Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1

History

The book was published by Archie Comics in August 1988, two months before the Fred Wolf animated series transitioned from its syndicated five-episode debut to full-time Saturday-morning broadcast, meaning the comic actually preceded the show's wide-audience run. Writer-artist Michael Dooney adapted the scripts of the original TV premiere episodes — 'Turtle Tracks' and the beginning of 'Enter the Shredder,' written by David Wise and Patti Howeth — with inking by Dave Garcia, coloring by Barry Grossman, and lettering by Steve Lavigne; the cover was supplied by TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The copyright indicia identifies Mirage Studios as the intellectual property holder, with Archie Comics as publisher and printer, and the issue was branded 'Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures.' After the initial three-part miniseries succeeded, Mirage staffers Ryan Brown and Stephen Murphy took creative control beginning with issue #5 of the ongoing series, steering the book away from cartoon adaptations toward original, socially conscious storytelling.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published August 1988 by Archie Comics; Book 1 of a three-issue miniseries titled 'Heroes in a Half-Shell!'
• First comic-book appearance of Krang, the brain-in-a-robotic-body villain created for the 1987 animated series by writer David Wise.
• First comic-book cameo of Bebop and Rocksteady in their pre-mutation human forms — Rocksteady as the gang's leader confronting April O'Neil's news crew, and Bebop as his second-in-command — before their mutation storyline unfolds across the miniseries.
• Debut of individually color-coded Turtle masks in comics: Leonardo (blue), Raphael (red), Donatello (purple), Michelangelo (orange) — a convention established in the cartoon but not present in the original Mirage books.
• Written and penciled by Michael Dooney, adapted from TV scripts by David Wise and Patti Howeth; inked by Dave Garcia; colors by Barry Grossman; lettered by Steve Lavigne; cover by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
• The story adapts two TV episodes — 'Turtle Tracks' and the first half of 'Enter the Shredder' — condensed into a single 36-page full-color comic, introducing April O'Neil, Splinter/Hamato Yoshi, Shredder/Oroku Saki, and all four Turtles in the animated-universe continuity.
• The issue's indicia explicitly registers Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Splinter, Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, and April O'Neil as trademarks of Mirage Studios USA, confirming Mirage's IP ownership.
• Reprinted multiple times: in the 1989 Random House trade 'Heroes in a Half-Shell! The Complete Adventure' (packaged with an audio cassette), in a 2009 Archie 25th-anniversary 104-page full-color trade paperback, and in IDW's 2025 oversized Adventures Compendium Vol. 1.

Cast · 12 characters

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Variants (3)