Things that happened in the franchise that surprised or shocked you
 

What are some things that happened over the course of the franchise that genuinely surprised you? Or stuff you never thought would happen until it actually...happened.

For me:

1. A licensed comic crossover between Batman and the Turtles. This is something I never in a million years would ever think would happen. DC actually deciding to have Batman crossover with the Turtles in a 6-part comic. Batman meeting the Turtles...IN CANON. Even now I'm still shocked this is actually happening.

2. The original Fred Wolf Turtles returning in specials, crossovers or movies, such as Turtles Forever or their upcoming Nick cartoon crossover. Especially the latter which will have their original voices reprise their roles. I never expected the 80's Turtles to get "new material" nearly 20 years after the show got canceled.

3. A new Image short comic story as part of the 30th anniversary comic IDW put out last year. This is just...crazy. A NEW Image comic drawn and written by the same guys who did the Image series over 17 years ago? What.

4. Lots of old characters being used again after decades in either the Nick or IDW series, like Lord Dregg, Bellybomb, Muckman, Mutagen Man, the Neutrinos, Fast Forward characters, Armaggon, etc. Never expected to see most of these guys again.

5. The franchise actually being generally popular again due to the Nick cartoon. As much as I loved the 2k3 cartoon, the show was barely known outside of hardcore fans or whatever kids watched it in the early 2000's. Entire new kids are exposed to TMNT now. This is probably the most popular the franchise has been since the early 90's.


There's probably more but this is all I can think of right now.

Viacom buying the franchise.

Also forgot to mention Kevin Eastman returning to the franchise and developing story ideas with Tom Waltz, writing new TMNT comics, and drawing covers for all the issues.

For those who don't know Kevin pretty much left the TMNT franchise after 1997 when Next Mutation bombed and Image did poorly in sales and he was gone for the entire 2000's era of Volume 4 and 2k3 until coming back in 2011 with IDW.

“The Birds, the Bees and the Turtles!”, enough said... What?!, it's almost official :teek:

I'm not surprised with Batman and the TMNT teaming up. Both of them are known for working mostly in the dark shadows of night. Unlike, for example, Superman who operates in broad daylight.

One of the biggest things that surprised me was TNM. I couldn't believe they were changing them so much. Of course, this was the first time I started to notice and actually like Donnie, so something good came from it.

Speaking of Donnie, what happened to him in IDW was a surprise for me.

Giving the guys love interests in Nick was a shock, even if it leads to nothing in the end.

That time April got freaky as a cockroach... that shocked me. :trazz:

Turtles teaming up with Shredder in 2k12 series...
and Splinters sudden murder with the huge failure thing...
but to be fair I kinda expected Shredder to kill him then...
*shrugs* :tconfuse:

The sale to Viacom shocked me.

As did 2k3 Leo actually beheading Shredder.
Oh sure, he turned out to be using an Utrom suit, but still. Until that reveal Leo totally beheaded Shredder in a children's cartoon.

Bebop and Rocksteady going after Don with sledgehammers in the IDW series shocked me.

As did their reincarnation angle. The reveal of that is still one of my favorite issues of the run thus far.

OH! And the trailer for the 2k7 movie. I was not expecting to love that thing as much as I did.

The top shocking moment for me was IDW issue 44, It was brutal.

SAINW, I'm surprised no 1 said this yet.

A lot of things from the Nick show has surprised me, The Invasion, bringing back the OT turtles and there voice actors ect. Annihilation Earth was shocking with Shredder killing Splinter on screen and the earth being destroyed.

The return of Bebop, Rocksteady, and a lot of characters and elements from sources other than the Mirage comics. I honestly thought that we'd never ever see these things again since Laird was so adamant against using them.

The Viacom buyout.

The Turtles returning in 2003. And from 4kids of all companies.

The IDW comics coming out before the cartoons. I assumed they would do the cartoon first, THEN make a comic series.

Irma being a Kraang spy but that wasn't a good kind of surprise(why couldn't it have been Vernon?). :P

Eh, Bebop/Rocksteady making huge comebacks was expected once Peter Laird stopped being in control of the franchise. Funny thing is they returned everywhere.

Turtles Forever brought them back so they appeared in 4kids in 2009. Then they appeared in the IDW comics. Then the Nick cartoon. And now the new movie.

Bebop/Rocksteady could never be forgotten. The mutant duo will always return.

Armaggon in the Nick show and knowing a year prior


The Nick show taking such a huge dip in quality, but season 4 has been season 1 level.

Its fans and the forum they inhabit.

Same. :lol: I still can't believe THAT is "Word of God" as far as canon. Nobody can even play defense by saying it was a guest writer or a lesser writer... the creator farted out that colossal misfire. Definitely shocked... and appalled.

Surprisingly, the sale to Nick didn't shock me, as I always figured Pete would have no choice but to "sell out" to Nick or Disney one day, especially after it became clear he was burned out and didn't really care about doing it anymore. I'm also not surprised that the entire franchise has since become watered-down, kiddified, and is sustaining itself by suckling on the teat of the Fred Wolf cartoon. I am surprised that it happened so fast. I thought for sure they'd pretend to care about fans older than age 10 for at least a little while, but then I remembered: Nickelodeon. Says it all.

At this point I'm not sure if anything could or would shock me. I'm pretty damn jaded, in case you couldn't tell.

Viacom Sale

TMNT + Batman comic

Turtles Forever

Didn't they bring back Pete the Pigeon in IDW/Nick or something? Recall reading about that. Dunno if it actually happened but I was liek "Whaaa ANYONE can return now".

Attempts at making the turtles aliens and Shredder a white man. You have no idea how thankful I am everyday that we've dodged those couple of bullets.

In THAT regard, I'm surprised that AFTER the sale to Nicky, we still get a comic book (IDW) that's shockingly good!

Bebop and Rocksteady are love. Bebop and Rocksteady are life.

Everything to do with April's origin in Mirage vol 4 was awful. Say what you will about Nick April being part Kraang and having psychic powers, but at least she's not a literal drawing. And frankly, it's a pretty steep insensitivity to her infertility. It's fine if they wanted to go that direction, but good grief, that was low. Polycystic ovary syndrome might have been better; Endometriosis might have been better. But a drawing!? Heck, fit it into the side of Utroms working on a cure for cancer (another thing that surprised me, if only because of how goofy it sounds. That's Captain Planet grade silly) and have it be ovarian cancer.

Scrap the sister's cancer story in the Tales and put April in it instead. It's a lot less bumpy that way, and certainly less insulting to April as a character, and to people with fertility issues who are struggling to conceive as she was.

A lot of the violence/deaths in the 2k3 series surprised me the first time I saw the episodes, they basically pushed the boundaries as far as they could go on a Saturday Morning cartoon. Characters being impaled, stabbed, blown up, on-screen deaths, etc.

I was only a teenager when the 2k3 series originally aired back in the early 2000's, so back then the show was exactly what I wanted.

Yea Shredder getting his head cut off was like "WHAT!"

And also in the OT, "I never bluff".