Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1

Fourth comic out of five somewhat random recent releases that I got at Newbury Comics in Braintree MA during my short trip back to the US recently.

Title: Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures
Issue: #1
Date: 2016
Publisher: DC Comics / IDW
Writer: Matthew K. Manning
Artist: Jon Sommariva
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colorist: Leonardo Ito
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Cover: Hilary Barta, Jason Millet


This is the "Incentive Cover" variant.


All-ages (animated series versions, basically) crossover featuring Batman and TMNT. The problem with these crossovers is the amount of setup involved in introducing the characters to each others worlds (and to each other). This comic suffers from that problem a bit, but at least makes a concerted effort to tackle it in an efficient way.


The story builds a bit slowly. The Turtles and the Batman do not actually meet face-to-face in this issue.

The basic scenario has a bunch of the Batman rogues gallery dumped into the Tuirtles' version of New York by way of an alien portal. Batman has an encounter with Two-Face that gives him his first clue that something is amiss. Meanwhile, the Turtles, who are familiar with the portal technology, battle Clayface in the New York sewers.


There's an attempt a a "shocking" ending bit, although it somewhat fails because it's actually badly out of character for the villains involved.

 There was nothing really awful about this story so far, but not much to get excited about either.

Rating: 5/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #38

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Issue: #38
Date: July, 1991
Publisher: Mirage Studios

When I rediscovered comics in the late 1980s (I'd been a Marvel fan as a kid), it was still relatively early in the b/w comic boom that began with Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT had been going for a couple of years when I got my first comic shop subscription at the original Newbury Comics location on Newbury St. in Boston. At that point the first couple of issues had already jumped in price enough to turn me off of picking them up. I stuck to the books I could get at cover price (Robotech, Elflord, Adventurers, Mai: The Psychic Girl, Lone Wolf & Cub, Watchmen, and Kamui were on that first subscription).

I mention all of the above as my way of explaining that this issue is the first issue of TMNT that I've actually ever read. My only other experience with these characters has been through the very sanitized and family-friendly movies and cartoon show.

I wouldn't go so far as to describe the humor in this issue as "adult", but the raunchy factor is certainly up a few notches from the animated "Heroes on a Half Shell" (a nickname that makes no sense at all, come to think of it). The basic plot here has a couple of incompetent aliens abducting Raphael (and a cow; what is it with aliens and cows?) and dodging the equally incompetent government forces that are trying to blow their flying saucer out of the sky.

There are a couple of good jokes and a lot of really bad lowbrow humor. I did like the advice that one particular page would be best enjoyed while listening to the song "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins. Unfortunately, the laughs generally were neither frequent enough nor clever enough to keep my attention.

Rating: 5/10