Tales of the TMNT: The Mirage Years Omnibus vol. 1

[Chaotix12345]

Great to see the first Moo Mesa crossovers collected. I know they weren't to everyone's taste, but I just love the novelty of the Turtles actually crossing paths with one of their "clones." (All thanks to the Ryan Brown connection.)

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

They're collecting the Challenges book from Michael Dooney from the 90's in this? Those stories have never been reprinted before. The story with Raph and the blind woman was adapted into Season 3 of the 4kids cartoon.

Yeah that’s a nice surprise. I still have mine, but it’ll be interesting to see them printed at full size.

They confirmed this will be 4 volumes. I wonder if they’ll have any other deep cuts in the next two. The first two volumes are both 808 pages exactly, according to their listings. This second volume gets exactly half way through Tales, and I’m assuming the fourth book will have The Third Kind and Brain Thief.

The means the third book will just have the Bad Moon Rising mini. I wonder what they’ll do to even out 4 issues worth of pages.

Personally, I’m praying for the 2007 movie prequel comics. Those all felt Tales-adjacent and haven’t been reprinted since the TPB from 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by Chaotix12345

Great to see the first Moo Mesa crossovers collected. I know they weren't to everyone's taste, but I just love the novelty of the Turtles actually crossing paths with one of their "clones." (All thanks to the Ryan Brown connection.)

Yes, that is great news. I hadn’t considered any potential rights issues coming up.

[Smithguy789]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Personally, I’m praying for the 2007 movie prequel comics. Those all felt Tales-adjacent and haven’t been reprinted since the TPB from 20 years ago.

I'm only quoting/replying to this because it's my wish as well and I want any potential IDW spies on this forum to see this.

[CyberCubed]

Yeah I noticed Raphael: Bad Moon Rising wasn't listed here, I hope they didn't forget the other 3 mini's, I forgot when the Raph one originally came out, but I know the Mike/Don ones came out at the tail-end of Tales run so they would be one the last book. And yeah, they originally skipped the first Moo Mesa crossover in the softcover Tales trades from 10+ years ago, glad to see they including it this time.

As for the movie books, they should just get their own collection. They reprinted the first and second movie books, they should reprint the third, then collect the 2007 movie prequel comics and the movie adaption into one book like Mirage did. I actually still have the Mirage collection of all the 2007 comics, it's pretty rare now. I'd put it up on ebay the second IDW announces a reprint like I did with all my other Mirage books.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Smithguy789

I'm only quoting/replying to this because it's my wish as well and I want any potential IDW spies on this forum to see this.

I was thinking about this on my long drive today, now I'm kind of doubting they'll be a part of this if they're trying to keep the 4 volumes as even as possible.

The second volume is 24 issues, plus "Challenges". If the third volume is Bad Moon Rising and #36-55, that's 24 plus maybe some rare bonus. Then the fourth would likely be #55-70, The Third Kind and Brain Thief. That makes 24 issues.

That's probably the best was the split it up. I hope they're reprinted in some other way soon though.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yeah I noticed Raphael: Bad Moon Rising wasn't listed here, I hope they didn't forget the other 3 mini's, I forgot when the Raph one originally came out, but I know the Mike/Don ones came out at the tail-end of Tales run so they would be one the last book. And yeah, they originally skipped the first Moo Mesa crossover in the softcover Tales trades from 10+ years ago, glad to see they including it this time.

As for the movie books, they should just get their own collection. They reprinted the first and second movie books, they should reprint the third, then collect the 2007 movie prequel comics and the movie adaption into one book like Mirage did. I actually still have the Mirage collection of all the 2007 comics, it's pretty rare now. I'd put it up on ebay the second IDW announces a reprint like I did with all my other Mirage books.

They didn't forget Bad Moon Rising. Tales #35 came out June 2007 and BMR #1 was July 2007.

Good point about the 2007 movie comics. Next year is the 20 year anniversary, I'd bet dollars to donuts it gets a hardcover reprint. I do hope they reuse the same cover from the old TPB, with the Mirage #1 rooftop pose.

[CyberCubed]

I'm wondering, maybe we can get the old Turtle Soups collected in these too? Those comics and their shorts have never been reprinted in anything. The 1987 issue and the 4-issue mini would make 5 issues overall, and they're a pretty big omission in IDW's reprint catalog. IDW has never reprinted them, and they feel like one of the big Mirage stuff still missing.

[ToTheNines]

Off the top of my head “Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew” was collected in an out of print TMNT/Usagi TPB and long time ago and “Donatello: The Ring” was included in Vol. 2 of those huge Mirage Compendiums that came out recently.

So IDW is aware of Turtle Soup, at least.

[Boco]

Some of the Turtle Soup stories were reprinted in that "TMNT Classics" line of TPBs IDW did. And if not there, then in Volume 6 of the Ultimate Collection (that one has "The Howl" and "Turtle Dreams" at least).

And of course one of Zulli's stories was in Turtle Soup volume 2 before IDW reprinted all of his stuff in the "Souls Winter" hardcover.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Personally, I’m praying for the 2007 movie prequel comics. Those all felt Tales-adjacent and haven’t been reprinted since the TPB from 20 years ago.

"Tales adjacent" in that they go into the garbage bin adjacent to the desk with all of your Tales comics.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

"Tales adjacent" in that they go into the garbage bin adjacent to the desk with all of your Tales comics.

Yeah, they range from “not bad” to “absolutely horrendous”. I just meant they were written by guys like Murph, “Bill Moulage”, Jake Black, etc. & drawn by guys like Ponce, Brizuela and Lawson.

Jim got done soooo dirty. 3 different inkers and one of them was truly one of the worst ink jobs I’ve ever seen in a comic.

I’m just kicking myself in the ass for selling them, since I used to own every Mirage issue, period.

[Great Hierophant]

The trouble with reprinting all the Turtle Soup stories is that some of them were not written by Mirage staffers. Mirage considered that if an independent artist contributed a TMNT story then they shared joint ownership of that story with Mirage. Mirage held the copyright and trademarks to the TMNT, the author held the copyright to the story and the artwork. Neither could republish the story without the permission of the other. For the full stories, Mirage eventually got most of the independent artists to sign retroactive work for hire contracts (but not Rick Veitch). For these short story jam issues of varying quality, it was not worth it to get exclusive rights to them. Steve Bissette's "Turtle Dreams" from Vol. 1, #1 is a rare exception.

[CyberCubed]

They also never reprinted some of the one-shot Mirage specials like, "The Haunted Pizza," "Times Pipleline," "The Maltease Turtle," and Casey Jones #1-2. They should throw these in somewhere. Maybe collect them with all the Turtle Soup stories in one big "TMNT Mirage specials" compendium or something.

I mean I never expected Dooney's Challenges of all things to be collected in a Tales collection (that book had nothing to do with Tales), so who knows.

Funnily enough Bodycount was reprinted in a hardcover collection twice, but not by IDW but Eastman's publishing label. I got the most recent Bodycount collection, I wonder if IDW is avoiding those due to the violence.

[ToTheNines]

Eastman put out the super rare one from 2008 through Heavy Metal, but the more recent one was published by Top Shelf Productions, which is just an IDW imprint.

[CyberCubed]

So basically we should be making a list of all the random old Mirage issues that IDW hasn't collected yet, or aren't planned so far. We can assume all 70 issues of Tales and the Raph/Mike/Don mini's will be collected in these collections. We can also assume Volume 4 will all get larger hardcover trades eventually after they finish putting them all out in single issues.

So the only thing IDW hasn't collected is the specials I listed above, the 4 Rich Veitch issues from Vol. 1, "Sky Highway" and "The River" trilogy, and some of the random crossovers like the Savage Dragon ones, the Gizmo and Fugitoid crossover, and some others I'm forgetting off the top of my head.

If IDW manages to get all this stuff out, we could very well get around 95% of the old Mirage material collected. And of course the 2007 movie books, and the rest of Archie hopefully.

[ToTheNines]

I was recently at a comic shop and randomly picked up one of IDW’s old colored TPB reprints of Tales just so I had something to read in the hotel and realized they have the frontpieces but not the title card/credits page.

It’s a small thing, but I hope these hardcovers bring those back. A lot of them had really beautiful art and visuals, and they worked with the frontpiece to help set the tone for the story.

[ToTheNines]

Amazon has preview pages up: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNZ3DXNT...ect=mhFallback

Survival Game seems to be missing its tones for some reason.

They're doing the original Tales frontpieces for Vol. 1, not the Treasury Edition.

Spinal Tapped randomly get put right before Vol. 2 #1. All the other backups go with their corresponding main story.

There is a pinup gallery.

[CyberCubed]

I could see them saving the Future Turtle Frontpieces for the very last Tales collection, since they take place the furthest in the timeline. Hopefully by that point someone reminds them.

[ToTheNines]

It would be kind of weird to just put them in there by themselves though. Do you think they’ll reprint volume 1 AGAIN?

[CyberCubed]

No, just throw in the 5-6 (or so) frontpieces at the end of the last collection when they get up to Tales #69-70, basically pages at the back of the book like pin-up pages. Issue 69 is a future story with an adult Shadow so it would be perfect around there. Of course, someone should e-mail/remind the editors once we get up to the last collection so they don't forget to include them. It's something only us hardcore fans would even know about or care about.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

No, just throw in the 5-6 (or so) frontpieces at the end of the last collection when they get up to Tales #69-70, basically pages at the back of the book like pin-up pages. Issue 69 is a future story with an adult Shadow so it would be perfect around there. Of course, someone should e-mail/remind the editors once we get up to the last collection so they don't forget to include them. It's something only us hardcore fans would even know about or care about.

I dunno man, those frontpieces directly reference each issue they’re introducing. They don’t really function separately from them.

And they definitely are aware of them, because they inexplicably included Spinal Tapped (a non-canon story) in a random spot here. Weird.