Ninja Turtles peak portrayal in 'Mutant Mayhem

When Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, the most popular superhero comics on the market during the early '80s included Marv Wolfman and George Perez's "The New Teen Titans," Chris Claremont's "Uncanny X-Men" and Frank Miller's "Daredevil," so angsty teen heroes, outcast mutants and ninja crime-fighters were all the rage.

Ever since, the popularity of teenagers, mutants and ninjas in superhero stories has remained relatively strong, but what's been surprising in retrospect is how lightly those ostensibly defining traits have weighed on our four New York City sewer-dwelling amphibian brothers over their run.

Between co-writing and starring in 2011's "The Green Hornet," and executive-producing AMC's "Preacher" from 2016 to 2019, Seth Rogen's track record with onscreen adaptations of comic books has been terrible, up until "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," which finally weaponizes Rogen's adolescent humor on behalf of characters to whom it's perfectly suited.

The CGI animation is rendered to resemble hand-drawn illustrations, with paint-like blobs of color and line-work that looks like pencil scribbles, which evokes the spirit of every middle and high school student who idly sketched the Turtles during slow study halls or classroom lectures.

In an animation first, all four Turtles are voiced by teenage actors, and in a relative rarity, they recorded their dialogue together, allowing them to improvise and overlap their lines, capturing the constant teasing, irreverent immaturity and exhausting familiarity of brothers growing up.

The essential, timeless personalities of studious Leo, bookish Donnie, rageaholic Raph and chillaxed Mikey will be instantly recognizable to Turtles fans regardless of what generation you hail from, whether you grew up with the Eastman-and-Laird or Archie comics, or with the Fred Wolf, Fox or Nickelodeon cartoons of our Renaissance artist-named "heroes in a half-shell."

Indeed, one of the best features of this latest Turtles adaptation is the wisdom with which it chooses to draw from each previous iteration of the Turtles' decades-old, millennium-straddling franchise, not only reintroducing several more Playmates action figure-derived characters at once than I would have expected, but also taking some nontraditional steps with their portrayals.

Casting Jackie Chan as the voice of the Turtles' adoptive father Splinter is simply good sense. Even recasting April O'Neil as a nerdy high school reporter feels fitting. But giving the aged Splinter a romance with fellow mutant [SPOILER] is both bold and appropriately gross.

Because whatever else "Mutant Mayhem" does, it aims to disgust with gusto, between its neon ooze, monsters made of multiple, disparate animals, and vivid, sickly streams of projectile puke. And yet, even its most gag-inducing antics resonate with the truth that we all want to belong.

For those who are concerned over not yet glimpsing the name of a specific archenemy to the Turtles, he's mentioned in the midcredits closing scene. For those who know their Turtles lore, the names "TCRI" and "Utrom" portend no-less-ominous conflicts in the all-but-assured sequel.

On the small screen, Max's "My Adventures with Superman" continues to impress me, by making Superman's mythos more earnestly engaging than it's been on the big screen in years.

Rather than presenting Superman as paternalistic, or Lois Lane as equally intimidating in her maturity, both Lois and Clark Kent are the same age as Jimmy Olsen, with all three interning at the Daily Planet, under their ethical but perpetually disgruntled editor-in-chief, Perry White.

I'm sure the sorts of folks who are upset over Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" must have complaints about how the Japanese anime style of "My Adventures with Superman" blurs its lead couple's gender roles, turning Lois into the most fetching tomboy I can recall in recent mass media, while lending Clark the lean physique and sparkly transformations of magical girls like Sailor Moon.

This streaming series' pacing is fascinating to me, because while it demonstrates self-discipline in how it leads with less powerful or widely known adversaries - from Live Wire and Silver Banshee, to Ivo and Parasite - well before introducing anyone even approaching the level of Doomsday, Darkseid or Lex Luthor, the show has also expedited certain characters' discoveries of Clark's secret identity, even as the son of Jor-El still deciphers his own Kryptonian heritage.

I love that the animators have shamelessly lifted their Kryptonian robot designs directly from the "Neon Genesis Evangelion" Units, and I'm impressed that the writers managed to make me care, however momentarily, about the Daily Planet's blowhard sports reporter, Steve Lombard.

And between his title role in "My Adventures with Superman," his role as Ensign Brad Boimler on both "Star Trek: Lower Decks" and its crossover episode with "Strange New Worlds," and his brief appearance in Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," Jack Quaid is having a banner year.

A message that "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and "My Adventures With Superman" share is that we're all sort of stumbling around, struggling to get our bearings, and striving to come across as more confident and capable to others than we feel inside, which is why it's so important for each of us to connect with loved ones whom we can trust, to share our secrets with, and draw strength from their support, even if we have ninja skills or super-powers.

Jordanne Krumpols, parks and recreation supervisor for the city of Shelton, told the Journal that the "Movies in the Park" screening of 1985's "Back to the Future," starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, has been delayed from Aug. 18 to Aug. 25.

Krumpols said the one-week delay of the feature at Kneeland Park was because the city didn't have enough workers to staff it for the evening of Aug. 18.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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