#5 What do we know?
 

Looking around the board it seems we don't know anything about it. :-/ It comes out next week, what do you think is so spoilerish about it that we don't have details about it yet?

I'd bet the farm that there will be flashbacks. I don't know if every one's aware of this yet, but Dan Duncan's doing half the art, and the Santolouco guy who did that A cover is doing the other half.

THey talked about split art duty. A flash back makes since in that line of info but it has never been confirmed that it is a flashback. What kind of flashback would it be though?

Their past lives with Splinter will be revealed and/or they'll get the rainbow bandannas.

I was just hoping there would be something more profound that we thought we would get. Both of those seem kind of like, "Yeah we know." Nothing spoilerish.

We know nothing about their past lives. And we're supposedly getting a really good explanation for the multicolored masks.

What do you mean? "Their past lives with Splinter" alone is a pretty big deal and we have absolutely no idea how it plays out.

I mean we knew that would be reviled, but not to what extent their "past lives" matter. To me that's not a spoiler since we knew it would have to come at some point after Splinter told them they didn't remember their old life and he would explain later.

The color bandana was spilled awhile ago when Tristan was talking about Infestation.

But they said something spoilerish was in issue 5 that they couldn't revel anything about the issue.

We also know that there will be a new character introduced in this issue and that's why Kevin Eastman's cover for #6 won't be revealed until #5 is out.

See that's what I'm curious about. What character can it be that would be so secretive? I mean could it be a picture of Krang on the cover? Or is it another new character?

it could also be the shredder on kevin's cover, couldn't it?....their past lives with splinter hopefully include the story around yoshi and saki somehow....

Krang's on the cover of...what is it, #6 or #7? I can't recall. Could be Shredder. I kinda have a feeling they may wait til #10 for Shredder, kinda like in Volume 1 when Shredder "came back from the dead" in #10.

My best guess is the cover may have The Shredder on it.

You could be right, but I wouldn't think that Tom would curve his timeline just to pay tribute to the Shredder's reappearance in issue #10. To be fair, I don't know Tom, so I could very well be wrong.

It was 7.

6 had the TMNT from the first-person view of a Mouser.

I wouldn't think so either, but based on the synopses and covers we've seen so far, it seems that #5 will be a standalone story, and #6-8 is the next 3 issue story arc focusing on unleashing Baxter's new weapon (aka mousers) and Krang entering the picture more with him finally arriving to New York by issue #8. To introduce Shredder in that story arc might pull from the focus, so while I'm sure he will be alluded to in those issues, he may very well fully enter into the fray by the next multi-issue arc which would assumedly include #10 and thus neatly work out as a nice homage to the original Mirage.

Sure he may not even show up by then, but it would probably be foolish to wait much longer as I'm sure they are aware that everyone is anticipating his character. It works out well if you think about it: First story arc introduces the turtles, second arc builds up anticipation to the Shredder, and the third story arc finally has him come in full force. I mean, once you have the Shredder, mousers probably won't seem as epic in comparison, so it's best to do their story first to help build things up. What do y'all think?

We've already seen Krang (or rather, his robot body), he's the huge guy with the scarf in front of his mouth.

Great observations. I wouldn't be surprised if your outline is spot-on.

I really hope to see the Shredder have a lasting impact on the turtles. Give us a reason to fear this dude!

I'm sure they have that covered. My hope is that whatever Shredder's standing is:

1) He's not some kind of Utrom (not too worried about this one)

And

2) He's not too tied to Krang or anything weird like that. Shredder and the Foot are the "big enemies" of the TMNT, always have been... and no matter how far out their other enemies or groups of enemies may go (and between General Krang and Baxter and their small army of mutants in the making, it sounds like "far out" enemies are pretty well covered), that faction should be fairly "down to earth." The Raphael special creates some worry to this end. I mean, can you imagine the Mirage Oroku Saki employing guys like Bebop and Rocksteady?

I'd actually quite like it if Shredder and Krang were enemies/rivals in this universe. It would make quite an interesting twist as opposed to them always working together like in the original series and Archie.

Though I'm likely not as concerned as you, these are pretty much my exact sentiments. What really made Shredder and the Foot work well, in my opinion, is that they were a legitimate ninja clan to be taken seriously. I'm okay with some ties to the science fiction realm since it is TMNT (we see some funky robots in RTNY and CAW at times, not to mention worm cloning), but as you stated, I hope this is kept to a minimum and done only when it is absolutely necessary.

While I believe there can be some potential and legitimacy in employing street-knowledgeable thugs to further the Foot's ends, it is a bit worrisome if that is what Raphael #1 is suggesting is happening, as it will be very tricky to maintain their clan's authenticity if it becomes overrun with too many non-ninja elements. Independent contractors are one thing, but if they become part of the clan, it could make the Foot look like a joke to welcome such unrefined and undisciplined hoodlums. I am hoping the Shredder would only keep company with the likes of such ruffians begrudgingly and no longer than the situation would necessitate. 4Kids managed a fairly well balanced approach to this kind of "working relationship" between Shredder and Baxter. However, I do believe this is all in good hands with Tom, Kevin, and Dan.