Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-3121860-20190923164029/@comment-995426-20190923171342

In general I don't like weapons. In the context of fiction, I see them primarily as a means of inflicting injury and death, and at best as tools of defense and utility&mdash;a necessary evil in a world of feudal violence like so many TMNT stories. What I appreciate more is a character's skill in using whatever is at hand to defend themselves, as well as their skill in crafting and maintaining those tools.

Especially since reading stories like City at War (Mirage) and What is Ninja?, I've come to appreciate that ninja are not&mdash;and should not&mdash;be objects of glamour. The very circumstances that allow them to exist are part of a world of people who cannot live in peace. I mean, look at Raphael (IDW): He is as skilled a ninja as any, but what does he really dream about in life? Becoming a farmer. Making things grow. He handles those weapons well, but I could see him much preferring farming tools over tools of war.

No, a ninja's weapons are part of his life's drama&mdash;and trauma. They make for part of an interesting story of people trying to survive into the next year, but if there is a time when the characters ever truly know lasting peace, the best place for these weapons would be in a museum, or in an art gallery, or decorating someone's wall, or in the skilled hands of martial artists maintaining an otherwise peaceful artform. Something simultaneously beautiful in their crafting yet still savage in their purpose, designed to kill but hopefully never used to hurt anyone again.