10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

10. They Were Created To Parody Daredevil

if you know one thing about comic books in the eighties, you probably know that Daredevil was on top of the world. While not rivalling the sales of the big five superheroes, he was coming close thanks to a much needed reinvention from Frank Miller. The Daredevil comics of the eighties were dark, gritty, visceral and dealt with some of the darkest subject matter the Marvel universe has ever featured.

It also starred a blind dude in a bright red body stocking jumping from rooftop to rooftop, who regularly hung out with another dude in another body stocking who did the same thing but with spider webs. So you can see why some would find its neo-noir stylings a bit of an odd pairing.

This brings us to the Turtles, and their original comics published under indie comic publisher Mirage.

If you don't know the context of the time period, it may be hard to see, but the turtles were originally created to be a biting parody of the Man Without Fear.

Taking the same dark, dismal and hyper violent tone and having the mere presence of mutant turtles be what drive home the joke, TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird spotlighted the mutants as they took on the Foot (named the Hand in Daredevil), and even wove the Turtles' origin into Daredevil's too, by having them get splashed by the same radioactive goop that took Matt Murdock's sight.