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

To an outside observer, the fact that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have lasted so long must seem like the most perplexing thing, with the group always having some new comic or cartoon or movie either already out or in the works.

However, to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the characters and their world, you know exactly why they've stuck around. Behind the goofy premise is a cast of unforgettable characters, dense, consistent world building, and a compelling story of family, science gone wrong, and the place of the different in society at large.

But even the most die hard turtles fan probably doesn't know everything about the characters, their history, or the fascinating stories behind their original inception. Sure, with this being the internet there's no guarantee that you haven't heard of at least one of these fun facts if you're in any way a TMNT fan, but that doesn't change how absolutely mind blowing they are.

From spin-off shows featuring fellow Mirage comics properties that very nearly happened, to very strange origins for important characters, these are the most mind-blowing facts about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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.