Ubiqtysync
01-01-2003, 10:27 PM
First and foremost, my TWO MAIN AREAS OF INQUIRY: what was the "Year of the Turtle" mini-series and what was this alleged "The Forever War" all regarding? All detailed information and available synopses would be highly appreciated. As I noted before, I lost track of the series after 72, assuming it had gone on, only to find that it actually came to an abrupt close. I know I flipped through some issue, perhaps the second of the "Year of the Turtle" trilogy at a magazine stand, and I copped a gander at an advertisement for the continuation of the future turtles and Shredder a la an artistic sketch of Shredder innocuously impaling Don on his jagged armband (that takes some major upper-body strength, to be sure). Nowadays, it's next to impossible to get any of this without shelling (no pun intended) some hefty cash.
Today, I must've been struck by the nostalgia bug as I sifted through my "small" jambalaya of comic books ranging primarily from TMNT Adventures to the first thirty or so editions of The Simpsons, Itchy & Scratchy, Radioactive Man, and Bartman (some Batman, too). It's mainly Archie, considering I have quite a conglomeration of Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, as well.
I was always a fan of the cartoon series, but lost track of so many episodes along the way. The whole Baxter "The Fly" Stockman saga is hilarious when you reminisce back to the series. He could never catch a break, constantly getting lost in this dimension or that terra incognita of the space-time continuum. And what about the Technodrome? Where ELSE could they have marooned that metallic fortress? I know the Technodrome, despite the supposed continuity with the cartoon series, was obliterated in practically every video game and Shredder either had some retro-mutagen gun or metamorphosed into Super Shredder.
This all really takes me back, but let me get to the crux of this reply. Although I scarcely acquired only a few back issues of the original Mirage TMNT comic book series, this wasn't until AFTER my eye's attention was caught by the gleaming beacon that is the cover of TMNT Adventures number 38. I wasn't aware, up until that point, that they made them into comic books. Of course, I feel stupid for admitting this when their origins were in fact commenced IN comic book form.
After this kismetic intervention of illustrated literature in the realm of hominoid, bipedal, reptilian, adolescent ninjas sporting bandanas the same colors as the light-sabers in Star Wars--minus Michelangelo's orange color--I was hooked. I wasn't familiar at all with any of the other characters, like the Mutanimals or Mr. Null, but I was content with just having the turtles. Additionally, the "United We Stand Divided We Fall Trilogy" didn't make much sense to me around this time, particularly due to my missing the crossover Mutanimal issues of (I think) five and six, but I enthusiastically sought out and purchased number 40. Okay, let's be truthful. We're of the same generation, meaning we were all most likely born in the early eighties. Our "mommies" or "daddies" did the purchasing.
I wasn't able to attain number 41, but I was subscribed by number 42. I received every single copy of the Archie series 42 and beyond. My interest in the comic book series waned as the obsession with turtles for me began fleeting. However, I managed to still add to my collection the last two issues, 71 and 72. Furthermore, I ambitiously made the tasking effort of claiming possession over all back issues pertaining to the series. I was close, but to no avail.
Chibikasai, you actually have one issue I was always dying to get my hands on--number 36, the first appearance of Verminator-X. Pwdesai, if you're honestly scanning the issues in their entirety, count me in on obtaining issues number 36 and 41, as well as the TMNT Adventures Special issues number 1 and 2.
Imagine my surprise when this series overtly mirrored the darker elements of its Mirage counterpart. Along the way, I had purchased for me the first Mirage TMNT volume, a black and white depiction explaining their origin and introducing their key antagonism, the Shredder. Apparently vanquished by the end of the novel, I didn't see anything more until TMNT Volumes III and IV, when the turtles return from some distant planet with the Triceratons and some silver-plated, slimmed-down, robotic version of Babyface from the Dick Tracy movie. It's briefly described how Splinter narrowly escaped death at the teeth of Baxter Stockman's Mousers and how these less campy Krang look-alike aliens (obviously the inspiration for the caricature later adapted for the cartoon series) were both responsible for the turtles' and Splinter's mutation and the transportation to a planet that's curiously inhabited by English-speaking "close relatives" of the Triceratop dinosaur family.
Even in the Mirage series, which seemingly got maybe a little too mature and weird for my taste with the co-mingled, sporadic glimpses I had via later issues, the turtles, who peculiarly all sport red bandanas in this version, are visited by someone from the future. What's her name? Renet? She donned the funky one-piece Sports Illustrated blue swimming suit with the equally bizarre clock-adorned headpiece and with a cape and assortment of doodads strung together. I know she later reemerged in an issue featuring the goat-legged, horned, demonic sorcerer's sister heading an all-out assault on the turtles, Casey Jones, and April O'Neil as revenge. Plus, there was some feudal Japan vagabonding that took place later in the series (perhaps the inspiration for the third TMNT movie).
I bring this up because Archie essentially did the same thing by having the turtles of the TMNT Adventures universe get paid a visit by future Don and Raph beginning with "The Future Shark Trilogy," which evolved into a leitmotif for the series, as the present cast of characters frequently interacted with the future protagonists. I'm not complaining; it made good reading and I've always been an avid aficionado of all material relating to time-travel. A few discrepancies consistently crept up in my mind, though, especially after eventually reading over all the Classic Digests they released.
Upon purchasing back issues for the Archie series, I realized that I actually already had the first few comic books of the series. Unbeknownst to me all this time, I was aware of the series in an unwitting sense. I filled in the missing gaps by gaining the Classic Digests and scouring around for ones not covered in the said anthologies.
Moving ahead, I was astounded by the last part of "The Black Hole Trilogy" when it's revealed that the Turnstone WAS the black hole all along. That was sheer genius, more so because of the tie-in with Sarnath, the mechanized entity with the two missing gem eyes we all know were in fact used for the time-slip generators. And the death of the Mutanimals really took me by surprise. Yes, I was quite taken aback at how mature the series was developing, what with the Mutanimal hell scene and Candace Fine in that slink, sexy, rather "revealing" black dress.
Anyway, back to the time-travel questions. Cudley the Cowlick (I know, it disturbed me a little, too, how he was really nothing more than a gargantuan decapitated cow head that traversed space and time) once brought the turtles a hundred years into a possible future. It turned out that this future IS their future. But as expressed in "The Terracide Trilogy," history recorded future Don and Raph assisting the Mutanimals in constructing their headquarters. And Shredder must've somehow returned to the past, because he reappeared in early issues, around--what?--number 11 or 12. If Shredder was abducted during the Eye of Sarnath turtle-shrinking incident, then that means he ought to no longer exist in the future. That is, unless it's what I think it is: the time loop theory. By the way, they never resolved HOW or IF Shredder returns to the past.
All of time--the past, present, and future--has already happened. In other words, you can't change anything because it's all happened already. This means that everything that the past and future turtles do and experience have already been done and are all predetermined. But then they directly contradict this in the aforementioned Mutanimal death trilogy. They explain it away that it was Mr. Null, as if his presence in and influence over time is outside our own, like some satanic manipulation. It suggests he's beyond the effects of time.
I believe the time loop theory applies here otherwise, since it did always bother me how the past turtles could be brought to the future without disappearing from the past (same problem occurs in Back to the Future Part II) and how the past turtles wouldn't remember any of this and plausibly make some changes to the normal time stream when the moments arrive (e.g., preventing Raph from losing his eye). It could be that this all was DESTINED to happen and is therefore inalterable.
I forgot what else I wanted to include, but this is already more lengthy content than I anticipated writing. May the legacy of the TMNT perpetuate!
Today, I must've been struck by the nostalgia bug as I sifted through my "small" jambalaya of comic books ranging primarily from TMNT Adventures to the first thirty or so editions of The Simpsons, Itchy & Scratchy, Radioactive Man, and Bartman (some Batman, too). It's mainly Archie, considering I have quite a conglomeration of Sonic the Hedgehog comic books, as well.
I was always a fan of the cartoon series, but lost track of so many episodes along the way. The whole Baxter "The Fly" Stockman saga is hilarious when you reminisce back to the series. He could never catch a break, constantly getting lost in this dimension or that terra incognita of the space-time continuum. And what about the Technodrome? Where ELSE could they have marooned that metallic fortress? I know the Technodrome, despite the supposed continuity with the cartoon series, was obliterated in practically every video game and Shredder either had some retro-mutagen gun or metamorphosed into Super Shredder.
This all really takes me back, but let me get to the crux of this reply. Although I scarcely acquired only a few back issues of the original Mirage TMNT comic book series, this wasn't until AFTER my eye's attention was caught by the gleaming beacon that is the cover of TMNT Adventures number 38. I wasn't aware, up until that point, that they made them into comic books. Of course, I feel stupid for admitting this when their origins were in fact commenced IN comic book form.
After this kismetic intervention of illustrated literature in the realm of hominoid, bipedal, reptilian, adolescent ninjas sporting bandanas the same colors as the light-sabers in Star Wars--minus Michelangelo's orange color--I was hooked. I wasn't familiar at all with any of the other characters, like the Mutanimals or Mr. Null, but I was content with just having the turtles. Additionally, the "United We Stand Divided We Fall Trilogy" didn't make much sense to me around this time, particularly due to my missing the crossover Mutanimal issues of (I think) five and six, but I enthusiastically sought out and purchased number 40. Okay, let's be truthful. We're of the same generation, meaning we were all most likely born in the early eighties. Our "mommies" or "daddies" did the purchasing.
I wasn't able to attain number 41, but I was subscribed by number 42. I received every single copy of the Archie series 42 and beyond. My interest in the comic book series waned as the obsession with turtles for me began fleeting. However, I managed to still add to my collection the last two issues, 71 and 72. Furthermore, I ambitiously made the tasking effort of claiming possession over all back issues pertaining to the series. I was close, but to no avail.
Chibikasai, you actually have one issue I was always dying to get my hands on--number 36, the first appearance of Verminator-X. Pwdesai, if you're honestly scanning the issues in their entirety, count me in on obtaining issues number 36 and 41, as well as the TMNT Adventures Special issues number 1 and 2.
Imagine my surprise when this series overtly mirrored the darker elements of its Mirage counterpart. Along the way, I had purchased for me the first Mirage TMNT volume, a black and white depiction explaining their origin and introducing their key antagonism, the Shredder. Apparently vanquished by the end of the novel, I didn't see anything more until TMNT Volumes III and IV, when the turtles return from some distant planet with the Triceratons and some silver-plated, slimmed-down, robotic version of Babyface from the Dick Tracy movie. It's briefly described how Splinter narrowly escaped death at the teeth of Baxter Stockman's Mousers and how these less campy Krang look-alike aliens (obviously the inspiration for the caricature later adapted for the cartoon series) were both responsible for the turtles' and Splinter's mutation and the transportation to a planet that's curiously inhabited by English-speaking "close relatives" of the Triceratop dinosaur family.
Even in the Mirage series, which seemingly got maybe a little too mature and weird for my taste with the co-mingled, sporadic glimpses I had via later issues, the turtles, who peculiarly all sport red bandanas in this version, are visited by someone from the future. What's her name? Renet? She donned the funky one-piece Sports Illustrated blue swimming suit with the equally bizarre clock-adorned headpiece and with a cape and assortment of doodads strung together. I know she later reemerged in an issue featuring the goat-legged, horned, demonic sorcerer's sister heading an all-out assault on the turtles, Casey Jones, and April O'Neil as revenge. Plus, there was some feudal Japan vagabonding that took place later in the series (perhaps the inspiration for the third TMNT movie).
I bring this up because Archie essentially did the same thing by having the turtles of the TMNT Adventures universe get paid a visit by future Don and Raph beginning with "The Future Shark Trilogy," which evolved into a leitmotif for the series, as the present cast of characters frequently interacted with the future protagonists. I'm not complaining; it made good reading and I've always been an avid aficionado of all material relating to time-travel. A few discrepancies consistently crept up in my mind, though, especially after eventually reading over all the Classic Digests they released.
Upon purchasing back issues for the Archie series, I realized that I actually already had the first few comic books of the series. Unbeknownst to me all this time, I was aware of the series in an unwitting sense. I filled in the missing gaps by gaining the Classic Digests and scouring around for ones not covered in the said anthologies.
Moving ahead, I was astounded by the last part of "The Black Hole Trilogy" when it's revealed that the Turnstone WAS the black hole all along. That was sheer genius, more so because of the tie-in with Sarnath, the mechanized entity with the two missing gem eyes we all know were in fact used for the time-slip generators. And the death of the Mutanimals really took me by surprise. Yes, I was quite taken aback at how mature the series was developing, what with the Mutanimal hell scene and Candace Fine in that slink, sexy, rather "revealing" black dress.
Anyway, back to the time-travel questions. Cudley the Cowlick (I know, it disturbed me a little, too, how he was really nothing more than a gargantuan decapitated cow head that traversed space and time) once brought the turtles a hundred years into a possible future. It turned out that this future IS their future. But as expressed in "The Terracide Trilogy," history recorded future Don and Raph assisting the Mutanimals in constructing their headquarters. And Shredder must've somehow returned to the past, because he reappeared in early issues, around--what?--number 11 or 12. If Shredder was abducted during the Eye of Sarnath turtle-shrinking incident, then that means he ought to no longer exist in the future. That is, unless it's what I think it is: the time loop theory. By the way, they never resolved HOW or IF Shredder returns to the past.
All of time--the past, present, and future--has already happened. In other words, you can't change anything because it's all happened already. This means that everything that the past and future turtles do and experience have already been done and are all predetermined. But then they directly contradict this in the aforementioned Mutanimal death trilogy. They explain it away that it was Mr. Null, as if his presence in and influence over time is outside our own, like some satanic manipulation. It suggests he's beyond the effects of time.
I believe the time loop theory applies here otherwise, since it did always bother me how the past turtles could be brought to the future without disappearing from the past (same problem occurs in Back to the Future Part II) and how the past turtles wouldn't remember any of this and plausibly make some changes to the normal time stream when the moments arrive (e.g., preventing Raph from losing his eye). It could be that this all was DESTINED to happen and is therefore inalterable.
I forgot what else I wanted to include, but this is already more lengthy content than I anticipated writing. May the legacy of the TMNT perpetuate!