FAQ for the Image/Mirage Volume 4
 

{Mod Edit: Hi! I'll be hijacking Jarrah's thread to use for the FAQ feature on the Image Comics series. Just because there's too much here to just let go to the wayside. Thankyou! ~HT ]


I really enjoyed the Image comics, they were pretty cool. I like how Donny became a cyborg (It suits his techno geek personality). It had pretty interesting stuff. However I did take a look at the first issue of Mirage Volume 4 (I was immediatly turned off by seeing the Apollo spacecraft on the moon's surface for real) and I can see that these comics completely contradics the changes the turtles went through in Image. For example Donatello is no longer a cyborg and Raphael still has both eyes.

May I ask how does this effect you? Do you hate how Image's changes have been regected or do you like that path Laird took?

I'm glad. Image had some nice ideas, but in general I didn't like it.

Image went overboard on the "Lets disfigure the Turtles!" idea. They had some good idea's, but the execution was poor.

Not again! :roll:

It only makes me pitty the writers.

Don't encourage him!

Anyway, while I did like a lot of what Image did, I don't think it should have been a part of Mirage continuum.

LOL! I agree with Kali on both accounts. :lol:

Like I said in a previous thread, Image had some awesome ideas but had poor execution. I'm glad Volume 4 didn't continue after the events in Image.

If it did, I think we can safely assume that Utroms help reverse the changes, like used their technology to regrow Donny's body or restore Splinter to his previous form :wink:

Hmm... I suppose the Oots would have the technological capabilities of healing the TMNT and Splinter from all their physical wounds. But then PL would have to deal with all of the plot bunnies introduced by Image... All those loose ends would be difficult to tie up. :embarass:

In mirage possible but not likley. quoted to donny. I dont think thats possible. It would be a cheesy way to reverse. I understand your just saying if vol 4 went after image

when mirage volume 4 came out, they wanted to undo what Image did. They consider that it was not suppose to be part of the main TMNT cominity. Archie, Image, and mirage are different forms of the TMNT universe. Just like the two series of the TMNT are different from one another. Every cartoonist and comic writer has different views on the main TMNT universe.

true, and that's a good thing IMO, but why didn't they just call it Mirage volume 3 then?

Cause Image was already trying to be a volume 3 and everyone buyin em at the time thought it was volume 3. Would feel so gyped knowing you were buying stuff that wasn't canon years later and that now the 'real' volume 3 was out.

Even with the mutilations being cured we'd still have stuff to deal with like Raph leading the Foot and other loose ends to deal with.

Perhaps Raph just... retired :lol:

Well, at the end of the Image series, Raph was no longer leading the New York Foot. It had been taken over by Lady Shredder, but that's another plot they'd need to tie up.

Maybe Lady Shredder will appear in later issues of Volume 4............

But as I reckon, volume 3 didn't start where volume 2 ended as well. Because in the end of volume 2 the turtles were all split up, and in the beginning of the first issue of volume 3 they were all living in the sewer like the events in volume 2 never happened....so I guess volume 3 is just something we should see as something out of the Mirage continuum.

She kinda has. I don't know if this was officially confirmed, but everybody figures that Lady Shredder was Karai, who at the time of Lady Shredder's appearance, had been removed from her position as leader of the Foot.

weren't they all together to celebrate their birthday or something? that would explain why they reunited in Vol 3 before all the madness started.

Two points to make:

Laird and fans slam the Image title for its over-the-top-ness, and I suspect most have never actually read the Image series.

Splinter was mutated into a Bat... and healed, ina 12 issue span. But Issue #17, he was good old rat-sensei again. Raph joined the Foot as Shredder for a sum total of 11 issues. By the last issue, he was tied up and hated by the clan, and the rest of the turtle gang had to save him. Pimiko, Shredder's daughter joined u with the turtles, while Lady Shredder took over the Foot clan, making the old rivalry legitimate again.

The turtles' injuries were to be healed by the unstable mutagen that created them (it was affecting Leatherhead during the Triceraton war arc), but the book didn't last long enough.

So the things you hated about the book were plots only, not permanent changes to the mythos. The only changes to the actual mythos, beyond character development (which is a good thing) was the reinstating of the war between the turtles and the Foot clan.

To be quite honest, even at this late date, Laird could squeeze Vol 3 into the Mirage mythos quite easily, by citing that unfnished arc about the mutagen healing the turtles, which pretty much returns the turtles to a status quo that's much more in line with Vol 4.

Second, why is it thatwhat Image did is hated, but what Laird is doing, tho similar, is revered?

Turtle falling out of a helicopter? In Image, it lead to the total revolution of Don's character! In Mirage, it led to Mikey discovering the Superhero Hospital..

Turtles taking a trip through a dinosaur exhibit in a museum? In Image, Don's on the run from Triceratons trying to take over the world! In Mirage, Mikey's taking an uppity Saurian Princess on a tour of the planet.

Splinter needs a new dynamic? In Image, he becomes a bat, plagues and terrorizes cities, is healed, then has to reflect and repent for sins he's really not responsible for committing! In Mirage, he's killed off.

I just think too many people, Laird included, are writing off a viable and rich chapter in Turtle's history (a superhero-equivalent of the changes we go through in the interim between high school kid and actual adult). Its symbolic of a big change in the turtles, that is reflected in their adult actions in Vol 4, but the events that caused that change are being ignored??

I really think Laird should just retcon it in, say that they were healed, and let it be. As a piece of literature, the turtles' mythos reads rather sparsely already. Why take away 23 issues *dedicated* to making them adults, which actually *enhances* the stories being told now, without contradicting them?

Why not? Image was very different from Mirage, weather you like it or not. When Laird decided to continue the story, why should he continue something that a writer outside Mirage wrote? Of course he likes to continue the story he has been tellling since 1984.

As for why people accept Laird's decisions over Larssons, simple. He is co-creator of the TMNT, not an outsider.