feature. Why this ended I have no idea, because Furrlough lasted into the early 00s

But then there was silence until Nickelodeon acquired the rights to the entire TMNT franchise in 2009. The new owners made a point of making sure to settle outstanding accounts with the franchise to make sure they owned all of it, and that involved the Adventures characters.

As a result, the IDW comic saw the return of many of the Adventures characters in new forms, such as a new female Jagwar...

...a new Dredmon and Man Ray as well as a whole Mutanimals team...

Hell there's even an IDW version of Maligna, who sadly hasn't done much yet!

Meanwhile the new 2012 Nick series of TMNT also saw unexpected cameos from all across the franchise, including a new version of Bellybomb from my favorite Archie story!

They even had an Armaggon appearance!

Not to mention that the Nick version of Alopex really is more like Ninjara than anything.

We even got an ALL-NEW Murphy and Allan adventure in the TMNT 30th Anniversary Special!

And there you have it, folks. Thank you for following me on this journey back through my childhood. Let me know if you read this title or if you now feel intrigued enough to do so. Got a favorite TMNT memory? Let me know!

And until next time... take care and thanks for reading.

Cowabunga dudes. Thanks for the memories.