TMNT #79 Preview and Discussion
 

https://www.idwpublishing.com/produc...ja-turtles-79/

Oh yay. More of the O'Neil parents. :trazz:

At least we'll get more Baxter Stockman!

April's parents going through a mid-life crisis in their 50/60's, exactly what I want to see when I read comics about Ninja Turtles. :lol:

The action in the Triceraton/EPF war looks really good from those few pages. This is been my favorite arc in the main series for quite a while, as long as not too much time is spend with the ol' fuddy duddies, I expect this to be good.

Also really excited to see how Splinter reacts if/when the Turtles break his rule of staying behind in Foot HQ's and betray him and come into the fight. We may finally see the Splinter/TMNT feud in full swing, whereas before it was just "Splinter is acting weirdly."

I've got a feeling this is the storyline where they finally get killed off. Don't get me wrong, parents can be great in comics (Ma & Pa Kent, for example), but with as many characters as the IDW Turtles-verse has contending for the spotlight, it's time for the O'Neil family to get a little smaller.

I don't mind seeing the O'Neils, and I would love to see them meet more of the mutants...

But we've barely had any Turtle action in this story arc. I guess it has a lot in common with Volume 4's first few issues... the Turtles as more bystander and less participant.

Despite the apparent - and noticeable - lack of recent presence/action for the Turtles, my money's on this issue ending with a cliffhanger setting up a physical confrontation with Splinter.

Full preview here.

Man, Slash is going to be seriously messed up if he ever gets free of Bishop... :teek:

Poor snapping turtle. :tsad:

To be honest I said this before, I wouldn't mind a "bloodbath" of sorts to reduce the main cast a bit. We're already seeing it with Krang's untimely death and so forth. Seeing some of the lesser characters killed off would be fine with me if they have no more story potential and make an impact on the cast.

Now of course I wouldn't say this for everyone, but even something like Slash dying and Old Hob wanting to take vengeance on Bishop because of it and causing a rampage would be great story potential.

At this point, I do see a likelihood of Slash dying growing a little bit more.

(Though, I'd rather have been dash off and form a "Misery club" with Leatherhead)

Why can't we send the O'Neil's back to Northampton? New York is going to be destroyed so it isn't really the best place for them plus it gives some reason for the Turtles to return there if they ever were going to.

I am hoping that the Turtles get their time to shine in the back end of this arc, it's been a while since we have seen the O'Neil's, Casey and Hun. Sure we have a lot of characters running around in this comic but I don't mind them as long as they are being put to use in the story.

But who knows if this is the last of April's parents then maybe she will grow from it and be more involved in the story. I think a big problem with every incarnation of the TMNT if eventually April and Casey get tossed into a corner and they just don't matter any more. I always felt they deserved more than that.

Slash is gonna survive long enough to take out Bishop someday down the road. With a whole lotta angst in between. :trazz:

Likely at Leatherhead's advice.
Kinda like...


And...also probably against Mike's advice on the other side.

Well then

First off let me just say that I love, love, love IDW''s TMNT comics with Comixology's Guided View mode. Great stuff

Okay wow, things are really coming to a head fast between Splinter and his sons. I think it's safe to say that they've reached the breaking point and I'm really curious to see how things are resolved (or if they are) in the next issue. 80 issues of IDW, damn that's crazy. What a wild ride it's been. And that's not even including the tie-in stuff!

How did you all like Brahm Revel's art? Has he done any TMNT work before? I thought it was great. It's a shame Couceiro couldn't finish the story arc but Revel's work fits in well and I like his take on the characters. I hope he can tackle a whole story sometime soon.

I haven't minded that the Turtles have been sharing so much screentime in this story; to me it merely emphasizes the scope of the events taking place, how the Triceraton Invasion is affecting everyone, literally the whole world will likely feel the effects of these events. If I had to find something to complain about (and it's a stretch to call it complaining when it's more like nitpicking), it would be how long the Turtles have been running at top speed. They've had essentially zero downtime since before the second Ghostbusters crossover, the Trial of Krang, and the Dimension X miniseries. The extent to which they've been exerting themselves is near superhuman and I for one would not mind at all seeing them take even just a short breather. They deserve it, and some slice-of-life story beats in light of all the drastic, status quo-altering stuff going on would be totally welcome.

Anyways, this was 10 out of 10 for me, awesome stuff.

Brahm Revel did the 'What is Ninja?' back up story in TMNT Universe that spanned Issues 6, 7, 8 & 9.

Regarding the way this issue ends... Did I nail it or what? :D

Gotta say, that panel with the EPF soldiers rappelling from the helicopter and the rooftops down towards the Turtles was absolutely gorgeous!

And how funny is it that they took the time to put band-aids on their injuries before showing up at the church? :lol:

Are those Foot mooks with Splinter new ranks/characters? The blindfolded woman in particular caught my attention.

Great issue! Totally worth the wait, and #80 promises to be even better!

So waking up this morning, my mind immediately went to "I get to read #79 today!" and I made a conscious decision to quit grousing about what this story arc has been doing and set my expectations aside. Because this arc isn't doing at all what I would've expected.

So, that said... it's fascinating that my expectations have been completely bypassed, and the crux of this story is Turtles versus Splinter and the Foot Clan, not Turtles versus Bishop or Turtles versus Triceratons.

Not enough Baxter in this issue for me, but I'm a sucker for Stockman. :tgrin:

Solid issue; I'll give it a perfect 5/7!

This was a very good issue, surprised we didn't see what happened with Hun/Casey from the previous issue though. It'll be interesting to see if Hun will finally start to come on good terms with his son.

The Turtles got a lot of action in this issue which is good because they didn't do much in the last few. Bishop in the action was great, and I'm glad not too much time was spent on April's parents but it seems like it led into what Baxter/April were doing.

That last page of Zom saying she wanted to take over NY and then alluding that the dominant species would rule most of the Earth is proof Triceratons would inevitably go to their war-like ways and try to conquer the Earth. In a way it's a good thing they were met with Bishop's forces and now Splinter, it seems like the Triceratons are not ready for a truce and should be deported. I guess them settling on Burnow is a safe bet due to universe previews but I think they will leave Earth altogether.

Of course the fallout between the Turtles/Splinter will also be interesting to see. Liked that there was a female Elite Guard there too.

Oh my god, thank you!
You've majorly simplified my issue with the "the turtles are guest stars in their own story!" complaint. Especially for this particular storyline. Their world is not the only one at stake here. It's everyone's world. Thereby, there need to be attention on the people who share that world.

The lack of downtime is worse when you really sit down and remember that they're still technically kids, and are probably getting less sleep than your average modern high schooler.

Let the children sleep, for pity's sake!

Shredder caring more about the Turtles than their own father confirmed? He tried to put them to sleep all the time. :tcool:

that might be fine for a story or two.
but this has been going on for quite an extended amount of time now.


this was a good issue. i just wish this arc would have got to moving sooner.
the previous 3 issues felt like they were mostly build-up, with little to no focus on the title characters.

sure it's everybody's world, but let's not forget who's name is on the title.


let's just hope they don't get their own spinoff mini-series. :lol:

Say, did the Triceratons just call themselves genetically superior?

Which I've said in the past...is probably going to bite them in the @$$ eventually because they're so genetically identical that they can't breed with each other.

I have realized that Komodo Dragons probably do have a solution for what the Triceratons are facing, wherein a female individual parthenogentically can produce all-male offspring...which can...later breed with their mother...

But the difference is that Komodo Dragons are confined to a little island and the Triceratons will probably plan conquest and make themselves into giant hypocrites because that's one of the reasons they rebelled against the Utrom in the first place. Thereby, they wouldn't have enough genetic variety to protect themselves from being wiped out by particular viruses or diseases - which is what happens when a population doesn't have enough genetic diversity.

That's... Uhm... I doubt we'll ever see something like that.

let's hope NOT!!! :lol:

It's not the ideal comparison, but it's the basic idea that maybe the Triceratons won't have to rely on cloning technology to continue their species in spite of being genetically identical - probably not something Zom and Zog worried about, unless all the adult Triceratons were sterilized "just in case" the "Komodo Situation" would happen, which I assume the Utrom scientists would have been aware of.

But please, Oh Mighty Curnow! Let there be another solution instead of that awkwardness!

I guess April's father also re-connecting with TCRI probably means he's going to have a bigger role in the future with Baxter. As long as he doesn't turn into a mutant bat ala Kirby-bat (even though his name is John in this series, lol), I'll be fine with him working with Baxter in his lab.

You SERIOUSLY, for the love of the deceased Tang Shen, need to stop reading so deeply into this stuff. :tlol:

I'm hoping to see my personal theory that Stockman somehow deliberately caused O'Neil's stroke come to light! :tgrin:

Would that I could...would that I could...
I resign myself to my rightful place in the pecking order. "Resident Overthinker of Inconsequential Biology"...in fact, I might make that my custom tag if it weren't too long.

Also, I am totally going to back the theory that Stockman caused the stroke...it could check out.

I'm gonna say that Stockman caused the stroke but it wasn't meant as a stroke, that was just a side effect of whatever crap he pulled on John. Stockman needs to jump back into the villainy spotlight at some point, right? What better reason than a reveal to that effect?

It just becomes a question of "why" he'd do that. He wasn't up to "too much" bad stuff, at least not in terms of Technodrome Undermining.

The only thing I can think of was John was about to report Baxter for something drastic, and there had to be a "clean" way to keep him from doing so. Such as forcing a stroke...somehow?

Something like a sneakier, bloodless "Lt. Col. Hughs Killing" in FMA...and no heartbreak from fans.

What could Baxter Stockman have possibly been doing all those years ago, before he even had an inkling of Krang's true ambitions, that could have caused him to feel threatened by John O'Neil finding out about it?

We have NO IDEA how long ago it actually happened. It could have only been a year or two before Issue #1. Maybe John O'Neil saw all the creepy rock soldiers, the green ooze, Old Hob, psychotropic injections for rats...

Stockman has PLENTY of skeletons in his closet. The man practically has the entire tribal graveyard from Poltergeist lurking back there with his oxfords, yellow ties, and Rolex wristwatches...

Well, we know Krang came to Stockman, not the other way around. Am I recalling it right? So he must've had some sort of expertise or reputation already built up that would cause an interdimensional warlord to seek his help. Not something that would be possible IRL, of course, but in fiction that's usually only achieved through very unsavory means.

Looking at the Northampton arch, the stroke happened when April was a high school Junior.

This is when it was discussed (put under spoilers because the image ended up being larger than expected)


So...yeah, I'm going to say John discovered something sketchy that he was going to attempt to bring to a higher authority, but Stockman had something up his sleeve to stop him without it being obvious.

"Something was bugging him about the project"

i'd always believed April's dad's exit from StockGen was possibly due to some underhandedness.


on another subject, it does feel more and more likely that Splinter might be under some influence of The Rat King.
he's going way too far to demean his sons.
unless he's been corrupted by power.

I like the female Elite Guard in the last page. Do you think she will be important or just another face-less Foot soldier. I don't think we've ever had a female Elite guard before.

:lol:
That's at the least good enough to go in your signature

Haha, I was considering doing that...and I think I will.

Wow! This definitely reminded me of the City at War arc from Mirage, total chaos, brutal consequences, while still probably being PG-13 actually...not bad. We even have the Foot Elite here.

How Splinter vs Turtles comes down is going to be interesting. It was interesting that Jennika actually got to be the ‘good guy’ here, with Mikey applying therapy lessons from a ghostbusters crossover no less (hey, does this mean all crossovers are now canon?) rather than just having the Turtles fight and overwhelm her. Good choice, since I like Jennika.

I’m still sort of wondering what ultimate plans Splinter might have or if there is another ‘shoe to drop.’ Is Splinter going to have a grand heel realization or is there some other angle he knows about but hasn’t spoken of? I sort of wondered if part of his deal would be to ultimately free Slash and/or secure the safety of the Turtles and other mutants in New York.

Same.

Her name is Pimiko until Bobby and Tom crush my dreams by saying otherwise.

Ghostbusters crossovers are canon AF. Batman crossovers, NOPE.

And yeah... Splinter is making really REALLY terrible choices here. He HAS to know that Bishop already has one mentally-enslaved mutant turtle under his finger... we all know the Man in Black is gunning for a full handful!