TMNT Universe #17 Preview and Discussion
 

Preview here.

I was wondering where this post was!

And...very concerned about where the direction that the second part of "Triceratots!" is going to go :teek:

Eh. More interested for #18.

Same. I appreciate the work this two-part story is doing to flesh-out the Triceratons' backstory but it hasn't really pulled me in like other story arcs have.

Service Animals, on the other hand, interests me greatly. And the one-shot coming before that, wth the Turtles putting their stealth skills to good use

I actually think some of the problems with the Triceratons are the same that I actually have with Leatherhead. That being:
Far too little, far too late.

Which makes their eventual uprisings/devourings less impactful.

We're only told very, very, very little of Leatherhead's backstory. Just that he had been Krang's prisoner that was occasionally tormented. Sure it could work, but we've barely seen him enough to care. I even th

Likewise, we barely know Zog and Zom. They're not characters we've been following for ages, and thus their decision to rebel is uninteresting. It seems "cliffnotes". Even the entire rebellion is uninteresting, especially when Krang never acknowledges it and only credits the collapse of his homeworld exclusively to Quanin. It feels a bit like the rebellion was a last-second patch on the story.

You'd think that would have made Krang think twice about his treatment of Leatherhead. He's supposed to be a genius warlord, but it never crossed him that maybe it would be best to not to prod at the thousand-pound aggressive reptile? With this one being a touch more dangerous since it's a carnivore and not a herbivore? I even think that this is why Leatherhead would have been better suited as Krang's "ward" and for Krang to have died in combat against Maligna (I'd rather that than having him stand around whining until the last minute)

That being said...BRING ON THE ZODI!

I think it's issues without the Turtles that also make some issues less engaging, at least for me. I enjoyed the Karai mini even though it had no Turtles, but when it's just about other characters like Triceratons or random mutants aside from maybe the Mutanimals, it's a bit harder to get into. I hope the Turtles appear in more of Universe going forward.

I think the point of Universe is to put more spotlight on non-turtles characters, though?

It is.

I dunno, I disagree. Since we first saw the Triceratons in Utrom Empire I was interested in their story, and we saw then that the Triceratons were not happy about being thralls and were on the cusp of rebelling (indeed, with some of them turning earlier than others).

???

Well yeah, but that was all we had seen of the Triceratons, except for Zog with his mind pretty much gone and with no strings attached to anyone. I think if more had been followed up between Utrom Empire and the current storyline, things might be different, but in the three or so years between them, For the Heart, For the Herd would give us more to care about.

Maybe a lot of this is because #16 wasn't all that exciting and I do hope that this next one will be a little more substantial. Personally, I'd like to see an issue on how Zog was arrested, as he was in prison in Utrom Empire #2 (and how anyone was surprised he got out, I have no idea. Of course he could get out, those prison bars would be twigs to him)

I dunno, I think it's the characters' strengths that matter, not who they are.

Old Hob, Leatherhead, Ray and Sally and those mutant wolves, or Toad Baron and Angel and Alopex, or Karai, Bludgeon, and Koya... those are all really strong characters who aren't the four Turtles.

Bishop, Baxter, April, Zodi... more strong characters. Wyrm was great, Metalhead was so-so, Jennika was so-so. These Triceratons are so-so.

Utrom Empire was far superior to this two-parter, I think.

Or maybe it's just that we're so far along in this TMNT mythos now and we'd all rather get back to the invasion actual. :tlol:

So my question is...what exactly is making them "so-so"? Why aren't they as strong as other characters, including one-shots like Wyrm and those mutant wolf guys?

Some of me wants to put some of Zog's weakness in the recent story is the "dead parents" angle because "uuuuugh this trope again?"
Zom is even more interesting in the main line than in the two-parter.

There's a lot of questions in the logic too. Like how most of the herd is a clone of Zog, even though with Zom as a female, that's clearly not possible (and would make her romantic relationship with Zog kind of creepy...and also, something feels "off" about that. Kind of stilted?)

We're following characters that we don't really know all that well. With Utrom Empire, it was going back and forth between Krang and Honeycutt - both of whom we had seen quite a bit of and already knew and were familiar with.
Honeycutt with his dilemmas in the current day and flashbacks to Krang's keynote experiences on the last days of Utrominion while he was running around in a hurricane. And an unwelcome interruption of flow with the Turtles in Northampton.

Meanwhile, Zog's behavior in From the Heart For the Herd is drastically different from Utrom Empire. Here, he wants Krang dead, but in Utrom Empire, he has enough respect for Krang that he thinks he's capable of changing himself and his empire for the better - namely in not following Quanin's pattern of behavior. As for Zom...we barely know her. While her differences in behavior between her Universe issues and introduction in Trial of Krang should be expected, it's like she's two completely different characters.

But, then again, Krang had similar problems. From the Heart had him balk at Quanin being referred to as his father to getting angry at anyone who seemed to be disrespecting him.

So, I'm going to say that "consistency" is the biggest issue.

Remember in Jurassic Park when they made all the dinosaurs female to keep from reproducing but the amphibian DNA they used was able to adapt to switch sexes in order to sustain life...I wonder if when the Utroms created the Triceratons, if they did some genetic engineering and made them all males but something in the genetic engineering process adapted and female Triceratons came about anyways

IDW really does have a huge stable of characters to play with, both totally new ones and reimagined old ones, and undeniably some are more compelling than others (which isn't to say that Zog and Zom aren't compelling). In most cases I think it's just a matter of how much pagetime a character has.

Utrom Empire was really good. The writing was pretty strong and I loved Kuhn's art, especially his depictions of the Triceratons.

And I have to agree Cylons, I think Invasion of the Triceratons definitely wins out as far as which story is more immediately compelling just by virtue of being more dynamic so far, as well as having more far-reaching implications. It helps that Damian Couceiro's art works so well for the story too.

I think the issue (whoops, pun) is that Zom and Zog haven't been around long enough to generate enough interest into a prequel story for them.

The villain micro-series started in the second year, and covered characters who had mostly been familiar (Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, Shredder, Baxter) or new characters who had already sold us on their depth and intrigue (Old Hob, Alopex).

Zom and Zog have barely been around in IDW, and haven't really distinguished themselves. I'm really enjoying Zom in the Invasion storyline, but it's her first outing... I'm still making up my mind if she's cool or not, don't gimme the backstory prequel already. Also, General Krang's backstory has been played out. We've seen probably a dozen flashback stories to his history... enough. :tlol:

Something about her seems a little "passive" compared to in the Invasion arch. She's far cooler in the main storyline.

The thing I find interesting with her is that she's clearly meant to be a replacement for Mozar.


Upon reading:

Pretty much as boring as I expected it to be. Even the Triceratots was a little underwhelming.

Huh. Well, it was an improvement. I don't know, this two-parter still doesn't work for me.

Zog ending up in the 2014 Annual REALLY doesn't work for me, either, but I've griped about Eastman's annuals enough before. :tlol:

It would have been nice if this was about how Zog ended up in the Battle Nexus, rather than just a vague reference to it in a letter.

Seemed like the Triceratons rebelling against the Utroms went rather...quickly...or easily. I know there's not enough page time to show everything, but the way the issue went it made it seem like it all happened rather effortlessly.

Like, who was the genius who said "Nah, they'd NEVER rebel against us, forget having something in place in case they do that! We don't need a Lysine contingency or anything!"


No one show them Jurassic Park...it would probably get awkward :P

My store actually ran out of this issue. I think this might be the first time for a Turtles book.