On Friday, we asked our readers which of the eras of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics is their favorite. While we had a hunch of the two most popular iterations, it is surprising just how much one era has emerged as the fan favorite.
With a commanding 60% of the vote, the ‘modern’ Turtles era from IDW Publishing came out on top. This era is, in many ways, the only era that was created with fan service specifically in mind. While that sounds like a knock, I really don’t mean it that way. By the time the IDW license came about, TMNT was sold to Nickelodeon and it was already considered a legacy, nostalgic property. The IDW books reflect this, taking the best ideas from the past and massaging them in new ways, allowing the comics to do so much more than prior runs. Under the hand of Bobby Curnow as editor, the IDW books really became the ‘ultimate’ Turtles comics.
In second place was the classic, the original, Mirage Comics run by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, garnering 26.7%. This is the era that walked to allow IDW to run and, for my money, still the definitive run of Turtles comics. A surprising third place winner was the final Mirage run by Laird and Jim Lawson. No disrespect to this run, which received 13.3%, but it isn’t usually one that is spoken about as highly as some of the others, specifically the Image Comics run from a few years earlier.
Check back on Friday for our next Reader Poll!
