Battle Nexus #4 preview and discussion
 

I don’t really understand why he was fighting all those opponents, but Metalhead vs. 4kids Turtlebot was fun.

Kind of annoying that they keep drawing the mystery turtle so differently each issue. Obviously they don’t want to give it away, but this just feels like cheating.

Anyway, it looks like they’re finally doing some fun crossover stuff. Hopefully it’s not lame.

"Gap-toothed teenage bookworm" is somewhat accurate I guess, I would have gone with "easily irritable, creepazoid stalker" but whatever...

Anyway, I haven't figured out who the grey council member is yet. However, paying attention I noticed by looking through the previous issues that he doesn't seem to be wearing gloves since none of the other do and yet his skin is still grey. The exact grey coloring also matches all the other Mirage characters in this mini so far, so I'm certain that whoever he is, he's a mirage character. Which one I can't quite figure out. Considering the other ones are associated with alternate dimensions, godhood and/or the Battle Nexus, my best guesses are:

• Kirby
• Coyote
• Gosei Hatsumi
• Galactose
• Dale McGillicutty (not sure if Paramount owns her though)
• Chiton

Still no idea who the remaining one might be but the grey one is almost certainly a mirage character. Still not sure who the hooded guy might be either, now it looks like he has a bit of a beak.

And this should be pretty obvious but looks like Savanti's staff is the Daimyo's war staff with the head of the time sceptre attached. The weird part is that I have yet to see any acknowledgement of this yet, just Renet calling it tacky.

So did Nick Metalhead just kill Fred Wolf Muckman/Joe Eyeball in that last panel. I guess they didn't want to show Metalhead kill its fellow 2012 version.

To be fair, Muckman is a character who should not be.

I think this issue is more interesting than the previous three.

It is really interesting

Anyone know of a turtle with a double chin? Because now we can actually see this guy's mouth and he looks like he has a double chin.

Anyway, I've looked into Annual 2014 again to see if there are any clues as to who the grey one might be. Unfortunately he just says that he never liked the pre-BN version of the games and "Live long and prosper", which I doubt is meant to indicate that he's Spock. I know that might seem like a foolish thing to attempt, it should be pretty obvious from the Big Mama reveal that most of these are retroactive, as it's seriously difficult to believe that she was actually always meant to be an IDW four years before her debut in Rise and the previous cartoon still going on at the time (though it does look like she doesn't have proper hands in the 2014 Annual and it almost looks like spider legs). But it does seem pretty obvious that the guy who turned out to be the Daimyo was intended to be the Daimyo as he's talking about becoming the guy in charge of the new tournament, so who knows? Maybe these guys were always intended to have specific identities?

Absolutely bonkers to see a foot note referencing TMNT Vol 4 issue 29 and implying that Mirage Vol 4 Leo met 2k3 Leo in an untold tale.... which is an incredibly Mirage thing to do.

And the markings 2k3 Leo made on the stone match the first episode of The Big Brawl.

I read Mirage Issue 1 for the first time, a pretty radical story !

(I discovered the Turtles with the 2003 cartoon and IDW was my first TMNT comics experience)

This Battle Nexus issue was enjoyable but seeing this story already ending makes me feel it was too short.



I am putting my money on Kirby then

Easily the best issue yet. This is more along the lines of what this should have been. The first three felt like a complete waste of time, and now it'll be over in 2 weeks.

It wasn't mindblowing, or even particularly well-written. But there was at least fun multiverse crossover stuff going on. My nitpicks:

- 4kids Leo dialogue was too dorky and weird. Had to roll my eyes pretty damn hard when he referred to Mirage Shredder as a... "Mirage". Jesus Christ.

- We now have confirmation that Savanti plucked Saki from right before he pulled the thermite grenade in #1. So it really doesn't make any sense why he would hate all turtles that intensely. They challenged him to a fight and he excepted. No other history at that point.

- Archie Raph talking down to IDW Raph like a boomer telling a young kid about life. Then IDW Raph erroneously says they're the same age. If Archie Raph just started dating Ninjara, he's only 15-16 and IDW Raph is more like 22 years old at this point.

- Everyone losing their memory in the prison dimension was annoying and took up valuable time to let them interact naturally. I also don't care for this suggestion that being near your dimensional doppelgänger drives you crazy. There is zero evidence of this in Turtles Forever, Trans Turtles, or Wanted: Bebop and Rocksteady.

- The word bubble on the last page makes it look like Slash is saying "I won't lose any more of my family", but it's clearly supposed to be Mikey.

I don't think IDW works like that. Raphael was 15-16 in IDW five years ago. And he's 15-16 today. And he'll be 15-16 5 years from now as well.

Mirage is the ONLY TMNT universe where time actually passes and people are aging.

I get the feeling Rise Donatello is a favorite among the writing staff. Surprised no 2012 Turtle is here when we have 2012 Metalhead in the issue.

Archie Raph could also be talking about Ninjara from right before they break-up in the Moons Eyes issues, so the very end of the Archie run before they broke up.

The back-up of Archie TMNT vs Fred Wolf TMNT feels surreal since as a kid it felt like Archie TMNT was always just a splintered off universe of the original cartoon right at the start of Season 2 during the Sarnath story due to Armaggon traveling back in time to swipe Shredder.

Right, they've certainly never had any dialogue stating anyone's ages. I'm just a timeline freak and keep track of each winter/Christmas that has passed since #1.

If anything, they've regressed lately. The Sophie run started with them losing Splinter and learning to live without him and ended with them all going their separate ways. The current volume has them acting like that was some major betrayal and the 4 of them NEED to live together. And of course,

He specifically says they just started dating.

They're actually completely different universes that have variations pre-dating the Armaggon thing.

And at least they've technically spent 0 years sorting out how they're being a ninja clan that doesn't kill anybody, ever.

So to what extent do you guys think the Council members were pre-planned? In the 2014 annual they were essentially background characters and I can't recall them showing up at until this mini, so it's like there is a ton of material to go by.

Still, it does seem like the Daimyo was always intended to be one of them. He literally states he'll arrange the Battle Nexus going forward and his mask looked a bit like a stylised version of his original mask. Big Mama seems like the least likely one, because she just wasn't a character in 2014 and it seems doubtful the Rise writers ever had the annual in mind when they created her, could have been an idea between 2018 and now though.

Ogg seems like the biggest toss-up though. On one hand, he fits the bill of being a character from another dimension who likes to screw with people, on the other hand... I know he and only appearance until SMA were hated and unlikely to return before SMA was a thing. So it's kind of hard to tell if anyone had any interest in bringing him back.

Yeah... It's best to pretend the overlap with the FW cartoon is just a coincidence from an in-universe standpoint, rather than some cosmic split. Otherwise you'd have to explain differences like why Hamato Yoshi fled to America for being framed for an actual murder, rather than kinda sorta looking guilty when he was obviously framed for an attempted murder.

I mean, this Saki is the OG hater lol, and he also lost to the turtles who humbled him

Do you mean the Hamato Yoshi stuff Murphy added in later on like training in Tibet and stuff? I suppose so, but their whole origin otherwise is the same due to the Archie series adapting the first 5 episodes of the original cartoon. You just have to overlook the fact that the Turtles stayed as Turtle tots in Archie and didn't grow to their present forms right away like in the original cartoon.

The fact that the FW turtles were never Turtle Tots is a pretty important distinction though.
And... Well, let's just list off the rest of the irreconcilable differences shall we?

• Leatherhead was a man transformed into an alligator by magic, not a mutated alligator.
• Slash was an alien, not a mutated turtle.
• Mondo was a human mutated way later, not a gecko mutated at the same time as the turtles in the same accident.
• Tattoo was human, not a hamster (I mean, what the hell?).

There are probably more problems than just character origins but it's pretty hard to claim the same world, only altered by time travel, would produce identical beings of different origins.

You know I got a laugh out of that one haha.

Yeah, I think you got most of the major stuff. There’s also Sarnath, Wingnut, Rat King, (very late addition but) Casey Jones, and maybe a few other small things.

Oh, the fact that Archie’s Dimension X was just a distant region of space and not literally another dimension.

Tattoo's FW origin is quite possibly the most baffling origin given to any of the toy characters I can think of. I can accept characters can vary between being humans transformed into animals, animals given humanoid forms, aliens who coincidentally resemble humanoid animals or them being magical beings of some kind, even if they have some different origin elsewhere (I usually don't feel attached enough to them to think any particular origin deserves to be respected, they typically aren't well thought out enough characters for the origin to matter).

It's just... How do you look at the sumo wrestler and think "oh yes, he should have started out as a hamster!"? Had he been a hamster themed character, then sure it would have made sense but he's clearly not. The best excuse I can think of is that the writer may have thought all of these action figure had to be mutated animals no matter what but that's still not logical.

He's only in that ep for like the first 3 minutes, I think it was an inside joke that they had to include some more Playmates toy characters and just did whatever.

Deciding to make the entirely human looking character a hamster is still pretty random though, even if it is just doing "whatever".

Never let it be said the Fred Wolf show wasn’t often surreal to the point of absurdity! But that’s why I love it.
That said, despite the original mini-series, it’s just easier to consider TMNT Adventures a seperate continuity with a few similarities to ‘87. It’s just less of a headache with all of the later retcons.

Every turtle looked so on point with their respective art style, and everyone had their own unique voice that really helped emphasize their differences. One weird inconsistency: Archie Raphael has been pulled just after beginning to date Ninjara, yet is wearing his black suit. Obviously it’s because they want him to stand out from other Raphaels, but still.
I did like how the Archie Turtles look like they’re printed on faded paper. Very nice touch.
I like that Leo was drawn in Turtles Forever style, possibly indicating that he was pulled the farthest along in his timeline compared to other turtles. I may be looking too much into that however.
Now, THIS was a fun issue. It’s a shame it took four issues for us to get here though, the story is almost finished.

No, you're definitely right. He talks about meeting Mirage Leo in the Battle Nexus, which would have had to happen at some point after Turtles Forever.

Edit: Just double checked myself. In 4kids, tournaments are held every 3 years. So there was one at some point shortly after Wedding Bells and Bytes (2007, in universe), probably before Turtles Forever. Then another ~3 years after Turtles Forever.

Although, I suppose Leo could have visited at any time for the hell of it. He wouldn't necessarily have to wait for a tournament to happen.

Evrything goes according to my plan Savanti has trapped the turtles froma all diemnsions in theb attle nexus(mirrage 1987 2003 2011 2012 2018) and i willl kill them all!!!!!

I suppose that the 4th council character is Mirage's Splinter.

Another amazing issue Tom, thanks!

There’s too much to wrap up in just one more.

I doubt that he is the fourth one, it would raise way too many questions.

Like what? I assume Shredder and Slash are just going to get put back to the point when they were about to die and Ninjara just needs her tail back. I don't really see that much that needs to be wrapped up here.

Finally got my hands on this one.

https://markepicblogofrandomness.blo...battle_25.html

Issuing a slight correction here. This is taken directly from the Mirage Battle Nexus, although they state it affects everyone differently.