Editing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

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[[File:Tmnt1987.jpeg|thumb|The best known version of the characters.]]
If you need to ask who these guys are, you probably don't remember anything about the 80s or early 90s... Or you've been living under a rock for a damn long time, since they've never entirely gone away. But hey, we'll be nice and illuminate things for you.

=The Beginning=
It all started in 1984, with an indie comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for Mirage Comics. A tongue-in-cheek parody of the Iron Age of Comic Books in general and Marvel in particular, Daredevil had recently gone though a ninja filled Renaissance and The New Mutants put both the concept of mutants as well as gritty dark tales staring teens very in vouge, combine that with Frank Millar's ninja and violance fueled Ronin and you have the general soup that TMNT sprung from. The title character being turtles on top of all that was just an extra bit of fun.

'''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles''' Begins with the title characters pressed against an alley wall cornered by the local street toughs the Purple Dragons. Four against fifteen, out manned but not over powered '''Leonardo''' with his katana , '''Michelangelo''' with his nunchaku, '''Donatello''' with his Bo, and '''Raphael''' with his sai all explode outward dealing bloody violance against the gang bangers. Victorious, they still retreat into the sewers away from the prying eyes of the police. As mutant outcasts and warriors of the shadows they obey the code of the ninja.

''Strike hard, and fade away into the night.''

Retuning to their sewer lair they tell their tale of victory to their father and master, the mutant rat '''Splinter'''. Pleased with his sons battle prowess he reveals to them the story of their origin. It is the story of two [[ninja]] in the service of a clan called the Foot. One ninja, Oroku Nagi, coveted the same woman as another, a humbler soul named Hamato Yoshi, though she would choose Yoshi over him. One evening, he confronted the object of his affection, Tang Shen, with his feelings. She would reject him and he would attack her in turn. Yoshi would defend his lover and kill Nagi in the process. Killing Nagi would force Yoshi and Shen into exile where they would immigrate to New York. 

Yoshi had a pet rat that would come with him to New York, Splinter, and he and his pet would settle into a happy life with Tang Shen. Yoshi's pet would prove to be an unusually intelligent rat, so much so that the rat would learn ninjutsu itself by mimicking Yoshi's training exercises. 

Yoshi and Shen's happy life would be short lived as Okroku Saki, Nagi's younger brother, would establishan american branch of the Foot, and track them both down to take revenge. Saki would kill them both and destroy their apartment, forcing Splinter to flee and become a sewer rat. Saki would take his American branch of The Foot and establish himself as a crimelord in the city.

One day, an accident involving a truck carrying a load of mysterious radioactive waste resulted in two things; a bowl of four baby pet turtles falling into the sewer near the rat, and all five being drenched in goo. Rather than killing them, it mutated them, transforming them into humanoid creatures. Splinter, taught the mutant turtles the art of ninjitsu while raising them as his sons, and named them after Renaissance painters; Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Once they had grown old enough and strong enough, he set them on Oroku Saki, now a crime boss calling himself "The Shredder", a quartet of mutant assassins to avenge Hamato Yoshi.

Steeled by the tale Raphael is chosen to deliver a message to Oroku Saki. Taking out his ninja body guard he throws his sai through a window with a challenge attached, simultaneously making themselves known on top of ruining a protection deal in the process.

The Turtles await The Shredder at the appointed meeting place and he meets them a full compliment of his strongest ninja along with him. He throws his throng at the turtles and they meet them blade for blade and best each one. The Shredder them takes them on himself, insulting them as he challenges them. At first the turtles are no match for him, he knocks them each down in turn, but Leo rallies his brothers and they take on Shredder as a team, keeping him off balance and striking hard. As the turtles snatch victory, Leo offers the Shredder an honorable death through sepukku which Shredder rebukes and tries to take all of them out with a grenade. Quick thinking and a quicker throw from Don sends his Bo into Shredder's head knocking him and the grenade into the alley below.

The Turtles go down into the alley and find only smashed armor. Leo finds only a bladed gauntlet and tosses it away, their mission done and their whole lives ahead of them, with the code of the ninja to guide them.

''Strike hard, and fade away into the night.''

=The Phenomena=
And, despite its creators' intentions, the series was a huge hit. They had never anticipated this - Shredder was killed off in the first (and so they expected ''only'') issue - but they ran with it. Success really came when they teamed up with Fred Wolf, an animator who created a cartoon series based on the comic, keeping the basic idea (ninja turtles living in a sewer and fighting an evil ninja master covered in blades), but tweaking it in various ways. It ran for 9 years, from 1987 until 1996, and cemented the group's place in pop culture.

During this time, the goofy one-off parody comic spawned a full-fledged franchise, with several multi-million dollar movies, action figures, video games (including one particularly legendary arcade game), and another four successful TV series beyond the original.

=The Multiverse=
We're not the TMNT wiki, but we can give you a basic rundown on the different branches of the TMNT [[multiverse]].

'''The Mirage Comics:''' The original Turtles universe, all TMNT media ultimately traces back here; it wouldn't exist without these comics. This series covers three "volumes" of the ongoing "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comics, plus the first "Tales of the TMNT" miniseries. Noted for a somewhat "throw mud at the wall and see what sticks" approach, this series still created such setting-defining concepts as the TMNT and Splinter themselves, Shredder, the mutagenic ooze, and the two most noteworthy alien races - the Utroms and the Triceratons.

'''The Image Comics:''' In the late 90s, Image produced the official continuation of the originl TMNT comics in what was considered "volume 3", taking things in their own direction. Then Mirage decided to produce "volume 4", which basically retconned out everything done in the Image comics and so exiled it to its own little weird continuity.

'''The Fred Wolf Cartoon:''' The 1987 cartoon, which initially might have been planned to be more serious and action-packed, but after the first season quickly became a more slapsticky action-comedy show. The first major change up to the storyline; this universe drops Oroku Nagi and his related plot threads. Instead, Hamato Yoshi was character assassinated by his power-hungry rival Oroku Saki, causing him to be exiled from the Foot Clan and making him flee to New York, where he ended up living in the sewers with a quartet of baby turtles and assorted pet rats. But Saki, now the Shredder, wasn't content with this and followed Yoshi to New York; here, he made an alliance with the exiled alien warlord Kraang, and attempted to assassinate Yoshi with some of Kraang's bio-modifying "Mutagen", which instead turned Yoshi into the humanoid rat splinter and his pet turtles into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

'''The Archie Comics:''' Originally a comic tie-in to the Fred Wolf cartoon, these eventually went their own very different direction, similarly to what happened with the [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] comics that Archie Comics had produced.

'''The 90s Movies:''' Naturally, being a hugely popular comic and cartoon series in the 90s led to an attempt to do a movie. The first, widely considered the best, is basically an adaptation of the original comic, and extremely faithful, bar dropping Oroku Nagi as a character and instead making Saki the third wheel in the love triangle. This was followed up by two sequels; a direct one where Shredder attempts to return for revenge only to be killed off, and one in which the TMNT are zapped to Fuedal Era Japan by a magic scepter, widely considered the worst of the trilogy.

'''The Next Mutation:''' The only ever live action TV series (at least so far). Kind of implied to be some kind of spin-off to the 90s movies, or at least some alternate universe where the Shredder never died in them. The big thing of this series was revealing that there had been a ''fifth'' turtle in the bowl that was exposed to mutagen; a female who had wandered away from their group and been adopted by a Chinese wise man who had taken her back to China, where she became a "shinobi" - basically a [[ninja]] with [[magic]]. Shredder was displaced and instead the main antagonist was a clan of evil [[dragon]]s known as the Rank, who were working to free their leader from another [[plane]] he had been banished to. Absolutely '''despised''' by Eastman and Laird, and not too popular with fans.

'''The 2003 Cartoon:''' Widely considered the very best animated adaptation for trying to be more faithful to the Mirage comics, though still with its own unique spins. In particular, Shredder here is more of a title held by multiple different characters over the seasons.

'''The 2012 Cartoon:''' Basically an attempt to update the Fred Wolf cartoon to the early 2010s... before the major suckage of that decade. Same basic backstory for Splinter and the Turtles, save for a new wrinkle; Shredder kidnapped Yoshi's baby girl and raised her as his own. April and Casey are also teenagers in this one, and the Turtles being ''teenagers'' is given more of an emphasis than just them being addicted to pizza and shouting catchphrases.

'''Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:''' The most controversial of the cartoons for being even more comedy-focused than the Fred Wolf cartoon, as well as its drastic visual redesigns - this is the only series where each of the Turtles looks like a completely different species of turtle. Also, makes ''Raphael'' the leader instead of Leonardo, for some reason.

'''The IDW Comics:''' The longest running comic iteration of the TMNT, still active to this day. Borrows bits and pieces from the Mirage comics and Fred Wolf, but with radical new spins. For example, it uses the "evolved animals" backstory from Mirage, but explains their ninjitsu skills as being due to their bering reincarnations of a ninjitsu master and his four sons from Feudal Japan. Rocksteady and Bebop return, but are legitimately terrifying killers as well as idiots.

'''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]:''' It bears mentioning that the [[samurai]] rabbit is part of the same ''in-universe'' [[multiverse]] of the Mirage comics, the IDW comics, and the Fred Wolf cartoon.

=Notable Characters/Species=
*'''Splinter & Hamato Yoshi:''' Depending on the continuity, these characters may either be the same or separate. 
*'''Oroku Saki/Shredder:''' ''The'' iconic villain of the series.
*'''Leonardo:''' Traditionally the leader of the TMNT, with only the ''Rise of the TMNT'' cartoon being an exception.
*'''Donatello:''' "The Smart Guy" of the TMNT, with a knack for gadgetry and gizmos.
*'''Raphael:''' The hotheaded, bad-tempered brawler of the TMNT.
*'''Michelangelo:''' The laidback party dude of the TMNT.
*'''April O'Neil:''' Traditionally the first if not only human ally that the TMNT acquires.
*'''Casey Jones:''' An angry young man who, sick of the crime in New York, tried to go [[Marvel Comics|Punisher]] and clean up the streets as a vigilante, roaming around after dark and beating the shit out of muggers, rapists and junkies.
*'''Baxter Stockman:''' Mad scientist who tried to get rich with an army of vermin-hunting robots. Spent some time as Shredder's "tech guy" henchman in the Fred Wolf cartoon before being deemed disposable and accidentally mutated into a human fly. Brutally mutilated for each successive failure in the 2003 cartoon.
*'''Utroms:''' A species of aliens that look like a cross between a jellyfish, a human brain, and a face. Use mechanical exoskeletons with cockpits in their stomachs to walk incognito amongst humans. Created the mutagenic ooze that created Splinter and the TMNT in the Mirage comics and 2003 cartoon.
*'''Kraang:''' Introduced in the Fred Wolf cartoon as an alien warlord who had been dismembered down to his still-living brain and banished to Earth, causing him to team up with Shredder in hopes of reconquering his home in Dimension X. The 2012 cartoon reinvented the Utroms as a race of extradimensional conquerors called "The Kraang" in his honor. Appears as an evil Utrom warlord in the IDW comic.
*'''Triceratons:''' Brutal, conquering race of aliens who look like humanoid [[dinosaur|triceratopses]], introduced in the Mirage comics.
*'''Bebop & Rocksteady:''' Two dumb street thugs mutated by being fused with warthog and rhinoceros DNA in order to give Shredder some more powerful thugs to take on the TMNT. Debuted in the Fred Wolf cartoon, and reappear in most media thereafter. Eastman and Laird hated the pair, and even created the mutants Tokka and Rahzar in the 2nd 90s movie to mock them.

=TMNT and /tg/=
So, you're probably wondering, what's this got to do with /tg/? Well, [[Palladium Books]], ever eager to absorb another possible angle to promote their screwed up system, officially bought the license to put out the official TMNT roleplaying game. 

It was called "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness", and is a bit of an obscure game, considering that A: It predates the cartoon, meaning its elements don't mesh well with what most people remember Ninja Turtles being like, B: it ran on Palladium's ruleset (which pretty much nobody wants to actually ''play''), and C: being that it was all about playing mutant animals, it gets a ton of flak for being a "[[furry]] rpg", a la [[Ironclaw]]. It did have some nice bits, especially in character creation. There were tables which controlled the character's relationship to humanity, and the accident which had made them mutate. The only real reference to TMNT was that if all the players chose to be characters of the same species and background, they got a bonus to their attributes and skill levels. Being written before certain plot points in the Mirage comic, it also gives different backstories for several characters such as the Rat King(originally a crazy homeless man who thought he was a mutant, retconned to a magical guru in a issue after the TRPG). It had a post-apocalyptic spinoff, '''After the Bomb''', that Palladium still supported after losing the license. 

Eventually, after [[Robotech]] and [[Rifts]] swelled Kevin Siembieda's already-massive ego to even greater sizes, he foolishly opted not to pay the fee to re-up the license on the cash-cow that largely put him on the map, and the title went out of print in 1999. [[FAIL|And things have gone swimmingly for him ever since]]. (See: Divorce, embezzlement by staff, car crash, staff attempting suicide, [[Robotech RPG Tactics]].)

[[Category: Roleplaying]]
[[Category: Comics and Cartoons]]