I like Ace, too, but my guess is the toy company - or whoever generated the design, might have been a Mirage guy - created him as sort of an homage to another underground comic, Destroyer Duck. After all, Jack Kirby was the artist, and the Mirage guys were well known Kirby fans. Also, Destroyer Duck was parodying Marvel (Howard the Duck) and the TMNT guys were no stranger to parodying Marvel comics.
