Before becoming a cartoon, and an animated movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) was a comics created by two American authors, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. By creating this comics, both authors wanted to parody Daredevil created by Frank Miller. The first copies of the comics were published in 1984.

TMNT depicts the story of a group of mutant turtles and their martial arts master. The martial art master is a rat who used to be owned by a Japanese martial arts master. The Japanese master lived in New York and got murdered by his rival. After his death, Splinter, the rat took refuge in the sewer where he took in four turtles.

Splinter and his turtles were then exposed to a radioactive substance that made them mutate, and modified their physical appearance, to turn them into humanoids. Splinter who knows martial arts very well thanks to his former owner, took charge of the four turtles and taught them his knowledge.

The turtles all have names inspired from Renaissance painters, namely Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo. They all have different and complementary tempers; Donatello is the most peaceful of the four, he is the scientist of the group. Raphael is the one who most likes to get involved in fights, Michelangelo is the nonchalant and greedy one, and Leonardo is a very wise and serious ninja. They all love pizzas, and their war cry is cowabunga.