Nickelodeon has just announced it’s new cast for yet another TMNT show.

I thought we already had an awesome show. I guess this proves Nick won’t give the turtles a break. Well anyway, this show will have a few changes that may prove interesting. The first of these being that Raphael, who is being voiced by Omar Miller, will apparently be the leader in this show. He will also be the oldest and bigger than the others. Other than that the description sounds similar to his other incarnations.

I have one concern about the only red character being bigger and more muscular. Remeber that other series that changed another character to look a little like that? Me neither. Let’s just hope by making Raph bigger they don’t make him dumber, like that other character.

“I get the feeling someone’s talking about me…”

Unfortunately, Raph was the only one we got a whole lot of information about. We do Know that Ben Schwartz will be Leonardo, Josh Brener will be Donatello, Brandon Mychal Smith will be Michelangelo, and Kat Graham will be April O’Neil. More on her later.

I’m curious to how Raph will function as the leader. He’s always been a bit brash. Maybe Leo will have to take over at some point. I’m also wondering since he is the oldest, will he mentor his brothers? Will his tactics break the rules or endanger his team? There are so many ways they can take this. (Chris: I maintain that Leo isn’t exactly a great leader, so this really changes very little in the grand scheme of things).

Here is the part I have been dreading. I know people hate when this happens for some reason, but April is now African-American. Cue haters now. This doesn’t affect my enjoyment at all. In fact, this may lead to a few interesting stories. I think this April will be refreshing, but now I’m wondering about what Casey Jones will be like.

Aside from the brothers and April, we have Eric Bauza as Splinter and Rob Paulsen directing the voice cast. Nothing really on villains just yet, but I’m pretty sure when mutants are involved, The Foot isn’t too far behind. I hope we see a few new villains too.

Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comes out of the shadows sometime in 2018.