“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures” Issues 23-31 (1991-92) include more fast-and-furious action-figure creation from writer Dean Clarrain, and his usual heavy dose of environmentalism, but also the most sustained narrative we’ve seen in a while.
“Midnight Sun” (28-30; backup story in 24-27) peppers young readers with Eastern spiritualism. It’s a big story: Donatello gets in touch with Yin and Yang to help him, and the evil Chien Khan summons a demon to capture everyone’s souls and leave Earth a vast nothingness. It also slows down for fun moments, like when April says the Turtles are actors in costume, allowing them to get past a star-struck security guard at the Hiroshima airport.
Foxy fan favorite
In the familiar fashion of Spike in “Buffy” Season 2 when he teams with the good guys because total destruction of the world is not in his best interest, Ninjara almost immediately turns on Khan and switches to the Turtles’ side.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures” Issues 23-31 (1991-92)
Archie
Issues: “Search and Destroy” (23), “Gimme Danger!” (24), “Raw Power” (25), “The Keeper” (26), “In the Dark” (27), “Midnight Sun, Part 1” (28), “Midnight Sun, Part 2” (29), “Midnight Sun, Part 3” (30), “Turning Japanese” (31). (Backup story leading to “Midnight Sun” runs in Issues 24-27.)
Writers: Dean Clarrain (Stephen Murphy) (23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31), Doug Brammer (26, 27)
Pencils: Chris Allan (23, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31), Garrett Ho (24), Jim Lawson (24), Ken Mitchroney (26, 27)
Inks: Brian Thomas (23, 24, 25, 28, 31), Rod Ollerenshaw (24, 25, 30, 31), Dan Berger (26, 27), Jon D’Agostino (29)
Colors: Barry Grossman (all)
I said this is a period of action-figure creation, but not as much as it should be. Ninjara must be the most beloved “TMNT” character to not yet be an action figure. From “an ancient race of fox-people,” her romance with Raph is not exactly organic (“She’s a babe,” Raph says on his first panel of seeing her). But she’s the first Turtle love interest in Archie, and Chris Allan (the penciler for most of this batch) tries to give her a cool buildup by making her a shadowed silhouette in Issue 28.
You might say Chu Hsi/Hothead gains his action-figure form in “Midnight Sun,” because the human/dragon learns to control his transformation much like Oz the werewolf, and is now able to shrink to man size while still looking like a dragon. He’s still yellow rather than red, though.
Speaking of romances, April and Chu Hsi grow closer, although you have to do detective work to find it in the dialog or art. And maybe there’s something between Mikey and Japanese girl Oyuki Mashimi, your basic damsel-in-distress for plot purposes, but with street-tough energy. She’s almost a female answer to “TMNT II’s” Keno.
This arc expands Splinter’s backstory with a surprising wrinkle that reveals he’s a bit older than we might’ve guessed. When he was a young Hamato Yoshi, he was training with his uncle at the very moment the H-bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It blinded his uncle, but both were far enough away to survive, though it mentally scarred Yoshi.
Slash, the psycho Turtle from a garbage planet
One of the most popular Playmates toys, Slash, makes his Archie debut in “Search and Destroy” (23), after debuting as a figure and cartoon character a year prior. Not explaining Slash’s seemingly alien origin here, Clarrain retains the Turtle’s love of palm trees but hardens up his personality. The psychologically unstable Slash mumbles “blood spills, gore thrills” and other creepy things as Krang (“Pinkie,” to Slash) delicately maneuvers an alliance.
NECA is starting to make action figures from this part of Archie’s run, including Bellybomb (one of the grossest villains, as he uses his mega-halitosis to knock out enemies) and even Shredder-with-Krang-for-a-head.
One area where Archie bests the cartoon is that Krang, Shredder and Bebop/Rocksteady pursue separate interests, rather than being the Four Stooges every episode. Although Krang is a legit warlord, there isn’t a wide hierarchical gap between the quartet, as seen in “Gimme Danger!” (24) and “Raw Power” (25). I wonder if Clarrain was encouraged by his bosses to check in with these main villains earlier than he planned to, because at the arc’s end, B&R simply dump Krang back on the toxic waste planet Morbus.
The Turtles actually rescue Shredder from Krang – figuring it’s the humane thing to do – and a shaken Shredder admits he owes them his life. “Adventures” delivers “moments” more often than the toon, but doesn’t often build on them meaningfully. The notion that Shredder owes a debt of honor to the Turtles could be interesting down the road, but we shall see.
Archie’s (very short) guest era
No offense to Clarrain, who is good at keeping multi-pronged stories moving in the pulp tradition, but my favorites from this batch are “The Keeper” (26) and “In the Dark” (27) by Doug Brammer. You might call this a very brief “guest era” of “Adventures” to mirror the much longer guest era of Mirage.
Masterpieces these are not, but it is refreshing to get denser tales than usual, plus cool designs like the Yeti in Issue 26 and cat, owl and crow mutants (Pookie, Nocturno and Nevermore) in Issue 27. Both of Brammer’s issues fall apart when logic is applied. The alien Keeper has a Noah’s Ark-type plan to rescue rare creatures from Earth, but to what end? A single Loch Ness Monster can’t propagate the Loch Ness Monster species. (Then again, two animals can’t keep a species going either in a genetically stable fashion.)
Issue 28 borders on being genuinely good as yellow-jumpsuited April (not as far down her kick-ass ninja path as in Clarrain’s issues) breaks down in Massachusetts and ends up almost in a zombie movie. Again, something nonsensical is at the story’s core, as three mutants are created by toxic waste in Joker fashion. Toxic waste and mutagen aren’t precisely the same thing.
Clarrain then aims for a “guest era” vibe in “Turning Japanese” (31), but in the opposite way from Brammer, crafting a decompressed coda to “Midnight Sun” with big panels of Leo and Splinter (in cool samurai garb) simply training, Donnie exploring, and those aforementioned potential couples hanging out.
Actual profound storytelling isn’t really in the wheelhouse of Archie, but it’s trying, and it will continue to explore the Turtles’ Japanese roots – and add more action figures and should’ve-been action figures — in the next batch.