What would the best way of writing Mutant Town out of the series be?

*neatoman* · 10-20-2021, 04:05 AM

So judging from the discourse, most of us are pretty sick of Mutant Town as a setting. They have spent the last two years of issues in this one setting and it got tedious pretty early on, it's just boring to keep reading about this low stakes place every month.

So the following are a couple of ideas of how to write Mutant Town out of the series:

This one is probably the expected one, the Mutants are simply just cured and thus Mutant Town ceases to be because the crisis is over.
Another possibility is that the Mutants are sent off to live on a planet in Dimension X. That way they would be out of the way and thus no need for a Mutant Town. In Dimension X they can just disperse and blend into the mixed alien population, thus practically even eliminating the distinction of mutants as a group.
A darker approach would be to genocide the mutants, either by having someone poison quarantine zone, revealing a flaw with the mutagen bomb that caused a deadly illness or outright bloodshed. This would still leave the arc with some level of impact on the series.
And what's maybe not such a great solution but one that would at least make the arc easier to skip on readthroughs, reveal that most of what we have seen did not take place in the main reality. This could be accomplished by either revealing there was a timeline split somewhere or have it all be a vision of a potential future that needs to be avoided. This is maybe not that satisfying or that creative but it would get the job done.

And I don't want to see a certain someone claim Mutant Town has to remain because we saw a future scenario where it did. We have been over this, the future is not set in stone here and we have seen multiple contradictory timelines already, even that particular story depicted two alternate versions of the future. The idea that Mutant Town can't be dissolved somehow is absurd based on what we already know. Even if you don't accept that we already know it doesn't have to stay, we're still talking about fiction here, for better or worse writers can change direction, they do it all the time.

And if you still don't accept that is the case, allow me to present one more alternative:

Ignore the Mutant Town arc entirely, declaring it non-canon. That is sort of the nuclear option and arguably the lazy way of doing it but it can be done.

*Leo656* · 10-20-2021, 04:21 AM

When the Superman books essentially did this same type of story - swap "mutants" for "Kryptonians" and "ghetto" for "sister planetoid" and it's not very dissimilar, conceptually - they finished it off with a mixture of "Genocide" and "Kick whoever's not dead back to the Phantom Zone".

It wasn't a very satisfying ending to what hadn't been an altogether great story - like this one, it took forever to get around to making any kind of substantial point, doing anything incredibly interesting, or bothering to explore its premise very deeply for most of it - but that was pretty much the only way it could've ended. Other than just killing ALL the Kryptonians off, anyways. Stuff like this, inevitably "Status Quo" has to be restored to some degree.

I'd say the most likely ending for this one would be, "Some Dead, Some Cured."

I doubt they'd ever have the stones to go so far as to say, "The whole thing never happened", or "It was an alternate timeline." Not only would those be, arguably, the laziest storytelling choices - if you're going to make a mess of a story, at least try to write a way out of it, y'know? - but it would also be an admission of defeat. And if there's one thing we've seen from this creative team, they do not like to admit they might've misfired.

So nah, they'd never just handwave it away. They'll kill a few and cure a few/most. OR, they could get REALLY soft and cure everyone, with none of them getting killed off whatsoever. But that'd be pretty toothless.

*lonewarrior20* · 10-20-2021, 06:15 AM

Actually I thing mutant towns getting ready for an expansion.

*TigerClaw* · 10-20-2021, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonewarrior20

Actually I thing mutant towns getting ready for an expansion.

Yeah, it'll become Mutant City.

~~ChosenOne~~ · 10-20-2021, 10:08 AM

I went with Retcon because it's the closest to how I think it should be handled at this point: keep it as part of the story, have the occasional arc set in it, but for the love of all the gods, just move the focus away from it already and back to the main plot of the comic!

Bahamut810 · 10-20-2021, 10:33 AM

I agree. Its part of the setting and just writing out 2 years of plot is BS writing. Just move on after making it 'stable' I guess. Background to work on that future through the portal.

*neatoman* · 10-20-2021, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonewarrior20

Actually I thing mutant towns getting ready for an expansion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Yeah, it'll become Mutant City.

You do realise that the guy who is planning to that is the villain who caused the whole mess to begin with, right? There is in-universe precedent to stop him from doing so. And the person who is seemingly helping him has reason to want to undermine and deceive him, a person who could trick him into doing the opposite of what he is trying to do.

~~ChosenOne~~ · 10-20-2021, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neatoman

You do realise that the guy who is planning to that is the villain who caused the whole mess to begin with, right? There is in-universe precedent to stop him from doing so. And the person who is seemingly helping him has reason to want to undermine and deceive him, a person who could trick him into doing the opposite of what he is trying to do.

Think she's secretly working for Null, and has been since the Mutanimals mini? Man, wouldn't that be a mind-blowing twist!

*ProphetofGanja* · 10-20-2021, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo656

I'd say the most likely ending for this one would be, "Some Dead, Some Cured."

I had the same thought, maybe even kill some off before others are cured, others who decide to live their lives out as mutants go off to Dimension X or Burnow Island or wherever the hell IDW puts them

~~mrmaczaps~~ · 10-20-2021, 08:54 PM

Retcon but as a dream. One of the guys or even Jennika "wakes up" and she has been stabbed pre-mutation, healing from those wounds, wanting to be more like the guys and this nightmare of two years plus of stories becomes a near death hallucination/fever dream. Then take the few good points of the series & reintroduce them.... which isn't much. Or don't reintroduce anything & move on... Jenni heals up, human & everything is peachy. Splinter survived. Saki isn't dead either. The guys still won the battle... And we never talk furries softcore again. Everyone wins.

Zog The Magnificent · 10-20-2021, 10:32 PM

I think the problem is that there's no way to retcon it without it feeling cheap. As much as this story has sucked, it's still been the story for the last two years, and jettisoning it would be awkward. My ideal situation would be a sort of soft-retcon; Do whatever needs to be done to "stabilize" it, and then leave the setting behind and never look back. It still exists, but it would no longer be relevent and no longer impact the story, and we wouldn't have to think about it any more.

*Leo656* · 10-20-2021, 10:50 PM

I'm personally of the opinion that almost ANY retcon feels "cheap" and un-earned. That approach should ALWAYS be a last resort.

I mean, if someone took the time to write a story, and people took the time to read it, it's never NOT a little bit insulting and a huge letdown to get to a point where it's like "Yeah, none of that ever happened now."

Even if it's a story I don't like, I'd always MUCH rather see someone make a sincere effort to write their way out of the hole that was dug instead of saying "A Wizard Did It, Now It Doesn't Count", or whatever. One method takes effort and creativity, the other is essentially just giving up altogether because it's just too difficult.

Like once upon a time, my buddies and I were playing a role-playing game called "Toon", where basically the whole point is it's a cartoon universe so everything's wacky and off the wall, instead of a "dungeon master" it's an "animator", and so on. So we played for a few hours, and my buddies and I are really taking the whole "be as goofy and insane as possible" thing to heart, really pushing the limits of the scenario, and the story keeps going more and more off the rails, until finally, the "animator" flips ahead in his little book thing and was like, "The filmstrip catches fire and falls off the reel and the animator gives up and quits. Game Over!", or some sh*t like that.

And we're all like "DUDE, what the hell?" And he's like "You idiots literally broke the damn game. This entire game is stupid on purpose and you guys are TOO stupid even for this. You broke it, and I don't even know how you managed that. But you suck." And we're all sitting there like... "So we played this game for four f*cking hours, and in the end it's just 'screw it'? That sucks!" And we all went home in a rather sour mood.

Could've been the guy was just super tired... it was getting rather late, and we admittedly WERE being really stupid on purpose. But we were told that was the point, so I'unno.

My point is, we went on a journey together, we invested time and energy and emotion into it... and in the end, the ending was just "Forget it." And that was just the LEAST satisfying possible way that whole thing could've ended. Literally any other scenario the guy came up with to end the game, anything at all, would've been better than just "Screw it, I don't wanna do this anymore."

And that's how I feel when I read a story, just about any story, and in the end it just gets wished away into the ether. Like c'mon, write SOME thing. Demonstrate at least the absolute bare minimum of effort, y'know? Don't just be like, "It's over, and furthermore, It Was All A Dream."

I'unno. I do confess that sometimes, rarely, retcons are a necessary evil. But personally, I'd rather see just about ANY other option be attempted, first. But that's me. Even a mediocre "solution", generally, will be enough to salvage at least some of the entire exercise. Whereas "none of it happened, none of it matters" just makes it all a REAL waste of time.

~~AquaParade~~ · 10-21-2021, 06:15 AM

I'd have them just leave the area for a while. Cut the losses, but without forcing it into a dream sequence or some other cop out.

I'd use the opportunity to give the turtles a new enviornment. New York will always be home but we've been there and done that, especially with this series.

My first thought is time-travel. As outsiders to society, it's easy for me to accept the circumstances that would surround the tmnt traveling to the past or future. It's not like they'd have a ton of family and friends to miss. They've always relied on scavenging for food, etc.

This way you could put them back in their element as outsiders, whether that's in feudal Japan, Late 1800's England, or 1995 in San Francisco. I actually find the idea pretty enticing. You'd have a whole new world to play in, but without flipping the franchise on it's head and losing sight of the core elements.

For IDW in particular, it may be interesting to go back to the time in which they were resurrected from. Then you have room to play with the faith/science elements surrounding the resurrection. You can question and play with it a bit which may be fruitful.
You could also set up an overarching conflict with Saki, pre resurrection, which also gives you a lot to play with - what happens if the turtles kill Saki? Does it end their current lives? Save their former lives? Does Saki recognize their spirits in turtle form? How does Splinter see all of this?
Or maybe Splinter didn't come with them, and his past/former self is an ally in this time.
Hell, have the turtles meet their "mother". Could be emotionally resonant.

Darn, I think I'd like to write this book.

Business wise, you could leave Jennika in modern day Mutant Town and let her grow as a character without the TMNT around. I likely wouldn't read it, but that's okay.

*MikeandRaph87* · 10-21-2021, 08:56 AM

I voted for a cure, however I will take anything that ends this direction however violently or quietly. Just end this direction! I don't understand why Donatello is not working on a cure and the number one thing on everyone's mind is getting a retro-mutagen. That in itself blows my mind.

*miru* · 10-23-2021, 10:48 PM

Some epic similar to the plot of Megaman X4; Old Hob starts an uprising to try and get Mutant Town separated from NYC, and builds an army. Due to Bishop’s actions, Hob goes into overdrive and declares war for independence. The Turtles are forced to fight because Hob ended up getting framed, and their fights with the Mutanimals cause Hob to escalate. Also, maybe expose a flaw in the mutagen Bomb… the mutagen wears off over time, and Hob has a breakdown when he discovers this, due to the fact that many of his soldiers are now worthless to him.

View Poll Results: Best way to write it out?
Cure the Mutants	6	40.00%
Disperse the Mutants into Dimension X	2	13.33%
Kill the Mutants off	4	26.67%
Retcon the arc (Technically still part of the story, just not relevant)	4	26.67%
Ignore the arc (Treated as if it doesn't exist, totally non-canon)	2	13.33%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 15. You may not vote on this poll

10-20-2021, 04:21 AM	#2
Leo656 The Franchise Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,696	When the Superman books essentially did this same type of story - swap "mutants" for "Kryptonians" and "ghetto" for "sister planetoid" and it's not very dissimilar, conceptually - they finished it off with a mixture of "Genocide" and "Kick whoever's not dead back to the Phantom Zone". It wasn't a very satisfying ending to what hadn't been an altogether great story - like this one, it took forever to get around to making any kind of substantial point, doing anything incredibly interesting, or bothering to explore its premise very deeply for most of it - but that was pretty much the only way it could've ended. Other than just killing ALL the Kryptonians off, anyways. Stuff like this, inevitably "Status Quo" has to be restored to some degree. I'd say the most likely ending for this one would be, "Some Dead, Some Cured." I doubt they'd ever have the stones to go so far as to say, "The whole thing never happened", or "It was an alternate timeline." Not only would those be, arguably, the laziest storytelling choices - if you're going to make a mess of a story, at least try to write a way out of it, y'know? - but it would also be an admission of defeat. And if there's one thing we've seen from this creative team, they do not like to admit they might've misfired. So nah, they'd never just handwave it away. They'll kill a few and cure a few/most. OR, they could get REALLY soft and cure everyone, with none of them getting killed off whatsoever. But that'd be pretty toothless. __________________ "I left some words quite far from here to be a short reminder... I laid them out in stone, in case they need to last forever..." "But hey... I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know." nWo Tech: The Official Thread Poison of the Technodrome Forums https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr...awnHgDz1ceDcfA https://theroxxshow.blogspot.com/

10-20-2021, 10:50 PM	#12
Leo656 The Franchise Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,696	I'm personally of the opinion that almost ANY retcon feels "cheap" and un-earned. That approach should ALWAYS be a last resort. I mean, if someone took the time to write a story, and people took the time to read it, it's never NOT a little bit insulting and a huge letdown to get to a point where it's like "Yeah, none of that ever happened now." Even if it's a story I don't like, I'd always MUCH rather see someone make a sincere effort to write their way out of the hole that was dug instead of saying "A Wizard Did It, Now It Doesn't Count", or whatever. One method takes effort and creativity, the other is essentially just giving up altogether because it's just too difficult. Like once upon a time, my buddies and I were playing a role-playing game called "Toon", where basically the whole point is it's a cartoon universe so everything's wacky and off the wall, instead of a "dungeon master" it's an "animator", and so on. So we played for a few hours, and my buddies and I are really taking the whole "be as goofy and insane as possible" thing to heart, really pushing the limits of the scenario, and the story keeps going more and more off the rails, until finally, the "animator" flips ahead in his little book thing and was like, "The filmstrip catches fire and falls off the reel and the animator gives up and quits. Game Over!", or some sht like that. And we're all like "DUDE, what the hell?" And he's like "You idiots literally broke the damn game. This entire game is stupid on purpose and you guys are TOO stupid even for this. You broke it, and I don't even know how you managed that. But you suck." And we're all sitting there like... "So we played this game for four fcking hours, and in the end it's just 'screw it'? That sucks!" And we all went home in a rather sour mood. Could've been the guy was just super tired... it was getting rather late, and we admittedly WERE being really stupid on purpose. But we were told that was the point, so I'unno. My point is, we went on a journey together, we invested time and energy and emotion into it... and in the end, the ending was just "Forget it." And that was just the LEAST satisfying possible way that whole thing could've ended. Literally any other scenario the guy came up with to end the game, anything at all, would've been better than just "Screw it, I don't wanna do this anymore." And that's how I feel when I read a story, just about any story, and in the end it just gets wished away into the ether. Like c'mon, write SOME thing. Demonstrate at least the absolute bare minimum of effort, y'know? Don't just be like, "It's over, and furthermore, It Was All A Dream." I'unno. I do confess that sometimes, rarely, retcons are a necessary evil. But personally, I'd rather see just about ANY other option be attempted, first. But that's me. Even a mediocre "solution", generally, will be enough to salvage at least some of the entire exercise. Whereas "none of it happened, none of it matters" just makes it all a REAL waste of time. __________________ "I left some words quite far from here to be a short reminder... I laid them out in stone, in case they need to last forever..." "But hey... I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know." nWo Tech: The Official Thread Poison of the Technodrome Forums https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr...awnHgDz1ceDcfA https://theroxxshow.blogspot.com/

10-21-2021, 06:15 AM	#13
~~AquaParade~~ Banned Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 8,450	I'd have them just leave the area for a while. Cut the losses, but without forcing it into a dream sequence or some other cop out. I'd use the opportunity to give the turtles a new enviornment. New York will always be home but we've been there and done that, especially with this series. My first thought is time-travel. As outsiders to society, it's easy for me to accept the circumstances that would surround the tmnt traveling to the past or future. It's not like they'd have a ton of family and friends to miss. They've always relied on scavenging for food, etc. This way you could put them back in their element as outsiders, whether that's in feudal Japan, Late 1800's England, or 1995 in San Francisco. I actually find the idea pretty enticing. You'd have a whole new world to play in, but without flipping the franchise on it's head and losing sight of the core elements. For IDW in particular, it may be interesting to go back to the time in which they were resurrected from. Then you have room to play with the faith/science elements surrounding the resurrection. You can question and play with it a bit which may be fruitful. You could also set up an overarching conflict with Saki, pre resurrection, which also gives you a lot to play with - what happens if the turtles kill Saki? Does it end their current lives? Save their former lives? Does Saki recognize their spirits in turtle form? How does Splinter see all of this? Or maybe Splinter didn't come with them, and his past/former self is an ally in this time. Hell, have the turtles meet their "mother". Could be emotionally resonant. Darn, I think I'd like to write this book. Business wise, you could leave Jennika in modern day Mutant Town and let her grow as a character without the TMNT around. I likely wouldn't read it, but that's okay. Last edited by AquaParade; 10-21-2021 at 06:28 AM.

10-21-2021, 08:56 AM	#14
MikeandRaph87 Jedi Master Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: JLA Satellite Headquarters Posts: 11,134	I voted for a cure, however I will take anything that ends this direction however violently or quietly. Just end this direction! I don't understand why Donatello is not working on a cure and the number one thing on everyone's mind is getting a retro-mutagen. That in itself blows my mind. __________________ Michelangelo: This looks like a job for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Raphael: Sheesh, Mikey this ain't a cartoon!

10-20-2021, 06:15 AM	#3
lonewarrior20 Mad Scientist Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: pekin,IL Posts: 1,691	Actually I thing mutant towns getting ready for an expansion.

10-20-2021, 10:08 AM	#5
~~ChosenOne~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2014 Posts: 3,951	I went with Retcon because it's the closest to how I think it should be handled at this point: keep it as part of the story, have the occasional arc set in it, but for the love of all the gods, just move the focus away from it already and back to the main plot of the comic!

10-20-2021, 10:33 AM	#6
Bahamut810 Stone Warrior Join Date: May 2021 Location: USA Posts: 556	I agree. Its part of the setting and just writing out 2 years of plot is BS writing. Just move on after making it 'stable' I guess. Background to work on that future through the portal.

10-20-2021, 08:54 PM	#10
~~mrmaczaps~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Maine Posts: 2,619	Retcon but as a dream. One of the guys or even Jennika "wakes up" and she has been stabbed pre-mutation, healing from those wounds, wanting to be more like the guys and this nightmare of two years plus of stories becomes a near death hallucination/fever dream. Then take the few good points of the series & reintroduce them.... which isn't much. Or don't reintroduce anything & move on... Jenni heals up, human & everything is peachy. Splinter survived. Saki isn't dead either. The guys still won the battle... And we never talk furries softcore again. Everyone wins.

10-20-2021, 10:32 PM	#11
Zog The Magnificent Stone Warrior Join Date: Nov 2015 Posts: 570	I think the problem is that there's no way to retcon it without it feeling cheap. As much as this story has sucked, it's still been the story for the last two years, and jettisoning it would be awkward. My ideal situation would be a sort of soft-retcon; Do whatever needs to be done to "stabilize" it, and then leave the setting behind and never look back. It still exists, but it would no longer be relevent and no longer impact the story, and we wouldn't have to think about it any more.

10-23-2021, 10:48 PM	#15
miru Mad Scientist Join Date: Sep 2012 Posts: 1,874	Some epic similar to the plot of Megaman X4; Old Hob starts an uprising to try and get Mutant Town separated from NYC, and builds an army. Due to Bishop’s actions, Hob goes into overdrive and declares war for independence. The Turtles are forced to fight because Hob ended up getting framed, and their fights with the Mutanimals cause Hob to escalate. Also, maybe expose a flaw in the mutagen Bomb… the mutagen wears off over time, and Hob has a breakdown when he discovers this, due to the fact that many of his soldiers are now worthless to him.