Reptile's Advocate

I don't know about you readers, but I happen to be a 90's kid. Growing up in the 90's I was exposed to such shows like The Power Rangers, the Pokemon anime and, of course, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and-my favorite-Raphael. Needless to say, I caught a lot of flack in elementary school for having a turtle's name. While these adolescent shell-heads became my point of interest, there was one piece of TMNT lore I never knew for years. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were actually the result of Marvel's Man Without Fear, Daredevil.

While it isn't official, the 1984 origin of the Turtles alludes to the origin of the Marvel superhero Daredevil. We all know the Turtles were mutated from radioactive chemicals, but where did the chemicals come from and how did the Turtles end up rolling around in it? Well, it just so happens when Matt Murdock-Daredevil-was a young man his eyes were exposed to chemicals that fell off an oncoming truck. These chemicals not only blinded him, but they modified his other senses to superhuman levels. What also fell off the truck was a container of chemical ooze that'd hit a fishbowl of turtles out of a bystander's arms. These turtles fell into sewer along with the chemical container and what followed was the creation of four mutated turtles. These Turtles were raised by a martial artist rat who had also been mutated from the chemicals. This rat named Splinter was a reference to Daredevil's martial arts mentor, Stick. Contrary to all of this, the ties between Daredevil and The TMNT are not official as the TMNT are not part of the Marvel Universe. So what's the truth behind the connection? Well, the TMNT's comic book creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird intended for the first issue to be a parody of many popular 80's comics. The turtles' status as teenage mutants was taken from The New Mutants, the concept of them being animals came from Dave Sim's Cerebus and their ninjutsu fighting style was inspired by Frank Miller's Ronin and Daredevil, of course. So the reference to Daredevil's past was just a respectful nod to the Turtle's inspiration. An additional nod to Daredevil comes in the form of the Turtles' main antagonists The Foot Clan, a parody of Daredevil's enemy ninja group known as The Hand. Luckily, the connection between the two comics isn't too thick as The Turtles never went through an awkward "yellow suit" phase and Daredevil never danced to Vanilla Ice.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" I always loved that quote and for this cross-comic connections it couldn't fit more perfectly. It's amazing to think that a comic like this-starring martial artist turtles the size of humans-could launch a pop culture franchise which has produced cartoons, video games and movies for every generation to come. All because of successful comics like Daredevil, which pushed the concept of vigilantism to unexplored roads. I can't help but wonder though, if this origin were to be official would that mean TMNT is part of the Marvel Universe? And to that end could The Power Rangers Universe be connected as well seeing as how the Turtles and the Rangers have teamed up before? Calling it now, Green Ranger's Dragonzord vs ROM the Space Knight in Guardians of the Galaxy 3! Thanks for reading!

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