is the 2020's shaping up to be the worst decade in TMNT history?
 

We're 5 years into the 2020's and I honestly think this is going to be remembered as a low point in TMNT history.

Rise of the TMNT, the shortest lived TMNT cartoon, ended in 2020 when it was cut short and had 3 seasons planned originally. The movie only came out on Netlfix as a series finale due to being too far into production or else it would have been canceled too.

Mutant Mayhem has come out to mixed views (to put it lightly), and the cartoon while an improvement over the movie has short seasons and doesn't look like it'll make the impact previous shows did. The second movie has been delayed to 2027, so already that's toward the end of this decade. The Last Ronin movie is almost certainly going to be quietly shelved/canceled.

IDW TMNT comics started off at a low point in the 2020's with Sophie's run in full swing during the beginning of the covid era and it remains to be seen how IDW fares for the rest of this decade. I haven't really enjoyed The Last Ronin sequels either.

While merchandise like toys, some of the videogames (the classic collection, Shredder's Revenge) have been better than ever, the main portion of TMNT (comics, movies, TV) has been underwhelming this decade. I honestly expect kids growing up in the 2020's will be the least interested in TMNT than any decade prior.

It's been half a decade or more of "TMNT for the 'Baby Shark" Generation.

Basically there's a dysmorphia generation out there who thinks that designs like Thundercats Roar, Rise of the TMNT or Mutant Mayhem are "brilliant". So they put it into cartoons when in fact it basically only ever worked in Ren and Stimpy and Rugrats.

I really love the idea of this alternate reality where everything is exactly the same, but Donald Trump is a hardcore TMNT fan. It's one of my favorite running gags on this forum.

Rise was short lived and highly divisive, but they were able to tell their story with a beginning, middle, end and nice movie as a cherry on top.

Two seasons is short by TMNT standards, and I know Suriano and co. had more stories in mind, but they were able to tell a good story in about 15 episodes and had the freedom to **** around with all that filler.

I don’t really understand the whole debacle with the movie. I thought it was great and consider it a top 3 TMNT film. But I can’t help but feel that part of Rise getting canned was due to Nickelodeon wanting to usher in the Seth Rogen era crap.

MM/Tales will hopefully be mostly forgotten before long. Last Ronin movie being shelved is almost definitely a good thing.

Urban Legends 24-26 was in 2020. I thought they were boring and lame compared to the 2011 fan comic, but it warmed my heart seeing Fosco and Carlson working together on TMNT after all these years. And the idea that any past story that was left in a cliff hanger stands a chance of coming back is incredibly hopeful.

Look at all the cool stuff we got (and might get more of) from the 40th anniversary comic! Look at the Turtles Club incredible Forever War!

Andrew and Arseniy are doing god’s work, and I’m more interested in their content than IDW’s, but that doesn’t mean IDW won’t deliver on Journeys #33+, or an eventual Gang Wars conclusion, or whatever Ciro is cooking up.

Plus look at the reprint situation. We’re inching towards having EVERYTHING reprinted/collected. Image, Archie, Mirage and more.

But you are right… the Sophie run stank and Jason Aaron has been sh*tting the bed. I like Saturday Morning Adventures, but it’s just a fun “What If”. It’ll never be canon to me.

Oh and the goddamned Last Ronin. YUCK!

There’s something there that I’m just not getting, but people love this dreck. How is such a mediocre and neutered story finding this amount of success?

This has made it all worth it. There’s been some incredible toys I never would have dreamed of and Shredder’s Revenge is very fun with a large roster of playable characters.

That and watching my kid learn about TMNT has made this a great TMNT decade for me personally. But I see what you’re saying… except it also feels like TMNT is having a moment right now between all the reprints, merch and the casuals absolutely chowing down on Last Ronin slop.

Time will tell.

https://s.faketrumptweet.com/matjyqc...y2x_k5cil5.png

Additional thoughts:

We typically don’t categorize TMNT into hard decades, but by otherwise distinct eras.

So keeping with the parameters of the thread title, look at the 90’s. Sure you had the peak of turtle mania, but there’s also 1999 which had nothing but like 5 issues of volume 3.

The 00’s began and ended in uncertainty. We very luckily still had monthly Tales issues through 2009.

2010 was basically a dead year. But thankfully 2011 brought us Andrew’s Image closer as well as the IDW ongoing. Then by 2019 the writing was on the wall for Rise, Bayturtles was officially cancelled and IDW was doing Armageddon Game (which I still haven’t read yet lol).

The 20s have felt… weird. Like a dead period, but with monthly content lol. There’s plenty of stuff coming out, but none of it is particularly enjoyable. The IDW series is like the family dog that needs put down but no one wants to do it. Which I guess makes Last Ronin your loser uncle who gets a lot of pussy but is actually a total piece of **** lol.

The only movies we’re gonna get are cartoons for babies, and the current animated show is a direct tie in to that. Still feels insane that TMNT never got a competent action film in the modern era. Even during the whole MCU boom, Planet of Apes, stuff like that.

So in summary, the big three of media (comics/film/animation) are in shambles, but we have all the other stuff and fan productions are still doing cool stuff. In the meantime, let’s all pray for a REAL TMNT trilogy of films in the 30s lol

It's so weird to think the span from the late 90's through the early 2000's felt like SO LONG as a kid/teen, but it was only a few years. Same for when the 2k3 series ended till the Nick show started, but it was only like 3 years apart. When you're younger the sense of the passage of time feels so slow since you're growing up, but when you think of the year dates everything came out, they're all practically right after each other.

Nowadays an entire decade passes by in the blink of an eye. I can't get over that 2010 is now 15 years ago. Just like the year 2030 sounds so far away...yet its only 5 years from now.

I still feel like the year 2005 was only yesterday.

Since we elected Donald Trump twice, we don't deserve good TMNT content.

I do like Rise but it took way too long to get good. The writers really only have themselves to blame.

:lol::lol:

Ah. Yes. Because that correlation is very clear and makes for a great, intelligent joke.

:lol: wtf? smh

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

You guys are too much. lol

Prob by having so little competition as far as new, darker, more mature content goes, is my guess.

Like the Batman vs. TMNT movie. It's not perfect either, but for all those not likening Rise, that movie was an oasis thrown in the middle of an era of a series that was leaving a bad taste for many and got a great reception. Ronin likewise started right after Rise ended and IDW had recently run off to do that Mutant Town arc that plenty weren't crazy about. It hit a good spot when people who wanted it needed something of that tone.

If there was a lot more to choose from that was to some extent reminiscent of Mirage then maybe it would look mediocre in comparison, but with few other options it's unsurprising, imo, that it got a good reception.

I think you’re definitely on to something and that is part of it. But it’s not just a case of “fans like it” or “general consensus is good”. It’s a runaway hit like TMNT has never seen before in the comic book medium. The single issues sold like hot cakes and it was the TOP SELLING TPB of 2024, four years after it came out. That’s wild.

And like we were talking about in the Reddit thread, week after week I see multiple NPCs posting “I got the book” and it’s just a picture of a TLR hardcover lol. Then all the comments are “It’s sooooo epic! But it’s sooooo SAD! It’s amazing! It will blow your mind!”… with very little negativity. If any.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills until I come here and see people also dislike it or at least agree that it’s overrated. But the numbers are still there. Plus it’s really not that much content when you add all the issues, but it has been able to sustain its own NECA toy line, which is also impressive.

I’m glad that TMNT is getting some widespread recognition, but as Raph would say: “Not like that they don’t. Not from you!”

Funny how patterns repeat.
The 1920s weren't that great either....
I'm ok with a Last Ronin movie never seeing the light of day, not a fan of Comic book heroes aging or dying.
I think they should be allowed to exist in a time bubble where nothing much ever changes.
For example, if Mickey Mouse had 'aged' concurrently with the readers, he would have been in his 50s when I first discovered him.....
The Turtles would now be 40-ish and would definitely have to lose the 'Teenage' part of their name.

I keep saying this.

The only way I might be interested in a TLR movie is if it’s a long sequel to the 1990 original, with Rist in the lead role. But thinking it through, does anyone really want to see those beloved versions of the turtles murdered in their prime? I really don’t think so.

That’s why Last Ronin only works as some throwaway alternate universe comic book. No one is actually attached to those characters.


Well, that’s why TMNT is rebooted constantly.

But I disagree. There’s all kinds of potential stories that could take place in their 20s, 30s, etc. There’s a bunch of really interesting future stories in Mirage. They have to be well into their 20s (technically) by now in IDW.

Most people seem to be in love with the idea of The Last Ronin, not The Last Ronin itself. Because they can never really articulate why they love it beyond a general feeling that doesn't hold up vs. the reality on the page.

I think that TLR started off as a really strong and neat idea for TMNT. A TDKR moment for the franchise that somehow also dodged being perceived as a TDKR knockoff. An idea with positive sentiment.

But the unfolding of it meant that it ran on positive sentiment rather than continuing to build the positive sentiment. I mean - even Playmates had a TLR figure out before the first mini-series had even wrapped up. And all of that while it took them almost 2 years to publish 5 comics.

And then after that first mini-series TLR became a milked institution and it was piled on so thick and so quickly that it just became "more". Two follow ups that milked the positive sentiment along with nothing-burger movie announcements. And then a game announcement whereby even if it comes true, would see a release long-after the zeitgeist of the first mini-series.

Basically it was a strong idea for a mini-series that they managed terribly 100% of the way through. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but NECA managed their arm of it in a better fashion than the comics, than Playmates, and any of the cash-grab announcements.

So now you have trailing and maybe even negative overall sentiment about TLR.

I will admit that I thought TLR #1 was great when it came out.

#2 was a slight drop, but I was still on board.

#3 mostly was another drop and I was starting to become puzzled.

#4 I realized this was a complete turd. But there was only one more left, I figured I’d see it through.

#5 *whoopie cushion noise*

Exactly. Now combine that with the aforementioned "it took almost 2 years to deliver that story" and you have a fully painted picture as to what I meant regarding the sentiment.

Also, we didn't have constant updates back then. Once the Internet became mainstream, websites would usually just update a few times each year. Personally, I knew nothing whath happened to the Turtles once the Fred Wolf cartoon and the Archie comics had been cancelled in Sweden.

The span between Turtles Forever and the first 2012 Nickelodeon episodes were nothing compared to the eternity between the mid 1990's and some years into the early 2000's.

Rise and MM are brilliant to ME, and as we all know, my opinion is the only one that matters :twink:

Is this the worst decade in TMNT history? No, I wouldn't say that's accurate. This is the worst decade in EVERY franchise's history. I don't know that I can think of a long running franchise that isn't currently at bottom of the barrel: TMNT, Star Wars, DC, Transformers.

I think it's because every franchise is old enough now that it had multiple relaunches and reboots. Futurama suffered the same way through three revivals, Star Trek has also been a mixed bag due to Discovery.

It's funny, the people running a lot of these franchises now are closer to our generation who grew up with these franchises as kids, rather than the original runs that came from the creators themselves. It's gotten to the point where it feels like fans in control of franchises is a perfect example why that wasn't a good thing.

Agreed. It has gotten to the point that short of decanonizing the past 10 or more years of continuity, these franchises are basically dead. I’ve had to embrace the concept of head canon to enjoy what I’ve loved when I was younger.

Disney Star Wars? Gone.

J.J. Abrams and Kurtzman Star Trek? Gone.

Doctor Who after The Day of The Doctor? Gone.

Disney Indiana Jones? Gone.

Disney Willow? Gone.

I don’t mean to suggest one can’t be a fan of a character/series as a child then grow up and write great fiction within that continuity or a reboot. Many people have proven that to be possible.

But the main problem currently is that most of it comes off as garbage fanfic writing.

I think for sane people, the idea of one day contributing a new chapter to one of our most beloved franchises would bring with it an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Like, you would KNOW you'd have to very carefully steward what came before into what you're doing now and being mindful of what worked and what to avoid. But that's not what's happening. These hacks are given the chance to write a new chapter to a franchise and they're just like, "AWESOME! Finally, an opportunity to inject things that I like into a thing with a built-in audience so people will watch!" So we get the girlboss stuff, white males being ridiculed or made into buffons (if we see them at all), if anyone has any children then the children need to be killed off pronto, etc..

Even Marvel has to be considered to be having a very down decade compared to the previous couple. And then there's the long running cartoons The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park. They're all well past their best decades.

Same for anime which had revivals like Dragon Ball which has been a mixed bag. Live-action Disney movies have been mostly terrible. Legend of Korra also wasn't as good as Avatar: The Last Airbender. Cobra Kai of course the shining exception.

My last hope is the Buffy sequel series turns out good. It shouldn't be too hard to be better than Season 7 at least.

IDW is afraid to write some events that would actually make a significant change on the story. Remember in the in City at War arc, there was a dragon and a group of demons appeared in New York, but this didn't cause a global panic. Instead, a lot of people were arguing about mutant...

There's nothing new they can bring to the table to TMNT and if they do they'll just change too much that it won't feel like TMNT.
There's diminishing returns with every revival and for these franchises have had too many revivals and reboots over the last 3 decades.
We need new franchises instead of resuscitating these corpses that have nothing left to give

The trouble with IDW TMNT is that in its bones it is TMNT jambalaya. It doesn't really have a cohesive identity of its own because it is a little bit of everything, and mostly things that aren't good.

I think it’s more of a problem that its main point of uniqueness (reincarnated souls from feudal Japan) ended up feeling squandered. Splinter’s revenge in #50 was good, and aspects of him taking over the Foot were good, but ultimately they didn’t really do anything interesting with it.

I feel like most of reincarnation stuff in IDW TMNT is about Yoshi and Saki. The Turtles were just his sons. That it's. They have no japanese or chinese names, and aren't involved in Splinter's plan to save Shredder's soul after #50. This make me feel like Splinter's action was a bit selfish, he didn't ask his sons for their opinions. Weren't they also victims of his massacres in their past lives? In City Fall arc, Leo was even brainwashed into a Foot soldier.

Tmnt 41
 

Time for my annual comparison. When the TMNT franchise turned 41 in May 2025, it was as old as.

Tintin: January 1960
Mickey Mouse: November 1969
Donald Duck: June 1975
Superman: April 1979 (The Reign of the Superman from 1932 is not included here)
Batman: March 1980
Captain America: March 1982
Lucky Luke: October 1987
James Bond: April 1994
Smurfs: October 1999
Asterix: October 2000
Spider-Man: August 2003
GI Joe: February 2005
Star Trek: September 2007
Star Wars: November 2017 (the novelization was first published in November 1976, six months prior to the 1977 movie)
Donkey Kong and Mario: July 2022

Right. There has been some decent stuff with them and Shen’s spirit, but that’s it.

It doesn’t make any sense that they all started speaking English after being exposed to the psychotropic serum, and as we’ve discussed recently it makes no sense that Yoshi and Shen never once call them by their birth names.

Worst of all, in the Armaggon arc, Campbell completely ruined reincarnation stuff. If the reincarnation of The Turtles and Splinter were artificial, then Donnie and Venus' action is actually terrible because it is actually forcing their new lives to bear their fate.