If you’ve already read the shorts in “Shell Shock,” “Turtle Soup” and Michael Dooney’s “Challenges” but you’d also like to track down the uncollected or under-collected shorts from Mirage “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Volume 1 — and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t? – here’s a list to help you out (in order of publication date):
“Road Hogs” (“After the Bomb Book 2: Road Hogs,” 1986, written by Erick Wujcik and Kevin Siembieda)
Dark Horse’s “Star Wars” comics devised an “Infinities” label for stories that need not take place anywhere on the established timeline, and if “TMNT” used the same designation, this story — written for the Palladium Books roleplaying game — would be an “Infinities” story.
In a post-nuclear-bomb future, an aging Raph trains young mutant turtle soldiers. I haven’t bothered to purchase this book, but if you’re a completest, it can be found on eBay fairly cheap. The three other RPG shorts were collected in “Shell Shock.”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” uncollected short stories (1986-2005)
Here’s a rundown of the Mirage Vol. 1 stories that were published once and not collected elsewhere.
“The Lesson: A Tale of the Triceraton Marines” (“Grunts,” 1987, by Peter Laird)
A veteran Triceraton warrior, Sergeant Zule, teaches his young charges to “never underestimate an enemy” via the tale of how he lost one of his horns in a lucky killing blow against an opponent. This is the only “TMNT” story in “Grunts,” a Mirage one-shot packed with stories featuring warring anthropomorphs, and it’s a nice insight into the violent but intelligent Triceraton culture, with outstanding Laird art.
“The Crossing” (“Usagi Yojimbo” Vol. 1, No. 10, 1988, by Laird)
Through the random interdimensional travel that seems to be a “Usagi Yojimbo” device, Leonardo briefly scuffled with the titular samurai rabbit in Stan Sakai shorts for “Turtle Soup” and “Shell Shock.” This is Laird’s contribution, and – like so many of the shorts on this list – it’s reflective.
An older Usagi tells two young warriors about his second meeting with Leo (the first being in “Turtle Soup”) – but the first one where they actually interact for a significant time. They scuffle in a shallow river, Leo gains the upper hand, and Usagi finds the Turtle to be honorable for not killing him.
It’s a nice little fable, and Laird’s art makes it my favorite of the three “Usagi”/”TMNT” short crossovers (although Sakai’s art is good, too). Usagi tells his charges that he’d go on to have many more adventures with Leo, but the only one that has been chronicled is “Shades of Green” in Mirage’s “Usagi Yojimbo” Vol. 2 Nos. 1-3. (“The Crossing” actually was collected, but it’s in a “Usagi Yojimbo” volume, not a “TMNT” one.)
“Choices” (“The Puma Blues” No. 20, 1988, by Laird)
There’s not much to this four-pager: Future Raph stops a hunter from shooting a flying manta ray via shurikens to the hunter’s rifle and raft. Most intriguingly, Future Raph seems to live in the woods and has an eye patch. In Image Comics’ Volume 3, Raph wears an eye patch.
Either by coincidence or agreement, almost all of the future-based “TMNT” stories are vague but intriguing, with a downbeat spin. Other examples are “A Christmas Carol,” “Old Times” and “TMNT” Volume 2, Issue 1, and several issues of “Tales of the TMNT” Volume 2.
Untitled Nobody story (“The Collected Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” 1989, by Jim Lawson)
An old man is the target of a mugging, but he shoots one of the muggers Bernhard Goetz-style. Nobody – the Turtles’ cop/superhero pal from Springfield — enlists the Turtles to disguise themselves as the man’s family for when the muggers seek revenge.
The Turtles subdue them all and Nobody arrests them. Nobody tells the Turtles the old man “will probably get off with probation,” but in the last panel we see that he’s planning to take his self-defense to the next level as he purchases a .44 Magnum at a gun store.
I think it’s a pro-self defense yarn, but it could also be interpreted as a commentary on the escalation of gun violence. (“TMNT” has always had an ambiguous stance on guns; the characters prefer ninja weapons – or sports equipment, in the case of Casey – but occasionally, the creators – particularly Kevin Eastman — like to go nuts with a wild shoot-’em-up. See the short “Fun with Guns” and Image Comics’ four-issue “Bodycount” series.)
“Casey Jones, Private Eye” (Mirage Mini Comics Collection, 1989, by Eastman and Laird)
This is a prologue to Issue 14, “The Unmentionables,” where Casey comically takes on a case as a private eye. Here, he simply dreams of such a thing. I think these two stories mark the only times Casey acts as a private eye. I guess it was a phase. There were two other “TMNT” shorts in the Mini Comics Collection, but they are a Mark Martin joke piece and an Archie “TMNT Adventures” piece, so they’re skippable.
“A Christmas Carol” (“Michaelangelo” one-issue micro series second printing, 1990, by Lawson)
As the gang prepares for Christmas Eve festivities, Raph gets moody and storms out, then has the Dickensian experience of seeing past, present and future Christmases. The story is itself set in the future (relative to the publication date), perhaps during Volume 2 in the apartment April and Casey acquire at the end of “City at War.” In the Ghost of Christmas Future tale, we see Eye-Patch Raph from “Choices” again, looking even more feral this time.
“Old Times” (Plastron Café No. 1, 1992, by Laird)
In a flash-forward to early 21st century Japan, Donatello fights in a “Star Trek” Holodeck-style environment that he programmed with fights from his past. Don – wearing a wrestling-esque bandanna (a takeoff on Eastman’s otherwise abandoned sketches for alternate costumes that can be seen in his “Artobiography” book, on page 21) — battles the Shredder in a redux of Volume 1, Issue 1, then when he sees his brothers and his younger self, a tear rolls down his cheek. “Don’t ever do that again … ever,” he tells the simulator.
Presumably, “Old Times” is one of those “one possible future” stories (as with “Road Hogs”), as Laird’s Volume 4 actually is set in the early 21st century, and all the Turtles are alive and well. “Old Times” is the only “TMNT” short in the four issues of “Plastron Café” other than the installments of Rick Veitch’s “Casey Jones: North by Downeast,” which was later collected, expanded and colored as a two-issue series.
“Digital Webbing Presents: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (“Digital Webbing Presents” No. 24, 2005, by Dan Berger)
This is a cool action-oriented color eight-pager about the Turtles fighting off Foot stragglers in the wake of the Shredder’s (second) death. The “TMNT” cover is pricey, but if you just want to read the story, a non-“TMNT” cover can be found for about $8.
Hopefully these nine tales from Mirage’s Volume 1 publishing era (or at least from the Volume 1 continuity, in the case of the ’05 story) will be collected in one handy volume someday by IDW, which has reprinted most of Mirage Volume 1’s material and the first four issues of “Tales of the TMNT” Volume 2.