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When I was a kid I loved creating crossovers with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys. I could have the turtles interact with the Power Rangers, the Jurassic Park crew, and even my sister’s Barbie dolls. There wasn’t anything IP lawyers could do to stop me.

That’s one of the cool things about IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. Since acquiring the license, the Turtles have crossover with numerous other properties, from the X-Files to the Power Rangers. Plus, there are the numerous crossovers with Batman. 

However, the TMNT/Batman crossover was almost something completely different. During a spotlight panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman spoke about the various Turtles crossovers. 

“The first one that IDW did which I really loved was the Ghostbusters/Turtles crossover. It was great. Then there was TMNT/Batman. It was funny because I was pitching a Kamandi/Turtles crossover to DC, and they said, ‘Nobody knows who Kamandi is. Why don’t you do Batman?’ We said, ‘We didn’t know that was on the table.’”

This caused the audience to chuckle. 

”They wisely brought a writer like James Tynion who was fantastic,” Eastman said. The 2015 Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series was a success, spawning many sequels, and even an animated movie. Could this have happened with Kamandi? Probably not, but I would still love to see the Turtles team-up with the Last Boy on Earth. Maybe DC and IDW can make that happen one day. 

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