A strange new comic book sat beside pay registers at select stores in the spring of1984, too enormous to fit in the racks and too unusual to ignore. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, created by Eastman and Laird, introduced a whole new type of super hero. It was far too strange, far too insane to be true. It broke every norm in the book and should never have been allowed to succeed. It was available till it was sold out. Again and again. For more than three decades. Examine how this ostensibly "happenstance" defied all odds to become one of the world's most popular and cherished franchises.