Oh no... maybe never any "Future War" now
 

Not even if IDW greenlights it.

According to Steve Murphy he can't find any of his scripts, and he has nothing saved digitally. He still has a couple of boxes left to go through but he's already checked the ones "where they should've been."

As for -- you know, worst case scenario -- recreating the scripts or synopsis from scratch, he says:

"Oh man, I have very little memory of the plot let alone the script. I couldn't even list all the secondary characters... I don't even remember how it ends!"

Somehow, I don't believe him.

Maybe fans bugging him about it for 15 years have finally broken him and now he's just trying to end discussion about it forever.

Or maybe he really did lose them. I dunno.

Does anyone know if Allan ever drew more than just the 5 covers and first 6 pages of #71? If there's any other vintage art that hasn't been released yet, *that's* what I'd love to see.

He didn't, nope.

What events is this story supposed to cover?

No one really knows. Some kind of time-traveling tale with the present and Future Archie Turtles and Shredder. We also know that Null is not involved.

Well damn.

Same here. The man occasionally comments about about it on Peter's blog in the comment section so it seems he has the desire and I assume the notes/script. He may not have files kept as extensive as Peter,but its got to be there somewhere. Heck, we Archie Adventure enthusiast can help. Yeah,seriously. I'm in.

I guess you was asked on part of my bringing it up with the rule of 18 being Mirage exclusive or Peter only exclusive?

I've been waiting for this since 2nd grade so like its title I will wait FOREVER if I have to white haired and retired if it will take that long.

Why can't he just make a new story then? It's obvious what we would get now wouldn't be the same as back in 1996 anyway.

Oh well, just another reason to consider, "Year of the Turtle" as Archie's canon ending.

That's the thing... he did. He couldn't remember what he was writing in 1996/wanted to go a different direction in the present anyway, so he started over. And now he's forgotten that, too.

:roll:

Sounds silly.

Well,we can have a third version as long as its complete and brings a sense of finale. I don't care how far of it is as long it comes from his brain and he puts in on paper if only notes like Peter mentioned for his completion of TMNT vol.4 and post the notes online. I'm cool with that. Time will tell...:ohwell:

The next time I log on the net I think I will head over to Murphy's blog and ask about posting the notes if he finds them or if he scripts it a third time if he would be willing to post it.

Scumbug and Wrym had been crystalized by Toxem in TMNTA#52. I was surprised to see him list them in the character set list for the storyarc. Did he ever say how those two were worked in? I wrote them off as dead way back.

Unless IDW greenlits it I really don't care if Murphy writes it or not. His heart is not in the project and he seems very bored of the idea and just wants it to be forgotten.

This is not like Volume 4 where it was PL's personal project and he wants to conclude it even if it takes another 10 years.

Murphy did not create the Turtles and thus doesn't have the same level of attachment to it as PL would so its a non-entity to him.

Really? I never got that impression of him. Granted my only interaction was periodic blogspot comments on his personal blog and going back and forth with him a couple of times in Peter's TMNT blog when he was nudging Peter about Forever War.

Re-write!


Aw... dang.

*Sigh* I love Murphy and respect the fact that he probably busted his hump over the TMNT longer and harder than anyone but maybe Peter Laird himself.

But a large part of me suspects the same thing as Spengs.

It would have been great for The Dean to give us fans one more ride on the TMNTA Train before it chugs off into the night.

I am thinking that either Armaggon or Shredder went back in time to before they were crystalized and brought them to the future in order to fight the turtles.

Never say never.

I think more than likely this will be one that Andrew winds up doing for us.

Or a smorgasbord of TMNT elites putting aside personal perferences like Andrew,Adam,myself,a couple of others as well on board.Sure. Though,like I said above "lets wait and see". I will do all I can do to get something I have wanted to see since I was an 8 year old finished.

I think its ridiculous for Murphy to say, "Oh I don't remember how it ends!"

Um, YOU'RE the writer! Just write a new ending!

I don't understand what the problem is here. What is so hard about starting from scratch when you barely wrote any completed scripts in the first place?

This whole thing just sounds fishy.

As much as I love Andrew's contributions to the TMNT-verse, I'm pretty sure our visions for a TMNT-verse based on the Fred Wolf series would be more-or-less incompatible.

That said, however, I'd totally be on-board if he struck a deal to get the TMNTA series finished... officially or not. :tsmile:

To be fair, Murphy has had a lot of weighty matters on his mind over the last few years. A whole lot. I really can't blame him if he's mentally blocked out most of his TMNT-related memories.

I'd be down for an Archie finisher from Modeen, and would gladly contribute, but I wouldn't want it be "The Forever Wars". Not unless these scripts magically reappear.

I know. I see TMNT defined by the '87 cartoon with little interest in the B&W comics. Andrew and I for the mos tpart are bizarros of one another aside from opinions on Ch'rell. That was what made me think Andrew,myself,you,and another one or two with a central knowledge of Archie and has a knowledge of Mirage/Archie opposed to our '87 cartoon primary preference. Our diverse preferences might anchor each other.

I saw my LCS had a handful of Archie Adventures vol.3. 4 issues for $20? Half that it would have great sales I am sure,but the prices for just 4 issues does not help sales which could possibly lead to The Forever War. I am curious to how many units the first volume sold.

Your right about Murphy. I am sure its not that he wanted to lose mental notes and scripts either. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and who knows what will happen in Forever. I still will be content with blogging notes on it.

So where have the scripts gone?

Eaten by the dog? Stolen? Accidentally trashed? Lent and forgotten? Or were they all digital and got lost in an HDD-crash?

All those scenarios seem very unlikely to me. I think they still must be somewhere.

Time will tell, but my bet is that the scripts will reappear someday. (If he really lost them...)

Burned to toast?
Vaporized to milkshake?
Or... escaped to Dimension X?
Until we know, none of us can sleep safely in our beds... er, shells!

Hopefully he finds them. Trees died so he could write a story that never saw print!

Even a one-page TMNTA splash page drawn by Chris Allan would make me happy :D

I LOLed, very nice!!

Oh, I would never even consider being involved in any kind of fan-driven "Forever War" that didn't either, A) Have a fairly detailed synopsis from Steve Murphy from which scripts could be written reasonably in his "voice" and presumably his direct feedback on, or B) The actual scripts from him.

I just don't see the draw in any of us "making up" what is a very specific story none of us know anything about. At all.

Some kind of general Archie "wrapup"? That kind of interests me. And not to worry, the take and "voice" I would hypothetically have on any Archie material would be slavishly made to be in Murphy's "voice" on the series. I don't see any other way to go about it but that.

At this point in time I wonder if "Forever War" would really even be satisflying to read. I mean it's been almost 20 years since that fateful advertisement was printed, and we were just kids back then (some of us teenagers). Here we are a bunch of grown men and women still holding out for that storyline to see print, yet there's this part of me that feels like it's too little, too late.

I read pretty much the entire second half of all the Archie material just a couple of years ago so I'm still pretty fresh-faced about it.

The story wasn't even intended to be an ending anyway. The only villain who needed closure was Null and he's not in it.

That's true. When it became clear that was the end of the series it just -- incidentally -- happened to be a decent enough story arc to go out on.

I suspect, though, the new outline/scripts Murphy worked on prior to the Nick sale retailored things to be more of a finale, though. But who knows.

Murphy's script notes are the key to any form of completion. Honestly,I think it would have been a fine closure IF we never saw the Forever War teaser. That teaser has brought this feeling of bait and switch and not getting to see the results of a potentially classic and epic story. 75-77 issues as it would have been, is fine to close the door on then.

Null's orgin you mean? He like Rat King never got a proper origin,but Null was incenerated with Slash and Malinga so his character was done.

Looking back at Adventures its surpring to note many characters end up deceased. Kid friendly books like TMNTA supposedly was sure shows the contrast in todays kid audience focused comic book than a generation before!

Null was NOT incinerated. His last appearance has him sprouting wings and flying off in the sky.

All other villains either died or were banished. Null is still on the loose.

And, knowing who Null is straight from Murphy, there never, ever would have been an origin for him. In fact, I'm not even sure that'd be possible.

Nope. He lived. He shows up in "Odyssey"...

And if nothing's changed, Slash does too. Does this imply that what happened after the Turtles left the Malignoid hive will be covered in Odyssey? Because that would be awesome. The TMNT multi-verse has been the closest thing to a continuation of the Archie series I've seen in a while, so I'm hoping Odyssey has a nice share of Archie-esque content.

Yes. It is post-Malignoid hive trip into the sun. It's not a multi-dimensional trick or one-off gimmick... he's alive and well in it and it's explained.

Pleeeease tell us!

Unless the answer spoils another story...