Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles follow Thundercats to the reboot launcher

This doesn't look quite as cool as the Thundercats reboot, but I'll follow and give it a chance. I'm part of the generation that first knew Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (BBFC considered 'ninja' to be too violent) at Infant school. I remember seeing the second live action movie at the cinema. Am I showing my age yet?
I really want this to be good after watching the franchise limp around for the last 15 years.

Yes, that’s right — there’s another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series in the works, over at Nickelodeon. As you may recall, the cable network purchased the rights to the turtles from Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment for $60 million back in 2009. Rumors at the time suggested that Nickelodeon was planning a new CG-animated series and a feature film for their recently acquired brand, and today we got our first look at the new show. See the first image after the jump.

Here’s the image that came with the press release (via Topless Robot):



And a larger scan of the same image from the Wall Street Journal (via Flickr):




The Wall Street Journal quotes executive producer Ciro Nieli as saying that the newly revamped turtles will have “more individual attributes” than they did before. From the image, I’m not really seeing it — they still look pretty similar to me, aside from their eye shapes — but of course, it’s tough to tell from a single picture what the characters will look like once they’re animated.

Their expressions, at least, seem to fit what we’ve come to recognize as their personalities: Michaelangelo looks like a one-man party, Leonardo looks serious and intense, Raphael looks like he has anger issues, and Donatello… well, I’m not really sure about Donatello. He’s got a weird crazy-eyes thing going on, and as I recall the character was generally sane. At least he looks like he’s having fun.

The show will debut in 2012 on Nickelodeon. While I’m generally a bit cranky about reboots and remakes, I’m actually tentatively optimistic about this new series — Nickelodeon’s done good work before, and knowing a whole new generation of kids will have their own version of the Turtles to obsess over kinda warms my heart.

Also currently in the works for our favorite heroes in a half-shell is a live-action movie adaptation. Paramount announced last summer that Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway had been tapped to write the script, but little else about the project has been revealed at this point.

Discuss: Are you looking forward to the new series? Also, ‘fess up – who was your favorite Turtle? As a kid, I liked Donatello, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate Raphael’s sarcasm and Michaelangelo’s humor quite a bit as well. The only one I’ve never cared for is Leonardo. What a stick in the mud.

Source: Geekology