How long do you think it would take to properly wrap up vol. 4?
 

After recently finishing Vol. 3 with Andrew's 23 and 24 and currently well into vol. 4 I started pondering this exact question. How long would it take to properly wrap up vol. 4? Last issue was number 31. Based on the information/story lines presented in these 31 issues what is your opinion on the question at hand? Ten issues? Five? One giant book lol?

Laird said a conclusion it would likely come to six issues.

If you read the last issue PL posted online, you can pretty much see all the story plots were coming together and seemed to be drawing to a climax.

I think the only thing PL might have forgotten about is there is one panel of one issue where all the pedestrians mysteriously disappear from the street...and it was never mentioned again.

I would say 3-5 issues

With about 5-7 issues, this ensures plently of time for all of the storylines to get resolved. I'd say 4 is the bare minimum. You really need a full issue to have a final fight, another with an ultimate attack plan, another that draws the turtles into battling the enemie's minions, leading to the final fight, and another that shows and a final issue that shows how everything gets resolved, including freeing the allies, burying the villains for good, and having a nice congratulations and wise words with graditude toward the turtles.

cant argue with the man who would be writing it :tcool:

Now if only he would actually sit down to write it. I am sure Jim Lawson would jump at the chance to do the art again, especially since he's still drawing Turtle stuff till this day.

Yeah, Lawson would probably get to it straight away, and he's incredibly fast. Man, I want a conclusion to Vol. 4 so badly.

Agreed. Its also just wrong that the Mirage universe, which is what spawned everything that came after, didn't get a proper conclusion.

If Volume 4 is wrapped up, then pretty much every Mirage storyline is done except for Tristan's Gang War story.

Wasn't that in #28 though? I'm sure something was going to happen with it soon enough.

Not exactly. There's still that stuff with the Oroku family still wanting to kill the Hamato clan (see, "Cold, Cold Ice").

Plus a few small things like that Hamato Hana girl.

There will of course be minor things in the Mirage universe left unanswered, such as Donatello clipping a piece of Splinter's fur after he died...I doubt PL will ever touch up on that again.

But as long as the main plotines of Vol. 4 are finished I'll be satisfied. The Mirage universe isn't something where every little thing needs closure.

It sounds like many of you figure the end of Vol. 4 means the end of the book itself. Could there be a Vol. 5?

I'm new to the comics, and I know next-to-nothing about them, so forgive the naivete of my question.

Technically, it could be a Vol. 5, as Laird still holds the rights to publish up to 18 comics a year through Mirage. It is, however, very unlikely, considering how he sold the Turtles to Viacom because he wanted to step out of the franchise.

A conclusion to Vol. 4 would pretty much feel like an end to the Mirage continuity, wich lasted for over 25 years worth of comics. Vol. 4 abruptly stopped being published, leaving many plotlines unfinished. Could there be more stories after those plotlines are concluded? Maybe, but as for now, it looks like we'll be lucky enough if we just get an end to what was already being developed.

What IDW is doing now is a fresh start, a new continuity that doesn't tie in the Mirage timeline. It's a different universe.

Which is kinda weird as it wasn't that long prior to selling the franchise to Nickleodeon/Viacom that when the issue of the style of storytelling he used in Vol. 4 came up he said the possibilty existed of doing a Vol. 5 with more traditional style of storytelling. I suppose the possibilty still exists but it's an odd thing to say if you're either in talks to sell or burned out to the point of being willing to accept an offer.

It would also hint that perhaps the ending he envisioned at the time for Vol. 4 wouldn't have been a definitive end for the Mirage universe as we currently know it. We know that at one point he wanted to do an apoclalyptic to the volume but changed his mind. It's likely that he'd simply end the volume tieing up most of the ongoing plots and end on a ring of finality but were he could pick up and tell new stories if he wanted to.

That would be inline with how most turtle universes end.

Yeah I wouldn't expect anything other than that, and I'm perfectly fine with it. Considering how things were shaping up in Volume 4, it would seem strange if it ended with any kind of apocalypse.

Indeed. The whole point is a big flood engulfing the world, eventually, right? It's technically doable in six issues, but you'd be scrambling a bit to cross all the t's and dot the i's. And yet, it could work, as it wouldn't be the Turtles if they didn't have a "The End The World as We Know It" scenario, be it Maligna's invasion, Krang's Technodrome (at least initially), the Triceratons, Ch'rell's multiverse murder-suicide, etc. Plus, Laird knows his sci-fi, so he would find a way that's believable or somewhat more believable than the usual standard.

From issues Tales #69 and all the Future Turtle stories, we pretty much know how the Mirage universe ends. A Vol. 4 conclusion would simply tied up the roughly 4-5 plotlines that were still going.

After that, we pretty much know the Turtles just live out their lives till old age. There's nothing more to be said.

Sure there can technically be endless adventures for the Mirage Turtles, but can't you say the same for the Fred Wolf and 4kids Turtles? They could have had endless adventures after their shows ended, but of course, it doesn't matter since we saw all that needed to be shown. Cartoons don't last forever and neither do comics. We enjoy the ride.

Right, right. If Tales #69 is of any indication, the Turtles' distant future all ends on a real depressing note. It depends, if one wants to go for the "The adventures will continue" or have a more complete finality and to foreshadow those disasters. The former is more preferable, because it's too upsetting to go with the latter for the audience's sake or put up some form of a hope spot. And yet, the Mirage universe is known for its darkness, so a darker present-day ending wouldn't be out of place, either.

Either way, I agree with you, as it was a good quarter-century ride. I almost prefer an ending, as, sometimes, a show or a comic or anything can go on too long. Nevertheless, there are exceptions, as the 87 series proved eventually. Same for the 2003 series, the differing tone of its final two seasons aside.

Agreed, and unlike those, this isn't a series for kids. The Mirage universe doesn't need a happy ending.

Its why the Future Turtle storylines and the seemingly depressing future for Earth are my favorites parts of the Mirage universe.

I'd always assumed that Peter's apocalyptic ending would be something along the lines of the anti-alien terrorists setting off a number of nukes than global warming.

All future versions prior to Murphy writing Tales seemed to have NY flood free. I think along the way Steve Murphy borrowed that concept from the Archie books.

It's been confirmed that the depictions of the Mirage Universe's future are all alternate or possible futures which explains some of the contradictions we've seen in depictions of the future. The penultimate issue of Tales V. 2 seals that as the case.

So we don't know how the characters or their world end up. While it'd be fairly poignant to see them live their lives it would be symbolic of how the turtles have essentialy become so engrained in pop culture that they'll never truly die to leave it open.

Not to mention that if on the slimmest of chances Laird does feel like doing a Volume 5 at some point would he want to depict his own world or that of a post apocalyptic version of it?

Doesn't need a tragic one either. If if we saw the death of one turtle or all of them it needn't be a sad event. Raph may die happily as a crotchety old turtle surrounded by his brothers and whatever extended family he may have.

As good as that may be to read we don't really need to see it depicted in "real time".