The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Encyclopedia
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a webcomic
written and drawn by Christopher Hastings
, and inked formerly by Kent Archer and since 2010 by Hastings himself . Published three times a week on its own website, it features the fictional adventures of a character named Dr. McNinja, a thirty-five-year-old doctor
who is also a ninja
. Dr. McNinja is highly story-driven, with twenty- to ninety-page issues. The first story was published in the summer of 2004 as a one-off, and the comic has been in regular publication since late 2005. The site also sells Dr. McNinja merchandise.
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a member of Dayfree Press
. An August 31, 2006 announcement in the news section of the Dr. McNinja website indicates that an exclusive monthly installment of Dr. McNinja will appear in the British magazine .net
.
was "Dr. McNinja". During a drawing contest involving a characterization of user screen names, Hastings drew an image of Dr. McNinja behind his desk with a sword on his wall and a speech bubble reading, "Should anyone need the services of a ninja or a doctor, my office is always open." Shortly afterward, Chris made a full-length comic about McNinja for an art class.
Strips were presented in a high contrast
black-and-white
, and then for a period of time were shaded digitally. Starting on 11 August 2008, comics began to be drawn in full color, provided by Carly Monardo. On February 9, 2009, Monardo stepped down to focus on her job on The Venture Bros.
Anthony "Nedroid" Clark was chosen to replace Monardo.
, with the exception that he is a practicing medical doctor as well. He has amazing speed (fast enough to dodge bullets) and agility, plus superhuman strength (the latter of which is attributed to the fact that he is a doctor as well as a ninja). He studied under the clone of Benjamin Franklin
in medical school, and his medical expertise ranges from general medicine
to podiatry
and dentistry
. In fact, he has a degree in virtually every field except agricultural science thanks to a cloning experiment during his college days with the help of his professor, Ben Franklin II. He is usually seen wearing slacks, a button-down shirt and tie, a lab coat, a ninja mask, and a stethoscope
around his neck. He is 35 years old.
While a skilled superhero, Dr. McNinja has several personality quirks. He desperately wants to be Batman
and has obsessively studied his movies, comics and TV shows to that effect (despite this, his personality is rather more similar to Spider-Man
in terms of lighthearted banter), even telling others he trained with Batman (which is patently false, even in the McNinja universe) and owning a pair of Batman pajamas. He is also highly sensitive to criticism by his parents, who are disappointed their ninja son is wasting his time as a doctor. The fact that he is both a doctor and a ninja has also caused several problems for him, chiefly due to his twin obligations to heal and to kill.
Though Dr. McNinja's full face is never seen, he has blue eyes and auburn eyebrows.
Gordito Delgado, a 12-year-old Mexican boy whom Dr. McNinja took on as a sidekick at the end of the third storyline. He was able to grow a full moustache
with sheer force of will due to his desire to become a "man", as he puts it. Normally, Gordito is the only person Yoshi lets ride him. He uses two revolvers and is an excellent shot. Gordito inherited his guns from his father, who was killed by a P.E.T.A. assassin. He is also a decent hand-to-hand fighter, besting one of Dark Smoke Puncher's robots after using all of his bullets up.
His last name, Delgado, was revealed on his grave stone on Hastings' April Fool's page. His first name means "little fatty" in Spanish, while the last name is the Spanish adjective for "thin" (Making his name an oxymoron
). In "The Dark Tower" series, which Gordito has quoted and is familiar with, one of the primary characters shares the surname Delgado.
Judy, a large gorilla
and Dr. McNinja's secretary and receptionist. She is extremely strong and can not only understand spoken English but also read and write. She can also communicate with sign language
, but Dr. McNinja cannot understand sign language and never knows what Judy is saying. Judy is also seen to be able to drive a car and operate earthmoving equipment.
She apparently understands at least a few medical procedures. When Dr. McNinja was possessed by an ear ghost, she knew enough to use the correct medical tools to remove it. She also transfused Dr. McNinja's blood soon after he was shot by several of Frans Rayner's ninja henchmen.
Benjamin Franklin
II, clone of the original. Some time ago he cheated death through cloning, earning the interest of Death himself, and has spent the intervening years attempting to cure death
. Ben taught Dr. McNinja various schools of medicine, and considers him his best student. He was killed (again) by Frans Rayner's drug-enhanced ninja, but has returned to life thanks to his "Eternal Life Serum" which he ingested prior to his second death. However, as a side effect, bodies in graves near his returned to life as zombies, including the original Benjamin Franklin. The serum was apparently created in collaboration with Dracula
, explaining the problems it has caused.
This serum gave Ben the blood of a Headless Horseman
. He became required to ingest hair to prevent him from turning into a Headless Horseman, but on a flight to Transylvania, he ran out of hair to eat, and transformed into a Horseman, crashing the plane. He rode out of the plane wreck on the horse that was stalking him. He appears on the Moon after Dracula summons him to his Moon Base. Dracula questions Franklin about the afterlife, and becomes upset when Franklin reveals that he has only been to purgatory
, "A restaurant with poor service...the worst." Dracula throws Franklin's head to earth, and Franklin is seen chasing after it. In the Epilogue Part II it is explained that, like all ghosts, a Headless Horsemen is bound to our realm by its last unfinished affairs. The last thing Benjamin Franklin II had been doing before he was killed by Franz Rayner's men was going to get pizza with Gordito so Dr. McNinja brings a pizza to the graveyard which transforms into Franklin's missing head. In Epilogue III, Benjamin Franklin II returned to the Purgatory restaurant with a resigned, but not altogether unhappy look on his face.
Yoshi, a Velociraptor
who wrecked McNinja's office in a previous storyline. McNinja, upon finding out that similar raptors had riders, claimed the unconscious raptor for his own. He was named by Dr. McNinja after the Nintendo
character Yoshi
, since Yoshi serves as Mario
's steed. Yoshi does not like having McNinja ride him. Gordito can ride him with no trouble, but Yoshi will only allow Dr. McNinja to ride him when Gordito is in danger.
Yoshi is also a valuable fighter. He has engaged Frans' drug ninja in a major battle and won. He also attacked the zombies roaming Dr. McNinja's hometown since dinosaurs are immune to zombies (see episode 5, page 28). He even single-handedly defeated the Raptor Force, the dinosaur president's elite bodyguard, in order to save the McNinja brothers. In this alternate timeline, Yoshi can speak, albeit in fragmented sentences.
He has served as comic relief several times, such as engaging in a battle with Judy over hot dogs (which Yoshi ate, despite Judy clearly marking them). He especially got in trouble when he nearly ate Judy's kitten named Ice Cream Cake.
Yoshi can be more accurately described as a Deinonychus or Utahraptor, and should be portrayed with feathers, but Chris Hastings has stated in the alt-text of "There is a Raptor in My Office" on page 7 that this confuses his brain and he is just going by the Jurassic Park version.
Dan McNinja, Dr. McNinja's father. A ninja with an impressive moustache. He is very talented as a ninja, but his conduct as a father is notably average- or below it, though he's generally better than his wife is. He is disappointed at his son's choice to be a doctor, but he isn't as hard on his son about it as his wife. At one point he took control of the American Ninja's Guild after defeating his rival Frans Rayner, winning over the other ninjas with the sheer power of his moustache alone.
He sometimes works with the FBI, as seen when he aided them in getting rid of a dangerous drug that gives people ninja-like abilities. He is a powerful ninja, perhaps the doctor's equal in combat, and uses bizarre tactics; one of his favorites is to set himself on fire so other people can't catch him. He can also, oddly, suck poison out of food with his body and store it in his eyes, where he shoots it out later, similar to a horned lizard
's ability to shoot blood from its eyes (although Dan claims it is "like a toad"). He, his wife Mitzi, and their son 'Dark Smoke Puncher' live together in a house located deep in a cave.
Mitzi McNinja, Dr. McNinja's mother. Like Dan, she is a ninja who disapproves of her son's choice to be a doctor- unlike Dan, she is exceptionally angry about it, and lets him know at every possible opportunity. She is one of the best ninja in the family, and guards the entrance to their home. Every time Dr. McNinja wants to visit, he must either sneak past or fight her. She has expertise with both pickled beets and precisely aimed demolitions (though according to Gordito, the beets taste absolutely terrible; possibly from them being poisoned though Dark Smoke Puncher states that they were always bad-tasting).
Sean "Dark Smoke Puncher" McNinja, Dr. McNinja's younger brother. He is named after the author's brother, Sean Hastings. His attire consists of a mix of ninja gear and modern gangster styles of clothing. Dr. McNinja openly mocks both his name and his poser-like ways, and even Dan admits that his skills are inferior to those of Dr. McNinja, though this is probably because he is younger. However, he is a genius with technology. In Dr. McNinja's letter to Gordito after sending him near his parents place, he implies that the deadly robot animal guards that have been modified by Sean are more dangerous than the average deadly robot animal guard. He also uses technology to imitate magic like a "technomage" even creating a freeze ray. This is similar to Babylon 5 but Sean refuses to admit it. He recently confided to Gordito that his 'gangster' attitude is mostly a front, to hide his geeky interests. He is a fan of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series
.
In the Dinosaur Future timeline, Sean leads the human resistance with an adult Gordito and King Radical against the dinosaurs and takes the name "Dr. McNinja." When Doc asked if it was an homage to him, he angrily rebuked that it was because he was a Technomage. His suit contains an advanced holographic disguise and various weapons. He has a scar over his left eye and, initially, a deep resentment for his brother's failure to prevent the dinosaur takeover years before.
Frans Rayner, a former member of the Guild of American Ninja who quit and began a genocide of ninja (and made movies about it) after he lost leadership of the guild to Dan and his moustache. Frans later distributed a drug that gave people ninja powers in an extremely convoluted scheme to become President of the United States. He employs a midget scientist named Knickerbockers as well as numerous ninja who become ninja with his drug. He supposedly died when Dr. McNinja's anti-ninja drug stripped him of his powers and he got thrown off a cliff. He later returned and used cloning and the Inverse Ninja Law in attempt to kill Dr. McNinja.
He is one of Dr. McNinja's most deadly enemies as he is both an extremely skilled ninja, but also holds that ability to manipulate his organs and bones so only one part of it is weak (originally it was the center of his left butt cheek.) He actually feared Dr. McNinja because he could find the weak point when other ninja couldn't. Later, after being thrown from a cliff, he gained a prosthetic rocket leg (and, having transferred it to the real leg prior to its amputation, removed his weak point) and a laser eye, but also a severe fear of death. He appears to be inspired by parodies of Michael Dudikoff (especially the American Ninja
movies) and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Death, portrayed as a skeleton with a pencil thin mustache and a maître d’ outfit, he brings people to purgatory, a restaurant with bad service where people eat their sins to cleanse them. Dr. McNinja seems to have gained the ability to see him after he refused to die.
Dracula, an old Transylvanian vampire who was become bored with life and wishes to see what happens in the afterlife. However, unlike most versions of the famous vampire, this Dracula has a teleporter, a moon base, a moon laser, and a cure for cancer hidden on Mars. The moon base holds many of Dracula's treasures and science projects including baby Dracula, super Dracula, Hitler, the real Paul McCartney, the real Michael Jackson, Tupac, and Bruce Lee (whose final act of superhuman feats was jumping to the moon.)
Dracula funded Benjamin Franklin's experiments in an attempt to see what the afterlife holds and after that failed, attempted to kill Dr. McNinja (who has previously come back from the dead) and tell him what happened. He is apparently still on decent terms with Dr. McNinja as he didn't try to kill him with his moon laser when Dr. McNinja sat outside and wrote "We Cool?" with giant letters.
Martin Monster, the owner of a series of supermarkets who attended the same college as Dr. McNinja and was part of the same superhero team. Dr. McNinja hated him early in the comic because Marty revealed the team's secret identities in a trick to discover who they actually were (and the action figure contract was for figures with removable masks.) He eventually came to Dr. McNinja to get help when he had trouble transforming between his human and monster forms. It was revealed that his stupidity in monster form is what caused him to reveal his team's secret identities and also caused him to become indebted to the Cumberland mafia. With Dr. McNinja's help he is freed from the mafia and regains his control over his transformations.
He has the ability to change in a giant purple ogre, reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk. His powers are a result of his father's attempts to cure his paralysis (which failed) and relies on high emotionality to transform. He becomes very stupid when transformed and leaves as an overly emotional brute. Stress causes his transformation to become unstable eventually leaving him stuck between his human and monster form.
King Radical, "the most radical man in the Radical Land". A crime boss
that dresses in a style similar to a stereotypical king
, the Burger king, or even the Bicycle Playing card Joker with sunglasses and tattoos on his fingers that read "MOST RAD." He is the head of the Cumberland Mafia, and has invoked Dr. McNinja's ire by blowing his office up as retribution for his refusal to treat one of Radical's thugs. In a secret epilogue page, it is discovered that he had also hired one of McNinja's ex-girlfriends to sabotage his most recent mission and secure for him a book detailing highly advanced technology. In an ironic twist, despite antagonising McNinja and fulfilling the basic role of an arch-nemesis, Radical is technically not a villain as all his activities are intentionally beneficial to Cumberland. However, since his operations are performed illegally (and since he blew up McNinja's office and has repeatedly taunted him), McNinja persists in trying to defeat him and take down his operations.
Hortense, Dr. McNinja's ex-girlfriend from college. Dan and Mitzi both view her as one of the family and want so badly for her to get back together with their son that when she was seemingly hired to unwittingly stop Dr. McNinja from saving the world, both McNinja and Hortense assumed it was some ploy by Dan and Mitzi to get them back together. It was revealed that she actually was hired by King Radical to replace a book full of ancient technology with a useless substitute.
do?" Starting with "So What Is A McNinja?", each page also uses alt text
to add background information and in-jokes, such as the author comparing the comic's visual style to Frank Miller
's comic Sin City
.
, which happens to be a corporation of robot workers run by evil mime Ronald McDonald
. McDonald releases a new product, the McNinja burger, which contains large amounts of methane and nitrogen, since a corporate advisor mentions that "kids like farts.....and ninjas." Naturally, the product offends Dr McNinja, who hunts out McDonald at a local McDonald's filled with "Burger Zombies" and the McDonald's robot workers. McNinja finally enters a showdown in McDonald's "Final Boss Lair." After the clown stops McNinja's ninja stars with a mime shield, McNinja has "no problem fighting fire with fire" with a mime rocket launcher.
Despite being written and presented first, the website urges readers not to read this story first and instead, to read the first two "official" issues before reading this one.
's Disease. The boy then turns into a giant lumberjack and bursts through the ceiling, enraged at how many trees stand within the area. Dr. McNinja infiltrates a facility (rather violently) to get a lotion that removes the lumberjack facial hair permanently, thus returning him to normal. Judy also fights off a group of poachers that hunt giant lumberjacks for a living. Ten years later, the former patient's girlfriend leaves him due to his inability to grow a beard, and he swears revenge on McNinja.
Dr. McNinja returns home for "Katanakka" (a Ninja holiday celebrated on the same day as Thanksgiving
so "that we still get the day off"). After a heated discussion with his mother and father, McNinja storms out and (after getting drunk) betrays his family to a crew of pirates. After sobering up and revelation through hallucination, Dr. McNinja storms off again to save his family and restore his own honor at the same time.
has wrecked his office. A trio of raptor-riding banditos
attack Dr. McNinja in order to try to get their raptor back, but are foiled and retreat. The following day, Dr. McNinja gets an anonymous tip on Myspace
, and follows the leads to a self-obsessed villain the riders dubbed "Ab Man," upon whom they have sworn vengeance for "stealing their leader's internet girlfriend". Dr. McNinja assists them. They find "Ab Man" at a warehouse filled the McNinja burgers that he uses to power his organic jetpack. Battle ensues, but a mysterious third party shooter, who is actually the weather reporter shown earlier in the story arc, claims the final shot. Afterwards, the riders depart as promised, but leave Gordito in McNinja's care.
who is working to make eternal life medically possible, and an evil Danish martial arts film star named Frans Rayner. Twenty years ago, Rayner fought Dan McNinja for leadership of the American Ninja Guild and almost won, until a young Doc determined Rayner's weak spot. Now, Rayner is plotting to kill Dr. McNinja with the aid of his midget
henchman, Knickerbockers, in hopes of baiting McNinja's father into the open. The goons succeeded in dispatching both Dr. McNinja and Benjamin Franklin, resulting in Dr. McNinja splitting into two different spirits (one for his ninja half and one for his doctor half). However, when Death came to claim their souls, the two work together to dispatch Death and reunite in their old body.
The second half of this storyline involves Dr. McNinja's return to life and mission to get revenge against Rayner and his ninja minions. Teaming up with his father (disguised as a pirate to evade detection) Dr. McNinja synthesizes a drug to temporarily rob ninja of their abilities, and launches an attack on Rayner's mansion. The entire story is an homage to 80's action movies. Specifically, 80's films that involved ninjas as disposable enemies, as this is referred to as "The Ninja Holocaust of 1980", which Rayner was responsible for.
's Thriller
. It's also revealed that Dr. McNinja's home city is Cumberland, Maryland
, and has an anti-zombie defense system which was put in place by Dr. McNinja and Mayor Chuck Goodrich.
Here, we learn that Ben completed (at least with enough confidence to ingest it) his eternal life serum, and Dr. McNinja digs up Ben's grave to pull a very thirsty resurrected Franklin from his coffin. Currently, Ben's original body (circa 1700's) is a "deanimated" zombie, shot in the head by Gordito.
The title of this story is a tribute to the webcomic Achewood.
, so the Doctor investigates at the Red Cross headquarters, run by vampires. A vampire reveals that Ben is now part Headless Horseman
, with hair consumption serving as the trigger preventing him from transforming fully. Dr. McNinja and Ben Franklin take a plane for Transylvania to confront Dracula. Meanwhile, Sean and Gordito are being trained by Dan and Mitzi for their upcoming battle with the Ghost Wizard, which The Catholic Church has hired them to defeat. On the plane, Ben hungers for hair, but Dr. McNinja cannot get any in time, so Franklin is transformed into a full Headless Horseman
. The plane crashes and Ben Franklin rides away.
's disease. Martin Monster, a former friend of Dr. McNinja, shows up requesting his help, stating that he has trouble controlling his transformations into a giant ogre
-like monster. Dr. McNinja advises Martin that his problems are likely stress-related. Soon afterward McNinja's office is triggered for explosion, and the culprits implicate Martin. Martin admits that he joined the Cumberland Mafia (led by King Radical) as hired muscle to pay off a debt, although he was not involved in blowing up McNinja's office. King Radical had his men do so in retaliation for turning away a suspicious patient in the mafia. McNinja and Gordito help Martin in concocting a plan to remove a rival gang. When Dr. McNinja and Gordito are captured by the rival gang (led by the humanoid lobster man, The Robster), Martin becomes enraged and regains his power, destroying the enemy gang. In the aftermath of the fight, King Radical appears to pronounce Martin's debt settled.
player – who must win a ritual tennis match with the temple's robots or the world will be destroyed. The mission is complicated by the temple's many death traps and Dr. McNinja's ex-girlfriend, Hortense (her story debut). Meanwhile, Gordito and Judy supervise the rebuilding of Doc's office and try to prevent a half-plumber, half-spy from installing surveillance equipment. A Secret Epilogue revealed that Hortense had been hired for the mission, not by Doc's parents (in an effort to bring them together), but by King Radical. The storyline references Zelda
and Shrine of the Silver Monkey
several times in both the characters' actions and in the alt text.
boss King Radical. As soon as Doc decides that he needs a motorcycle
to keep up with Radical's dirt bike, a stranger crashes his white rainbow-striped motorcycle in Doc's parking lot. Doc claims the motorcycle for himself, and becomes more and more violently obsessed with thwarting Radical's plans. He also dreams of riding a rainbow-maned unicorn
. Gordito is concerned with Doc's behaviour, and discovers that the motorcycle's previous owner was driven mad by it. Radical and Doc duel through the streets of Cumberland, and then through the tunnels under the town. Radical reveals that Doc's motorcycle was originally an evil unicorn named Sparklelord, and implores Doc to shake off the influence of the motorcycle and help Radical banish it.
procedure in college to study a wide variety of disciplines simultaneously. In the process of amalgamating the clones back into one person, a time-traveler from the future arrives and destabilizes the machine used to bring them together, causing one clone to remain. The time traveler's suit is damaged during the explosion, sending him back to 1979. The time traveler is revealed as Chuck Goodrich, whose mission is to prevent Franklin's Zombie Ninja Apocalypse.
In present time, steampunk
sky pirates kidnap the clone of Dr. McNinja, and during Dr. McNinja's attempted rescue, both of them are taken captive by Frans Rayner. Rayner has successfully created countless clones of Dr. McNinja. Dr. McNinja must defeat his own clones and then fight Rayner. Rayner is defeated, but escapes. The only clone that survives is the one from Dr. McNinja's college years.
, inked by both artists. Axe Cop summons Doctor McNinja and together they discover why pizza is turning people into monsters.
Dr. McNinja, with Judy and the newly arrived Chuck Goodrich's help, attempts to steal a warhead to blow up a dinosaur scout ship that is supposed to appear in 48 hours. However, King Radical shows up to steal the warhead himself. After explaining they need the warhead to blow up the space dinosaurs, Radical lets them have it.
McNinja formulates a plan to sneak Chuck Goodrich into a NASA space shuttle. However, the plan fails when Mcninja knocks out Goodrich's partn and Goodrich and McNinja are attacked by Nasaghasts, ghosts that defend the space center. Dr. McNinja is forced to board the shuttle himself along with Goodrich. They successfully fire the missile at the dinosaur ship, but one of the Nasaghasts follow them into space, catches the missile, and hurls it back to their space shuttle. The shuttle is destroyed in the explosion, leaving Dr. McNinja's fate unknown.
Doc and Chuck reemerge in Doc's family's cave, to discover that Space Dinosaurs have taken it over, along with the entire planet. They are captured by the dinosaurs, but escape when they learn that Dr. McNinja in this timeline is one of the leaders of the human resistance. Chuck and Doc discover, however, that this Doc is actually Doc's younger brother, Sean "Dark Smoke Puncher". With the help of King Radical, Gordito, and some of Doc's former patients, the brothers assault the dinosaur's stronghold to free a dinosaur named "The Ultimate Diplomat" to bring peace between the humans and dinosaurs and end the war. After assaulting the Dinosaur President's fortress with the help of some Paul Bunyan giants and a Nasaghast, they free the Diplomat using Dracula's Moon laser to break him out of his prison. The diplomat seems to have superpowers however and was able to convince everyone to lay down their arms. With a speech that was able to convince everyone that heard it that peace was the best option, the relations between dinosaurs and humans ended peacefully. Doc, Sean and Gordito return to the cave so the Doc can return home using the time warp underground. Though contemplating whether murdering the innocent scout was the right thing to do or not (because of the diplomat's words) King Radical rebuffed him immediately. He had not heard the rousing speech and thusly still resented the dinosaurs taking over Earth and murdering all their friends. Doctor McNinja jump into the time warp, but not before giving King Radical one more dirty look. The story wraps up with the Triceratops scout getting murdered by Doctor McNinja and him calling his family to see what was going. The epilogue states whilst the Doctor is on a plane (presumedly back home) that now instead of human jetpack hunting (which occurs in the Dinosaur future), there is rollerskate hunting which the Doctor makes a note to stop.
as early as April 2011. All of the printed comics include comics not available on the Dr. McNinja website.
Dr. McNinja also appeared on CBS's
How I Met Your Mother
on the second episode of the sixth season as a poster in the back of Barney Stinson's
room.
Dr. McNinja also appears in the special features of the movie Ninja Assassin
in the history of the ninja segment.
Dracula
, as drawn by Christopher Hastings, appears on the cover of the Halloween album "The Worst Music Dracula Ever Heard".
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
written and drawn by Christopher Hastings
Christopher Hastings
Christopher Hastings is a 27 year old comic artist and creator best known for The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.-Biography:Chris attended the School of Visual Arts in New York, and it was while there in 2004 that he created the character of Dr. McNinja. His webcomic has become one of the most popular...
, and inked formerly by Kent Archer and since 2010 by Hastings himself . Published three times a week on its own website, it features the fictional adventures of a character named Dr. McNinja, a thirty-five-year-old doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who is also a ninja
Ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...
. Dr. McNinja is highly story-driven, with twenty- to ninety-page issues. The first story was published in the summer of 2004 as a one-off, and the comic has been in regular publication since late 2005. The site also sells Dr. McNinja merchandise.
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a member of Dayfree Press
Dayfree Press
Dayfree Press is an online webcomic syndicate. Each Dayfree member has a special advertisement banner on their webpage that advertises the comics of another member-site...
. An August 31, 2006 announcement in the news section of the Dr. McNinja website indicates that an exclusive monthly installment of Dr. McNinja will appear in the British magazine .net
.net (magazine)
.net is a monthly Internet magazine published in the UK by Future Publishing. Founded in 1994, .net magazine is published every four weeks . The magazine is aimed at professional and amateur web designers, and a significant proportion of its readers are full-time web developers. The front cover...
.
History
In 2003, when Chris Hastings was a forum member of Something Awful Forums, his screen nameUser (computing)
A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...
was "Dr. McNinja". During a drawing contest involving a characterization of user screen names, Hastings drew an image of Dr. McNinja behind his desk with a sword on his wall and a speech bubble reading, "Should anyone need the services of a ninja or a doctor, my office is always open." Shortly afterward, Chris made a full-length comic about McNinja for an art class.
Strips were presented in a high contrast
Contrast (vision)
Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object distinguishable from other objects and the background. In visual perception of the real world, contrast is determined by the difference in the color and brightness of the object and other objects within the same field of view...
black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
, and then for a period of time were shaded digitally. Starting on 11 August 2008, comics began to be drawn in full color, provided by Carly Monardo. On February 9, 2009, Monardo stepped down to focus on her job on The Venture Bros.
The Venture Bros.
The Venture Bros. is an American animated television series that premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on February 16, 2003. The series mixes action and comedy together while it chronicles the adventures of the Venture family: well-meaning but incompetent teenagers Hank and Dean Venture; their...
Anthony "Nedroid" Clark was chosen to replace Monardo.
Characters
Dr. McNinja, the eponymous character. His first name is never given, and cannot be revealed as per the wizard. He is a cliché ninjaNinja in popular culture
The ninja are common stock characters in both Japanese and international popular culture. The cultural references listed below are major instances separated into groups, such as novels, comic books, anime/manga, films, television shows, video games, and others.- Overview :Depictions of ninja range...
, with the exception that he is a practicing medical doctor as well. He has amazing speed (fast enough to dodge bullets) and agility, plus superhuman strength (the latter of which is attributed to the fact that he is a doctor as well as a ninja). He studied under the clone of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
in medical school, and his medical expertise ranges from general medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
to podiatry
Podiatry
Podiatry is a branch of medicine devoted to the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and lower leg. The term podiatry came into use first in the early 20th century United States, where it now denotes a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine , a specialist who is qualified by their...
and dentistry
Dentistry
Dentistry is the branch of medicine that is involved in the study, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases, disorders and conditions of the oral cavity, maxillofacial area and the adjacent and associated structures and their impact on the human body. Dentistry is widely considered...
. In fact, he has a degree in virtually every field except agricultural science thanks to a cloning experiment during his college days with the help of his professor, Ben Franklin II. He is usually seen wearing slacks, a button-down shirt and tie, a lab coat, a ninja mask, and a stethoscope
Stethoscope
The stethoscope is an acoustic medical device for auscultation, or listening to the internal sounds of an animal body. It is often used to listen to lung and heart sounds. It is also used to listen to intestines and blood flow in arteries and veins...
around his neck. He is 35 years old.
While a skilled superhero, Dr. McNinja has several personality quirks. He desperately wants to be Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
and has obsessively studied his movies, comics and TV shows to that effect (despite this, his personality is rather more similar to Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
in terms of lighthearted banter), even telling others he trained with Batman (which is patently false, even in the McNinja universe) and owning a pair of Batman pajamas. He is also highly sensitive to criticism by his parents, who are disappointed their ninja son is wasting his time as a doctor. The fact that he is both a doctor and a ninja has also caused several problems for him, chiefly due to his twin obligations to heal and to kill.
Though Dr. McNinja's full face is never seen, he has blue eyes and auburn eyebrows.
Gordito Delgado, a 12-year-old Mexican boy whom Dr. McNinja took on as a sidekick at the end of the third storyline. He was able to grow a full moustache
Moustache
A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair style grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.-Etymology:...
with sheer force of will due to his desire to become a "man", as he puts it. Normally, Gordito is the only person Yoshi lets ride him. He uses two revolvers and is an excellent shot. Gordito inherited his guns from his father, who was killed by a P.E.T.A. assassin. He is also a decent hand-to-hand fighter, besting one of Dark Smoke Puncher's robots after using all of his bullets up.
His last name, Delgado, was revealed on his grave stone on Hastings' April Fool's page. His first name means "little fatty" in Spanish, while the last name is the Spanish adjective for "thin" (Making his name an oxymoron
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...
). In "The Dark Tower" series, which Gordito has quoted and is familiar with, one of the primary characters shares the surname Delgado.
Judy, a large gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
and Dr. McNinja's secretary and receptionist. She is extremely strong and can not only understand spoken English but also read and write. She can also communicate with sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
, but Dr. McNinja cannot understand sign language and never knows what Judy is saying. Judy is also seen to be able to drive a car and operate earthmoving equipment.
She apparently understands at least a few medical procedures. When Dr. McNinja was possessed by an ear ghost, she knew enough to use the correct medical tools to remove it. She also transfused Dr. McNinja's blood soon after he was shot by several of Frans Rayner's ninja henchmen.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
II, clone of the original. Some time ago he cheated death through cloning, earning the interest of Death himself, and has spent the intervening years attempting to cure death
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
. Ben taught Dr. McNinja various schools of medicine, and considers him his best student. He was killed (again) by Frans Rayner's drug-enhanced ninja, but has returned to life thanks to his "Eternal Life Serum" which he ingested prior to his second death. However, as a side effect, bodies in graves near his returned to life as zombies, including the original Benjamin Franklin. The serum was apparently created in collaboration with Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
, explaining the problems it has caused.
This serum gave Ben the blood of a Headless Horseman
Headless Horseman
The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle ages.The Headless Horseman is a fictional character who appears in a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is in a collection of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon written by Washington Irving...
. He became required to ingest hair to prevent him from turning into a Headless Horseman, but on a flight to Transylvania, he ran out of hair to eat, and transformed into a Horseman, crashing the plane. He rode out of the plane wreck on the horse that was stalking him. He appears on the Moon after Dracula summons him to his Moon Base. Dracula questions Franklin about the afterlife, and becomes upset when Franklin reveals that he has only been to purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
, "A restaurant with poor service...the worst." Dracula throws Franklin's head to earth, and Franklin is seen chasing after it. In the Epilogue Part II it is explained that, like all ghosts, a Headless Horsemen is bound to our realm by its last unfinished affairs. The last thing Benjamin Franklin II had been doing before he was killed by Franz Rayner's men was going to get pizza with Gordito so Dr. McNinja brings a pizza to the graveyard which transforms into Franklin's missing head. In Epilogue III, Benjamin Franklin II returned to the Purgatory restaurant with a resigned, but not altogether unhappy look on his face.
Yoshi, a Velociraptor
Velociraptor
Velociraptor is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis; fossils...
who wrecked McNinja's office in a previous storyline. McNinja, upon finding out that similar raptors had riders, claimed the unconscious raptor for his own. He was named by Dr. McNinja after the Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
character Yoshi
Yoshi
, is a fictional dragon-like character who appears in video games published by Nintendo. His debut was in Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Mario and Luigi's sidekick , and he later established his own series with several platform and puzzle games, including Super...
, since Yoshi serves as Mario
Mario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
's steed. Yoshi does not like having McNinja ride him. Gordito can ride him with no trouble, but Yoshi will only allow Dr. McNinja to ride him when Gordito is in danger.
Yoshi is also a valuable fighter. He has engaged Frans' drug ninja in a major battle and won. He also attacked the zombies roaming Dr. McNinja's hometown since dinosaurs are immune to zombies (see episode 5, page 28). He even single-handedly defeated the Raptor Force, the dinosaur president's elite bodyguard, in order to save the McNinja brothers. In this alternate timeline, Yoshi can speak, albeit in fragmented sentences.
He has served as comic relief several times, such as engaging in a battle with Judy over hot dogs (which Yoshi ate, despite Judy clearly marking them). He especially got in trouble when he nearly ate Judy's kitten named Ice Cream Cake.
Yoshi can be more accurately described as a Deinonychus or Utahraptor, and should be portrayed with feathers, but Chris Hastings has stated in the alt-text of "There is a Raptor in My Office" on page 7 that this confuses his brain and he is just going by the Jurassic Park version.
Dan McNinja, Dr. McNinja's father. A ninja with an impressive moustache. He is very talented as a ninja, but his conduct as a father is notably average- or below it, though he's generally better than his wife is. He is disappointed at his son's choice to be a doctor, but he isn't as hard on his son about it as his wife. At one point he took control of the American Ninja's Guild after defeating his rival Frans Rayner, winning over the other ninjas with the sheer power of his moustache alone.
He sometimes works with the FBI, as seen when he aided them in getting rid of a dangerous drug that gives people ninja-like abilities. He is a powerful ninja, perhaps the doctor's equal in combat, and uses bizarre tactics; one of his favorites is to set himself on fire so other people can't catch him. He can also, oddly, suck poison out of food with his body and store it in his eyes, where he shoots it out later, similar to a horned lizard
Horned lizard
Horned lizards are a genus of lizards which are the type genus of the family Phrynosomatidae. The horned lizard is popularly called a "horned toad", "horny toad", or "horned frog", but it is neither a toad nor a frog. The popular names come from the lizard's rounded body and blunt snout, which...
's ability to shoot blood from its eyes (although Dan claims it is "like a toad"). He, his wife Mitzi, and their son 'Dark Smoke Puncher' live together in a house located deep in a cave.
Mitzi McNinja, Dr. McNinja's mother. Like Dan, she is a ninja who disapproves of her son's choice to be a doctor- unlike Dan, she is exceptionally angry about it, and lets him know at every possible opportunity. She is one of the best ninja in the family, and guards the entrance to their home. Every time Dr. McNinja wants to visit, he must either sneak past or fight her. She has expertise with both pickled beets and precisely aimed demolitions (though according to Gordito, the beets taste absolutely terrible; possibly from them being poisoned though Dark Smoke Puncher states that they were always bad-tasting).
Sean "Dark Smoke Puncher" McNinja, Dr. McNinja's younger brother. He is named after the author's brother, Sean Hastings. His attire consists of a mix of ninja gear and modern gangster styles of clothing. Dr. McNinja openly mocks both his name and his poser-like ways, and even Dan admits that his skills are inferior to those of Dr. McNinja, though this is probably because he is younger. However, he is a genius with technology. In Dr. McNinja's letter to Gordito after sending him near his parents place, he implies that the deadly robot animal guards that have been modified by Sean are more dangerous than the average deadly robot animal guard. He also uses technology to imitate magic like a "technomage" even creating a freeze ray. This is similar to Babylon 5 but Sean refuses to admit it. He recently confided to Gordito that his 'gangster' attitude is mostly a front, to hide his geeky interests. He is a fan of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series
The Dark Tower (series)
The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
.
In the Dinosaur Future timeline, Sean leads the human resistance with an adult Gordito and King Radical against the dinosaurs and takes the name "Dr. McNinja." When Doc asked if it was an homage to him, he angrily rebuked that it was because he was a Technomage. His suit contains an advanced holographic disguise and various weapons. He has a scar over his left eye and, initially, a deep resentment for his brother's failure to prevent the dinosaur takeover years before.
Frans Rayner, a former member of the Guild of American Ninja who quit and began a genocide of ninja (and made movies about it) after he lost leadership of the guild to Dan and his moustache. Frans later distributed a drug that gave people ninja powers in an extremely convoluted scheme to become President of the United States. He employs a midget scientist named Knickerbockers as well as numerous ninja who become ninja with his drug. He supposedly died when Dr. McNinja's anti-ninja drug stripped him of his powers and he got thrown off a cliff. He later returned and used cloning and the Inverse Ninja Law in attempt to kill Dr. McNinja.
He is one of Dr. McNinja's most deadly enemies as he is both an extremely skilled ninja, but also holds that ability to manipulate his organs and bones so only one part of it is weak (originally it was the center of his left butt cheek.) He actually feared Dr. McNinja because he could find the weak point when other ninja couldn't. Later, after being thrown from a cliff, he gained a prosthetic rocket leg (and, having transferred it to the real leg prior to its amputation, removed his weak point) and a laser eye, but also a severe fear of death. He appears to be inspired by parodies of Michael Dudikoff (especially the American Ninja
American Ninja
American Ninja is a 1985 ninja action film produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's Cannon Films. Directed by Sam Firstenberg, who specialized in this genre in the 1980s, the film stars Michael Dudikoff in the title role, with Steve James as his side-kick. Domestic box office grosses for the...
movies) and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Death, portrayed as a skeleton with a pencil thin mustache and a maître d’ outfit, he brings people to purgatory, a restaurant with bad service where people eat their sins to cleanse them. Dr. McNinja seems to have gained the ability to see him after he refused to die.
Dracula, an old Transylvanian vampire who was become bored with life and wishes to see what happens in the afterlife. However, unlike most versions of the famous vampire, this Dracula has a teleporter, a moon base, a moon laser, and a cure for cancer hidden on Mars. The moon base holds many of Dracula's treasures and science projects including baby Dracula, super Dracula, Hitler, the real Paul McCartney, the real Michael Jackson, Tupac, and Bruce Lee (whose final act of superhuman feats was jumping to the moon.)
Dracula funded Benjamin Franklin's experiments in an attempt to see what the afterlife holds and after that failed, attempted to kill Dr. McNinja (who has previously come back from the dead) and tell him what happened. He is apparently still on decent terms with Dr. McNinja as he didn't try to kill him with his moon laser when Dr. McNinja sat outside and wrote "We Cool?" with giant letters.
Martin Monster, the owner of a series of supermarkets who attended the same college as Dr. McNinja and was part of the same superhero team. Dr. McNinja hated him early in the comic because Marty revealed the team's secret identities in a trick to discover who they actually were (and the action figure contract was for figures with removable masks.) He eventually came to Dr. McNinja to get help when he had trouble transforming between his human and monster forms. It was revealed that his stupidity in monster form is what caused him to reveal his team's secret identities and also caused him to become indebted to the Cumberland mafia. With Dr. McNinja's help he is freed from the mafia and regains his control over his transformations.
He has the ability to change in a giant purple ogre, reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk. His powers are a result of his father's attempts to cure his paralysis (which failed) and relies on high emotionality to transform. He becomes very stupid when transformed and leaves as an overly emotional brute. Stress causes his transformation to become unstable eventually leaving him stuck between his human and monster form.
King Radical, "the most radical man in the Radical Land". A crime boss
Crime boss
A crime boss or boss is a person in charge of a criminal organization. A boss typically has absolute or near-absolute control over his subordinates, is greatly feared by his subordinates for his ruthlessness and willingness to take lives in order to exert his influence, and profits come from the...
that dresses in a style similar to a stereotypical king
King
- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...
, the Burger king, or even the Bicycle Playing card Joker with sunglasses and tattoos on his fingers that read "MOST RAD." He is the head of the Cumberland Mafia, and has invoked Dr. McNinja's ire by blowing his office up as retribution for his refusal to treat one of Radical's thugs. In a secret epilogue page, it is discovered that he had also hired one of McNinja's ex-girlfriends to sabotage his most recent mission and secure for him a book detailing highly advanced technology. In an ironic twist, despite antagonising McNinja and fulfilling the basic role of an arch-nemesis, Radical is technically not a villain as all his activities are intentionally beneficial to Cumberland. However, since his operations are performed illegally (and since he blew up McNinja's office and has repeatedly taunted him), McNinja persists in trying to defeat him and take down his operations.
Hortense, Dr. McNinja's ex-girlfriend from college. Dan and Mitzi both view her as one of the family and want so badly for her to get back together with their son that when she was seemingly hired to unwittingly stop Dr. McNinja from saving the world, both McNinja and Hortense assumed it was some ploy by Dan and Mitzi to get them back together. It was revealed that she actually was hired by King Radical to replace a book full of ancient technology with a useless substitute.
Story arcs
Dr. McNinja's story has many absurd plot twists, and often makes allusions to outside works, most prominently Dr. McNinja's quote of "What would BatmanBatman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
do?" Starting with "So What Is A McNinja?", each page also uses alt text
Alt attribute
The alt attribute is used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify alternative text that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. In HTML 4.01, the attribute is required for the img and area tags...
to add background information and in-jokes, such as the author comparing the comic's visual style to Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
's comic Sin City
Sin City
Sin City is the title for a series of neo-noir comics by Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special" , and continued in Dark Horse Presents #51–62 from May 1991 to June 1992, under the title of Sin City, serialized in thirteen parts. Several...
.
Dr. McNinja vs. McDonald's
Dr. McNinja must face off against McDonald'sMcDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
, which happens to be a corporation of robot workers run by evil mime Ronald McDonald
Ronald McDonald
Ronald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. In television commercials, the clown inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland, and has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and...
. McDonald releases a new product, the McNinja burger, which contains large amounts of methane and nitrogen, since a corporate advisor mentions that "kids like farts.....and ninjas." Naturally, the product offends Dr McNinja, who hunts out McDonald at a local McDonald's filled with "Burger Zombies" and the McDonald's robot workers. McNinja finally enters a showdown in McDonald's "Final Boss Lair." After the clown stops McNinja's ninja stars with a mime shield, McNinja has "no problem fighting fire with fire" with a mime rocket launcher.
Despite being written and presented first, the website urges readers not to read this story first and instead, to read the first two "official" issues before reading this one.
Meet the Doctor and His Friendly Staff
The first official comic: Dr. McNinja is called upon to investigate a young boy's illness. The boy, whose condition causes him to frequently vomit large amounts of maple syrup, is soon diagnosed as Paul BunyanPaul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
's Disease. The boy then turns into a giant lumberjack and bursts through the ceiling, enraged at how many trees stand within the area. Dr. McNinja infiltrates a facility (rather violently) to get a lotion that removes the lumberjack facial hair permanently, thus returning him to normal. Judy also fights off a group of poachers that hunt giant lumberjacks for a living. Ten years later, the former patient's girlfriend leaves him due to his inability to grow a beard, and he swears revenge on McNinja.
So What Is a McNinja?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
so "that we still get the day off"). After a heated discussion with his mother and father, McNinja storms out and (after getting drunk) betrays his family to a crew of pirates. After sobering up and revelation through hallucination, Dr. McNinja storms off again to save his family and restore his own honor at the same time.
There Is a Raptor in My Office
Dr. McNinja comes to work and finds that a VelociraptorVelociraptor
Velociraptor is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis; fossils...
has wrecked his office. A trio of raptor-riding banditos
Outlaw
In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
attack Dr. McNinja in order to try to get their raptor back, but are foiled and retreat. The following day, Dr. McNinja gets an anonymous tip on Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
, and follows the leads to a self-obsessed villain the riders dubbed "Ab Man," upon whom they have sworn vengeance for "stealing their leader's internet girlfriend". Dr. McNinja assists them. They find "Ab Man" at a warehouse filled the McNinja burgers that he uses to power his organic jetpack. Battle ensues, but a mysterious third party shooter, who is actually the weather reporter shown earlier in the story arc, claims the final shot. Afterwards, the riders depart as promised, but leave Gordito in McNinja's care.
D.A.R.E to Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence
A two-issue story involving a drug that heightens one's ninja skills, the McNinja family's attempts to handle the situation, Dr. McNinja's training of Gordito, a clone of Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
who is working to make eternal life medically possible, and an evil Danish martial arts film star named Frans Rayner. Twenty years ago, Rayner fought Dan McNinja for leadership of the American Ninja Guild and almost won, until a young Doc determined Rayner's weak spot. Now, Rayner is plotting to kill Dr. McNinja with the aid of his midget
Midget
A midget is a short person with relatively average bodily proportions in comparison with other human beings. The term is often improperly used to describe a person with the medical condition dwarfism. The two terms are often used synonymously because both terms originate as words defining small...
henchman, Knickerbockers, in hopes of baiting McNinja's father into the open. The goons succeeded in dispatching both Dr. McNinja and Benjamin Franklin, resulting in Dr. McNinja splitting into two different spirits (one for his ninja half and one for his doctor half). However, when Death came to claim their souls, the two work together to dispatch Death and reunite in their old body.
The second half of this storyline involves Dr. McNinja's return to life and mission to get revenge against Rayner and his ninja minions. Teaming up with his father (disguised as a pirate to evade detection) Dr. McNinja synthesizes a drug to temporarily rob ninja of their abilities, and launches an attack on Rayner's mansion. The entire story is an homage to 80's action movies. Specifically, 80's films that involved ninjas as disposable enemies, as this is referred to as "The Ninja Holocaust of 1980", which Rayner was responsible for.
Revenge of the Hundred Dead Ninja
Focused around the consequences of the events in D.A.R.E. It is a spoof and homage to horror movies with an opening sequence that parodies the video clip to Michael JacksonMichael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's Thriller
Thriller (music video)
Michael Jackson's Thriller is a 14-minute music video for the song of the same name released on December 2, 1983 and directed by John Landis, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jackson....
. It's also revealed that Dr. McNinja's home city is Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a city in the far western, Appalachian portion of Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Allegany County, and the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, and the metropolitan area had a...
, and has an anti-zombie defense system which was put in place by Dr. McNinja and Mayor Chuck Goodrich.
I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One
While Gordito is sent away to train with Dr. McNinja's family, Dr. McNinja continues to search out the cause of the zombie outbreak. Also, a superhero called Beeman is shot to death and ends up in Purgatory where he has a conversation with the deceased Ben Franklin.Here, we learn that Ben completed (at least with enough confidence to ingest it) his eternal life serum, and Dr. McNinja digs up Ben's grave to pull a very thirsty resurrected Franklin from his coffin. Currently, Ben's original body (circa 1700's) is a "deanimated" zombie, shot in the head by Gordito.
The title of this story is a tribute to the webcomic Achewood.
Spooky Stuff
The origin of Gordito's mustache is revealed. Dr. McNinja observes that the resurrected Benjamin Franklin is "an undead creature who feeds on hair and is being tormented by visitors from the spirit realm." Franklin had unwittingly obtained his eternal life serum from DraculaCount Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
, so the Doctor investigates at the Red Cross headquarters, run by vampires. A vampire reveals that Ben is now part Headless Horseman
Headless Horseman
The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle ages.The Headless Horseman is a fictional character who appears in a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is in a collection of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon written by Washington Irving...
, with hair consumption serving as the trigger preventing him from transforming fully. Dr. McNinja and Ben Franklin take a plane for Transylvania to confront Dracula. Meanwhile, Sean and Gordito are being trained by Dan and Mitzi for their upcoming battle with the Ghost Wizard, which The Catholic Church has hired them to defeat. On the plane, Ben hungers for hair, but Dr. McNinja cannot get any in time, so Franklin is transformed into a full Headless Horseman
Headless Horseman
The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle ages.The Headless Horseman is a fictional character who appears in a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is in a collection of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon written by Washington Irving...
. The plane crashes and Ben Franklin rides away.
Punch Dracula
Dan, Mitzi, Dark Smoke Puncher, and Gordito isolate and fight the Ghost Wizard in a stolen submarine. Meanwhile, Dr. McNinja is teleported to Dracula's moon base from Transylvania. Dracula explains that he made Franklin into a headless horseman so he could gain knowledge of the afterlife. When Franklin returns with insufficient information Dracula decides to kill Dr. McNinja, hoping that he can defy death like he did in D.A.R.E. and return with more information. In response, Dr. McNinja punches Dracula and tries to escape. Dracula corners McNinja and reveals that he controls the Ghost Wizard. He threatens to command the Wizard to use a secret fourth power on Gordito, but due to the vagueness of Dracula's command the Ghost Wizard possesses Dark Smoke Puncher instead. Gordito saves Dark Smoke Puncher and destroys the Ghost Wizard. Dr. McNinja dons a spacesuit and surfs a robot copy of Dracula back to Earth. Some time afterward, McNinja goes to Ben Franklin II's grave to help the spirit conclude its earthly business. After obtaining a new head, Franklin fades away and returns to Purgatory.Monster Mart
The first volume to be published in color opens with Dr. McNinja, Gordito, and Yoshi defeating and curing a young girl with Paul BunyanPaul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
's disease. Martin Monster, a former friend of Dr. McNinja, shows up requesting his help, stating that he has trouble controlling his transformations into a giant ogre
Ogre
An ogre is a large, cruel, monstrous, and hideous humanoid monster, featured in mythology, folklore, and fiction. Ogres are often depicted in fairy tales and folklore as feeding on human beings, and have appeared in many classic works of literature...
-like monster. Dr. McNinja advises Martin that his problems are likely stress-related. Soon afterward McNinja's office is triggered for explosion, and the culprits implicate Martin. Martin admits that he joined the Cumberland Mafia (led by King Radical) as hired muscle to pay off a debt, although he was not involved in blowing up McNinja's office. King Radical had his men do so in retaliation for turning away a suspicious patient in the mafia. McNinja and Gordito help Martin in concocting a plan to remove a rival gang. When Dr. McNinja and Gordito are captured by the rival gang (led by the humanoid lobster man, The Robster), Martin becomes enraged and regains his power, destroying the enemy gang. In the aftermath of the fight, King Radical appears to pronounce Martin's debt settled.
Death Volley
Doctor McNinja is hired by the NSA to enter an ancient Inocktek Indian temple. Inside the temple is a wounded man – a champion tennisTennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
player – who must win a ritual tennis match with the temple's robots or the world will be destroyed. The mission is complicated by the temple's many death traps and Dr. McNinja's ex-girlfriend, Hortense (her story debut). Meanwhile, Gordito and Judy supervise the rebuilding of Doc's office and try to prevent a half-plumber, half-spy from installing surveillance equipment. A Secret Epilogue revealed that Hortense had been hired for the mission, not by Doc's parents (in an effort to bring them together), but by King Radical. The storyline references Zelda
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda, originally released as in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Nintendo, and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments...
and Shrine of the Silver Monkey
Legends of the Hidden Temple
Legends of the Hidden Temple is an action-adventure game show for children. The show centers around a "Temple" that is "filled with lost treasures protected by mysterious Mayan Temple Guards"...
several times in both the characters' actions and in the alt text.
Doc Gets Rad
Dr. McNinja is determined to catch Cumberland MafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
boss King Radical. As soon as Doc decides that he needs a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
to keep up with Radical's dirt bike, a stranger crashes his white rainbow-striped motorcycle in Doc's parking lot. Doc claims the motorcycle for himself, and becomes more and more violently obsessed with thwarting Radical's plans. He also dreams of riding a rainbow-maned unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...
. Gordito is concerned with Doc's behaviour, and discovers that the motorcycle's previous owner was driven mad by it. Radical and Doc duel through the streets of Cumberland, and then through the tunnels under the town. Radical reveals that Doc's motorcycle was originally an evil unicorn named Sparklelord, and implores Doc to shake off the influence of the motorcycle and help Radical banish it.
Army of One
Through a flashback, it is revealed that Dr. McNinja used an experimental cloningCloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
procedure in college to study a wide variety of disciplines simultaneously. In the process of amalgamating the clones back into one person, a time-traveler from the future arrives and destabilizes the machine used to bring them together, causing one clone to remain. The time traveler's suit is damaged during the explosion, sending him back to 1979. The time traveler is revealed as Chuck Goodrich, whose mission is to prevent Franklin's Zombie Ninja Apocalypse.
In present time, steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
sky pirates kidnap the clone of Dr. McNinja, and during Dr. McNinja's attempted rescue, both of them are taken captive by Frans Rayner. Rayner has successfully created countless clones of Dr. McNinja. Dr. McNinja must defeat his own clones and then fight Rayner. Rayner is defeated, but escapes. The only clone that survives is the one from Dr. McNinja's college years.
Judy Gets A Kitten
While shopping for groceries, Judy the gorilla acquires a pet kitten. She brings it back to the office, only to turn her back for a moment and find that Yoshi has eaten it.Stolen Pizza, Stolen Lives
A crossover with the popular Web comic Axe CopAxe Cop
Axe Cop is a webcomic by brothers Malachai Nicolle and Ethan Nicolle . Malachai is responsible for the ideas and stories, while Ethan turns them into comics...
, inked by both artists. Axe Cop summons Doctor McNinja and together they discover why pizza is turning people into monsters.
Space Savers
Chuck Goodrich reveals himself to be a time traveler, sent back in time to stop the zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately his success only created an alternate future, and more Chuck Goodriches continue to arrive from the future to stop different types of apocalypses. The newest Goodrich reveals that he is attempting to stop an imminent invasion by intelligent space dinosaurs.Dr. McNinja, with Judy and the newly arrived Chuck Goodrich's help, attempts to steal a warhead to blow up a dinosaur scout ship that is supposed to appear in 48 hours. However, King Radical shows up to steal the warhead himself. After explaining they need the warhead to blow up the space dinosaurs, Radical lets them have it.
McNinja formulates a plan to sneak Chuck Goodrich into a NASA space shuttle. However, the plan fails when Mcninja knocks out Goodrich's partn and Goodrich and McNinja are attacked by Nasaghasts, ghosts that defend the space center. Dr. McNinja is forced to board the shuttle himself along with Goodrich. They successfully fire the missile at the dinosaur ship, but one of the Nasaghasts follow them into space, catches the missile, and hurls it back to their space shuttle. The shuttle is destroyed in the explosion, leaving Dr. McNinja's fate unknown.
Futures Trading
The story begins with a young Dr. McNinja investigating strange noises in his closet, seeing himself in the future during his chase with King Radical from the previous story, "Doc Gets Rad." Chuck Goodrich shows up and explains to Doc that his mind is stuck in the past and needs to find his present body. Doc finally catches up with his body in the shuttle, where Chuck smashes his Temporal Stabilizer to jump in time just before the shuttle gets blown up.Doc and Chuck reemerge in Doc's family's cave, to discover that Space Dinosaurs have taken it over, along with the entire planet. They are captured by the dinosaurs, but escape when they learn that Dr. McNinja in this timeline is one of the leaders of the human resistance. Chuck and Doc discover, however, that this Doc is actually Doc's younger brother, Sean "Dark Smoke Puncher". With the help of King Radical, Gordito, and some of Doc's former patients, the brothers assault the dinosaur's stronghold to free a dinosaur named "The Ultimate Diplomat" to bring peace between the humans and dinosaurs and end the war. After assaulting the Dinosaur President's fortress with the help of some Paul Bunyan giants and a Nasaghast, they free the Diplomat using Dracula's Moon laser to break him out of his prison. The diplomat seems to have superpowers however and was able to convince everyone to lay down their arms. With a speech that was able to convince everyone that heard it that peace was the best option, the relations between dinosaurs and humans ended peacefully. Doc, Sean and Gordito return to the cave so the Doc can return home using the time warp underground. Though contemplating whether murdering the innocent scout was the right thing to do or not (because of the diplomat's words) King Radical rebuffed him immediately. He had not heard the rousing speech and thusly still resented the dinosaurs taking over Earth and murdering all their friends. Doctor McNinja jump into the time warp, but not before giving King Radical one more dirty look. The story wraps up with the Triceratops scout getting murdered by Doctor McNinja and him calling his family to see what was going. The epilogue states whilst the Doctor is on a plane (presumedly back home) that now instead of human jetpack hunting (which occurs in the Dinosaur future), there is rollerskate hunting which the Doctor makes a note to stop.
In Print
The first three volumes of Dr. McNinja are published and sold online by Topatoco, whereas the fourth volume will be printed by Dark Horse ComicsDark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
as early as April 2011. All of the printed comics include comics not available on the Dr. McNinja website.
- Volume 1, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, contains the first three issues Meet the Doctor and his Friendly Staff, So what is a McNinja?, and There is a Raptor in My Office, as well as some bonus material including a comic created for .Net Magazine.
- Volume 2, Dr. McNinja: Surgical Strike, contains parts one and two of D.A.R.E. To Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence, with bonus comic Black Ninja White Ninja.
- Volume 3, Operation Dracula! From Outer Space contains the issues Revenge of the Hundred Dead Ninja, I Told You That Story so I Could Tell You This One,, Spooky Stuff, and Punch Dracula, with bonus comic A Death in the Family.
- Volume 4, Night Powers, will include Monster Mart, Death Volley, and Doc gets Rad, with bonus comic Beyond Winter Wonderdome.
Awards
Dr. McNinja won the 2007 Web Cartoonist's Choice Award for Outstanding Superhero / Action Comic.Cameos
Dr. McNinja has been featured in a few other webcomics, examples of which are listed below:- BunnyBunny (webcomic)Bunny is a daily webcomic by Lem , the pseudonym of a Welsh artist named Huw Davies. Launched in August 2004, Bunny follows the gag-a-day formula, with no true plotline...
- February 3, 2006 (here )-The comic depicts a bunny in Dr. McNinja garb with the caption "The Adventures of Dentist MacNinjaBunny." - Shortpacked! - August 31, 2006 (here )- Dr. McNinja is shown in a single-frame reference to "Filthy Cartoonists." The reference indicates that Dr. McNinja is an exception to "those who pose as ninja."
- EddEgg - July 12, 2006 (here )- In the eighth frame, the artist has a list of potential comic ideas. One of the ideas is "A doctor who is also a ninja".
- Hookie Dookie Panic - #112 (here http://www.hookiedookiepanic.com/comic.php?ID=112)- Dr. McNinja is seen in the background with wide eyes as Wilcow is in a fight with a mysterious fighter.
- Overcompensating - Multiple (here, here, and here ) - Several references to Dr. McNinja and author Chris Hastings.
- Bigger Than Cheeses - #737 (here http://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=737)- One shot image of Dr. McNinja in a group of webcomics characters. He also made a cameo on #793 (here http://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=793) like in the previous cameo, he is shown with other webcomic characters.
- Diesel SweetiesDiesel SweetiesDiesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III . The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com...
- #2133 (here http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/2133)- Zoha tells Dr. McNinja what it's like to be a Muslim on Halloween. - I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space - (here http://www.drunkduck.com/I_Was_Kidnapped_By_Lesbian_Pirates_From_Outer_Space/index.php?p=367657)- A special one-story arc called The Search for the Fourth Wall features Dr. McNinja.
- Least I Could DoLeast I Could DoLeast I Could Do is a humor webcomic by Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza , which debuted on February 10, 2003.The original artist for the strip was Trevor Adams, who was with Least I Could Do for about six months. Adams was followed by Chad W.M. Porter, who drew the strip for two years...
- DrMcninja appears in the April 10th, 2009 comic http://leasticoulddo.com/comic/20090410, along with a variety of other webcomic characters. - Flaky PastryFlaky pastryIn baking, a flaky pastry is a light, flaky, unleavened pastry, similar to a puff pastry. The main difference is that, in a flaky pastry, large lumps of shortening , are mixed into the dough, as opposed to a large rectangle of shortening with a puff pastry...
- #153 (here http://flakypastry.runningwithpencils.com/comic.php?strip_id=153)- The Neighbour is dressed as Dr. McNinja for Halloween.
Dr. McNinja also appeared on CBS's
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 19, 2005, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays.As a framing device, the main character, Ted Mosby with narration by Bob Saget, in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting...
on the second episode of the sixth season as a poster in the back of Barney Stinson's
Barney Stinson
Barnabas "Barney" Stinson is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris. The character has been extremely well received by critics and has been credited for much of the show's success...
room.
Dr. McNinja also appears in the special features of the movie Ninja Assassin
Ninja Assassin
Ninja Assassin is a 2009 American martial arts film directed by James McTeigue. The story was written by Matthew Sand, with a screenplay penned by J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5. The film stars South Korean pop musician Rain as a disillusioned assassin looking for retribution against his...
in the history of the ninja segment.
Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
, as drawn by Christopher Hastings, appears on the cover of the Halloween album "The Worst Music Dracula Ever Heard".
External links
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
- Chris Hastings' myspace based on the fictional character
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja RSS Feed
- TheWebComicList's entry on the comic
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja profiled by io9Io9io9 is a blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The blog focuses on the subjects of science fiction, futurism, and advancements in the fields of science and technology....