While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a family-friendly franchise practically since the beginning with the launch of its original animated series, TMNT’s new Turtles make an R-rated change to that cartoon in a way that is sure to either shock or satisfy ‘90s kids everywhere.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was first introduced as a gritty, black and white comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. However, after the TMNT property was launched into a wildly successful action figure line through Playmates Toys, the series was adapted into a kid-friendly cartoon–and the comic series quickly followed suit. While TMNT’s comic retained most of its mature content, the level of brutality was toned down significantly from the comic’s first issue (in which the Turtles brutally assassinate Shredder before throwing his mangled corpse from the roof of a building). Not only that, but the defining characters of each of the Turtles–which was established in the ‘90s cartoon–became their main personality traits from that point forward. While separate at first, the original TMNT cartoon influenced the direction of their comic book continuity greatly. However, it seems TMNT’s new Ninja Turtles are here to return the comic to its former, brutal glory.
In IDW Publishing’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Aramageddon Game #1 by Tom Waltz and Vincenzo Federici, the Turtles are preparing for an all-out war against a villainous god-like entity known as the Rat King. In that effort, the Turtles turned former enemies into committed allies, including the Shredder who became the leader of the TMNT in light of this crisis. Meanwhile, the Rat King has established an earthly army himself, one which includes villains such as Stockman, Krang, and Madame Null–all with the goal of conquering the planet to satiate his own cosmic pride. In this issue, Stockman–who is the mayor of New York–is holding a press conference discussing the ongoing ‘threat’ of Mutant Town and all of its residents. In the middle of his address, a team of four mutant turtles barge into the area and immediately start attacking people, using the iconic weapons of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to instantly draw blood.
The Brutality of the Null Turtles' Debut Corrupts the '90s Series
This group of turtles is known as the Null Turtles as they were created by the villainous businesswoman Madame Null as she is the CEO of the Null Group–a business conglomerate with access to the resources needed to create mutants. While the nature of the Null Turtles attack on Stockman remains unclear (though it was assuredly ordered by Null herself to discredit the TMNT given her villainous relationship with Stockman and the Rat King), one thing that is clear is that the Null Turtles are a dark reflection of the original team. Not only are they literally a villainous team of mutated turtles who wield the same weapons as the TMNT, but they totally flipped TMNT’s longest-standing trope–one that was established in the original cartoon: TMNT’s weapons don’t draw blood.
Throughout the animated series, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles battled a number of villainous threats with their incredibly deadly weapons, but they would almost never use them to kill. There are even scenes within the cartoon where Leonardo will be holding his iconic Katana and simply punch his enemy rather than slicing them to bits–something may have been comically frustrating for older viewers. Obviously, the TMNT didn’t murder their enemies in their debut series because it was a kids cartoon, but the fact that another team of mutant turtles used those same weapons in bloody fashion upon their debut is striking, even if the comic is a bit darker. In a way, the Null Turtles are something of a twisted love letter to the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic given their gritty nature, but in terms of how they use their weapons compared to the classic ‘90s series, the Null Turtles have made a very R-rated change.