IDW’s Saturday Morning Adventures comics are a genius idea, with each of the different series being a deliberate throwback to the style and content of the 80s cartoons they’re based on.

As such, they’re often deliberately campy, daft adventures, and they also tend to be digestible and easy to follow, with issues often feeling like one off episodes of a cartoon too.

In short, they’re a real breath of fresh air; family friendly, just plain fun, old school comics that also provide lovely, warm hits of nostalgia for older fans too.

This one-off special, which features two female-led stories, is no exception. In the first, April O’Neil, intrepid reporter and friend to the Turtles, is dragged through a dimensional rift. She encounters the anthropomorphic adventurer Ace Duck, and ends up on an Indiana Jones-style adventure to retrieve a relic that’ll help her get home. With Nazi-esque geese on their trail (taking goose stepping to a very literal level), it really does lay on the Raiders of the Lost Ark references quite heavily, and is beautifully illustrated, in the style of the classic TMNT cartoon, too.

The second story sees the return of mutant lizard, Mona Lisa, who the Turtles team up with to take down gangsters up to no good.

Both stories are fun, straightforward and deliberately silly, with plenty of knowing references and even the odd fourth wall break and -referential winks to the daft shenanigans too.

It’s a great read, and it’s a decent 40-page size too; meaning that there’s a lot of bang for your buck here.

Nicely self-aware, warmly nostalgic and fun for all the family, the April Special is well worth picking up if you’re a TMNT fan, old school or otherwise.