But that was the norm with comic book adaptations at the time. The comics provided source material and a recognizable name. Everything else had to be changed for wider audiences. Thus, we get Joker killing Bruce Wayne’s parents in Batman, leaving poor Joe Chill in the cold. We get Marlon Brando’s Jor-El wearing an “S” shield within a crystalline Krypton in Superman. We get Adrienne Barbeau as Alice Cable falling for Ray Wise’s Alex Holland in 1982’s Swamp Thing.
To be clear, such revisions from the source material weren’t always bad. Famously, concepts such as Kryponite, the Daily Planet, and even Superman’s flight came from the Adventures of Superman radio show and TV series, not the comics. But it’s hard to imagine such major revisions flying today, unless they were done with relatively minor characters like Star-Lord or Drax the Destroyer.
More often than not, comic book adaptations acted like they were too good for the source material, and even felt embarrassed by the comics. The Incredible Hulk television series eschewed almost everything from the comics and changed the main character’s name to David Banner, for fear, according to Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno, that “Bruce” sounded “too gay.” The Arrowverse eventually became a bastion of wacky superhero antics on TV, but it began with Stephen Amell playing Oliver Queen as Bruce Wayne by another name, without the liberal politics or Van Dyke beard of Green Arrow comics.
But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn’t approach things the same way. It was a comic book adaptation first, a cartoon adaptation second, and a mass-market movie last.
From the Sewers to the Comics to the Screen
As most nerds know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started life as a Daredevil parody that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created to entertain one another. The first issues, which Eastman and Laird began self-publishing as black and white stories in 1984, were silly, but not in the same way as the cartoon show would be. The Turtles didn’t say “Cowabunga” or eat pizza, but they did amp up the melodramatic voice that Frank Miller brought to Daredevil comics.
While the Shredder dies at the end of the first issue, the Turtles went onto have goofy adventures involving evil genius Baxter Stockman, brain-like aliens called Utroms, and the masked vigilante Casey Jones. Most of the humor came from exaggeration of comic book tropes, presenting the silliest material with utter seriousness.