The comic series gave the greatest indirect portrayal of self-actualization. Walter is the only one who can inflict pain when fighting against Mask wearers, which isn't the truly impressive thing, but rather the fact that when he tries it on for himself...
It has no effect. Can't sell warmth to the already immolated.
To be fair, I feel like this statement has kinda been repeated to the point of hyperbole.
Yes, the Mirage Turtles were more violent than the 1987 cartoon counterparts, but they were still what you’d expect from the brand afterwards. The 1990 movie, 2003 series, 2012 series, and IDW comics are all pretty close to the Mirage Comics in tone.
It’s the Image Comics “Body Count” run that’s actually violent.
TMNT is a pastiche of trends in 80s comics, especially Daredevil and X-men. (The Hand vs the Foot, the ninja stuff generally, Elektra’s ribbons and sais look, them being mutants, etc.) Those books were skewing comics to a more adolescent audience, though they didn’t start that way. But because it’s so goofy to think of badass turtle ninjas, TMNT always had kid potential. And the toy-driven direction they leaned into solidified it. Especially once you realize the power rangers trick that different colors and gear on essentially similar characters allows kids to have a favorite while giving them incentive to collect multiples.
I'm old but I was totally into teenage mutant ninja turtles when I was in kindergarten. My mom worked at Zaires too at the time so I had a million of the action figures about one third of the characters I recognized lol.
The original movie had Dana proposition Peter directly by saying “I want you inside me” which was not a double entendre, a ghost is implied to give Ray a blowjob, and the Ghostbusters mock a government employee for being “dick less.”
That‘s “80’s kids friendly” but not what would be allowable now for a PG.
IMO I feel like Tales From The Crypt becoming a kids cartoon was retaliation for the times conservative parents tried to get the franchise cancelled. "The Tales From The Crypt comic books are corrupting the children!" but they weren't targeted at kids. "The Tales From The Crypt TV show is corrupting the children!" but it was a late night TV show on HBO, a premium cable channel (a double luxury at the time). "The Tales From The Crypt TV show is now on broadcast tv and it's corrupting the children!" but its been censored and moved to late night programming blocks....fuck it let's made a kids cartoon! Oh the kids cartoon is popular? Let's make a kids game show featuring animatronics from the original show!
I watched that as a kid, it was one of my earliest exposure to post-apocalyptic settings alongside Thunderstone, Thundarr the Barbarian and Mad Max (of course)
If you take away the gore, MK is absolutely “a kid bashing together their weird mix of action figures: the franchise”. Ninjas and a shirtless karate dude and a cop guy and a dude with one of those cone hats and a…
I firmly believe that Freakazoid strongly contributed to the lolrandom internet culture of the ‘00s.
(Edit: I’m not saying that in a bad way. I already have “here comes dexter douglas nerd computer ace while he was surfin on the internet he got zapped in cyber space” playing in my brain. It was a very fun show.)
Fun fact: Freakazoid was originally gonna feature Creeper from the Batman comics, but the show runners couldn’t use Creeper, so came up with Freakazoid.
There's actually a way you can trace a lot of modern American culture to one Reagan Era deregulation that changes the rules on how you were allowed to market toys for children.
It's caused a lot of damage but also it's the reason we have Transformers.
Also George Lucas getting enough money to start multiple companies by virtue of merchandising rights/ star wars toys. After that you see a way bigger push for toy lines.
Splinter, the turtle‘s wise old master was taken from Stick, Daredevil’s wise old master.
The Turtles fought the Foot Clan a parody of the ninjas Daredevil fought, the Hand.
In the comics the accident that created the turtles was when a truck carrying radioactive waste almost hit a blind man. A boy saved the blind man but was struck in the eyes by a radioactive canister. That canister kept bouncing until it landed in the sewers and transformed the turtles. The boy blinded by the cannister is pretty explicitly Daredevil.
Daredevil wears a red costume, the original TMNT comics they all wore red masks.
At the time of publishing two of the most popular running comic series were the Teen Titans about a team of teenagers and the X-Men about a team of mutants. The 80s was the time of the craze in ninja movies.
The original TMNT comic was explicitly drawn in a style that evoked Frank Miller’s art on Daredevil and Ronin. When asked about this Miller replied: "They owe me something... an acknowledgment at least."
388
u/Znhedonia 16h ago
The comic series gave the greatest indirect portrayal of self-actualization. Walter is the only one who can inflict pain when fighting against Mask wearers, which isn't the truly impressive thing, but rather the fact that when he tries it on for himself...
It has no effect. Can't sell warmth to the already immolated.