"Batman/TMNT" #1 of 6 Preview and Discussion
 

Preview here!

I'm very much pumped for this story. Also can't help but think how different it would be if it took place after Splinter becomes Jonin of the Foot Clan.

my body is ready

Finally after 30 years its going to come true.

https://i.imgur.com/7drHiqrh.jpg

Batman and TMNT in the same comic together. Truly brings a tear to my eye.

Wait, what? This in IDW? I'm a bit behind. Spoilers please...

It's not IDW canon, but many of us are unwilling to let that through our skulls.

It's not IDW canon per se, but apparently there's a point where it could fit in the continuity.

That said, given the Foot Clan's role in the preview, it would be a very different story if it were canon and they were acting under Splinter's tutelage at this point. That's what I meant. It'd certainly make any clashes with R'as al Ghul and the League of Assassins very interesting to watch.

<holds TMNT/Batman crossover in one hand, continues to beat it against the side of head>

Apparently the writers of this Batman comic said he knows where it fits in during IDW TMNT. So if the writer says its canon, it is canon in my mind.

Yeah, well the fugging editor of the TMNT comics said it wasn't.

God DAMN IT.

The problem with that CyberCubed is the writer does not work under IDW. The fact he said it was showed how little he listened to IDW on the direction they have taken and concerns me for the quality since he said something the opposite of the editor of the property he is writing for in the one-time crossover. He is on the outside of the IDW offices and the creative team and the several adjuncts that pitched in on other minis and one-shots. Bobby is right and Tynion is wrong. It is probably best to be based on a certain iteration but not be tied to continuity to free the story to have better quality. Sure we can try to fit it in between #37's end and #44's beginning, but why try that headache especially when Mr. Curnow said not to worry our brains over that? As Paul McCartney once sang, ' Listen To What The Man Said'.

I am so ready for this. I have been skeptical due to old wounds like the PR team up, but it could turn out great. Batman is one of the most team upable heroes of all not to mention my definitive second favorite hero.

Sorry, reading back I can see how I can be misunderstood, even with the use of quotes. Let me rephrase:

Splinter is Jonin of the Foot? Does this happen in IDW? I'm a bit behind in collecting the IDW comics due to various reasons (have two kids under four, recently lost my job, in the middle of a house move) and if this does happen in IDW then could you please use spoilers? My last issue was 49 and i've avoided all the discussions of various issues to avoid spoilers, and when I click on an issue discussing the Batman crossover, I don't expect to see a potentially massive spoiler just thrown out there.

For what it's worth, I'm very sorry for the spoiler. You're quite right. Still, it's been two months since it happened. At what point is one supposed to stop using spoiler tags to hide something that is near-common knowledge by now? If I'm being honest, I didn't even think twice about that. My bad.

Read issue 50. All will be explained there for you.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Drowning him is a whole 'nuther ballgame.

However, I do feel some sympathy with the people absolutely hellbent on cramming it into canon.

Peter Laird said Image Volume 3 wasn't canon, and thus hand-waved away 23 issues of great TMNT. Sometimes when a creator says "non-canon", it should be ignored. Which a lot of us do, working it into our "head-canon."

However, officially, people need to realize:

IT'S NOT FRAKKING CANON.

Exactly. I don't give a dick if you think Catcher in the Rye is IDW canon and Holden Caulfield is the most powerful member of the Pantheon. That's fine.

But in reality, unless Curnow or Waltz say so, it just ain't the ****in case.

Well THAT was an interesting example! :tlol:

Dont forget that Aticus Finch is the government liason for Dark Water and Daredevil's insliration to be an attorney which officially ties Marvel and IDw's main continuities.

No worries man, I look forward to reading it. Thanks for the PM also.

I look forward to picking it up, when i'm financially able to.

Suddenly I'm reminded of Star Wars and the travesty that is midi-chlorians...

Sometimes the opposite can be true as well; a creator can say, "this is canon" and it can be better to ignore the addition, as it is dumb as hell.

Very very true.

Man I am just passionately upset about that issue. The guy at this website does a great job of verbalizing why midi-chlorians were a poor addition to the Star Wars mythos.

But in any case, I think this TMNT/Batman crossover will be freakin' sweet, and to me ultimately it doesn't matter if it's perfectly canon with IDW's TMNT (which is far and away my favorite iteration of the TMNT), I just imagine it as an alternate dimension tale of the IDW TMNT, kinda like the X-Files/Transformers/Crow crossover, which was kinda cool, but Transformers are fvcking lame and I know nothing of the Crow. But the way the story went all paradoxical time-loop was kinda cool.

God you folks take your fiction way too seriously.

Everybody whip out your BayTurtle Bingo cards! Somebody's starting a game over here!

ugh, I'm having flashbacks to that awful movie

it wasn't even bad for a TMNT movie, it's just a bad movie all-around

You merely further prove my point by being a dick about it.

Hugs and kisses to you, too, darling.

What came first? The dick or the dick?

Isn't the dick dick a kind of Australian bird?

Or a frat house party game?

Bingo! On the dick-dick, I mean. Yes, it is a bird. Also, canon or no, I'd keep it in-universe, too. And to Hela with midi-chlorians! Since when is the Force a friggin microbe?! :teek::trolleye::tgrumble::tmad:

'I believe he was actually birthed by the Midi-Chlorians..."
"Wait... you mean to tell me that Darth Vader's actually just a pile of microscopic bugs?
"Well if you think about it, we all are."
"....Wow, man, that's deep..." :lol:

[Pedant Mode] A dik-dik is a small African antelope [/Pedant Mode] :P

Right on man!

lmao. Too true, too true

What's the date this comes out again?

This Wednesday.

Whether it fits into the IDW Turtle Lore shouldn't really concern anyone. We get to see Batman crossover with the Turtles, we're not expecting the issue to have any lasting 'canon' effects for either.

Given that this crossover is likely to grab a lot of people who have not been reading the IDW comics, it's probably best to present the turtles close to their 'status quo.' Which of course means Foot=bad guys.

It's like when I picked up the Death of Superman graphic novel and suddenly got whiplashed by all the changes that had been happening. Okay, Lois knows Superman is Clark and they are engaged. Got it. But wait, Lex Luthor is a young guy with a full head of hair? And everyone thinks he's good? And he's dating Supergirl?!? Wait, why did Supergirl just turn into a purple alien?!?

That's just the nature of things when you make bold moves to a franchise status quo, you make it a little harder for that casual fan to jump in. Not that I object to IDW's moves, quite the contrary. But for the sake of a big mainstream crossover with Batman it makes sense to downplay any weirdness. So, no Alopex, no Kitsune, No Splinter running the Foot. We get Foot ninja and the Turtles grabbing pizza and living in the sewers in the first couple of pages. The preview is basically nailing every nostalgic note that people who watched the cartoon when they were 8 would remember.

Just to play Devil's Advocate with regards to the Death of Superman arc, here. :) Despite being a lifelong comics fan I've had several lapses where I wasn't following them closely, and 1990-1992 was one of those times, and it was the Death storyline that got me to jump back in, as well. And as you said, there were some things that didn't mesh with where things were when I left, like Lex and Supergirl.

BUT, to be fair to the story, all of those changes were addressed and explained in-story for the benefit of new readers. Like Lex's thought bubbles, where he explained that he had faked his death and had his brain put in a younger clone, stuff like that. So it's not like they just threw Young Lex and Matrix Supergirl in there and let the reader figure it out, they actually did everything possible to bring the new people up to speed as quickly and easily as possible. :)

Just had to clarify that point. Lots of comic book stories do kind of gloss over Big Changes and leave the reader confused but that one in particular wasn't guilty of that. In fact as far as Lex, I think you'd have to really dig to find an issue back then that DIDN'T stop the story dead to remind you he was Old Lex's brain in Young Lex's body. They kind of mentioned it more than they needed to, if anything. :lol: Every single issue, "Little do they suspect... (Exposition Train Leaves The Station)" :lol:

Good stuff.

Has anyone else had the chance to read this yet?

I knocked up a spoiler free review at lunchtime - http://www.superdstuff.com/2015/12/batmantmnt-1.html

I think this might read better as a trade later on. Some of that might just be impatience though.

Very curious as to what the rest of you guys made of it. Only Star Wars and possibly Ghostbusters rank near these two for childhood fondness, so it's a pretty big deal to me.

It occurs to me, we can probably get some more brutal fights out of this crossover as the Batman comics typically go quite a bit further with the violence and carnage.

Like, say, Alfred getting a hand chopped off by Joker. Or the whole Joker's face thing.

Ok, I've had a chance to read this and I must say that I really enjoyed it. The art is much nicer than I expected, the turtles especially look great. There were a lot of characters to introduce in this first issue so you don't get a whole lot of big plot details yet, but you do get a lot of great dialogue and some really fun crossover moments.



It's a promising start to a story that seems to be made just for the fun factor. And so far for me it accomplishes that goal as a fun crossover experience that I'm excited to explore more in the coming months.