When Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter April O’Neil is attacked by thieves, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles engage in their first combat situation, striking the thieves down and saving April, whom they take to their sewer lair. Upon meeting Splinter, the Turtles’ sensei, the secrets of their origins are revealed.

While the Turtles come to befriend April and Raphael encounters the vigilante Casey Jones, the Foot Clan (a gang of thieves stemming from Japan under the leadership of "the Shredder"), closes on the Turtles’ lair and captures Splinter. In an ambush on April's store, Raphael is put into a coma. Forced into retreat, the Turtles, along with April and Casey, leave for an estate belonging to April, where they spend some time healing and training.

Upon returning to New York, the Turtles wage war on the Foot Clan. With the aid of Danny Pennington, the son of Charles (April’s boss), they free Splinter and confront the Shredder (who is revealed to be Oroku Saki, the man who slew Hamato Yoshi, Splinter's former master) in a rooftop duel. In the end, the Shredder is thrown off the rooftop by Splinter and crushed in the back of a garbage truck by Casey Jones.

ANDREW’S RATING: 9½ OUT OF 10 (true to the comic while thankfully without borrowing too much from the cartoon, realistic, and pretty damned entertaining)

MIRAGE COMIC NOTES: The first TMNT movie was largely based on the Mirage comics. In TMNT Vol. 1, #1, the Turtles challenge Shredder to a rooftop duel to avenge the death of Splinter's master, Hamato Yoshi. Shredder is thrown from the roof by Donatello, and then a thermite grenade he held went off beside him in mid-fall, killing him. In the Leonardo special and #10, Leonardo is ambushed by the Foot, badly beaten, then thrown into the window of April O’Neil’s Second Time Around store. The Turtles then flee to Northampton, where they recuperate throughout #11. By #19, "Return to New York," the Turtles, largely Raphael, decide to return to New York to take on the mysteriously resurrected Shredder. Parallels can be easily found in the TMNT movie, though it is Raphael who is thrown into the window of April’s store, not Leonardo, and the sequence of events is a little off. Shredder's death is similar to the one in TMNT Vol. 1, #1, but not nearly as gruesome.

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CAST:

April O’Neil: Judith Hoag
Casey Jones: Elias Koteas
Raphael: Li Josh Pais (w/the voice of Li Josh Pais)
Michaelangelo: Michelan Sisti (w/the voice of Robbie Rist)
Donatello: Leif Tilden (w/the voice of Corey Feldman)
Leonardo: David Forman (w/the voice of Brian Tochi)
Splinter: Kevin Clash (w/the voice of Kevin Clash)
Danny Pennington: Michael Turney
Charles Pennington: Jay Patterson
Chief Sterns: Raymond Serra
Oroku Saki/The Shredder: James Saito (w/the voice of David McCharen)
Tatsu: Toshishiro Obata (w/the voice of Michael McConnohie)

Director: Steve Barron
Executive Producer: Raymond Chow
Producers: Kim Dawson, Simon Fields & David Chan
Story: Todd W. Langen & Bobby Herbeck
Special Creature Effects: Jim Henson’s Creature Shop
Director of Photography: John Fenner
Music Composer: John Du Prez
Production Designer: Roy Forge Smith