Is "Turtles Forever" canon in the comics?
 

It's kind of a rhetorical question, and I guess I mean more: "Is it canon... to YOU?"

What I mean is, for example, let's say if the Turtles in TMNT Vol. 4 were to sit around and table and reminisce about their first battle with Shredder, would they go, "Oh yeah, I remember that... Leo ran him through with two swords, Don knocked him off the roof and he blew up from the grenade that went off next to him!" or would they go, "Oh yeah, I remember that... that Ch'rell Shredder showed up and pushed him off the roof! What a lame-ass!"

One problem -- if we do consider it canon -- is that it'd make the multiversal reveal in Tales Vol. 2 sort of moot.

Um... no. It's about as canon to me as Mark Martin's series of misadventures. You read #16 and you think... "eh... that might could fit." Then you read #22-23 and you realize, "oh no, I guess not."

Not with the comics, but as an alternate timeline.

Anyone play the new Mortal Kombat game? Know how Sub-zero gets changed into a Cyborg instead of Smoke due to the timeline being altered?

That's how I see it. Turtles Forever altered an alternate timeline of the Mirage comics where they all join together to fight Ch'rell, but in the original timeline it is maintained.

I never really considered the cartoons and comics as cannon together. Turtles forever does kind of blur that line in a way.

I kind of feel it states more that there are many versions, all "cannon" in the sense they exist.

I agree with CyberCubed aboout the alternate timelines and such. I always felt time travel a trickey thing to leave to two specific Doctors.

I kind of avoided this discussion in the main Turtles Forever thread, but to put in my interpretation...

Nah, I don't really take it that seriously. I mean, I can see the dillemma, sure. From the POV of the Turtles Forever narrative, they were going to "Turtle-Prime": THE one and only original universe where all other Turtleverses sprang from... which pretty much insists that it WAS TMNT #1, and not an alternate version of TMNT #1 but THE TMNT #1...

But that sort of does more harm than good, so I enjoy the film and I do accept the whole multiverse as canon, but I'm content to form my own "No-Prize" to explain away discontinuity.

Wanna hear it?
OF COURSE you do!

TMNT Vol. 1 #1, AKA Turtle Prime, went along its merry way exactly as we recognize it... until Ch'rell and the other Turtles showed up and began messing with the timeline. Then Turtle Prime split off into a divergent timeline where the events of Turtles Forever ocurred, but still leaving behind a timeline where TMNT #1 as we recognize it happened.

Remember Doc Brown's chalk board explanation of divergent timelines from Back to the Future part II? Yeah, that's what I'm gettin' at.

Sloppy, yeah, but I mean really, I think this was one of those things were the writers were like "Don't think about it too hard, just have fun watching the Fred Wolf Turtles and the 4Kids Turtles team up with the Mirage Turtles."

Kinda like trying to explain how the Technodrome was modified by Ch'Rell then returned to the Fred Wolf universe where it returned to normal.

That way lies madness.

Or let's look at it this way... if the Turtles in Vol. 4 hopped through a dimensional gateway right now to end up in the 4Kids or Fred Wolf cartoon universes and saw those TMNT, would they go, "Hey you guys! It's been ages!" or would they say "Uh, who are you guys?"

Where's the "HELL no" option? O_o

As others have said -- and as has been talked about in that thread about Image/SD -- it can all be canon if you're dealing with multiple universes.

So... sure. Why not?


It would probably be the latter because the writers (no offense to any of them) wouldn't have spent as much time working these things out as the fans have. And then we'd have a new logical obstacle course to crack. :lol:

The way I see it; no, they probably wouldn't (unless the writer wanted them to).

If their shock and awe at the reveal of the multiverse in that COWboys issue is any indication, the Turtles Forever events ocurred in a divergent timeline from "Turtle Prime".

Diverging timelines have never really bothered me. I've viewed the Fred Wolf universe as diverging at one point; one universe goes into the Red Sky seasons while another goes into the Japanese Super Turtles OVAs. Likewise, after TMNT 3, the movie universe either goes into Next Mutation or it goes into Imagi's TMNT film (oh boy, *that* argument again).


On a related topic, though, I view the Battle Nexus from Volume 4 as being the same Battle Nexus as the one from the 4Kids cartoon. The Battle Nexus is supposed to be the meeting point of all universes, kind of like the center of a venn diagram, so I figure there's only one of those.

I was thinking that too, unless anyone can think of anything that would specifically contradict any Battle Nexus stuff from the 4Kids cartoon (myself, I just wasn't able to suffer into 4Kids long enough to even get to that material).

I was also thinking that -- talking about Fred Wolf now -- there'd be only one Dimension X. Dimension X is Dimension X, not Y or Z or W. So that'd be a point of unity between, say, the Fred Wolf cartoon and the Archie stuff -- one Dimension X with one Krang.

As much respect as I have for you intellect, I feel you're wrong on this one...I honestly feel that if there are alternate universes, and the Battle-Nexus is a universe in and of itself...then there can be alternate Battle-Nexi.

Edit: It also depends on how you define "canon."

If there is, then wouldn't it have been a roll of the dice which Battle-Nexus they'd end up in every time they traveled there?

It makes sense there'd be only one unless there's hard reasoning that there wouldn't be.

Well, Archie's Dimension X isn't really a "dimension", but another galaxy that's oddly called a dimension for some reason.

It's highly possible; there's no guarantee that there's only ONE nexus point where all realities merge. Though, since there's nothing I can recall where the 4Kids and the Mirage Battle Nexi contradict one another, I'm comfertable interpretting it my way for now.

Honestly, as with almost everything turtles, what's canon and what isn't is up to the reader. It's like a pick your own adventure book. The creators have never really chimed in and told us what is or isn't canon and all this alternate universe stuff just adds confusion to the ordeal. I think a lot of the stuff you guys are discussing is logical but I don't think any of it was intended. They wanted a Battle Nexus in the Mirage books so they added one. Turtles Forever to me seems like one of those events where once it's all over everyone forgets what happened. I mean it breaks the 4th wall at the end, takes us out of the cartoon and into the real world. It's showing us that the turtles are nothing more then a creation of two men.

Oh yeah, I don't think anybody here is arguing that. Everyone's free to pick and choose what they want to include in their own personal canon; no "permission" necessary.

We're just havin' fun.

Great Scott, Back to the Future logic can explain practically anything!

The only contradiction I found was that when Mirage Leo went to the Battle Nexus, everyone was speaking gibberish until he was bitten by the magical mosquito, then all was translated. Whereas in the 4kids show, everyone just spoke English.

However, even though I hate them to hell, I like to believe that the Super Turtles that we see in Volume 4/Tales V.2 are the same guys we see in season 3 of the 4kids show.

Even in the Old Toon & Archie Comics, the writers seemed to be inconsistent on whether "Dimension X" was a true dimension or just another name for a galaxy in the space-time continuum.

Also see:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=18135

Also, lol, Andrew just made a serious point about the Fred Wolf cartoon without bashing it!

So is it too soon for...

Nothing explicit, maybe...but I am thinking that because 4Kids and Mirage are SEPARATE universes, that they'd have separate Battle Nexi (Nexuses?) as well...

See my last post.

Perhaps a side timeline or alternate universe, if it was canon the pages of issue #1 would have magically changed to the ending of Turtles Forever ;)

Interesting point...but Archie's Krang is actually revealed to be a planet destroying monster, where as Fred Wolf's Krang is a nagging blob of brains. If they were the "same Krang" then FW did a lousy job of making Krang as legitimately evil as Archie did.

Krang was a Warlord in Dimension X until stripped of his body and banished-- is that not the case for Krang's action figure, cartoon, and Archie incarnations?

Has Warlord Krang ever been depicted? Have we seen what Krang looked like before being reduced to a tentacled brain?

No...but the Warlord Krang aspect was played out a bit more in Archie. Despite being a cute little blob, we learn through other characters how much of a monster Krang 1.0 was.

Yes we have. In the episode in which Krang clones himself, the clones evolve and grow bodies (which are reptilian in nature), and so it is made clear that Krang is a member of a race that goes through metamorphosis-- aparently, Krang's body wasn't chopped off or anything like that. He must have been given some sort of chemical treatment that deactivated the gene, causing him to "devolve." Maybe that's why Krang started developing the Mutagen in the FIRST place? Anyone see a similarity to the Utroms here?

There is also some toy concept art by Ryan Brown if I'm not mistaken, depicting Krang's Dimension X warlord body.

Good insight!

ooh! Detailes please! A more serious War Lord Krang sounds so unKrang like.

He was more like Ch'rell, a feared destroyer of worlds with no conscience whatsoever.

Krang was responsible for the destruction of Wingnut and Screwloose's homeworld and their respective species.

What episode is this in? *does his own research* Invasion of the Krangazoids. This tidbit fascinates me tonight.http://www.retrojunk.com/img/art-images/krangsbody.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Yx8YtPddsH...400/krang1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Yx8YtPddsH...400/krang2.jpg
found here: http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...y-of-work.html

I'm of the school of thought that both the Battle Nexus and Super Turtles in 2K3 are one and the same as the ones seen in Mirage. Same as Cudley being the same being in both Adventures and Mirage, instead of an Adventures Cudley and a Mirage Cudley.


I also believe that the Turtles Forever Mirage Turtles are actually what we see here in the bottom-left of this image:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...Bot-DCP%29.png

I hope whatever Turtles stuff we see come out of the woodwork (cartoon, comics, etc.) over the next year make at least some sort of vague references to a multiverse and/or Battle Nexus. I'd hate to see all of that awesome setup go to waste.

You know, that's a good rationalization. I looked at that image in the comic and kind of went, "Uh... why are we seeing imagery of the Turtles in TMNT Vol.1 #1? That's the SAME universe/dimension as the comic I'm reading! Isn't that redundant?" If it's of yet another dimension that's Mirage-esque, and that's the dimension we saw in Turtles Forever.

On the one hand, it doesn't make sense because we were told that "Turtles Prime" dimension is the source of all the other dimensions... so that would mean that the Mirage Comics dimension is actually a dimension other than that? *scratches head* On the other hand, it makes sense because the actual Mirage dimension wouldn't be black and white and duotoned... there was plenty of colorized comics within it -- it isn't, like, inherently black and white.

"Turtles Prime" could be the initial standalone creation: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, the spark that ignited all other permutations. It was released essentially as a one-shot, it was Kevin and Peter taking a shot, and because it made a big bang-- a second issue crawled out of the primordial ooze and then came universal expansion. In the beginning was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1.

My theory on that is Turtles Forever takes place after the Red Sky seasons. Might sound a little whacky, but it explains the Technodrome issues, and "Once Upon a Time Machine" shows us that the future of that timeline doesn't remain in the Batman TAS ripoff mode, with it's red sky and "dark" tone. It eventually reverts back to the colorful, goofy, classic OT way of existence.

Good thinking, I like that.

Yeah, but just because the viewer sees black and white doesn't mean that's what the characters see.

That would make sense, kind of. Time would presumably move relatively fluidly in all of the dimensions... if your explanation is true, that'd explain why the 4Kids and Fred Wolf TMNT didn't pop out in TMNT Vol. 4 #30.

Hmm... interesting theory. So apparently "Turtles Prime" is limited to that particular issue and all other incarnations in the multi-verse derive in some sense from that reality? Doc, that's heavy!

I drank a whole pot of infini-tea earlier.

I feel it IS the same universe, but what can I say I like and I'm not afraid "to go there". But hey if you're going to ignore it then I choose to ignore that the 2k3 turtles actually met the Fred Wolf Turtles since they acted way goofier and unlike the FW cartoon. So I think the 2k3 turtles actually met turtles from a universe similar to the FW cartoon but one that is a lot sillier.

Andrew about the Battle Nexus, in the show it is constantly mentioned (pretty much every BN episode) that it gathers the best warriors from the MultiVerse. However the only thing that would suggest/kinda contradicts it is that basically almost every contestant in the Battle Nexus are characters from the 2k3 universe. So that would imply that all the other universes in the multiverse have weaklings. Not to mention the Damyo seems very connected to the 2k3 universe for the BN to actually be a multiverse. Not to mention it also means that the 2k3 universe would be the first turtles/Splinter/Shredder who actually compete in the BN were from that universe.

If we're going by that I should also mention that Renet and Lord Simultaneous also mention the Multiverse in the 2k3 cartoon. So their dialog implies that there is only one Renet/Lord Simultaneous in the multiverse. The thing with the Battle Nexus/Renet is this was all before Turtles Forever and it seems they had a different meaning for multiverse and mostly throwaway lines once that movie came out it brings out a bunch of questions about the multiverse that weren't there before.

About Dimension X its actually referred to as both a Galaxy and a Dimension in the show, I made a thread about this topic years ago here.. In the Archie comics however Dimension X IS a Galaxy. I had a theory that maybe the Krang from Archie is the same Krang from the Fred Wolf cartoon, the way I saw it Dimension X is a galaxy in Dimension X and the Krang from the FW show is from the Dimension X. But thats another topic.



Being a fan of alternate universes I made a thread about the different TMNT timelines years ago (way before Turtles Forever made it official), if anyone is interested the thread is right here. I haven't updated it but my views on some things have changed drastically.

to that one guy who said making a cartoon into a comic never happens, that a bunch of lie right there. They do that all the time. with the 80's cartoons they made them into comics just like 2k3 cartoons is base on the classic comics. So i would hope they made the turtles forever into a comic book. i really do.

So having a Galaxy Dimension X located in the Dimension Dimension X
would allow Archie Krang and Fred Wolf Krang to be one and the same
because Fred Wolf Krang is from the Dimension Dimension X?

Have you been drinking infiniti-tea too? ;)

Your theory as written has the legs of Krang, but I would honestly like to hear a theory of how those Krangs could be the same being if you do start that thread.

I'm not sure if it's a "yes" or "no".

I think it happened, but I don't think they remember it. Well, maybe old Leo could but that would be another story.

At the end of Turtles Forever they said that Turtles Prime was repairing itself, and I took this to mean the timeline as well as the damage caused by the Utrom Shredder. So the events of Turtles Forever happened, but when the Technodrome left and everyone went back to their own universes, the timeline repaired itself to the actual events of TMNT Vol. 1 #1