Eastman & Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Mirage Studios Volume 1, Issue 6
Story & Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Read it at NinjaTurtles.com

Will Nobody Keep it Real?

In this issue, our heroes, in their effort to rescue the captured Fugitoid Dr. Honeycutt, sneak aboard the Triceraton Republic’s disguised space shuttle, only to be found out and forced to participate in their captors’ intergalactic gladiatorial deathmatch events in their deep-space amphitheatre, where they manage to defeat their hulking alien opponents, grab Dr. Honeycutt, and make a break for it, dodging laser blasts on their way to the shuttle bay, in hopes of stealing a craft to make their escape. Unfortunately, they get pinned down and things start looking bad, when a sudden, familiar glow envelopes them and they, along with the Fugitoid and several Triceraton soldiers, disappear.

Why is that I’m perfectly, one hundred percent willing to accept that four housepet turtles can mutate themselves some human brains and human physiques, can live in the New York sewers for fifteen years without being found out, can learn ninjitsu from a rat – why it that I don’t have the slightest problem with any of this, and yet all this intergalactic business really bothers me?

This is by no means the first time aliens in fiction have spoken fluent English; this isn’t the first time we’ve seen species’ that would’ve followed an evolutionary path unimaginably different from our own looking and behaving more or less exactly as we do. So why can’t I just sit back and enjoy the ride?

I’ve always wanted the Turtles to be treated like science fiction, and yet they’ve always been handled as fantasy with a scifi sheen. It makes sense; the initial leap required of the audience might be a bit much to ask in a it-could-maybe-possibly-actually-happen! serious science fiction scenario. Because it couldn’t happen. Absolutely, as much as I hope and dream that it could, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could not happen.

At least not by accident. But genetic science is going to enough interesting places these days, that if some biologist someday wanted to make it happen…

As stupid, stupid as it might seem, I want this world to be grounded. I want to know the reality of their lives: I want to know where they get their fifteen bucks to buy a pizza, how they leech electricity from the city without ever getting found out, where Donatello learned how to rig a van with technology that would baffle the pentagon.

And I want them to dig deeper into the science of their mutation. Just how human are they? Are they warm-blooded or cold-blooded? Do their autonomic nervous systems operate the same way ours do? How do they pronounce ‘M’ and ‘W’ sounds without lips? Or do they have lips?

I’m still fairly early into this comics run, so maybe some of these questions will yet be answered, but I’m betting not. And I’m not holding out hope that things’ll get more plausible any time too soon; clearly E&L approached this series as illustrators first, storytellers second. I get that drawing aliens and dinosaurs is more fun than drawing Leonardo’s inner turmoil about the individuality he’s sacrificed in order to be a good leader, solider, and student.

But I will say this: we’re on issue six here, and already the Fuglucks have been launched to distant worlds to be amazed by creatures and technologies they never could’ve imagined. That’s the kind of shit you don’t pull until you’re a ways in and you’ve run out of ideas for how to dazzle the reader. Of course, maybe E&L had run out of ideas.

But big points in their favour for one thing here: when the Triceraton ship first takes off, and the stowaway Turtles realize the oxygen is running out, they put themselves into a motionless, meditative trance where their breathing slows down to a near-halt. This is awesome because it’s both a ninja thing and a turtle thing!