MLGG: Pop Culture News, Reviews and Interviews

Following hot on the heels of GI Joe: A Real American Hero: Saturday Morning Adventures is this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mini series, which attempts to hearken back to the classic cartoon that so many of us grew up on.

In this issue, heavy lightning storms are blighting New York, which sees the Turtles turning to a device designed by Donatello in order to train. The problem is, this high tech VR device is a little too real – and how will the Turtles escape from the digital realm when the storm affects Donnie’s invention?

As I enjoyed the brilliant GI Joe Saturday Morning Adventures series so much, I was really looking forward to this TMNT spin on the same concept.

Yet unfortunately, this first issue falls a little short in a few respects. Where the GI Joe comic absolutely nailed the look of 80s style animation in its artwork, the same can’t be said for Tim Lattie’s art here. It certainly has the same style in terms of character designs and even the retro futuristic look of Donnie’s VR machine works well, but at no point does it feel like the cartoon artwork itself; it’s too detailed and feels a little too modern for that.

That’s not to say that Lattie’s art is bad – far from it – it’s just that I expected more of an attempt to fit into the low budget animation style of the original cartoon.

In terms of content, however, it does absolutely feel like a one off, high stakes (but inessential) adventure, which is what many episodes of the cartoon felt like too.

It is actually really refreshing to read a TMNT comic in 2022 that doesn’t take itself too seriously or require any homework to catch up on the current status quo, so that’s definitely a plus too.

Though it doesn’t quite reach the glorious deliberate camp and cheese of the GI Joe series, this is still a fun, old school style comic which – like many comics of the 80s – you can just pick up and enjoy without having to immerse yourself in reams of complicated continuity.

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