Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics #1
Story and Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Colors by Tom Smith’s Scorpion Studios
IDW Publishing
Release Date: May 09, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

All of my 80’s childhood cartoon loyalties revolved around Jem and Rainbow Brite who respectively saved the day with holographic earrings and a fancy Color Belt. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were dudes who hung out in sewers and fought gun-toting gang members with weapons like katanas. Thus, they were off my radar until my TMNT fanboy roommate tried to get me to watch the old cartoons with him. To perhaps stall the inevitable, I agreed to review this comic. Rarely do I say this, but “he was right.” Anthropomorphized and highly motivated turtles are pretty cool, and this issue is a great place to check out where the phenomenon began. A nostalgic gem, it certainly could not have been released at a better time. Fans are currently up in arms or at least reasonably concerned about Michael Bay’s upcoming film version, which promises to turn the classic characters into Adult Alien UnMutant Turtles.

Each and every week “Batman Incorporated Is The Only Thing That Matters” MK2Fac3 and “Dirty Hench” Henchman21 read a lot of comics. Seriously you guys, a lot of comics. Maybe too many comics. I mean, it is possible”¦ theoretically. They look forward to some more than others, I mean, who doesn’t? So, let’s take a look into the depths of their pull lists, grab some comics, and we’ll let YOU know what the top books to look forward to are for the week of May 23, 2012. Single issues and trades, they’re all here.

Guys, seriously, I love Florence + The Machine, I’m listening to their MTV Unplugged album right now, and it’s just so good. Right now is a really good time for a fan of female vocalists. Anyway, I know that has nothing to do with what we’re supposed to be talking about right now, and that’s fine, but you should know that Daniel Bryan was robbed on Sunday and he should have taken home the championship! What are we talking about again? Oh right, comics. Sure, there are comics coming out this week, but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything that I’d rather read more than Batman Incorporated, so that’s what I’ll be talking about at length, while Chris talks about some new comics, some new old comics, and some that are in between! So, strap in to your seat belts because I’m about to take you on a nice long ride where I talk a whole lot about Batman. No backseat drivers! Only The GoD List!

Looks like the title characters in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot will be getting their turtle power from a source other than green mutagen found in a New York City sewer.

At the recent 2012 Nickelodeon Upfront conference Michael Bay, who is producing the new film for Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon through his Platinum Dunes production company, offered up his thoughts on what children who didn’t grow up devouring everything related to the weapon-wielding amphibious ass-kickers created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984 can expect from the gestating reboot.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7
Story by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz
Script by Tom Waltz
Art by Dan Duncan
Colors by Ronda Pattison
Letters by Shawn Lee
Covers by Dan Duncan, Kevin Eastman & Mark Torres
IDW Publishing
Release Date: February 22nd, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

My greatest fear for this book finally hit this issue, but on the whole, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 was surprisingly the best issue of the series so far! By a long shot!!

While I’m a huge fan of the Turtles, I’m not a fan of their science fiction stories. I’m a fan of them, on Earth, in the sewers, fighting ninjas. Every time they’ve lapsed over into “Turtles in Space” I have immediately lost interest completely. So, you can understand my disappointment when this issue opens in space, with a sci-fi battle. But, writer Tom Waltz quickly turned my worst fears into one of the COOLEST plot points (that I will NOT spoil here) so far in this book.

It’s been almost two years since we reported that Michael Bay would be partnering with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon to produce a new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie through his Platinum Dunes production company and that Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway would be writing the screenplay with an eye towards turning the movie into a franchise.

Now comes the news that Jonathan Liebesman, the director of last year’s Battle: Los Angeles and the upcoming Wrath of the Titans, is in talks to direct the reboot.