IDW the current publisher of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics has (forgive the pun) dropped a bomb-shell on readers with issue #44 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing series. The issue which came out earlier this month features the apparent death of Donatello (he’s the smart one with the purple mask in case you were wondering) at the hands of Shredder’s minions Bebop and Rocksteady. The killing blow itself is dealt by Rocksteady, who wielding a sledgehammer strikes Donatello so hard that his shell splinters and cracks open. The miscreant duo then make jokes about the act as Donatello lies dying, with who-knows-what leaking through his broken carapace onto the floor.
The Horror,The Horror!
If this gruesome scene horrifies you, it should. If the fact that it occurs in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic shocks you, it shouldn’t. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have always existed on two parallel planes, one light and fluffy, one dark and gritty. You probably remember watching the happy, goofy “heroes in a half-shell” on Saturday mornings as a kid, possibly while eating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal or playing with your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. What you probably remember less, if at all, was that at the same time the Turtles were yelling “ Cowabunga” on your TV screen, they were drinking, swearing, and eviscerating human foot soldiers in glorious black and white on cheap newsprint paper at your local comic shop.
The Gritty Origins Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started life as a black and white, single issue independent comic book. The turtles were created as a spoof, a parody of successful comic books at the time specifically Marvel’s Daredevil and New Mutants with a bit of Dave Sim’s Cerebus The Aardvark -another black and white talking animal comic- thrown in for good measure. Even though their origin was a joke, the comic’s tone certainly wasn’t. From that first issue (originally intended to be the only issue) where Splinter explains to the Turtles that he trained them not to fight crime, but solely to seek out the Shredder and murder him, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird established that the world the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inhabited was as dark and nasty as the sewer that the Turtles themselves lived in. What many don’t know is that even as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went through their family friendly metamorphosis in a calculated bid to better sell toys and bedsheets to children, the nitty-gritty comics kept running.
Don’t Call it A Comeback
First published by Mirage ( a name cleverly chosen by Eastman and Laird because there was originally no publishing company to speak of, just the two of them and a secondhand printing press), then by Image, then back to Mirage, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles storyline ran from 1984 all the way up to 2010. So while the smiling Ninja Turtles that you know and love were pushing pizza power and California surf-speak throughout three successful animated series, five theatrical films , a musical stage show, and one abysmal live action television series, the original turtles were quietly kicking-ass and taking names on the fringes of geekdom. When IDW got the rights to publish Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics they vowed to stay with the darker tone of the previous comics, even going so far as keeping Kevin Eastman on board as a writer. Looking at issue #44’s heart breaking finale it would appear that they kept their promise.
Not The First Time
Donatello’s death is breaking through to some major news outlets so there’s a good chance that many are reading about it and recoiling in shock and awe at how violent their childhood heroes have become. Some are no doubt cursing the modern trend of giving everything a dark and brooding reboot. But no, your happy-go-lucky Turtles didn’t go from Michelangelo to Michael Meyers, this is how the Teenage Mutant Turtles have always been. It’s important to remember that Donatello’s death stands alongside other similar moments in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics such as the death of Shredder, Casey Jones accidentally killing a teenager and his escalating alcoholism after the fact, the death of Splinter, Leonardo losing his hand, and the second death of the Shredder.
R.I.P. Donatello, you’re doing machines in Heaven now. Oh, and thanks IDW for not killing off Raphael.