Thirty Days of Turtles: Pete

Recently I decided that if I want to keep having new content on this blog, I'm going to have to branch out beyond Marvel and DC. They'll always bring in new content, and I'm sure I'll continue to find old ones I've missed, but it's time to move toward more unfamiliar territory. With that in mind, and because they have a new movie out, I thought I'd kick this new era off with Thirty Days of Turtles!

That's right: From June 3 to July 2, there'll be a post each day highlighting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles canon immigrants. Now, because TMNT canon is a little confusing, it can be hard to tell what counts as a canon immigrant and what doesn't. So for the purposes of this blog, a TMNT canon immigrant is anything (a) from the movies, cartoons, video games, toy lines, or tie-in comic series that later appeared in (b) TMNT volumes 1, 2, or 4 [because they're by the original creators] or TMNT volume 5 [because the original creators are involved, it's the new official continuity, and its goal is to use as much of the diverse TMNT lore as possible].

With that in mind, let's look at today's entry: Pigeon Pete!

I don't know if this is where I should start, but it's where I'm going to start: in the 80s cartoon episode "What's Michelangelo Good For?" (October 1990), Michelangelo has a pet pigeon named Pete. Pete, however, is just a normal pigeon.

In the 2012 series, a mutated pigeon named Pete appeared in the episode "The Gauntlet" (November 2012) to help April rescue her father. He later joined the Mighty Mutanimals. I have no idea if he's named after the above Pete, but he probably is.

Pete later appeared in the IDW series as Old Hob's first attempt at creating a mutant. It did not go well, and this version has more criminal tendencies than the Nick cartoon version. He first appeared in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #35 (June 2014), and later joined the Mighty Mutanimals as well.