Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #1 (2022) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday. Today I'm here to review a comic that I got during my last outing with Brad, but it's not Thunderbolts #2. It's another issue #1, this time from IDW Publishing. It's the first issue of a series that I didn't even realize had come out until I saw it on the month old rack for IDW comics at my local comic book store. It's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures #1. There won't be too many spoilers but there will be some, so if you haven't read the issue and are planning on doing so, please read it first and then read this review. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

When I was a kid there was a comic book series that was loosely based on the 1987 Ninja Turtles cartoon published by Archie Comics called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, which is one of my favourite comic book series of all time, though it did diverge from the cartoon after the first nine or ten issues. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures feels like a spiritual successor to the original Archie Comics run from the late '80s and early to mid '90s. I say spiritual successor because this issue seems to stick closer to the character and set designs from the cartoon rather than the designs used in the Archie Comics series. Particularly for the Turtles, Splinter, and April. The villains weren't altered any from their cartoon counterparts. 

In this issue there's heavy rain in New York City, preventing the Turtles from going out on patrol. Which is very strange to me because I'm pretty sure the Turtles have been out in the rain in the cartoon this comic is based on, so why they couldn't go out even though there was heavy wind and lightning as well as the rain, but, that's the conceit of this issue so I'm going with it. As a tool to help them with their training, Donatello has created a VR video game that, naturally, goes haywire during a power surge, so the Turtles are stuck in the game until one of them wins it. I won't say which Turtle wins the game, but it's not Raphael. 

While I was reading this issue, both times, I imagined I could hear the voice cast for the Turtles, Splinter, Shredder (he's in the VR simulator), and April (she appears at the very end) because that's how close to their cartoon versions these characters look. It's also the tone of the book too. I mean this could literally be an episode of the 1987 cartoon from season 2 or season 3 without it being an actual adaptation of an episode of the series. Which is pretty good.

Erik Burnham is the writer of this issue and Tim Lattie is the artist. I'm not familiar with either of their work, but they did a really good job at capturing the essence of what the 1987 cartoon was. Though I am a little confused about something. Did they update the series to be set in modern day or is it still set in the '80s and/or '90s? The reason I'm asking is because Donatello built a VR system and mentioned that it's more advanced than other VR systems out there, but the TV set they have is the same one they have on the show, the VR set itself looks like a really big computer station or arcade cabinet, and the video game box that we see at the end of the issue looks like a game released for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It doesn't really matter because the ridiculousness of the original cartoon works no matter what decade the comic book is set in, I was just curious because all Wikipedia says is that it's a four issue mini-series by Burnham and Lattie and that's it. 

I really enjoyed this issue as it brought back the feeling I have reading the original Archie Comics series from the '90s. And of course it reminds me of how much fun I had watching the 1987 cartoon when I was a kid. It's cheesy, it's stupid, it's fun and I loved it. If you're a fan of the 1987 cartoon or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures I recommend picking this issue up as well as issue #2, as it's also out by now.

That's gonna be it for me for today folks. I'll be back soon for another review. Also, I left Twitter recently and my last post didn't do very well, only getting three views in the last 24 to 48 hours, so if you could share this review with others I would very much appreciate it. Particularly because the higher views does give me the incentive to continue with my Power Rangers review series as well as posts like my overview on the DC Comics Star Trek comic book series and as much as I love doing those kinds of blog posts, they do take quite a bit of time to do and if nobody's reading them then there's no point in me doing those kinds of posts anymore. Thanks. Anyways, that's it for today. Have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.