Casey Jones Spinoff, Annual 2025 and Peter Laird's return

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Yeah, they could have met up with Shadow's biological gangster family, an alleged daughter of Shredder, a Komodo mutant and a seemingly living version of Karai's daughter but it sure as hell is weird that none of it is mentioned or comes back if it actually did happen.

There is literally nowhere in Vol. 4 where referencing any of those things would really make any sense. And it's not like Tales V2 didn't add tons of "big" stories in between (chronologically) Vol. 1 issues, and it's not like the Vol. 1 or 2 or 4 issues afterward ever reference anything there.

Originally Posted by DK2

I have doubts we'll get a conclusion to this series via new issues from Peter and Jim. IDW would've said this by now. Urban Legends/vol. 3 reprints they said right from the start it'd lead to all new concluding issues. We've not heard this regarding Journeys reprints. But in that it article also states a new TMNT series coming up too. Could this be it by chance possibly? A separate series to conclude vol 4 instead?

Jeeze, maybe. Probably if Peter's got the Vol. 4 bug again, he might figure (or have been convinced) that the best way to go about it would be to not to just do his conclusion as more normal sequential issues... but a big event, and not self-published but through IDW where it will get the biggest possible audience. And possibly with Kevin's help. We could even be looking at a possible Vol. 5.

Though yeah, it is very weird they wouldn't lead with news about a conclusion with all of this if that was happening. Maybe the general idea is that those talks are still happening or will happen, and there's plenty of time to figure it out before IDW hits the last of the pre-existing Vol. 4 comics.

[CyberCubed]

Now all IDW needs to do is collect the 70 issues + mini's of Tales v. 2. Unlike Vol. 4 they likely won't put out individual issues of this, so hopefully they can do it in about 3 or 4 collections.

If they do that then IDW has collected almost all of the Mirage run besides a lot of the one-off specials and mini-series here and there like Turtle Soup and stuff like that.

[Andrew NDB]

I'd love to see like 10 "real" volumes of omnibuses that take the DrSpengler timeline and release ALL Mirage TMNT comics (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Tales V1, Tales V2, all canon specials and backups) where they would fit chronologically. Like 10 big fat books that tell the whole story in order. THAT, I would buy the sh** out of.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

If it just comes down to you liking the story and wanting to assume that happened, sure, you can do that if you want to. I like the Mark Martin issues but I'm not going to sit here and claim that the time travel adventures of toddler and Splinter getting up Looney Tunes shenanigans with another humanoid rat should be treated as if it happened just because it technically could fit.

That’s a pretty big false equivalence.

The Mark Martin stuff is all stand-alone. The Image run takes story lines from #1, RTNY, City at War, volume 2 (and more) and organically expands on them. Then volume 4 picks up a decade later. You don’t see much dialogue about what happened in that 10 year gap, but there was assuredly more adventures then too.

In my experience, most people who say it’s non-canon just haven’t read it. It certainly sounds crazy in summary, but once you read it it’s really quite at home with the rest of Mirage. Especially when paired with either conclusion.

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Taking into account the Original Vol. 3 conclusion (which I maintain is better than the Official one), Vol. 3 adds a lot to the overall tapestry of the story. It's chock full of character development, especially for Raphael, and it pays off a bunch of threads set up by Volume 2, which otherwise go unfulfilled. Also, it's just a darn good story.

Beyond that, I think the standard of how much later stories reference it is somewhat less relevant, because applying that standard, there's a LOT of stories from volume 1, 2, and Tales that we shouldn't bother with, because the Turtle's whole schtick, beside the ninja and cycle of revenge thing, is randomly getting swept up into random fantasitc adventures that come and go and then no one talks about. But it's still something that happened, and it's still something that can inform about the characters. Not every day in anyone's life is always relevent to the overall course, but it's still experience that's a part of it.

All great points. Well said.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

There is literally nowhere in Vol. 4 where referencing any of those things would really make any sense. And it's not like Tales V2 didn't add tons of "big" stories in between (chronologically) Vol. 1 issues, and it's not like the Vol. 1 or 2 or 4 issues afterward ever reference anything there.

Again, literally no different than the Gang Wars arc everyone loves so much.

Jeeze, maybe. Probably if Peter's got the Vol. 4 bug again, he might figure (or have been convinced) that the best way to go about it would be to not to just do his conclusion as more normal sequential issues... but a big event, and not self-published but through IDW where it will get the biggest possible audience. And possibly with Kevin's help. We could even be looking at a possible Vol. 5.

I’m praying this is the case. If they go the Urban Legends route… we’re looking at April 2028 before #33 would hit the shelves.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

That’s a pretty big false equivalence.

The Mark Martin stuff is all stand-alone. The Image run takes story lines from #1, RTNY, City at War, volume 2 (and more) and organically expands on them. Then volume 4 picks up a decade later. You don’t see much dialogue about what happened in that 10 year gap, but there was assuredly more adventures then too.

In my experience, most people who say it’s non-canon just haven’t read it. It certainly sounds crazy in summary, but once you read it it’s really quite at home with the rest of Mirage. Especially when paired with either conclusion.

Canon doesn't mean "Can it fit?" or even "Does it continue existing threads?", it means "Is it officially in continuity?". Laird said it wasn't officially in continuity, so it's not canon, it's really that simple. I picked the Mark Martin issues as an example because they can fit despite their official non-canonicity, but also because I know that hardly anyone will argue that they canon despite that since they're so absurd. Yeah, they don't follow continuity with previous stories but they can technically fit.

Of course, following continuity doesn't actually qualify it for canon status either, most pre-Disney Star Wars material outside of the movies do follow continuity and the major snags were often corrected but it was still declared non-canon when Disney stepped in. Hell, I'm pretty sure a lot of that stuff can technically still fit even after Disney made their own bullshit they somehow thought people would like better, but it's still not considered canon. And I'm pretty sure that until Prey, every Predator movie was written as if the first one was the only previous movie, but you likely wouldn't know unless you were told because there isn't much in terms of contradictions between these movies. Outside of the Image run, we can argue about the other guest issues as well. Did the Leo kill the embodiment of Mammal Dominance just because they talked about their previous visit to the Dinosaur Era in that story? Did Savanti really have a vengeful wife because that one story referenced the TCRI incident and the Rat King story? These could also fit but I'm not so sure it's worth it to say they do since they seemingly had no real impact going forward.

Just because you declare something to be non-canon doesn't mean you actually intend to explicitly contradict it, it just don't intend to treat it as relevant.

Then there is of course the elephant in the room that there are in fact Tales issues and minis that do in fact take place in the gap between volumes 2 and 4, about 35 issues or so. While I'm not going to compare and contrast right now (I might later just to make sure if this is a valid point), I'm pretty sure there are plenty of opportunities for contradictions right there. Even if the Image run does roughly fit despite its irrelevance and these other stories don't seem like they would be a problem in the broad strokes, a detailed look might reveal that isn't really the case. Like I said, I haven't done that so I don't know how valid this point really is, but it's worth keeping in mind the possibility for serious problems do exist even if it might not seem like it at a glance.

[AlZarkovski]

For me personally, the main problem with the canonicity of Volume 3 is that characters from other Image comics were added to it - Savage Dragon, Saara, etc. If all these characters exist in the world of the Mirage Universe, then this does not correspond to the plots and lore of Volumes 1, 2, 4 and Tales.

[AlZarkovski]

'TMNT' Spinoff Series 'Casey Jones' Set for Release This Fall:

https://www.newsweek.com/entertainme...s-fall-2072503

[Demon-Alukard]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I'd love to see like 10 "real" volumes of omnibuses that take the DrSpengler timeline and release ALL Mirage TMNT comics (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Tales V1, Tales V2, all canon specials and backups) where they would fit chronologically. Like 10 big fat books that tell the whole story in order. THAT, I would buy the sh** out of.

Something like that) But yeah, sorry, it's only on Russian.

[Andrew NDB]

Oh OK, lol.

"Is it going to be the big TMNT Vol. 4 conclusion event??? Is it going to be Vol. 5? Something else, with Peter and Kevin?!!"

No, it's going to be a Casey Jones series in the IDW continuity.

Originally Posted by AlZarkovski

For me personally, the main problem with the canonicity of Volume 3 is that characters from other Image comics were added to it - Savage Dragon, Saara, etc. If all these characters exist in the world of the Mirage Universe, then this does not correspond to the plots and lore of Volumes 1, 2, 4 and Tales.

That's a dumb reasoning. Even before Vol. 3 came out there was already Mirage and Image-published Savage Dragon crossovers that featured those characters with the Mirage TMNT. So even if Vol. 3 never came out, those characters were already a thing in Mirage.

[AlZarkovski]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That's a dumb reasoning. Even before Vol. 3 came out there was already Mirage and Image-published Savage Dragon crossovers that featured those characters with the Mirage TMNT. So even if Vol. 3 never came out, those characters were already a thing in Mirage.

Not dumb - in that case, these crossovers are also non-canon, that's all.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by AlZarkovski

Not dumb - in that case, these crossovers are also non-canon, that's all.

I don't see how. There was literally a Mirage Savage Dragon crossover, and then later on an issue of Savage Dragon that directly referenced that and continued from it. And vice versa.

Of course, the fact that the Mirage TMNT have dipped their toe into Image doesn't mean for a second to me that we must consider everything in the Image universe is now canon to the Mirage TMNT. The Image universe isn't even really much of a cohesive universe to begin with, with a lot of guys coming into it and then leaving later on anyway and taking their characters with them.

[Zog The Magnificent]

Better argument, they crossed over with Cerebus once, and not only is that issue wholly canon, but it isn't even part of a larger universe. It's just another stand alone comic. If that crossover is canon, there's really no good reason to believe the others aren't other than "I have decided they are not." And if they are canon, then they can't be used to later preclude the Image run from being canon.

Though there are long running plots, large swaths of Mirage TMNT are pretty episodic. And when it comes to anything that's episodic, you should not expect that later episodes will extensively talk about or reference previous episodes that don't have anything to do with what's happening in that later chunk of time. Vol. 3 isn't talked about in Vol. 4. Fine. Neither is the vast majority of Tales, or even issues from Vol. 1, like some of the Northampton stuff, or the River Trilogy, which is considered "non-canon" only because of legal reasons, but which was fully intended to be canon when it was written..

If nothing is contradicted, then there's no reason not to include it, especially if it's a good story. Why wouldn't you want that? The more good stories there are, the better the overall whole gets. Including the Image run bumps up the Mirage grade point average by quite a bit. Even if Vol. 3 isn't talked about later, it makes a richer world to know it happened.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Canon doesn't mean "Can it fit?" or even "Does it continue existing threads?", it means "Is it officially in continuity?". Laird said it wasn't officially in continuity, so it's not canon, it's really that simple. I picked the Mark Martin issues as an example because they can fit despite their official non-canonicity, but also because I know that hardly anyone will argue that they canon despite that since they're so absurd. Yeah, they don't follow continuity with previous stories but they can technically fit.

Of course, following continuity doesn't actually qualify it for canon status either, most pre-Disney Star Wars material outside of the movies do follow continuity and the major snags were often corrected but it was still declared non-canon when Disney stepped in. Hell, I'm pretty sure a lot of that stuff can technically still fit even after Disney made their own bullshit they somehow thought people would like better, but it's still not considered canon. And I'm pretty sure that until Prey, every Predator movie was written as if the first one was the only previous movie, but you likely wouldn't know unless you were told because there isn't much in terms of contradictions between these movies. Outside of the Image run, we can argue about the other guest issues as well. Did the Leo kill the embodiment of Mammal Dominance just because they talked about their previous visit to the Dinosaur Era in that story? Did Savanti really have a vengeful wife because that one story referenced the TCRI incident and the Rat King story? These could also fit but I'm not so sure it's worth it to say they do since they seemingly had no real impact going forward.

Just because you declare something to be non-canon doesn't mean you actually intend to explicitly contradict it, it just don't intend to treat it as relevant.

Ok, let me start by getting this out of the way: “canon” is an abstract concept and fictional universes aren’t real.

So with that said, when Image was publishing TMNT in the 90’s, it was canon. Mirage asked Erik Larsen to do a TMNT book and he did with their complete blessing, but not their involvement.

It wasn’t until Peter revived TMNT in 2001 that he came out and said he wasn’t continuing that story.

So as far as Peter is concerned, it’s not canon. That certainly carries a lot of weight, considering he’s both the creator of TMNT as well as the writer of volume 4. But I’m willing to bet Peter also doesn’t consider most of the back half of Tales volume 2 canon either, and I don’t see anyone debating their continuity status. Peter has also said The River isn’t canon, which I would say is crazy to think.

But with Nickelodeon/IDW now in charge of publishing official TMNT comics, they went ahead and put out 3 new issues of the Image run written by the original writer with the intention to close the story out in a way that jives with volume 4/the rest of Mirage.

So it’s up to reader. Read it or skip it. But I think it’s a mistake to omit it. It’s a great story. (It always was a great story. But now that it has a real ending, it’s even better.)

Then there is of course the elephant in the room that there are in fact Tales issues and minis that do in fact take place in the gap between volumes 2 and 4, about 35 issues or so. While I'm not going to compare and contrast right now (I might later just to make sure if this is a valid point), I'm pretty sure there are plenty of opportunities for contradictions right there. Even if the Image run does roughly fit despite its irrelevance and these other stories don't seem like they would be a problem in the broad strokes, a detailed look might reveal that isn't really the case. Like I said, I haven't done that so I don't know how valid this point really is, but it's worth keeping in mind the possibility for serious problems do exist even if it might not seem like it at a glance.

None of the Tales conflict with it. We know they were 17 during CaW, which spanned a winter into the following year. Volume 2 starts shortly after #62 and only spanned a few days.

Gang Wars starts a little later and takes place before they turn 18. Honestly Gang Wars (and what we have to imagine was the ending of that arc) being so close to the start of Volume 3 is the clunkiest thing, but it still works.

Then we know they’re 18 in volume 3 #1 and 19 years old in #23. There’s a few Tales that take place near this era (see “Mirage volume 3” on Spengler’s timeline), but none of them indicate their specific age or contradict Image in any way.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That's a dumb reasoning. Even before Vol. 3 came out there was already Mirage and Image-published Savage Dragon crossovers that featured those characters with the Mirage TMNT. So even if Vol. 3 never came out, those characters were already a thing in Mirage.

Good point!

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

So with that said, when Image was publishing TMNT in the 90’s, it was canon. Mirage asked Erik Larsen to do a TMNT book and he did with their complete blessing, but not their involvement.

I mean, they (Peter himself alone, really) DID have to approve each issue and would often give notes. If memory serves, "maybe Splinter should get killed right away" was a Mirage suggestion. Which they didn't even end up doing.

So the idea that Gary and Frank and Erik were just doing their own thing over in the corner with Peter/Mirage completely oblivious to what they were doing is completely false.

[ToTheNines]

Yeah, I guess I should have said “direct involvement”.

But it was absolutely a Mirage-approved series.

[CyberCubed]

I don't see the big deal about crossovers, you don't have to acknowledge the entire other characters universe happens in TMNT (as in all the Savage Dragon comics, all the Cerebus comics, etc.), you can just say the crossover happens and ignore what happens in their own series. It has pretty much always been like that.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Ok, let me start by getting this out of the way: “canon” is an abstract concept and fictional universes aren’t real.

In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, "ToTheNines" is a secret IMJ-alt account.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by IMJ

In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, "ToTheNines" is a secret IMJ-alt account.

Would be so funny if we both got banned for this post haha

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Would be so funny if we both got banned for this post haha

Other mods would have jumped at the first opening as an excuse. Barkworm's brain works.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Other mods would have jumped at the first opening as an excuse. Barkworm's brain works.

Damn, no joke. Big reason I quit posting here for a long time.