[face of a franchise presents two individuals that’ve fulfilled the same role. your task — choose the better of the two and defend your choice in the rancor pit that is the comments section]

Judith Hoag v. Paige Turco

In the first TMNT flick, Judith Hoag portrayed April O’Neil as charming, headstrong, and fierce. In the subsequent installments of the trilogy, Paige Turco came across as a paint-by-numbers reporter…but looked damn fine.

So how about it – who is the real April O’Neil?

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Boarding Spaceship Earth during the Reagan administration, my childhood occurred in the early 1990s – an era fortunate enough to be blessed with some wonderful pop culture. Mark-Paul Gosselaar set the standard for high school hipness. Macaulay Culkin was bustin’ our guts with displays of suburban terror. And Metallica was reaching the masses while still saying something worthwhile.

But the best pop culture phenomenon was undoubtedly the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In my day, these anthropomorphic creatures battled the forces of evil in cartoons, movies, comics, and video games – and it all kicked ass! We couldn’t get enough of these guys and their fun-loving ways.

Eventually, however, the TMNT love faded away. And this would have been fine. There’s nothing wrong with taking a backseat and being fawned upon by nostalgic nerds from time to time. But the problem is that the turtles were forced (no doubt against their will) to return to the spotlight in some straight-up bobo renditions.

The most offensive of all the later-day TMNT cash-grabs is Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. Long story short, this late 90s (*shudder*) live action series hoped to revitalize the franchise by introducing a female turtle. Ugh. Check out the press video below:

The worst part of the video comes as Dan Clark, executive creative consultant, attempts to justify the inclusion of Venus:

She brings balance to the boys’ lives — she brings a feminine influence into the house.

Wait, what the fugg is this guy talking about? Doesn’t he understand a damn thing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? My generation didn’t love the heroes in a half-shell because they used the martial arts as a means of attaining spiritual enlightenment or holistic balance. No, we loved the turtles because they didn’t embark upon such bogus journeys. Instead, they used karate to beat the shit out of bad guys and impress hot newscasters.

And what did they do when they weren’t beating ass? They ate pizza, went clubbing, and skateboarded. In other words, it was a total bro-fest.

And it was glorious.

Get out of my face with that Venus de Milo shit.

It’s scientifically known that Krang is a fucking bad ass. So when I came across this today at Comics Alliance, I unleashed the secret of the ooze in my pants.

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Yes, that’s Sam Rockwell as a thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I would rank the performance as his third best of all time, falling behind the first-place Moon and the second-place Iron Man 2.

Seriously though, Rockwell is one of the most underappreciated actors currently working. Hopefully Iron Man 2 brings him some cash. Maybe we could pass around a collection plate?