{"id":46438,"date":"2026-03-05T00:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T05:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=46438"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:48:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:48:45","slug":"wingnut-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2026\/03\/wingnut-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Wingnut Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wingnut<\/a> never showed up in the Mirage comics, and yet Archie's TMNT Adventures<\/i> #8 was still not his first appearance.<\/p>\n

When created by Ryan Brown<\/a>, Wingnut was just a Batman pastiche (with no Screwloose to be his Robin). He wore a thick grey suit, leaving only his head blue, and his \"wings\" were really more of a cape with rocket boosters on it:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That obviously changed for the comic, and drastically<\/b> changed for the toy (and subsequently the cartoon<\/a>), but the original design did have an in-fiction appearance before that happened.<\/p>\n

In 1989, Ralston Purina - yes, the dog food company - got the TMNT<\/i> license and released a breakfast cereal<\/a> that tasted exactly as good as you would expect a breakfast cereal released by a dog food company to taste. Well, every cereal needs a prize inside, and in the case of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal, that prize was a mini-comic. There were three volumes, with an ongoing story that ran between them<\/a>: Shredder kidnapped Casey Jones, the Turtles had to rescue him. What, what d'ya want, each \"page\" is a single panel, there's not a lot of room for complex storytelling.<\/p>\n

Anyway, in addition to being the only comicbook appearance of Baxter Stockman as a fly<\/a>, this \"series\" also featured Man Ray<\/a> and Wingnut, probably because those were the only new characters who were approved early enough to be included. Wingnut was in issue #2, as a villain, but he was based on the original Ryan Brown design, with a few updates:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(The \"script\" for the issue - technically just a series of rough thumbnails in storyboard format - calls him \"Jet-Bat XD-11,\" and he dresses more like an astronaut than a superhero, so clearly ideas were still in flux at this stage.)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The mini-comics were all written and drawn by Peter Laird himself<\/a>, making this the only time he'd handle some of these characters. Plus, since they beat TMNT Adventures<\/i> to publication by a few months, they serve as the true first appearance of Wingnut (and Man Ray) before their personalities were really nailed down.<\/p>\n

(via<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<i>And now, some more OAFEry:<\/i><\/H5>