Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Color Classics Vol. 1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics #1

by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird (Artist)

Go back to the very beginning, with the Turtles' first encounter with the Foot Clan and their mysterious leader, the Shredder. With over 300 pages of mutated martial-arts action, this volume is perfect for fans to relive the glorious days of the Turtles' origins, as well as an excellent place for new readers to see where the TMNT phenomenon began. Collects the first seven issues of the series, plus the Raphael and Michelangelo Micro-Series one-shots, all in brilliant color.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Comic Book, Science Fiction, Collections, Martial Arts

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 4, 2018

About the author

Kevin B. Eastman is an American comic book artist, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Reviews

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot to like about this first collection of the early Ninja Turtle stories. I liked the darker tone and I've always liked the look better than the color-coded later versions of the turtles. However, aside from Raphael none of the turtles have any distinct personalities. April was a bit of a mixed bag as well at first April was a reporter but later thy reintroduced her as a scientist with a different look. The fight scenes were also a bit disappointing. I will most likely not continue reading the comics and for me, the 1990 film is the peak of Ninja Turtle perfection but it was fun to go back to their origins.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

These very first independent Ninja Turtles stories are remarkable for their great writing. In just the first 7 issues, after what was just a weird satire of Frank Miller's Daredevil originally, so much of the mythos is created and it's great fun. Baxter Stockman creates evil robots, his assistant April O'Neil, and the the alien Utroms are revealed as part of the Turtles' secret origin. Then, most fun of all, the Turtles are teleported across the universe to meet the Fujitoid and fight Triceratrons! Great storyline.

Note: These stories are much better than the famous 80s cartoon. However, they were later adapted well in the 2003 iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. But this is a comic review, not a cartoon review.

[Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I can offer a contrary opinion: disappointing. While delightfully rooted ’80s in culture and illustrations, these are not the turtles I know. They don’t have their iconic red, orange, purple and blue eye masks—they’re all red—and as their weapons are often unseen, we literally can’t distinguish between them, as their personalities blend together. Costume aside, this lacks the humor and catchphrases I’m familiar with—no pizza obsession, no “cowabunga,” no skateboarding. And while the plot is somewhat surprising, it’s meanders confusingly.

I understand I’m at fault for going backwards—having grown up with the movies and discovering the comics later—but what am I missing that makes this series so great?

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far a fantastic start to the explosion the franchise became. The first movie is so close, but the tie ins make you think of the 80's cartoon -if you didn't read this first. It's much more than you would think based on the children's spectacle it has become. Michael Bay really missed a fantastic opportunity to bring this back to its mature roots; it would've been amazing. Still could be, and no doubt will be again someday. I recommend this for anyone who wishes for something beyond what kids see today.

[Terry Mcginnis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old school fun. The chapters where the turtles jump time/space/dimension do have some parts that drag. The addition of color makes it more accessible to readers who are not too fond of black-and-white art. It's interesting to see how much of this inspired the product throughout the decades (movies, cartoons, etc). Cowabunga!

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I flat-out loved this. IDW has done a service for TMNT fans everywhere with this volume. Essential for Turtle fans.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original comics are great; I should have read these a long time ago.

[Petr Nakasharal Fabián · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tohle je taková zábava, že se mi tomu ani nechce věřit. Miluju jak se scénář občasně low-key trefuje do superheroes aniž by to bylo jak pěst na oko nebo otravný (tvym směrem se koukám, Garthe), over the top originy postav, grafický násilí a akci. Proboha tohle je komiks, kde lítaj potoky krve z robotů, zničí se půlka města aby se zachránila dodávka s hračkama, v jednu chvíli jsou želvy v kanále v NY a druhou se mlátí ve vesmíru s humanoidníma dinosaurama. Jak by to vůbec mohlo bejt ještě lepší?!
Art s má správnej osmdesátkovej underground feeling a coloring funguje krásně, ačkoliv původně byly želvy b&w. Miluju na tom všechno! Teď už se jen modlit v re-release Mirage figurek od NECA, protože přece jenom dát na aukci za čtyři 13 centimetrový figurky z plastu 10 až 20 tisíc není uplně ideální. :D

Po druhym přečtení v rámci komiksovýho klubu musím zhodnotit, že to je prostě geniální. :D

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love those turts

[Taddow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still remember the first time I learned about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). I was sitting in class and one of my classmates was reading issue #4. I was intrigued by the art and the concept (ninja turtles?) and asked if I could borrow the comic to read during my next period, which was study hall. From that point on I was hooked. I sought out the previous issues and started collecting the future ones. The Shredder is still one of my top 5 comic villains (his outfit is so bada**). Unfortunately, the TMNT run of what I considered great comics quickly ran out. The first issues (1-20) were a mixed bag of great to okay (I actually enjoyed the Return to New York trilogy and consider that the end of my TMNT era).

Re-reading these earlier comics, I still enjoyed them and liked the simplicity, sometimes cheesiness, of the storylines. I'm sure there is a nostalgia aspect to this, but even taking that into consideration, Eastman and Laird produced something that was appealing to the masses, that had fun with some of the traditional superhero comic tropes (whether intentional or not) and gave momentum to a massive franchise. TMNT was why I gave the Palladium RPG system a try, starting with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. It's how I discovered Usagi Yojimbo and to some extent, it inspired me to continue to draw and write stories (mainly for personal enjoyment, as I've never published anything- maybe someday I will).

Looking back, TMNT, in its various mediums, gave me many hours (days, months) of enjoyment over the years, and I'm sure it did the same for many others.

[kaitlphere · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I was expecting more cheesiness than I could really enjoy, but there was just about the right amount of cheese. This volume includes the introduction of Splinter and the Turtles as well as The Hand, April, and Casey Jones. The origin of The Ooze, robots, and aliens are also included, and Michaelangelo saves Christmas.

A few events were a bit over the top for me, and the Turtles all have red headbands and belts, which made distinguishing them difficult. The differences in their weapons and personalities helped with Turtles identification though.

[Lucas Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great work by Eastman and Laird! That's the type of job where we see the freedom for a creative team to do the things they love! Great characters, great stories e beautiful action scenes. I missed the blue, purple e orange, though, but it's ok!

[cloverina · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Since this is part of the TMNT series, I'm not giving it a full review until the last book, where I will review the whole series. Since I am reading them in different collections for completions sake, I'll link them here as I read them. You can also check the "tmnt" tag.)

I don't even know if this is good, but God it's so fun.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up on the original TMNT animated show and the original live action movie. For years I had no idea that the turtles got their start as a comic book series. When I first read about it I was both amused and little disheartened to learn that Eastman and Laird had created the turtles to poke fun at certain comic book tropes and artists of the day. I put off reading the originals for a long time, but then the local comicon came back in 2021 and all that changed. Judith Hoag, the actress who played April O'Neal in the first live action film, was coming to town. Meeting her brought back a lot of my childhood and inspired me to ask my brother to get me something TMNT related for my birthday this year. This collection was what he chose.

It's impossible not to love to the over top parody in the first issue, and it lingers pleasantly for the next two issues or so. The real star here is the art, though. I appreciate that this volume is fully colored unlike the originals, but I do wish that they'd have gone to the effort of using the color coded masks that became the stand for the turtles after the original cartoon. It was often difficult to figure out who was talking when they were all together, and I feel like it didn't have to be. The color is great, but the original drawings are just awesome. The lines of the characters and buildings are enchantingly rough, and the drawings depicting action and combat are so earnestly intense. The dialogue is a little goofy even by '80s standards, though that's mostly intentional, but I am a bit annoyed by the numerous typos and omitted words. Awesome read if you grew up with the turtles and wanted to see where they came from.

[Frédéric Bonin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this collection of stories as a gift and it did not disappoint! The original teenage mutant ninja turtles comics … in colour! The stories are great, full of wacky characters, over the top action and a lot more science fiction than ninja stuff. The only reason why this isn’t worth 5 stars is because the one-shot micro issues are not that great (except for introducing us to a … hmm … famous hockey mask-wearing character). Otherwise, this is a must read for any fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of those pop culture things that I managed to somehow pass by. I was a bit too young for the original 80s cartoon, and while there was a newer version by the time I was about ten or eleven, I missed out on that too. I've seen the most recent film and enjoyed it pretty well, but not enough to feel like delving further. (Other than picking up a Humble Bundle offer of a bunch of the IDW comics which I suspect I'll get around to at some point.) But since Palladium is reprinting their TMNT RPG, and since it's based mainly on the original comics, I figured I'd check this collection out while waiting to finally get a shipping notification.

Admittedly, I maybe should've held out for a black and white edition, but this is what I could easily get from the library. This volume contains the first seven issues, plus one-shots covering Raphael and Michaelangelo. It's an interesting contrast to my recent reading of Golden Age Batman. There I felt like two things were taking shape at the same time - the general concept of how to do comics and the character of Batman. Being from the 80s, these comics are firmly entrenched in an understanding of how comics work.

But they do have a lot to figure out about what the Ninja Turtles are. Unlike Batman, I only have the vaguest idea of what the TMNT are "supposed" to look like. In my review of the Batman volume I could go "oh it's weird to not have x" where X was anything from Alfred to the Batcave. But with the Turtles, I was basically along for the ride with limited preconceived notions. Really, the biggest thing could be the level of violence, because I'm most aware of them as a kids cartoon. Then again, I already knew this property was a comic book first, so it's less surprising than it might be.

I think what really did surprise me was the relative lack of a status quo. My impression of TMNT from pop culture is that generally Shredder is a sort of Skeletor/Cobra Commander level recurring cartoon bad guy. Again, this is because most of what I know has trickled in from the cartoons. Here, he's just a ninja in charge of a ninja organization who gets killed at the end of the very first issue. I'm assuming he'll get brought back via comic book nonsense sooner or later, but the Turtles complete their reason for existence of revenging Splinter's master basically immediately. It's like if Batman's very first issue had him throwing Joe Chill in jail at the end.

After that, the Turtles fight Stockman (who's apparently evil), then spend a couple of issues wandering a furry space opera setting after accidentally getting teleported across the galaxy. In fact I feel like an interesting thing is that the Turtles spend very little time being the weirdest thing in the comic. By issue three there's brain space aliens walking around in robot suits, and by the end of this volume there's also been a giant space empire of triceratops men. It felt like the "whatever the hell we feel like this week" spirit of Silver Age comics meshing well with the more mature tone comics had adopted by the mid-80s.

I don't know if I quite had my mind blown by these comics as much as I would've in the 80s, but of course I live in a post-Turtles world. I'm sure a bunch of the comics I did read growing up in the 90s and 2000s had some level of influence from these guys. And I did find this an enjoyable enough time that I'm at least going to try out the other two volumes of this color reprint set. The bigger question from there will be whether I want to plop down the money for the three volume omnibus set, since unlike this, I don't know that I can get those from the library.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been a Turtle fan for years I finally gotten around to seeing exactly how it all started.Reading this trade Two things stood out. One, while I assumed how much the 2003 animated series was taking it's story cuss from this original series, I wasn't aware exactly how heavily it influenced that series. And two, how fast the creators got to the more , and admittedlu this a weird word to use considering we're dealing with mutated turtle here, fantastical elements the turtles have been known for. Spoliers for something that's about 30 years old, but three issues in and we already have Utrons.. There's not a whole lot I can say here but if you're only familiar with the televised or film versions on the Turtles this will be a bit of a trip b ut in a good way. The trade features the first 7 issues of the old Mirage comics plus two one issue Macro-series, basically a fancy way of saying "One-shot." There was one done for each turtle, I'm assuming to flesh out gtheir personalities a bit,. The two here feature Rapheal, which introduces long ytime turtle ally Casey Jones, and Michealnglo, and that one is a christmas time adventure. In all I would say this is a must read if you're a turtle fan. Nearly all the familiar tropes are there and there's some new thing Well not new exactly, maybe some twist you weren't expecting if you're only familiar with the tv turtles. Very highly reccomended.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea what to expect with this series, but that wowed me. The first issue is nice enough, you get the origin of the turtles and Splinter as they face off against the Shredder and his soldiers. But from there it starts getting weird. Robot dogs? Aliens? Dinosaur gladiators? It just keeps getting weirder! There's a great humour to it all, from slapstick comedy to pop culture references, while still being action-packed and mature. My favourite part was when each turtle was forced into a big fight, and each of them got a page dedicated to watching them fight their opponents one-on-one. Each turtle had their own flair, used their unique weapon in a distinct way, and the panelling was beautiful.

The art of this book is definitely a highlight, and that includes the colours. I know this wasn't originally in colour, but it looks like it very well could be. The colours are still bright and varied, full of distinct oranges and purples and greens, in a way that brings some of the packed settings and clustered action scenes to life in a way that's more visually distinct than most black and white comics can be.

Damn, I may very well be a TMNT fan after this.

[Kyle Dinges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure how much I was going to like this going in. As a child of the 90s, I've got my fair share of TMNT memories, but they're mostly isolated to the movies and TV show. I've only ever read one volume of the most recent reboot and I don't generally enjoy comics from the 80s all that much.

That being said, I really enjoyed this! I was expecting it to feel dated. It was dated in the sense that it looks and feels like the 80s but the storytelling struck me as something you'd expect out of a comic in 2021. It never felt clunky and there's a good mix of action and bonkers comics plotting. Eastman and Laird aren't afraid to take big swings either. What starts as a Daredevil-esque ninja superhero story manages to spin into a space opera without any sense of whiplash. The character-focused issues interspersed with the main story help break up the story well.

It turns out all those people raving about the old TMNT comics were onto something. This was a lot of fun. It's cheesy, but in the best ways. I'll definitely dig in to the rest of the series. Consider me a convert.

[Andrew Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This colorized collection contains the first seven issues of Eastman and Laird's TMNT, including 2 mini-issues (Raphael and Michaelangelo). I was delighted at how quickly this storyline went off the rails and at how interesting it was to see the original iterations of these characters. My only complaint is that it really was difficult to tell the turtles apart. I think that is alleviated by the fact that Raphael does more talking than the others, so usually if the turtle is identified by their weapon or by name, it seemed safe to assume it was Raph.

As a long-time turtle fan who had never read these comics before, I was both impressed and surprised by some of the differences between this source material and the many stories that have come after.

[Nazish Ahmed (Nazish Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading the comics and it brings back memories for the 2003 show. I grew up watching both the 80s cartoon and the 2003 cartoon (I only watched a few episodes of the Nickelodeon show that came after and was disappointed because they made it very kid friendly and brought back some of the not-so-good parts of the 80s cartoon, it was obvious that it wasn't for me so I never finished it, I'm glad that some people got enjoyment out of it even though I didn't), but the 2003 cartoon will always reign superior.


Full review to be posted soon.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading some of these stories when I bought what I think was maybe issues 3-5 as a kid and thinking how different this was from the cartoon. That was well over 30 years ago. I finally read the whole story, and I still really enjoyed it, and I'm in my 40s. I find that funny, but I guess this is just good writing.
This reads like a 70s samurai movie, and then turns into a 70s space opera. Again, it's just not like the cartoon, which was good, but this is far better.
This is a must read before Ronin, because Ronin will make far less sense before reading this.

[Angel Gomez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took a while to read. It was lots of fun though and there’s lots of different moving parts. I tried to read the black-and-white version for a while, but then realize it’s not as long as the colored version.Whatcha gonna do? Anyway, it was not a fun it took forever I feel like I kind of drag on sometimes, but I have to remember that these are all individual books made into one giant volume that was overall enjoyable. I loved seeing their humble loved seeing everything it was fun actually. A solid, 4/5

[Kirk Bozeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a kid, I owned (still own) a graphic novel printing from the 90s that consists of the first two issues of the E&L TMNT comics. It is beat to hell. I thought it would be fun to buy and read this reprint collection, and it was.

The original E&L TMNT comics were darker yet somehow more juvenile, with extremely embellished art and ok plot and dialogue. These are more of a moment in time and a sketchbook of what led to later, better iterations, but they’re still a lot of fun. 5 stars for nostalgia.

[Shalon Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This just reminds me how great the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise really is. The original movie's more grounded approach compliments the comics well. Kudos to the young Eastman and Laird for creating this on their own. If something more crazy happened at the end I would definitely purchase volume 2, but right now I am on the fence. This color classic is truly for the older fans, but that's ok.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is interesting looking at this early mirage comics, a satire of popular trends in comic books in the early 80s and compare it to the juggernaut that TMNT became. It would have been interesting to see how this would be regarded if they never went mainstream. Just some excellent indie 80s comic books here.

[Michael Summerfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the original first issue as a child, and I went to job core and my aunt placed all of my comics in the shed. Over the winter they were destroyed. The original is worth a fortune now, so I purchased this book to have it once more. The coloring is great. I always liked the original turtles, when the first movie came out, they changed their appearance and basically ruined them.

[Jimmy Fingers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best and possibly the only way of digging into the original TMNT in color. Definitely worth the price if you don't overpay it as it seems this volume it's always oop. It's exactly as expected,suprisingly dark and bloody at times,but comedic too. Book it self very impressive,printed on good quality thick paper with minimal gutter loss which is not so common these days.

[Shazne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The og turtles still remains as the best. The first issue is literally perfection. Still yet to be topped by mordern incarnation. The rest of stories varies from Good to Great. Overall a must for TMNT fans and casual fans who doesn't really know their routes. Also, very much enjoyed the Colors in this edition.

[Charles W Gladden · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOAT

Totally tubular turtles! I wanted to read these for the longest time and the color hits just right. I did the digital version which was great. The transitions from one cell to the next was really smooth and led to a better experience. It reminded me of watching reading rainbow.