TMNT #101 Preview and Discussion

[AlZarkovski]

Preview.

[Raptor86]

Mutant town? Raph wearing black? Pepperoni with a cute tiny sweater???

I AM IN

[TigerClaw]

Mona Lisa makes her comic book debut on this issue.

God, this looks super good. I love the direction the story seems to be taking. This is exactly what the run needs right now.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally it advertised the Turtles had gone their separate ways but looks like it will skip over it with the time jump and Old Hob's antics in Mutant Town will bring them back together.

[Wentos]

Originally Posted by Igglet

God, this looks super good. I love the direction the story seems to be taking. This is exactly what the run needs right now.

Agreed. Focusing on the enormity of what happened during City at War, both for New York and for the turtles personally, is exactly where the book needs to be right now.

Sophie is great at selling emotional moments. Her work during the Northampton arc and the Leonardo macroseries is some of the best in the entire IDW run.

[ChosenOne]

Yes! Finally, a mutant sloth!

[CyberCubed]

So Baxter Stockman has become Donald Trump. Ok...

Surprised at the 6 month time skip, pretty sure this is the first time skip we had in the series since it started? That means mutant town has been around half a year, Raph has separated from the Turtles for half a year.

But a huge time skip poses problems with what everyone was doing. Did Old Hob make amends or face any backlash in those 6 months? Did the EPF get a new leader? Did uh....Shredder or Kitsune ever see the Turtles in all that time? And I suppose the Utroms/Triceratons are basically frozen in time on the shelf until the story revisits them. I guess Ch’rell is just chilling there all that time.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

But a huge time skip poses problems with what everyone was doing. Did Old Hob make amends or face any backlash in those 6 months? Did the EPF get a new leader? Did uh....Shredder or Kitsune ever see the Turtles in all that time? And I suppose the Utroms/Triceratons are basically frozen in time on the shelf until the story revisits them. I guess Ch’rell is just chilling there all that time.

None of those are actually problems, though. They're only problems if the story doesn't address them, and there is literally no reason for it not to.

[daggio]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

So Baxter Stockman has become Donald Trump. Ok...

Surprised at the 6 month time skip, pretty sure this is the first time skip we had in the series since it started?

Well, one of the first out right stated time jumps that I can think of. There have been implied time jumps before, like between issues 20 and 21 or between 50 and 51, but none as concrete as this. Obviously the continuous flashbacks early in the series to "one year ago" or "eighteen months ago", but obviously that doesn't apply here to what you're asking.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

No taking cute pets on patrol. That's not a good idea. Too much cuteness, no me gusta.

And loving the direction Stockman is taking.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Igglet

None of those are actually problems, though. They're only problems if the story doesn't address them, and there is literally no reason for it not to.

Depends how they do it, 6 months is a long time, half a year. The problem comes around with, “Well what were the villains doing?” Is Krang still wandering about with possessed Leathead, did Karai take control of the Foot Clan again, did anything progress with the Utroms,” etc.

If all the characters are still mostly where we left them, it would seem odd like everyone is frozen in place till the story gets back to them.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Depends how they do it, 6 months is a long time, half a year. The problem comes around with, “Well what were the villains doing?” Is Krang still wandering about with possessed Leathead, did Karai take control of the Foot Clan again, did anything progress with the Utroms,” etc.

If all the characters are still mostly where we left them, it would seem odd like everyone is frozen in place till the story gets back to them.

Yeah, most of those could've been easily addressed with an extra page or two of silent panels at the start of this issue. But it is what it is. I assume we'll get our answers later on but the Leatherhead situation is particularly egregious in that Honeycutt made it sound like a huge (infectious?) emergency, and now it's been six months without a peep from Krang or whatever's going on there.

[daggio]

Let's all wait until tomorrow, cuz maybe Donnie will start flashing back to what has happened the last six months. Maybe nothing of note or maybe a lot. After all, Hob mentioned how he has to train all the new mutants in his care and I'm sure that takes awhile. Krang probably wouldn't know how to get back to Burnow Island. So he might be living amongst the mutants for now (albeit him coming out of LH's gut ). Maybe Shredder and Kitsune are gonna be put off to the sidelines for now, like every character who needs to go away for a bit.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by daggio

Let's all wait until tomorrow, cuz maybe Donnie will start flashing back to what has happened the last six months.

Donnie doing a Shameless-style recap of "last week"'s events? I didn't know how bad I needed this until right now.

Originally Posted by daggio

Krang probably wouldn't know how to get back to Burnow Island.

That's the thing, it didn't sound like Krang needs to get back to Burnow to become a major threat again. In fact, it pretty much seemed like his very presence made the entire planet a hotbed of parasitic activity and that's why the kids couldn't be sent back to Earth. Is it just me being pessimistic, or does this whole parasite!Krang plot have a lot of potential to fall spectacularly flat...?

[daggio]

Originally Posted by ChosenOne

That's the thing, it didn't sound like Krang needs to get back to Burnow to become a major threat again. In fact, it pretty much seemed like his very presence made the entire planet a hotbed of parasitic activity and that's why the kids couldn't be sent back to Earth. Is it just me being pessimistic, or does this whole parasite!Krang plot have a lot of potential to fall spectacularly flat...?

And that's another question. Just how parasitic are the Utroms. So far, the only reason it seems that it mattered in LH's case is cuz he ate Krang. No one else, so far, has. Maybe we'll learn that they are extremely parasitic. On the other hand, nothing, so far, has seemed to happen to anyone who has been in contact with the Utroms. Speaking of, I wonder if we are ever gonna get a backstory on the Utrom that died in Roswell, like why was (s)he there, and why would Krang allow an Utrom to leave Burnow? Hell, how long ago did the Utroms go into stasis?

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

So Baxter Stockman has become Donald Trump. Ok...

Y'know, I was gonna make a joke about how Stockman, much like the President, is also hounded by she-devils in business suits and human-shaped hollow husks with baby-sized adults inside, among assorted other oddities, but halfway through I stopped when realized that one of the things I had anticipated most for the #100 "finale" didn't come to pass: I always expected that Bishop would be exposed to the world as a freak, and that Stockman would somehow be instrumental in ousting him from the EPF and into a prison cell. A lost opportunity for some karmic retribution right there, though Bishop still got a taste of it in the end. Come to think of it, I don't think we've seen Stockman f*** anyone over for real and get away with it in this comic. He tried with Krang but was interrupted, had to flee the Foot HQ before Shredder realized he had outlived his usefulness, Bishop died before anything could come of their uneasy alliance, Hob screwed him over in the end, and who knows what'll happen with Null. I hope she's the one he plays a major part in taking down.

Also sour that we didn't get to see the Mousers chomping down on that dead dragon.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Depends how they do it, 6 months is a long time, half a year. The problem comes around with, “Well what were the villains doing?” Is Krang still wandering about with possessed Leathead, did Karai take control of the Foot Clan again, did anything progress with the Utroms,” etc.

If all the characters are still mostly where we left them, it would seem odd like everyone is frozen in place till the story gets back to them.

I don't see why we would go in with the assumption that none of this will be addressed. There is no reason to assume that this'd be the case. I would go so far as to argue that it'd actually be hard for the story to ignore these things, the writers would literally have to get out of their way to make that ****up.

[benea]

we must know what happened in the 6 months. its unfair on idw to do that to us.

[CyberCubed]

It's just kinda a weird spot to do a timeskip due to how much was going on right in the last issue. We don't know the fate of the Foot Clan now that Splinter is gone, would Leonardo just be ok with Karai leading it again? And besides that, does Karai still hate the Turtles? Is all forgiven after she nearly kill Jennika?

And with stuff like Krang's return and Shredder's return, it's kind of weird to think in 6 months time not much happened with them. Since it seems from the preview images the Turtles are just dealing with the mutants in mutant town, and nothing major.