The Technodrome Forums - View Single Post - Official Reason for the Turtles' assigned Bandana Colors & Weapons?

*Cipher* · 03-09-2013, 01:33 PM

Are you asking how various pieces of media have explained it "in-universe" over the years?

If so, there have been a few "Turtles get their colors/weapons" stories. TMNT Adventures did one for banda colors in the middle and one for weapons toward the end of its run, though I haven't read either. The 4Kids series had the episode "Fathers & Sons," in which the Ancient One assigned them bandanas according to ... their auras or something? In IDW, their mask colors were apparently just their favorite colors as humans in fuedal Japan. (Not sure if you've read the IDW series, but in this universe, at least according to Splinter, the Turtles are reincarnations of his sons from that era.)

If you're asking how they were first assigned their colors behind the scenes, I seem to remember an "Ask Peter Laird" session on his blog in the last two years where he basically said Playmates wanted different colors, so they (he? Playmates? Both parties?) picked some without putting much thought into it. Although I'd have to do some digging around to find it.

As for the weapons, I don't think there was a lot of deep thought going on there either, although to my knowledge, there's never been an official explanation. Remember that the Turtles in the first issue are nearly indistinguishable from one another in terms of personality. They were based on Eastman and Laird goofing around with sketches and intending to produce a one-off semi-parody. So more than likely they just thought of four different weapons that seemed cool. There can't have been any "matching to personality" when there were no personalities to match them to. For what it's worth, though, we see the Turtles with different weapons in their "pre-teen" flashback adventure in issue #9.

03-09-2013, 01:33 PM	#19
Cipher Foot Elite Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 3,454	Are you asking how various pieces of media have explained it "in-universe" over the years? If so, there have been a few "Turtles get their colors/weapons" stories. TMNT Adventures did one for banda colors in the middle and one for weapons toward the end of its run, though I haven't read either. The 4Kids series had the episode "Fathers & Sons," in which the Ancient One assigned them bandanas according to ... their auras or something? In IDW, their mask colors were apparently just their favorite colors as humans in fuedal Japan. (Not sure if you've read the IDW series, but in this universe, at least according to Splinter, the Turtles are reincarnations of his sons from that era.) If you're asking how they were first assigned their colors behind the scenes, I seem to remember an "Ask Peter Laird" session on his blog in the last two years where he basically said Playmates wanted different colors, so they (he? Playmates? Both parties?) picked some without putting much thought into it. Although I'd have to do some digging around to find it. As for the weapons, I don't think there was a lot of deep thought going on there either, although to my knowledge, there's never been an official explanation. Remember that the Turtles in the first issue are nearly indistinguishable from one another in terms of personality. They were based on Eastman and Laird goofing around with sketches and intending to produce a one-off semi-parody. So more than likely they just thought of four different weapons that seemed cool. There can't have been any "matching to personality" when there were no personalities to match them to. For what it's worth, though, we see the Turtles with different weapons in their "pre-teen" flashback adventure in issue #9. Last edited by Cipher; 03-09-2013 at 02:12 PM.