Is TMNT still too tied to Vol. I?
 

Let me begin by saying that the whole reason I'm here on this site is because I read some of the volume I stuff and it blew me away.

I've tracked down some of the Vol I stuff, and I plan to get more. However, I've also gotten a lot of the recent volume of Tales as well. After reading through them, I have a question: Does anyone else think that TMNT is too slavishly tied to the events of Volume I?

I mean, most other comic properties build on the great stories of the past in order to deepen and grow the mythos. It kinda seems to me that TMNT started off with a bang, and has been spinning it's wheels for the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it just seems as though everything ties back in with Vol. I only.

So, opinions, comments?

There's several stories set in Vol 4 and there's some upcoming Tales issues that are set in Vol 2 so no I don't think they focus on Vol 1 alot.

I can see his point though, Many of the aspects of V4 are DIRECT continuations fo V1, rather than progressions etc.

Yeah, I'm actually getting really tired of the complete non-progression of the overall TMNT story. I love Vol. 1 for what it is, but I reallyreally wish the story could move beyond it. And no, Vol. 4 doesn't count.

Aren't there a lot of aspects of volume 2 too, though? When I first started reading the comics I didn't really have any intention of seeking out volume 2 comics, but after reading volume 4 online I'm curious to see what happened in those comics too.

I've only read volume 4, parts of 1 and 3, and some of the current Tales of TMNT. Personaly I think there is a balance with all the volumes in Tales. My fav issue is #43.

I think the problem is the Mirage TMNT comics have no real villains. How many Mirage villains are there who aren't one-shots or are still alive? Shredder is dead, Baxter is dead, Karai isn't a villain anymore, the Triceratons aren't really villains anymore, Leatherhead is good, Rat King is more of a spirit now, and all we really have is Savanti Romero now.

Why do you think the two cartoons and Archie series had to create all these new mutants, aliens, and other characters? There are very few major villains in the Mirage universe.

Hell, the 4kids cartoon had to create Hun and Bishop, among other characters. The original cartoon had to create Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang and all the other mutants. The Archie comics did the same thing.

There are NO major villains in the Mirage TMNT comics anymore, which is why Volume 4 turned out the way it did. That's the problem with TMNT going in a new direction. What new villains has Mirage created since Volume 1 that weren't one-shots?

Well, not to defend it too much, but the psycho-warriors from V4 would qualify (alternate demension guys)

You have a point, but

I don't think you can say that for sure just yet.. :P

Was Karai ever really a villain? Maybe in other versions of the turtles, but in the comics she seemed kind of neutral. If I remember correctly she did have a bit of a conflict with the Turtles at first but then they made that deal and they seemed to work together okay after that.

Savanti was defeated in Tales of the TMNT vol 2 with the help of the Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa. Well technically his ego defeated him but still.

TMNT villians:
Shredder - Killed in the first issue by Donatello, cloned, killed again by Leonardo, became a freakish shark thing - killed by Casey, Baby Shadow, and Splinter
Savanti Romero - Only true reacurring villian. His own ego defeated him
Savanti Juliet - Killed by Renet
Rat King - Killed in his first appearance, his spirit helped Splinter in CAW, and then he was defeated and dethroned and replaced by Splinter who's the current Rat King...
Triceratons - After several several defeats and the eventual overthrow of Zandramon lead to the Triceratons eventually becoming crazed fans of the TMNT to the point that they've made their own version of the TMNT animated series....which I'd love to see... *L*
Complete Carnage - Leonardo will eventually kill him sometime in the future in revenge for Carnage killing Radical.
Baxter Stockman - Donatello kills him in Vol 4 after keeping him somewhat alive for some strange purposes for years....

Leatherhead was never a villian in Mirage
Karai was never a villian

We need Diamondback and Copperhead.

He explains why as he kills him. Don couldn't believe such intelligence could be so irredeemably evil, and so hoped to use him for something good someday.

Both have become something more interesting. Since Razorback will be hitting the comics first, Diamondback has been renamed. The Diamondback in #36 will be someone altogether different. The original arc and model we had in mind for Copperhead is being used for another character who will be making a BIG entrance. The core focus behind my next Tales issue is to begin addressing the villain situation. If I get the opportunity to write more then that'll be where I put my energies -- villains. And good stories of course!

Don't forget, you've also got Murph's three mystics, who, if all goes well, should be appearing again at least once...

These are comic books too remember, not all deaths are permanent!

First I'd even throw the question out... why even end volume 1? I don't see any reason TMNT, Vol. 4 #29 couldn't just be TMNT #104, but whatever. :)

If I had to venture an answer to this, it all comes back to City at War, and the kind of book-closing it represented on one chapter of the Turtles' lives. With Volume 2, we saw some attempt at showing us the next chapter... but due to one thing or another (a big part of things being Mirage Publishing closing down around then, what with the floods and all), it never really quite got off the ground or gelled in a way that really "hooked" readers.

Volume 4 tosses the angle at us fairly quickly off the bat, "What if aliens landed on Earth and the TMNT no longer had to hide in the shadows?" as a springboard. I'm not certain that's wholly been explored yet as an angle.

I've been reading vol 4 today and have to say this topic has been on my mind.

Vol 1 seemed more eposodic, like each story was an issue or two. I know RTNY & CAW were more but each story seemed somewhat seperate.

Vol 4 is one huge story. It has been one long continuse story and refferances past events. I don't think it is stuck though.

Sounds interesting!

I'd have to say they are a little too tied to vol. I.

I mean why can't we have a turtles comic where the turtles exist like batman or superman etc. Not every batman story is tied to some idea that Bob Kane put in a book some 70 years ago so why do the turtles always have to fall into the mirage timeline?

I've never been too sure about how i felt about the turtles growing older and having actual deaths etc...why can't they just be like bruce wayne and never age or whatever. I feel that since the turtles' fates have been written (sorta) there is a need to place every adventure somewhere in the mirage-averse. I feel this sorta bogs down the freedom of some writers.

If Jeph Loeb had to lock down exactly when and where and how old batman was during Hush would it have been as free to do the things it did?

I mean some things in comics have to show the passing of time. Dick Grayson got old and turned into night wing, Jason Todd died, Tim Drake became the 3rd (and best robin) but since then nothing has changed. Nightwing is still mid 20's, Bruce Wayne is still late 30's (i think...maybe early 40's) and Tim Drake is still in Highschool. And Jason Todd came back to life but that is neither here nor there...

In short i just think if turtles storied didn't have to fit into a definitive timeline we might get bigger (maybe better...maybe not) stories...

I so agree with this. I would really love for a brand new TMNT series that simply focuses on creating a profitable comic with the goal of drawing and maintaining readers. Good art (preferably color), good stories (that have mini-arcs within larger arcs), and a willingness to change things if readership drops.

See this goes back to what I said a while ago about putting dates in comics. As soon as you put a date in a newspaper or anything like that, you get readers who cling to that date tenaciously. The most common response I got to #36 was to the fact that they're using cell phones, because cell phones (at least the ones depicted) didn't exist in whatever time frame City at War was set in.

I know a lot of people hold the TMNT dates as gospel, but they end up redundant as years go by. They're good to keep track of what story takes place when in relation to others, but I think now we're at the point where you're better off alluding to dates rather than stating them (ie; twenty years ago, two months ago, then, now, etc.).

You go by dates and particular events then you get horrendous irregularities (ie: Flash Thompson going to Vietnam). I think the only particular events that have been handled well in comics have been the September 11th terrorist attacks in Amazing Spiderman and World War 2 in just about everything.

Yeah, I would also agree that this creates problems. I really do wish the TMNT comics were less concerned about timelines and more concerned with good stories.

I've always liked that time genuinely seems to pass and the characters grow older in the TMNT comics.

I don't like that they do seem to be chaining them to specific years, and even reinforcing them in many recent issues... I'd much rather see the TMNT -- while time still passing, years still going by -- adopt more of a DC-like ever moving continuum.

What do I mean?

Well, look at pretty much any long-standing DC comic. Like... Green Lantern. He's had an ongoing comic since 1960, and pretty much all of the comics (with a few exceptions) from then until now count in continuity. So how can this be? Obviously, if GL was about 30 years old in 1960, he couldn't be 80 years old now in 2008, could he?

It's very simple. There is an ever-moving "Present Day." This year it is 2008 in a comic, but next year present day will be 2009, even if -- in the actual comic books -- only a couple of weeks have actually passed in the story. So technically those 1960 events from GL only happen "5 years ago" or so in the actual comic story.

Seeing as I don't really pay attention to dates in comics, which issues have been reinforcing dates?

It was interesting actually, Ryan and I were discussing the timelines and dates when writing #50. We had Don using a computer set up, alluding to the internet, hacking and terrorism and the question as to whether or not these things would exist at the "to-the-date" time this story perhaps could have happened. Again, for me it comes down to kind of ignoring dates.

Actually, when you think about it, if society was advanced enough back in the 80's to have Foot Clan killbots rampaging through the streets and Mousers and all these other wonderful technological marvels, wouldn't it make sense to have stuff like advanced internet and communications technologies then too?

Not to point the finger at Will, but I recall the date Donatello types on the typewriter fairly recently in one of his backups.

I'm with you, believe me, and I think moving forward TMNT should see what it can do to move in this direction (dodging the Specific Date bullet altogether). But TMNT seems to keep reinforcing the dates thing. The big thing with me was the allusion to 9/11 happening in the middle of the events of early Vol. 4... this pretty much automatically puts TMNT in a parallel universe where Utroms landed in NYC and held a world conference just before the Twin Towers fell.

I don't have a huge problem with the Utroms and their world conference... I'd just prefer it kept in a kind of ever moving forward "Near Future" rather than tethered to some specific date that's already past.

Similarly, how Terminator 3 anchored itself to 2004 as the date of Judgement Day. How silly is that? Obviously they'd know within a couple of years of the film's date it would be a joke. You know?

See I don't have any problems with t3. In the Terminator universe we KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that Judgement Day happened in 2004. All the logic regarding the war and Skynet is sound in T3, and it makes more sense to make T3, set it immediately and then move on to the Skynet wars in the future for sequels, RATHER than making a film in 2004 and setting it before 1997 (that was when the bomb hit wasn't it?). Ultimately, while they can change the sequence of events, they're never going to be able to prevent Skynet from taking over (otherwise the films would never have happened).

So long as they don't make any "this-is-what-happened-between-t3-and-t4" movies then the series is still safe.

I also choose to completely ignore Sarah Connor Chronicles. I made it like 10 minutes into that series and was on the floor laughing. I picked, shot-for-shot, how the first terminator would reveal itself. That show was not my cup of tea at all.

I don't know that time travel works like that, even in the Terminator universe.

My theory...

[geek mode on]

Way I see it, everything beyond the ending of T3 is pretty much uncharted territory... we're in a new timeline now.

The events of the timeline can't be rectified into a singular timeline. T2 changed the timeline, and T3 changed it again. What we have is a bunch of alternate timelines being created every time the movies mess with the future again.

In the first timeline, SkyNET went live in 1997 via CyberDyne Systems, nukes and countermeasures exchanged with Russia, Judgement Day. Kyle Reese is sent back in 2029 by John Connor.

In the second timeline, Judgement Day is averted, postponed until 2004 where it goes via Cyber Research Systems/CRS (instead of CyberDyne, destroyed in 1994/95 in T2). In 2032, John is killed by a T-850 just after he and his top lieutenants score a triumphant victory over SkyNET.

In the third timeline in the aftermath of T3, Judgement Day really did happen in 2004 via CRS, John may or may not still be killed by a T-850 in 2032 (probably not, since he would certainly see it coming this time), but now all of his top lieutenants are dead (killed by the T-X in 2004).

It's not clear if John sending Kyle back in time to meet his mother still goes on schedule in 2029 in either of the latter timelines (it's possibly everything that happened in 2029 just got bumped to 2032, happening more or less the same).

What we DO know is that even if John, now, in the current third timeline, sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 to meet his mother, it wouldn't play out exactly as it did in T1. Kyle would tell her Judgement Day happens in 2004, not 1997; Kyle would tell her Arnie is a Cyber Research Systems T-800, Model 101, not CyberDyne, etc., etc..

Further corrupting the issue would be this : In this new timeline, the T-800 in T2 would tell Sarah Connor that Miles Bennet Dyson was NOT responsible for the creation of SkyNET (and in 2004 rather than 1997) but rather Robert Brewster, and CyberDyne systems was NOT responsible but rather Cyber Research Systems. So Sarah would go after CRS in T2 instead of CyberDyne, meanwhile CyberDyne would STILL have the arm and chip from T1, even in an altered timeline. So, Sarah blows up CRS instead of CyberDyne in T2 (in this new timeline), meanwhile CyberDyne goes on to launch SkyNet on schedule in 1997 potentially!

As such, it's really almost easier to rectify if John does NOTHING in this new timeline -- doesn't send Kyle back, only watches his back for T-850s in 2032. I don't believe time travel is such that if John doesn't send Kyle back he'll just vanish in the present... what we have here is alternate timelines, branches if you will, each one with different events.

An endless loops of 1997 => 2004 => 1997 => 2004 => 1997 and on and on. It actually works if you really think about it.

[geek mode off]

I'm not sure how you mean. I'm just saying they shouldn't have even mentioned the year in T3, so we can assume those events just happen sometime in the "Near Future" rather than make us go, "Ehh... but 2004 was ****ing like 4 years ago, and I didn't see any nukes dropping." You know?

Like Mad Max and the Road Warrior. "Near Future," not painting themselves into a corner to any one year or years.

Good man. And you can bet for damned sure T4 isn't going to acknowledge it. We already know Kate is in T4... and you pretty much can't have both T3 and Sarah Connor Chronicles.

In truth, I was semi-interested in Sarah Connor Chronicles for the first couple of episodes... then, just blegh. I know Smallville has its fans, but it's like the Smallville study in, "How little can we show fans without them crying foul?" leading us around with a carrot (John one day becoming the savior of mankind, Judgement Day happening; Clark one day becoming Superman) without actually ever delivering anything substantial.

Man, I never considered that Cyberdyne/CRS thing! Good thinking! I'm gonna have to rewatch them!

I see your point about them saying "near future", but as I said, so long as they don't make any movies set between 2004 and the beginning of the Skynet war then it's still safe to use that date, at least in my mind. I think everyone will be changing their timeline theories when t4 and t5 hit anyway!

*possible spoiler below*


























Yeah, if the rumors are to be believed, John will get killed by the T-850, then his skin and memories put onto/into a reprogrammed Terminator to make people think John doesn't die to carry on as a figurehead.

I see fans lashing out at the idea... but I think it's kind of cool. It's thinking outside of the box.

You want to know what's not cool, though? Terminator 4 being PG-13. Here it is, the Future War, what we've been waiting to see since the beginning (many/most of us thinking we'd never see)... machines gunning down TechCOM in the trenches of a post-apocalypse, humans on the run with only a paltry resistance to fight back to Saving Private Ryan-levels of gritty warfare... and apparently it'll just all be neutered.

Andrew, you might want to add a possible spoiler alert to that.

I know it's just a rumor now, but some people might not want to know even that.

I dunno, I think you can really push pg-13's these days. Dark Knight still astonishes me. I think if t2 had've been rated for today it probably could've got a pg-13.

Pretty sure you can't graphically show kneecaps getting blown apart and fingers to the eyesocket/skull in PG-13, but yeah, T2 is pretty close on the PG-13 front. T1, no way. And a Future War movie? Impossible. Not without selling the kind of material it revolves around way short.

I can't think of any good PG-13 war movies off the top of my head. Can you? Certainly not set amidst something as grim as a post-apocalyptic Man against Machine world backdrop. I foresee a lot of shaky cam, MTV-style quick cut nonsense.

And nothing in Batman Begins pushed the PG-13 envelope, really. It did make the most of the rating, though, absolutely.

Actually, T1 could probably get it nowadays, honestly. Not that its not still a great movie. SO could alot of classic horror. Rating creep has been happening for a while in live action.

We didn't watch the same movie. Punching a guy through the chest bloodily, carving out an eyeball, viscerally gunning down a whole station's worth of police, a sex scene (crack! nipple! I see nipple!). A ton of F bombs.

And the only "Rating Creep" I've seen is down (Die Hard 4 was an incalculable travesty). As well as action movie lovers' expectations.

Sigh. I'm not going to argue T1 anymore, its really not worth the effort. the movie wasn't THAT good.

As to rating creep down, I think you might underestimate slighly, have you watched Gunner Palace?

For that matter, I think Harvard did something on it as well, though their criteria could be debated....

Sarah Conner Chronicles >>>>> T3

It's funny you say that. 90% of Terminator fans I know actually have come to revere T1 over T2 in recent years.

I find myself torn between my childhood love of T2 and the sheer unbridled noir thrill of T1. I can't pick a favorite... I might as well pick who I like better, Mom or Dad.

T1 is certainly worlds above T2 in terms of grittiness and such content, in any case. Some of the effects and such have become sadly a bit dated, but you have to look past that as you would any film of that era or older.

No. Should I?

IT is, still doesn't mean its god enough to argue about my opinion of the rating.

I had puritanistic parents. I didn't see either until I got older, so no fighting those two urges for me. Although I can make the second choice more easily.

Agreed.

Has alot more F bombs than any PG-13 movie I've seen from the 90's, to start. Not saying anything about the quality, just the example of ratings creep.

I don't know, I can't think of anything that was really that graphic in t2. The most graphic thing in my mind is the holocaust dream. The other thing about the future war is that all the Terminators use laser weapons, people being hit by those will be like seeing people die in Star Wars. It's like that in all the Terminator movies. Purple/blue beams followed by a puff of smoke and some sparks. They can put as much of that into t4 and have a pg-13 without worry.

But then you have to ask how many war movies have you seen where the enemy is an army of robots? Again, Star Wars comes to mind...
To be completely honest, the scene where the Troll is unleashed in the tunnels in The Spiderwick Chronicles is more intense than the future war sequence in t1.

A Terminator movie set in the future could get a pg-13 and be just as intense as any of the other Terminator films.

Most war movies get an r rating for realistic depictions of war. The Thin Red Line wasn't exactly Saving Private Ryan, but both got R-ratings. A war against robots in a post-apocalyptic future won't get an R, unless they start throwing in gratuitous amounts of violence and gore, which ultimately aren't really that necessary to the Terminator films. Yeah, they're violent, but they're never NEEDLESSLY violent.

In the end, it can be done.

I make specific examples of what simply wouldn't stand in a PG-13 movie from T2.

Now, could a slightly reedited T2 exist as PG-13 and still be just fine? Yes, sure. But it can't be denied there is at least a bit of irrefutable R content there. The biggest thing in my mind is the finger through the skull.

You make a good point, but without actually showing the carnage, the bodies, the cost of the War, the down side... what are we really seeing but just elaborate pyrotechnics and lightshows? I'm not interested in that.

Episode I-III? No, good examples, Tristan. :)

Can't buy into that, Tristan. It can come close, but approaching the Future War with 13 year-old kid gloves is outrageous in my book.

Unless they literally just make it a very personal story that only peripherally shows glimpses of the real fighting in the Future War... in which case it would beg the question of why they should even bother taking us to the Future War in the first place if not to take us into it knee-deep.

The T-800 punching the kid through the chest was needed in T1? The finger through the eyeball in T2 was needed?

I'm not saying either movie is super gratuitous, but there's plenty of visceral examples here and there.

I agree. I'd even throw out there that the PG-13 rating isn't even at the top of the list of worries about the film.

How truly confident are you in McG making a fourth Terminator movie amist the Future War, PG-13, believable and a worthy installment?

Hang on, sure, there's gore when the Terminator punches a hole in the punk, and when he gouges out his eye, and when they're generally doing their thing terminating people, but go back and watch all the sequences set in the future. Nothing in any of those says an R rating for me, and to be honest I can't come up with any good reason for a Terminator to do any of the more graphic things they do in T1 an T2 in a movie set in the future. In those films, it was all about getting to a target. In the future, it's all about extermination.

I think seeing Samarah's father electrocute himself in The Ring was more impacting than the scenes you're quoting.

Again, there's nothing in any of the previous film's future war sections that warrants an R. You can have a future war movie, totally in line with everything we see in the other movies at PG-13.

I know we're not being serious on this example, but think about it, if they hadn't been robots there'd be some very serious discussions going on about ratings. If you take any faceless, non-realist enemy, be it a Clone, a Stormtrooper or a robot, and make it a person, then you're looking at something else. If you switched all the lasers for bullets and aliens/robots for people, Star Wars would be in dire trouble.

If Christian Bale has faith in it, then I do to. :lol: