Despite dismal reviews, 2014’s ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ grossed $485 million, making it Nickelodeon’s highest grossing film ever, ensuring a sequel, which filmed this spring in May.  Making his debut in this film hockey mask-wearing vigilante Casey Jones, played by Stephen Amell, already a fan favorite as Oliver Queen on the hit comic book adaptation ‘Arrow.’  In addition to Casey Jones, this movie sees the introduction of more favorites from the cartoons and comics, Bebop and Rocksteady, which should draw even jaded fans who were disappointed with the first film.

Amell explained that his version of Casey Jones is different from prior appearances:

“It’s certainly not your father’s or your younger self’s Casey Jones, but that’s because we meet him at a very different time in his development. He is not the Casey Jones that a lot of comic fans have come to know and love. He is a guy with a job that lives in New York and loves hockey. When things go awry, [and] when he goes through the normal methods of what someone would do when they’re [a] law-abiding citizen and he’s met with laughter and scorn… he decides to take things into his own hands.”

Because the Turtles and their supporting cast have been adapted repeatedly in different shows, comics, movies and video games, continuity can sometime be fluid.  But typically, Casey Jones is a street vigilante with a sports motif, carrying his baseball bats, hockey sticks and golf clubs in a gold bag or sports duffel.  In his early comic origins, he is inspired to fight crime after watching too many police shows.  In most iterations, Jones winds up as the love interest of the Turtle’s main human ally April O’Neal, played in these movies by Megan Fox.

It sounds like this version is fleshed out a bit further and given a more logical origin.  What do you think?  Does it even matter what his story is, or do you just want to see him whack bad guys with a hockey stick?  Aren’t the Turtles the real stars?  Does it matter what the humans do or where they came from?

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Half Shell’ starring Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, William Fitchner, Brian Tee, Tyler Perry, Brittany Ishibashi, Laura Linney, Gary Anthony Williams, Sheamus, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek , Jeremy Howard and Danny Woodburn hits theaters on June 3, 2016.