TMNT 20/20 Preview and Discussion

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I dunno, those Turtles don't read any differently than the present Turtles. Hopefully that's just the preview. Still onboard for the story, but so far, it doesn't feel like the far-flung future. Or, y'know, 15 years later.

Although... Laird's Volume 4 Turtles sure didn't feel 15 years older, either.

Except for Mikey being in the alien hospital going through paperwork and $hit. THAT felt like a midlife crisis.

[Utrommaniac]

Ok, but is anyone else noticing Pepperoni's tail ?


I've also come to the realization that the turtles would have been dealing with Ch'rell far longer than they ever did with Krang. Twenty years against like...less than one year, if this isn't Don's Future Vision from his macro. It would leave the series' actual conclusion pretty open ended, if there's going to be an extra-dimensional war taking hold of the Earth before they can stop it.

(Which...probably means they'd have their own "We'll meet again, Spiderman!" incident)

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by Utrommaniac

Ok, but is anyone else noticing Pepperoni's tail ?

I did, but shouldn't she be a lot bigger several years into the future? Dinosaurs had fairly short lifespans after all.

[Utrommaniac]

Protoceratops don't get very big



So her size should be about right. (Though from the way the turtles seem to feed her, she'd probably be on the porky side)

[ChosenOne]

Right, I forgot what species she is for a moment there.

[bushido]

(real?) full preview here.

[ChosenOne]

Oh, wow, Pep is quite a big larger! Nice!

Leo punching (slicing?) that poor Utrom in the face with the splatters everywhere... Yikes!

The preview isn't even working for me for some reason. Weird.

[Utrommaniac]

It's not opening for me either, but apparently Pepperoni has been fed too well.


And also apparently the turtles are allowed to kill when they're adults.

There's a preview from Google Books though
There's some serious SAINW vibes with Don being captured.

[Utrommaniac]

Spoiler:

Well that was...kinda boring.

Basically just a fight in Florence. Which is looking pretty good for being overtaken by aliens after 20 years of combat across Europe.



I did however, get an answer to some Utrom biology, but that just opened up even more questions. Larval sac??? In a container??? They have a larval stage? You're just going to leave me with a carrot dangling like this?! Okay, maybe he was referring to larval sacs in fish or insects that they eat, which would make the adoption of the "put all your eggs in one basket" idiom cross a little more evenly and I just jumped to a weird conclusion because I'm tired. Maybe I shouldn't freeze all my embryos in one petri dish while making wild guesses at how they work.

A big problem I had was that a lot seemed out of place. Maybe such a story would have worked after the civil war between the Utroms started, but it just feels like it needs a "spoiler warning" stamp on it.

The best part was the "backup" Technodrome reveal ("Brothers, I found it." ) but other than that, in the wise words of a curmudgeonly old scientist. Meh.



Pepperoni continues to bother me too.


Guys, Shredder in Hell is just better overall.

[oldmanwinters]

I liked it, but it felt like it ended very abruptly. For the $4.99 price tag, I expected there to be a few more pages.... I kept flipping through the ads at the end surprised there wasn't more story!

[daggio]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

I liked it, but it felt like it ended very abruptly. For the $4.99 price tag, I expected there to be a few more pages.... I kept flipping through the ads at the end surprised there wasn't more story!

I'm with you on that. I liked it, but it kinda just ended (though I guess I shoulda seen that coming the way the story progressed). I also was expecting some deeper finish, but then I remembered that this is a one-shot taking place in the future. Having an ending yearning for another issue would have been counter-productive, since (as far as I know) there's no future miniseries on the horizon.

I'll be interested to see if this is declared canon. If it is, it'll be interesting to see plot points leading us to that future aspect (Utrom Civil War, etc.)

[Utrommaniac]

Giving it some though, I feel like there's a lot of areas of specific disappointments. Kind of the opposite of delayed satisfaction with premature satisfaction.


The turtles getting to kill things is one thing, but since they haven't in the main timeline yet and haven't dealt with the feelings around that, there's no fun in the combat for this scene.
Or Leonardo seemingly being willing to torture one of the Utroms, but just kinda giving up immediately.
"Where's the Technodrome!"
"I won't talk!"
"...m'kay, bye."

Speaking of Leo, his spirit powers! Not only did they seem OP, but that was also no fun since he hasn't come to grips with them yet. Of course he will eventually, but now it's an even bigger waiting game for him to master them. Almost felt like a young Leo fan experimenting with fanfiction.

The "Good Side" Utroms also seemed to disappear immediately and Don's escape from imprisonment just seemed kind of a moot point to the whole story. What was the point of the jailbreak if he was just going to escape on his own with a bunch of other prisoners? Why couldn't he have just been there the whole time and they were just going as a group because they found out there was a Technodrome in Florence?

Mike taking over as leader would have been cool...if again, we weren't potentially going to have to wait for its possibility for the next few years. An Utrom Civil War is understandably inevitable (and even foreshadowed at the end of Universe 23 and by Ch'rell and Ma'riell's brief conversation in #87), but being thrown into it 20 years later before it even starts doesn't work

It all just felt really rushed. It probably could have gone with a more ambiguous story set 20 years later than one big spoiler warning after another. I'm still going with the idea of it being a "possible" future rather than "the" future.


Also, why doesn't Florence look like this after the Technodrome exploded?


(London sure as hell will)

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by daggio

I'll be interested to see if this is declared canon. If it is, it'll be interesting to see plot points leading us to that future aspect (Utrom Civil War, etc.)

Originally Posted by Utrommaniac

I'm still going with the idea of it being a "possible" future rather than "the" future.

I feel like this falls under the same category as the Deviations one-shot; a 'Possible Futures' section of the established canon.

[martinitolove]

I liked it! We've got a wink to the Archie's ark of TMNT in Europe. The Nazi Germany, the French Revolution, the Italian pizza (although its origin lies in Napoli, rather than in Firenze). The Athenian pantheon, Big Ben, even Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. All the clichés an american has about Europe are in, as they should be. Now this topic from the 1980-ies is done as well! It's so cool that IDW hides these easter eggs for old fans in almost every issue!!!

I loved spiritual Leo, grown up Pepperoni, Michelangelo as the team leader, the Kraaaang. Beautiful story and art IDW! You've captured the spirit of 2012 cartoon perfeclty - the positive thinking in a crumbling world. Like real life these days! Cowabunga!!!

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Took me a week to get to this, but after finally catching up on TMNT comics...

This didn't wow me like I was hoping for. A lot of faceless Utroms; all four Turtles still around, a team, and mostly unchanged; only a cameo by Sally Pride; and the Technodrome.

As a mini-series or a separate ongoing, I think it'd be pretty great. It has some tantalizing hints (Mike as leader, Astral Leo) but that's about it. But it just didn't have enough pages to really do much of anything.

[martinitolove]

The more I savour this issue, the more I like it. Even with Shredder in Hell in the same week, I've supprisingly enjoyed 20/20 more! My real compliments Paul and Nelson!

[Rooish]

Wow, this was pretty cool. Unusual for Mike to become leader in Leo's place, and we've also never really seen Leo get so spiritual and withdrawn that he has to relinquish his role. Agree it was tantalizing. Pepperoni is definitely too big though.

[bgb1018]

I really enjoyed this issue honestly. The idea of Mikey taking over to basically save Leo from himself was a cool idea considering Mikey would probably have been my last choice as leader based off his usual character. My only real issues are that the story felt rushed (obviously due to it being a one shot) and that the reveal that there is more than one technodrome left me wanting to hear about all the battles for Europe and see how it still played out. Overall though, I'm happy with it and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing this story get continued has a separate mini series or something.

[frank_one]

Not sure what this issue is about but that retailer incentive cover by Gabriel Rodriguez is great.