Was "City at War" the end of ambitious storytelling for Mirage?

*DrSpengler* · 02-17-2013, 02:43 PM

I finally finished reading and reviewing "City at War" today and it really got me thinking about where the narrative of the Mirage TMNT went after this big epic finally ended.

Without the Foot Clan as an adversary hanging over their heads, the Turtles didn't have any particular direction to go in. They'd hope from one random adventure to another; beat the bad guy and wait until the next one. There was no longer any satisfying pace, directive or grand scheme.

I think maybe the fact that every single TMNT volume following Vol. 1 got cancelled early on might have had something to do with it, with every succeeding volume starting with a new creative team and a new direction, leaving the old plot threads behind.

Vol. 2 was all Lawson and he was trying to set up events and foreshadow some big stories, only to get canned after 13 issues. Vol. 3 was by Carlson and told some great stories and tried taking characters to new places, but got unceremoniously cancelled and purged from continuity after the fact. Vol. 4 was by Laird and it brought in a huge time skip and initiated new plot threads only to conclude none of them when Laird put the book on hiatus.

Meanwhile, TMNT Vol. 1, the micros and the first volume of Tales can be read as a singular microcosm that tells a complete story about the Turtles and the Foot that comes to a satisfying conclusion and ties up all its loose ends.

In order to keep things going, the stories afterwards undid all the character evolution that occurred during "City at War" and from time to time undid or worked around the truce so as to bring back Foot Clan conflict.

For casual fans, "City at War" is sort of a perfect stopping point, because the stories afterward, while many are very good, few of them offer any satisfaction and there's no longer any overarching conflict or narrative to tie it all together. Just a lot of fluctuating creative teams, character regression, false starts, early stops, prolonged hiatuses and ideas that are never allowed to bear fruit.

Basically, after "City at War", TMNT stops feeling like an indie comic and starts reading like a Big Two superhero comic for all the reasons above.

02-17-2013, 02:43 PM	#1
DrSpengler Foot Elite Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 4,842	Was "City at War" the end of ambitious storytelling for Mirage? I finally finished reading and reviewing "City at War" today and it really got me thinking about where the narrative of the Mirage TMNT went after this big epic finally ended. Without the Foot Clan as an adversary hanging over their heads, the Turtles didn't have any particular direction to go in. They'd hope from one random adventure to another; beat the bad guy and wait until the next one. There was no longer any satisfying pace, directive or grand scheme. I think maybe the fact that every single TMNT volume following Vol. 1 got cancelled early on might have had something to do with it, with every succeeding volume starting with a new creative team and a new direction, leaving the old plot threads behind. Vol. 2 was all Lawson and he was trying to set up events and foreshadow some big stories, only to get canned after 13 issues. Vol. 3 was by Carlson and told some great stories and tried taking characters to new places, but got unceremoniously cancelled and purged from continuity after the fact. Vol. 4 was by Laird and it brought in a huge time skip and initiated new plot threads only to conclude none of them when Laird put the book on hiatus. Meanwhile, TMNT Vol. 1, the micros and the first volume of Tales can be read as a singular microcosm that tells a complete story about the Turtles and the Foot that comes to a satisfying conclusion and ties up all its loose ends. In order to keep things going, the stories afterwards undid all the character evolution that occurred during "City at War" and from time to time undid or worked around the truce so as to bring back Foot Clan conflict. For casual fans, "City at War" is sort of a perfect stopping point, because the stories afterward, while many are very good, few of them offer any satisfaction and there's no longer any overarching conflict or narrative to tie it all together. Just a lot of fluctuating creative teams, character regression, false starts, early stops, prolonged hiatuses and ideas that are never allowed to bear fruit. Basically, after "City at War", TMNT stops feeling like an indie comic and starts reading like a Big Two superhero comic for all the reasons above.