Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Stranger Things #1 (2023) cover a

Usually when it comes to crossovers there are rules that get set early on to let you know what kind of crossover it is, is it a dimension hopping scenario where one half of the crossover jumps from one world to another? Or are we implying both parties have always existed in the same universe(usually Jake’s least favorite), and then there’s the one that’s probably used the least and what one of the last TMNT crossover with the Power Rangers did, where it’s a completely separate universe where both parties exist. Our guess is it’s one of the last two options, and we’ll get to why we think that in a moment.

Now with that all said, for this crossover to make sense exist in our minds, there has to have been no mention of TMNT, or any merchandise seen in the background of the Stranger Things TV series and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have not been created by Eastman and Laird in the Stranger Things Universe. You may be thinking “But Jake & Pete, the TMNT cartoon is what really brought TMNT to large audiences and children of the 80s!” and you’re right, but you forget that the boys in Stranger Things befriended Eddie Munson who was very much into Dungeons and Dragons and would 100% be subscribed to Dragon Magazine or at least he’s the type to grab it off the shelf and read it in store. And Eddie being as cool as he is(except for the part just mentioned), he also probably read the original Mirage TMNT comic series and would have definitely mentioned, or recommended the comic to Mike and the boys. These were all questions and thoughts we had BEFORE reading the first issue.

The cover for TMNT x Stranger Things #1 shows max, and shows eleven in an outfit she wears in season 3. That would set the issue on, at the earliest, July 3rd 1985. At that point in real time, tmnt had existed as a franchise for about a year, and five issues of the tmnt comics had come out. Unfortunately, as we know, covers mean absolutely nothing about the content of the issue, and I think in this case the cover is a red herring.
Eleven has her powers and uses them casually and fights guys with them during the events of the comic which means it’s either before July 4, 1985 or after March 27, 1986 (when she gets her powers back).

Tmnt RPG came out September 1985. Beginning of the school year that we see the end of in ST4. there were ads for tmnt and other strangeness in the october 1985 issue of Dragon Magazine (#102) and honestly you cannot tell me these kids weren’t reading dragon magazine during the school year they were hanging out and playing dnd with eddie munson.

They refer to their NYC trip as a "field trip" and their science teacher is there. They don’t show Mr. Clark's face but he is named (and Chittock writes a very accurate M.r Clarke voice on the pages we get some dialogue from him). Season 3 is the last year they’re in middle school with Mr Clarke so that sets the comic in the first half of 1985, before they move from Hawkins middle to Hawkins high

Just from the first issue, we feel like this crossover is going to be way better and way more enjoyable than I thought it would be when it was first announced. Our initial gut reaction was “Why?” Just because we can? And then we saw the cover of the first issue and noticed all the Turtles were wearing red head bands since they did in the original comic series, and that showed there was a little more care involved than we would’ve expected. Then we really started thinking about it and the more it seems like it could work and be fun, the type of campy fun you get from a crossover of two beloved series set in the 80s. We fully expected crossover dialogue( and by that we mean forced exposition and constant reminder of very obvious character traits) the characters feel like themselves and not a super commercialized caricature of what you see on TV and other media. Pick it up issue #1 for a surprisingly fun cash-grab!