Destroy All Comics - New Golden Gate Riot & A Ninja Turtles Book Report

Today we have a new page of Golden Gate Riot by the usual team of Jeik and me with Star on letters. I have a special fondness for this one because it is the first place we really see Bobbi's flagrant disregard for human lives, or the lives of those she is opposed to politically at least. Look at me trying to be all eloquent and stuff. Bobbi wants to kill.

Last week I talked about my earliest comic experiences, which were largely in the newspaper. This week I want to talk about another very strong formative experience, the First Comics, Inc. colored graphic novel edition of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Book I a.k.a. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Graphic Novel
Writing: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
Art: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Jim Lawson, Ryan Brown
Letters: Steve Lavinge
Colors: Kevin Eastman, Ken Feduniewicz, Janice Cohen
Publisher:  First Publishing
Year: 1986
Format: Graphic Novel, Full Color
Source: Foothill College Bookstore, Los Altos Hills, CA
Location: On the shelves of a college bookstore
Price Paid: $9.95

This is the first three issues of the original Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic collected in graphic novel form, colored for the first time, with a bonus of two additional never before seen stories.

Today it almost feels like sacrilege reading one of the leading lights of the '80s black and white indie comic explosion in color, but to be honest, the coloring is done so well in this graphic novel version that I actually prefer it this way. The only real complaint I have about the coloring is how weird it is that they go from olive green in the first issue to forest green in the second issue, which starts on the very next page! Still, I love the colors. Besides, this is how I originally read it. The two new stories are pretty throw away (a brief story where Michaelangelo comes home with a fist full of indie comics including Cerebus and Nexus and then falls asleep on an armchair that transforms into a robot antagonist and another where the turtles hunt down some drug dealers who murdered an undercover cop in front of them), but issues 1-3 of the original Ninja Turtles comic are great fun.

Issue 1 is where Ninja Turtles got their reputation as a parody of grim 'n gritty '80s comics, but I'm not sure parody is the right word. The fact that they are giant mutated turtles is of course ludicrous, but the level of satire is pretty slim. It's more like a pastiche of their favorite elements from a then-new style. It's got some Frank Miller Daredevil and some Chris Claremont Wolverine/X-Men. Splinter is a clear analogue of Stick, the wise master, the Foot Clan is the Hand, hot-headed Raphael is Wolverine, mutants living in the sewers in X-Men are the Morlocks, mutants living in the sewers in TMNT are turtles and a rat, teen mutants in X-Men are the New Mutants, teen mutants in TMNT are turtles, the radioactive canister blinds and gives Daredevil his powers and the radioactive canister grows Splinter and the turtles into intelligent humanoid animals and so on. There also seems to be a lot of Kirby-inspired squiggly technology. You could make a decent argument that these comics were pretty derivative, but they get by inventive visuals, delicious inking, and sheer weirdness? While, "Kill the evil ninja" and "stop the robots of the evil mad scientist" don't sound like very original plot ideas and sometimes the human figures are a bit stiff, I'll give it one thing, it sure seems to be having a lot more fun than Daredevil or Wolverine.

The first issue seems designed as a one shot. It contains both the origin story and what appears to be the final battle. Splinter was a rat who learned ninjitsu from his master Hamato Yoshi, whose rival Oroku Nagi beat up Yoshi's girlfriend after she rejected him. Yoshi killed Nagi in retaliation and fled in shame to America. Nagi's younger brother swore vengeance and grew up to be the Shredder, who killed Yoshi and his wife. Splinter and Turtles got mutated and 15 years later, Splinter has raised them to be fighting teens. Time for revenge.

It's a good setup and the story is well-paced. We open with the turtles pummeling the crap out of a street gang. This is a good move, because most great action stories being in media res with a sweet fight scene (see almost any James Bond movie) and it also establishes the characters rapidly and what they are. ("He's wrong, we're not wearing costumes...") It does that talky narrator thing ala Chris Claremont, which is fine by me. It's good for atmosphere, in a noir kind of way, though we don't really get a voice for the individual turtles yet (there's serious guy Leonardo and then everyone else) and the turtles all look identical (even down to their brown knee/elbow pads and red facemasks), so really the only way to tell them apart is their weapons. This area needed work; individual character designs would go a long way.

We get the origin story (apparently Splinter telling the turtles where they came from for the very first time), which is totally ridiculous, but the story takes itself seriously and that's how it should be. The origin is executed well here,  because it also provides the needed motivation for the last act of the comic: hunting down the Shredder.

The fight scene on the roof where they battle a zillion Foot ninjas really shows the contrast between this comic and your pizza eatin' pals from Saturday morning. The turtles are tough, their lives are really on the line, and they get some serious wounds. They best the Foot ninja but they are just covered in bloody wounds. Then it's time for the main event: a really cool looking fight with Shredder. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say it seemed very final. If the Ninja Turtles ended here, I would have been satisfied with this ending.

Shredder as presented here is a very credible threat. Not only did he murder Yoshi and his wife, he also created the American branch of the Foot Clan from nothing and in 15 years had turned it into a giant organized crime ring. I really enjoy seeing the Foot Clan portrayed as criminals. Ninjas are supposed to be criminals and outlaws. I always thought the turtles talking about honor was weird. Shouldn't that be samurai and not ninja behavior?

But the story doesn't end when they defeat Shredder (obviously). The next issue introduces April O'Neil (who is actually a computer programmer and not a reporter), assistant to mad scientist Baxter Stockman. No, he's not a fly, and no, he doesn't look like Einstein. He's actually a black man. He's also completely crazy. Like in the TV show most people are more familiar with, he created two legged robot rat catchers called Mousers. The difference is, in the TV show, Stockman was a put upon nerd who innocently was trying to clean up the rodent problem and Shredder took advantage of him. Here, Shredder is out of the picture and Stockman is a frothing lunatic. When April points out that he could make millions with his Mousers legitimately, Stockman replies that it's just more fun to have his robots burrow into bank vaults and hold skyscrapers for ransom.

Dumped into the sewers, April meets the turtles while fleeing the Mousers. One recap of their origin story thankfully skipped over later, April and the turtles are fast friends and they agree to attack Stockman's underground lair. Things are going great until, oh yeah, Stockman has a ZILLION Mousers and they are all coming back to destroy his underground lair and everyone in it.

This is good opportunity for some fun action scenes with turtles fighting the weird egg shaped robots that are kind of like small, toothy, two-legged dogs. The Mousers are a good visual and an unusual robot design. They are much better than some of the other robot designs from Eastman and Laird (Fugitoid, for example, is nowhere near as cool). The turtles are getting overwhelmed, but even their creative solution of using plastic explosives to blow the tunnel fails to stop the robots. I like the extra touches in of realism in this totally goofy comic; they the complain that their ears hurt after the blast. Normally in comics and movies standing right next to an explosion just makes your clothes kind of sooty. There's good tension here and even if the end is slightly anticlimactic, it's a believable computer moment.

This also introduces us to the weird catchphrase, "Robots make my skin crawl!" I guess that's better than cowabunga? Maybe?

We get a bit more characterization here (Donatello is "smart guy", Raphael is "angry guy") but nothing mind-blowing. I do really like what they've done with April here. She's sensible and spunky and she's also a computer programmer. Her job is far less glamorous than TV April's and she neatly avoids the Lois Lane stereotype in the process. I like her already. Pairing her with Donatello makes good sense and it's something we really saw in the '80s cartoon. Sadly, Splinter remains the generic wizened martial arts master. I hope he develops into an actual character soon.

The opening splash page of Raphael trying to murder Michaelangelo is very memorable. The comic is still very fun and the enjoyable action scenes carry it along nicely, though it's nowhere near as Frank Miller as it was in the last issue. I think that's a good thing.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3 is mostly one big car chase. It picks up immediately after issue #2 with April and the turtles escaping from the ruins of Stockman's base, which happens to also be well, in the sewer. They get April's number and go home to find their sewer pad has been ransacked by Mousers and is soaked in blood. And Splinter's missing.

They escape the cops investigating the Mouser mess and meet up with April and then end up mistaken for bank robbers because April's VW is the same make, model, and color.  This leads to a high speed chase which tears through a park and ends up with lots of property damage. There's a really impressive splash page of an out of control cop car crashing through a paint store. Nicely done. This does point out that while the art is very detailed, they are much better at drawing machines and mutants than they are at drawing people. April and the other people still seem stiff and kind of square and sometimes they have pretty ugly faces. In this story, their personalities develop further, with Raphael playing the half-cocked hothead and Leonardo ordering people around.

The one turtle who hasn't really come into his own yet is Michaelangelo, so it works out well that one of the two new short stories is starring him and him alone. I like that he's the one who has his head in the clouds and is into collecting comics. It isn't exactly "Michaelangelo is a party dude" or Michaelangelo the hedonistic sensualist as depicted in the Palladium RPG (what?), but Michaelangelo the pop culture junkie really rings true to me. I love that fighting a robot armchair is a crazy dream for this man-sized mutant turtle who a couple of issues ago fought the Mouser robots.

The cops and drug dealers short story doesn't do much for me, but I think that's because it veers entirely too close to superhero comics for me. I do appreciate that they screw things up in the first place and incriminate themselves in someone else's crime. Sure, they will kill people for a personal vendetta, but they are hardly wise in the ways of the world. While the action is decent (I especially like the panels of a turtle kicking over a brick chimney), I think the art is less detailed and less refined than the rest of the book, so it is a little disappointing to go out on this note. I almost wish the two shorts were between issues two and three, but still, I'm glad these short stories are here, especially the charming New Comic Day.

Now I've given a pretty general critique of the book, but I want to talk about what it meant to me. Before this book I didn't know indie comics existed. I never heard of any comics that weren't newspaper strips, Marvel, or DC. I didn't know you could make your own comics and publish them with your friends. The introduction by Stanely Wiater was a huge eye-opener and after I read and reread this book a hundred times I spent hour after hour making my own comics with my sisters. We even went to the local copy store and make photocopies that we "sold" to friends and relatives. I probably wouldn't be still making comics today if it weren't for this book and the influence of the sometimes serious, sometimes goofy Eastman and Laird comics.

Thank you both.