Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the history of our planet is the question of what killed the dinosaurs. There is, of course, the leading theory that the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event was the result of a massive asteroid impact, something that's supported by a layer of sediment in the fossil record that includes high traces of iridium, and by the discovery of the massive Chicxulub crater, all of which amounts to a pretty compelling batch of scientific evidence. Personally, though, I don't buy it, and not just because of noted scientist Dr. Victor Fries and his assertion that the mass extinction was the result of the onset of an ice age. No, my doubts come from the fact that, like everyone else who read Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in 1989, I already know what killed the dinosaurs: It was the Ninja Turtles. Specifically, Leonardo. I know, I was surprised, too.

Back at the start of the Kickstarter campaign for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past --- a new board game designed by Kevin Wilson that follows the continuity of IDW's TMNT comics and features input from TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman --- I mentioned that I was pretty excited about it. I am, after all, a sucker for big campaign-based board games, while Wilson has designed some of the best I've ever played, like the Lovecraftian adventure of Arkham Horror, and the current run of TMNT comics is one of the best things going. Well, it turns out I'm not the only one. In the two weeks since its launch, Shadows of the Past has racked up a staggering half a million dollars, doubling its initial goal and unlocking plenty of stretch goals for the Kickstarter-exclusive "Works" edition, including everyone's favorite mutant warthog in shutter shades, Bebop. Here's your exclusive first look!

After grabbing the license to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the 2014 film, most of us expected Prime 1 Studio to stick with the modern incarnations seen in Paramount's live-action update on the '80s cartoon. Given how Prime has worked with the company on the Transformers side of things, that line of thinking made some sense. Then this past weekend at Wonder Festival Winter, Prime 1 Studio shattered expectations completely. Not only is the company continuing to put out more Turtles goods, but soon the fan-favorite iterations from the 1990 feature film will find their way from the sewers into collections around the world. The four-statue set features the Ninja Turtles as they were in the landmark action movie of 1990. Unlike the computer-generated Turtles that populate the current films, these statues will be based on the actual costumes worn by actors playing Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo. I haven't been this excited about a TMNT collectible since Good Smile's James Jean statue series, but these new statues speak to me on a whole different level. And that level is my childhood.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Super Bowl trailer had to do something to stand out among some of the other movies with Super Bowl commercials (like Captain America: Civil War, Jason Bourne, The Jungle Book and 10 Cloverfield Lane), so they pulled out all the stops and revealed our first look at the classic Ninja Turtles villain Krang.

There were a lot of great announcements that came out of last year's San Diego Comic-Con, but the one that I was most excited about by far actually wasn't a comic this time. Instead, it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past, a board game from IDW designed by Kevin Wilson, with contributions from TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman, writer Tom Waltz and editor Bobby Curnow. And ever since that announcement, I've been wondering when we'd get to see more. Today, IDW Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of the game, with the finished product scheduled to deliver in July of this year --- and with 22 days left, they're already halfway to their initial $250,000 goal.

The worst-kept video game secret of 2016 has finally been officially announced. Platinum Games and Activision are teaming with Nickelodeon for a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game, and one with a distinct co-op bent, too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan will see the fab four tackle perennial villains Shredder and his Foot Clan across the city they all call home. Unlike Platinum's previous '80s cartoon-turned-action game Transformers Devastation, TMNT: MiM won't have an art style that's ripped straight from the animation archives. Instead, it looks like Platinum is following the art style of IDW Publishing's current TMNT artist, Mateus Santolouco. Platinum's got a strong history of developing exciting action games, though there have been a few misses in the company's expanding catalog. After the success of Transformers Devastation, it's easy to get caught up in hoping TMNT will be just as solid. The gameplay shown off in the trailer looks good in motion, but without being able to play it ourselves. Let's not get hung up on the possibilities of disappointment just yet though because this game is going to have Armaggon, and that's just cool enough for us right now.

I'll admit that I'm a sucker for theme covers. Getting a whole month of comics that are all built around a similar aesthetic is always, always fun, and in April, IDW is launching Art Appreciation Month, with covers for all of their titles based on famous works of art. Here at ComicsAlliance, we're pleased to exclusively reveal Cory Smith's cover for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which has taken Leonardo da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa and dramatically improved it with the addition of ninja weaponry. It's pretty fantastic, but it does raise a pressing and immediate question: How are you going to do an homage to Leonardo da Vinci and not have it feature the ninja turtle who is actually named Leonardo?

Last summer, ThreeZero and Kevin Eastman unveiled a collaboration to create new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures. In the months since, a number of TMNT developments have gone down, including a crossover with Batman, Mondo's figures all becoming available, a new movie trailer (and figure line), and some potential video game leakage happening, too. But there's been radio silence from ThreeZero about the state of its planned collaboration with one of the Turtles' founding fathers. This week, a new issue of Clutter (a niche toy/collectible magazine) broke that silence. In a new interview with Eastman and ThreeZero's founder/owner Kim Fung Wong, Clutter was able to share some of Eastman's concept art and give us our first look at the painted prototypes. While we've had a lot of different Turtle toys over the years, seeing how Eastman would interpret the characters today gives us a perspective on the characters we'd otherwise never have, even if they only will exist as toys.

With Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Casey Jones and all the rest of the new additions to the lineup for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, many have been wondering if they’d be able to squeeze in fan favorite villain Krang — a character whose name has been conspicuously absent from marketing materials and casting announcements. Don’t worry, Krang fans (all five of you), because Michael Bay says we’ll see our favorite bad brain appear in the TMNT sequel.

The first trailer for next year's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel has arrived, and with it a new title, 'Out Of The Shadows'. The trailer boasts all the usual summer blockbuster carnage that we've come to expect from superhero movies, and arguably some intimations of a plot, but perhaps of more interest are the first glimpses of a few fan favorite characters, including Casey Jones and Bebop and Rocksteady.