Pure Fun Summer Blockbuster: Discussing ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vs. Street Fighter’ With Paul Allor

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have fought all manner of foes over the years. But going head to head against the crew from Street Fighter may be their toughest battle yet. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vs. Street Fighter writer Paul Allor got to plot out the miniseries, which recently completed its five-issue run. In a Comicon.com exclusive, Allor discusses how they approached humor with these iconic characters and how much latitude they had when working on the run.

Tom Smithyman: You’ve had the chance to write a fair number of TMNT stories. What made you want to tell this tale?

Paul Allor: Ah, great question. When IDW approached me about writing this series, I was so excited. It was my first crossover, and I’m always looking to try new things, exercise different writing muscles.

And on top of that—most of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles work tends to delve into big topics: the line between terrorism and freedom fighting, in Mutanimals; the nature of evil in The War to Come (my first TMNT: Universe arc); overcoming age-old hatreds in my TMNT: Universe Donatello two-parter.

But when I looked at this project, it was like, “You know what? This should just be a pure, fun summer blockbuster.” So I took that opportunity and ran with it, just cutting loose and writing as fun and fast-paced a series as I could. Doing a summer blockbuster the Paul Allor way.

Smithyman: I’m assuming the crossover idea was assigned to you, but you had free reign over the story details. How did you come up with this arc?

Allor: In comics freelancing, you never have complete free reign over the story details, but this one came pretty close. The entire editorial team, and the teams at Nickelodeon and Capcom, were incredibly supportive throughout.

As for how I came up with it, boy, you’re talking about like a year and a half ago, haha. But I knew I wanted to take the Turtles out of Manhattan and put them in a very different environment. And IDW asked me to have it start out as a tournament story, and then develop into something more. So from there it was probably just the usual hard work of hammering out the story piece by piece, then revising, revising, revising. And then the real work starts.

Smithyman: This is your first time writing the Street Fighter team, right? What were the challenges in writing for those characters?

Allor: Mainly not giving them too much dialogue, because they were so much fun to write. I absolutely loved working with the Street Fighter team, digging into all their fun interpersonal dynamics. It was a whole new set of toys to play with.

And M. Bison—so arrogant. So arch. So much fun.

Smithyman: What about the Turtles? Is there a trick to writing them? Do you need to play it straight and let the humor come in naturally, or are you always looking for something funny?

Allor: I’ve never really thought about it, but yeah, I think I mostly play it straight and let the humor come in naturally. Which is pretty easy to do, because they’re funny guys, and they love to clown on each other. So “playing it straight” just means staying true to the characters. And staying true to the characters means they’re going to be saying funny things and getting into wacky situations.

But yeah, in this and my other Turtles work, you can definitely see moments when things get deadly serious, and the wisecracking falls by the wayside. The Turtles work hard and they play hard. And they kick hard. And punch hard. Occasionally they head-butt hard.

Smithyman: Ariel Mendel drew the series. What was your reaction when you first saw his artwork?

Allor: The same reaction I had every time I saw Ariel’s art: “Oh, hell yeah!” He was just perfect for this series, so good at both wild, high-octane action and humorous character work. And Sarah Myer’s colors were equally amazing. Just absolutely gorgeous, mining the emotion of every scene and punctuating the sheer brutality of every fight.

And Ed Dukeshire was the one person in the creative team I had worked with before – on Power Rangers. He’s one of the best letterers in the business, and his work added so much to the storytelling.

Every page I got in was just such an absolute joy.

Smithyman: Now that the series is over, what else do you have planned?

Allor: I think I’m gonna make a sandwich after I finish this interview. Beyond that, I’m crowdfunding Pink Midnight Presents my creator-owned series of weird one-shots with artist Juan Romera and editor Claire Napier. I do have a bit of Turtles work coming up next year, and a few other things that haven’t been announced yet, so stay tuned.

Smithyman: Crossovers are all the rage and you’ve worked on GI Joe in the past. So any chance we could see TMNT vs. Street Fighter vs. Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow???

Allor: Oh, boy, I believe that’d be a collaboration between two publishers and three licensors, so I’m glad I don’t have to write up the contracts! But if they want to do it, then of course I would be more than happy to write it.

Smithyman: That would be epic! Can’t wait to see who would win that fight. Thanks for taking the time to talk to Comicon.con, and keep up informed about what’s coming up next for you.