How interesting would it be if Archie never quit?
 

Before it ended Sonic had a hell of a run that spread across multiple incarnations. I kinda see it in 3 stages.

We had the stage where Sonic was still having new games on the Genesis, SEGA CD, 32X, etc. They mostly went through the characters in the actual games but since the only good guys we had were Sonic and Tails, they created the Freedom Fighters and those characters would make it into the cartoons.

Then we had the no-Sonic era, where they stopped making Sonic games altogether. Instead of the comic being cancelled, they continued with new villains and heroes original to the comic. I honestly wonder how long this would have lasted if SEGA never revived the character.

Then came the Dreamcast era with the modern green eyed Sonic and the new extended cast. They even made it so Robotnik looks like the modern day Dr Eggman and insists on being called Dr Eggman. All this on top of all the characters that were already created beforehand.

So how would it have been had Archie just kept the ball rolling? Make a few new threats, they already had lots of original villains. Just keep it up til we get to 2003. I can easily see Shredder losing his armor in some epic battle, only to cone back with armor resembling the 2K3 armor. Maybe after losing Krang and the Technodrome he had to retun to human ninjas and street punks. Introduce the Battle Nexus. All that stuff, alongside the Mutanimals, Null and all the original Archie characters. How do you think it would have gone down?

I'd have been a fan. Archie's writers made a lot of bad stories with Sonic and crew, but it is admirable how much they were able to build upon the source material to keep a serialized story going for so many years. It would have been interesting to see the same thing done with the TMNT as it developed through its various incarnations in other media: Next Mutation, 4Kids series, Imagi film, Nickelodeon.

If Murphy was still the head writer, he'd probably just keep doing his own thing. By the second half of Archie's run it barely resembled the original cartoon anymore anyway, with almost all the new characters being unique Archie created characters and new villains.

Hell they couldn't even give Casey Jones an issue or bring Baxter back as a fly, so that says a lot.

I don't think it's so much as couldn't but more like wouldn't. They didn't fit into the story they wanted to tell.

A Fred Wolf tie-in morphing into a 4Kids tie-in?... Sounds weird...

That's what I mean, Sonic became a DiC cartoon tie in morphing into a Dreamcast era/Somic X tie in. They were adding in Rogue, Cream, Shadow and whoever else alongside the Freedom Fighters. We had both Amy Rose and Princess Sally try to get Sonic's affections.

Yeah, because Sega demanded it. I'm not so sure Mirage and/or Playmates would be as strict.

I suppose an ongoing Chris Allan drawn Archie series that integrated certain 4kids characters could be cool, but it's not something that the hypothetical prospects of excite me. I'd have rather seen the Dreamwave series (or something like it) continue, to become the then modern equivalent of the Archie series. Doing its own thing with the 4kids universe & all that.

I know the Dreamwave series had its issues with storytelling and art, but I found it very charming and a fresh direction for the franchise at the time. I was very sorry to see it end so quickly, as it was about the only comic I was interested in buying monthly in my college years.

I enjoyed that series. Makes it even worse though when you know the Metalhead issue was completely penciled bit will never see the light of day.

Yeah, I don't know if #8 got completely penciled, but it seems LeSean did a good bit of it. Maybe he'll make it available someday in some form if he still has all the original artwork:
http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2015/...-material.html

Issues 6 and 7 were a lame way for a series with so much potential to end.

My friend knows him and asked him a long while back if he would send scans of the pages. He said he would but never did.

I still believe had they released the Turtlebot issues instead of the D'Jerrad (or whatever his name was) issues the comic would have lasted longer.

Casey Jones would fit into stories like this:

http://tmntentity.blogspot.se/2008/0...ntures-23.html

where the turtles fought gangsters. Baxter Stockman was just written out of the series early without fly mutation.

Oh man, I loved the art in that arc sooo much! Santolouco is the only one who even comes close to that interpretation of the Turtles to me. I used to think those panels of the Turtles chilling without their bandannas were rad back in the day, and my opinion hasn't changed one bit.

Same artist from the Midnight Sun arc, isn't it? Those issues were just gorgeous.

To be honest the Archie comic was starting to get incredibly complex. For it to continue it would have needed to bring new readers in.

True but consider all the Sonic Adventure fans that bought the comics hoping to see something similar to the game they bought and be saddled up with all the history of what came before. I assume 2K3 will bring new readers.

If Archie had continue with the TMNT comics. We probably wouldve had The Forever War story arc happen.

Chris Allan.

Just to clarify when I say complex I don't mean so much continuity but the ideas in the stories.