Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-26353309-20150421205040/@comment-995426-20150430084431

I should diversify my answers.


 * In Mirage TMNT Volume 1, Volume 2 and Tales of the TMNT Volume 1:
 * I tend to like Mikey the most. He's the only turtle who wasn't written strictly to be an archetype of creator's pet character, and his wild card moments can be fun.
 * It's hard to say which I like more or less between Leo, Raph and Donnie. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird seemed to have conflicting egos at time, with Raph being Kevin's pet character and Donnie being Peter's pet character.  Leo was written first and foremost to be the dutiful leader.  But all this baggage succeeded at making each of their characters a little bland, I thought.
 * In Mirage TMNT Volume 4 and Tales of the TMNT Volume 2:
 * I think I like Raph the most. Kevin Eastman had left Mirage by this time, so Raph was given more varied character development, and he just became more interesting.  One of the things I found most interesting about Volume 4 Raph, was how he had a secondary mutation into a turtle-hulk with a dinosaur head&mdash;but when that mutation stabilized, so did his moods, and he actually became a much friendlier character for quite a while, even while looking hulkish.  Between him and Casey, he actually became the more stable one of the duo, especially as Casey started feeling like his life was falling apart.
 * My second favorite would be Mikey, who remained interesting since earlier Mirage. I appreciated the hardcore character development had that made him a more emotionally-scarred broken bird, but it was depressing how Volume 4 ended before that storyline was ever resolved&mdash;I wanted to see how Mikey came back from his personal abyss, and in what ways it would permanently change him.
 * Donnie actually became a little more interesting since earlier Mirage, as we started to see some darker sides of his nature (like when he coldly executes Baxter Stockman). But his story generally went south after he got stuck miniaturized for the rest of the Volume until they stopped publishing.
 * I felt Leo's character seemed mostly wasted, but he became vastly more interesting in the Tales Volume 2 story "Swan Song", where, as an adult well into middle age, he begins to settle down with his soulmate, but then has to learn to live with the lasting pain of their death for the rest of his own very long life. It was really heart-wrenching, but was fantastic character development.
 * I really wish I could comment better on IDW TMNT characters, but I still have more to read, and the character personalities haven't been fleshed out nearly as much as in other stories.