Tales of the TMNT #69
 

"Dark Shadows" by Dan Berger
Released April 21, 2010

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56...NT/tales69.jpg

I realize that we already had one thread discussing speculation about this issue, but I figured since it is already up to about 5 pages of information, we might as well close that thread and start a new one. I'm sure a Moderator can merge them if they deem that more convenient.

EDIT:
I'm posting this after getting through the first 17 pages. And... holy cow. Such intense revelations forced me to take a half time break!

Can't wait for the TMNT Entity review. This has to be A+! Well, to be fair I guess I ought to finish the issue before giving it that grade. This is the one issue I've been chomping at the bits for since it the story information was released.

My copy is en route with mom dukes! She went out to score taco bell and luckily my comic shop is right up the road from it! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!

Well.... I just finished the last few pages....



Final Grade: A+ (You hear me, Spengs? :trazz:)
Dan Berger has never disappointed me.
But so many questions that will never be answered. And that, in itself, is a tragedy.

EDIT: Oops! I almost forgot to go back and read Dan's introduction!

I haven't looked at the spoilers, but people please, don't post the events of this issue in other threads.

Meaning I don't want to come across a spoiler from this story posted in a different thread, such as discussing the mirage timeline or something.

Keep your spoilers marked!

The stuff in the spoiler quotes aren't even spoilers. Honestly, I don't get the point of those comments at all unless they're elaborated on, which probably would then require spoiler quotes.

I probably won't get this until next week, but definitely looking forward to it.

Just raising the suspense! I wanted to elaborate on the spoilers but that would require more spoilers.

Plus:

I just finished it. I Really dug it. Can't lie I was kinda hoping for a more 'heartfelt' 'goodbye' introduction in the beginning but I suppose I'm glad that didn't happen... woulda been pretty sad. Great ending, good art/writing as per usual. I may elaborate after more people have read it.

Quite the issue, amazing.

I could be wrong, but most of the future we've seen beyond this point would seem to cement what happens here as the alternate timeline the ending sort of drives it home as.

But elements of it may still happen... perhaps she at some point?

Also, the final act reminds me a lot of my Tales pitch a couple of years ago... with Renet time-travelling with Raphael to lament his future self and what he becomes:

http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=24831

That's a pretty good story pitch! You think Dan might have been reading it?:)

I was thinking the same thing!

I kinda **** brix when I saw the pin up in the back cause...

To hell with you guys and your coyness. I won't be picking this up until after school lets out, and I want spoilers now.

Well, fortunately Tristan Jones won't be punched in the mouth since the story is not a dream...



This was such a jarring coda to Shadow's storyline after seeing her as the cute little preschooler in Tales #67. I love the contrast.

Well, it wouldn't be Mirage if the Turtles got a happy ending.

Thanks for laying out the plot. I categorically cannot wait to pick this up.

No prob, there are oodles more surprising revelations in this issue concerning the Mirage time line, with so many new questions likely never to be answered!

My Review.

Excellent issue that remarked upon so many of my personal concerns with Shadow as a character that I felt Berger was reading my mind.

Hey, I never noticed all the TMNT trinkets in Renet's room until you pointed that out, Spengs! Was that Raph's one-eyed bear on the couch?

Speaking of the Mirage Timeline, if we assume the future events of this issue are canon, would you place this issue's swamp scene before the epilogue scene of "A Day in the Life" (Tales #55)?

S***, this seems heavy. Definitely going to pick it up.

He won't get punched in the mouth THIS TIME!!!

How about you just "Poke" him on Facebook?

Filthy. Just filthy.

Although now I'm kind of disappointed that Facebook doesn't have a "punch" feature.

And furthermore...

Oh hi, everybody. When did you get here? :D

Just to add a bit of relevant information to this DEEP and MEANINGFUL discussion, Midtown Comics (www.midtowncomics.com) has Tales #69 (huh, huh) listed as dropping THIS Wednesday, April 28th.

So all the rest of us will hopefully get it then. Yay! Because I'm really looking forward to this issue. I think Mr. Berger is a HYPER-underrated writer, and I've always been fond of Shadow as a character.

Will be bittersweet, though. But so it goes.

Bittersweet, hell. It's downright f***ing depressing.

I found at least six times where I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

Whats really depressing is how little the amount of people posting about the second to last issue is.

:/

I haven't checked in the city if it's in yet, but being international it may be a while. Already I'm burning with the question...

Wow, Berger's been on a roll, lately--they should sell the TMNT more often. :P

While I initially found the issue to be a tad wagnsty, it's the sort of thing which gets better with re-reading.

Random thoughts:

I was initially bothered by the fact that the "present day" scene is obviously meant to take place during Shadow's early teenage years, since we've never really seen Raph take an active role in Shadow's training; however, once I remembered that Raph is always the one that appears in the early Shadow stories, and the continuity makes a bit more sense. It also adds a new layer of subtext to all of them. However, it also adds a few complications, such as the fact that Raph apparently knew of the Utrom arrival years before it happened.

Like Raph losing an eye, the world eventually getting crapsacked by global warming now seems to be turning into a consistent thing across incarnations (except, markedly, the 2k3 cartoon). I actually quite like it.

A moment of fridge brilliance: while it initially seemed a bit weird to have...



Given how the reader's sympathy for Shadow...

So, I won't have the issue for a little while, but knowing the basics, I can at least ask a few "What the future?" kind of questions.

I'm pretty curious myself...



This looks like a job for... Super Spengs!

Heh... I wouldn't mind retconing Tales #41 to one of those "improbable" alternate futures. :P

You also have to remember that not everyone will have a chance to get it until this week.

Why does no one else understand how awesome that issue is once you get over the (implied) Turtle/human romance? Plus it fills in information given to us as far back as "Loops."

And writing off any of the future issues as an alternate timeline now would just be hella lame. One of the best things about the series is that where any other comic would've said, "This is only a possibility," Turtles keeps showing us depressing glimpses of the future and saying, "Yeah, this is just what happens. Sh*t's rough." Anything else would be a cop-out.

Eh... I guess that's the thing. For me anyway. :tconfuse:

I will admit that the general themes of vengeance vs. forgiveness are intriguing in that issue. I'd like to see the non-violent Leo's journey to enlightenment explored a bit more, but it seems we've run out of issues.

Yeah, I'm with Cypher: Tales #41 is awesome, and one of my favorite issues in the series.

The problem with its conflicting accounts accounts of the future is that the cities described in and #41 are all places that would be very much affected by global warming; San Francisco, Hong Kong...one would assume these places would be deep-sixed by any global catastrophe. Still, a competent enough fanwanker could still try to reconcile both accounts.

Trying so hard not to click on the spoilers. Reason I ain't in here yet is because:

Effin volcano in Iceland messing with my comic shop! Aaargh! So comics should be here tomorrow, although I won't get there til the end of the week now.

I'm with Discordiatookie, I'm sure I'll have something to say once I have the book in hand, but for some reason my local comic shop doesn't seem to get stuff until a week after everyone else.

I think this is ultimately where the biggest problem lies with the comics -- the seeming lack of collaboration. Back when it was just Murphy writing (pretty much), it wasn't so much of a problem, because a lot of the material was his and it linked together, or it was by other people linking into previous TMNT canon. A big problem, at least from my standpoint when I was writing for Mirage, was the lack of collaboration when it came to cross-checking stories with other writers. I could be wrong, but that's just the vibe I took. It felt like no-one really knew what was happening with other books they weren't involved in in a writing capacity, and didn't really know until it either came out or it hit the editing stage, which in some cases, may have been too late to adjust certain stories to make them fit into the grander scheme of things. For instance, when I was writing the Gang Wars stories, if I had've known about Dan's Madhattan Maulitia story, I would've tweaked mine a bit to accommodate those events. Same with Ryan's sequel to #50, and a few other stories. It's not some kind of EPIC gripe, because I still love the books and everyone who worked on them, and had the time of my life on them, I just think the books would've probably worked a touch better if everyone knew what everyone was doing. I know Dan tried to get this to work as time went on, and that it was a hard thing to do as well. I also don't mean to imply that nobody cared either, I think it's just that everyone was kind of into their own stories and the approval process meant it was harder to work things like that, and in my mind, that slight lack of creative cohesion meant we had some disjointed stories.

Regarding #41, I know when we were going over the timeline for the Mirage Universe sourcebook, there were some stories that were being "ignored" to an extent for a number of reasons, but largely because of really conflicting information. #41 was one of them... there were a couple of others, but I can't recall them off the top of my head... a few from Vol.1 and maybe one or two from Tales Vol.2...

I loved it! Even the



The which is usually something I hate, actually felt natural and honest here.

Just great writing, all around. I think Dan & Murph really wrote the best character-driven stories of the series.

And it's sad that they're rarely (if ever) recognized for this.

Felt my flux capacitor fluxing so I had to post. :D

Anyway, I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiments regarding Berger and Murph.

1.21 Gigawatts! :)

Great scott!!!