Fun fact: TMNT is now as old as Batman/Superman were in the 80's
 

Batman/Superman were created at the end of the 1930's basically nearly 1940. TMNT as we know debuted in 1984 and we're now in 2022 making them almost 40 years old.

To put that in perspective rounding from roughly 1940-1980, TMNT has been around from nearly as long as Batman and Superman were in the early 80's.

Discuss and debate.

So that would make The Dark Knight Returns and The Last Ronin roughly coincide in the timeline of their respective franchises.

The TMNT franchise turned 38 years old in May 2022. Let's check out when some other well-known media franchises hit the same age:

Mickey Mouse: November 1966
Donald Duck: June 1972
Superman: April 1976 (The Reign of the Superman from 1932 not counted)
Batman: March 1977
Captain America: March 1979
James Bond: April 1991
Spider-Man: August 2000
Star Trek: September 2004
Star Wars: November 2014 (the novelization was published six months prior to the movie, in November 1976)

This is based on original publication or launch.

Oh hey, that's funny, Star Trek turned 38 one month before Enterprise started it's final season... The final season of Star Trek made for actual broadcast...

When I joined these forums, the celebrations of TMNT's 25th anniversary were the hottest topic at the tike here. And people were wondering if the property would be dying soon or just live until Laird finally finished vol. 4. Then the Viacom sale happened and the rest is history.

It has more staying power than most properties. As far as comic book properties, there aren't many as successful outside of Marvel & DC...if any. Maybe something like "Peanuts", depending on how you judge success.

It's been sort of underserved, but does that make the franchise seem even stronger in a way? It just keeps going.

"I know what you're thinkin'. I came to talk you out of it. You need to... just accept that TMNT is dead, not try to bring it back. I know you're thinkin' of puttin'; it up there, the Paramount Pictures office up that road. You're thinking if you pitch and idea there, it will come back alive. Sometimes, dead is better. It's been done before, what you're thinkin' of. The Platinum Dunes film, back in '14. Don't do it Mister! What comes out of the pitch meeting ain't the thing you put in. Peter Laird knew that. That's why he stopped using it when the 4Kids show went sour. I'm just here to talk you out of it. Don't present a pitch at that office, Mister! The one that's right up over there, behind Andersons' bar. Sometimes... dead is better."

:lol: You're awesome.

People said TMNT does not have lasting power as DC or Marvel superheroes. Yet look at where those superheroes were 40 years in, and while TMNT is of course nowhere as popular or mainstream, it's still closing in on 40 years as well.

Fun fact: Spiderman was also only close to 40 years old by the year 2000 since it debuted in the 1960's. Kind of weird to think about.

Understandable. After the peak of Turtlemania its popularity took a nosedive and everyone thought the property was dead/gone forever by the end of the 90s.

The 2k3 cartoon series was seen as its return but it had a rather lukewarm reception because it was too different from FW. And by the end of its run it no longer was in the eyes of the public. And the 2007 CGI film was a mere blip in the radar.

I joined these forums some months before the Viacom sale and I remember you worrying that TMNT would die. You even said something like "a world without TMNT is not a world I want to live in.".

Yeah, the original Mirage comics already look sort of...primitive. It's going to be wild for people to go back and see those, if the TMNT are still around another forty years from now.

They looked old by the time I first came across them in the early-mid 2000s already. And I don't mean that in the sense that they're in black and white. Manga is in black and white and the vast majority of modern day manga definitely does not look old.

TMNT is just very 80s/early 90s overall.