TMNT #20 (IDW Vol. 2) preview/discussion

[ToTheNines]

https://comicbookclublive.com/2026/0...a-turtles-300/

Out Wednesday.

There’s technically already a thread for this but I refuse to call this #300

Maybe we can use that thread to discuss the Renet “Timeline Cleanse” story?

[neatoman]

You do realise that by admitting there is already a thread, you're pretty much inviting mods to merge this one with that one, right?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by neatoman

You do realise that by admitting there is already a thread, you're pretty much inviting mods to merge this one with that one, right?

There are no mods on forums in the year 2026. Barkworm doesn't even come to this section.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

You do realise that by admitting there is already a thread, you're pretty much inviting mods to merge this one with that one, right?

Thank you for your input.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

There are no mods on forums in the year 2026. Barkworm doesn't even come to this section.

Yeah I actually banned the mods from the comics section a couple of years ago. We can do whatever we want down here.

[Heyowakka]

Michelangelo: Yeah, maybe, but they’re also toxic!

[TheLabRat]

This explain the woman in #22 cover is actually Tang Shen. However, did Tang Shen ever learn martial arts?

[Dancefloran]

The issue is not even released but we know the entire plot of issue 20 with every preview lol

Spoiler:

Stockman and Karai want the Ujigami door-knocker.
The turtles collect a birthday cake for Tang Shen's birthday, they're attacked by Stockman's Flyborgs on the way.
General Eight Thunders and Izanami give Tang Shen a dead-killing weapon.
Casey Jones visits the Hamatos, his mother came back from the dead. Tang Shen sends her back to Yomi no kuni.
The Foot (Koya, Karai, Bebop, Rocksteady) attacks the Hamato.
The Ujigami door-knocker is broken along the way, Raphael collects the eye piece.
Raphael gives the eye to Karai, in exchange of bringing back Casey's mother.
Karai doesn't respect her end of the bargain and reveals an alliance with Stockman, to Shinigami's dismay.
He created his own Ujigami device that becomes complete with the eye, he now has the coordinates of the Yomi no kuni dimension.
Karai brings back the Foot Elite of Takeshi Tatsuo from the dead, the Kamiza Shishi "High Seat Lions". They attack Raphael who escapes and survives with the help of the Hamatos.
Izanami is "killed" at some point by Karai's group.
Shinigami is assaulted by the Kamiza Shishi and sees a vision of the future (might be related to Bludgeon's vision in Mutant Nation).
The veil between the living and the dead is weaker than ever.

A big arc involving a multi-way conflict between the Hamatos, Karai's Foot, Stockman, Shinigami, Casey Jones, the Ghost Boys, General Eight Thunders, the Purple Dragons, Casey Jones, Slash, Umeko Ninjara, Shredder's EPF, the Deads and maybe more characters : begins.

All this raises a question, who gave the Ujigami mask to Splinter in the first place ? I don't think its Izanami. Is there a mastermind behind this ? Izanagi ? Or the Pantheon ?
Will The Dragon Traveler finally do something significant ?

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Heyowakka

Michelangelo: Yeah, maybe, but they’re also toxic!
https://i.imgur.com/GyoKI65.gif

lol yeah… yikes.

Originally Posted by Dancefloran

The issue is not even released but we know the entire plot of issue 20 with every preview lol

Spoiler:

Stockman and Karai want the Ujigami door-knocker.
The turtles collect a birthday cake for Tang Shen's birthday, they're attacked by Stockman's Flyborgs on the way.
General Eight Thunders and Izanami give Tang Shen a dead-killing weapon.
Casey Jones visits the Hamatos, his mother came back from the dead. Tang Shen sends her back to Yomi no kuni.
The Foot (Koya, Karai, Bebop, Rocksteady) attacks the Hamato.
The Ujigami door-knocker is broken along the way, Raphael collects the eye piece.
Raphael gives the eye to Karai, in exchange of bringing back Casey's mother.
Karai doesn't respect her end of the bargain and reveals an alliance with Stockman, to Shinigami's dismay.
He created his own Ujigami device that becomes complete with the eye, he now has the coordinates of the Yomi no kuni dimension.
Karai brings back the Foot Elite of Takeshi Tatsuo from the dead, the Kamiza Shishi "High Seat Lions". They attack Raphael who escapes and survives with the help of the Hamatos.
Izanami is "killed" at some point by Karai's group.
Shinigami is assaulted by the Kamiza Shishi and sees a vision of the future (might be related to Bludgeon's vision in Mutant Nation).
The veil between the living and the dead is weaker than ever.

A big arc involving a multi-way conflict between the Hamatos, Karai's Foot, Stockman, Shinigami, Casey Jones, the Ghost Boys, General Eight Thunders, the Purple Dragons, Casey Jones, Slash, Umeko Ninjara, Shredder's EPF, the Deads and maybe more characters : begins.

All this raises a question, who gave the Ujigami mask to Splinter in the first place ? I don't think its Izanami. Is there a mastermind behind this ? Izanagi ? Or the Pantheon ?
Will The Dragon Traveler finally do something significant ?

To your point about the Traveler, that might make some sense. There’s been a disconnect between the Aaron run and the Yang run with the ending of #12. Karai seemed to have brought Splinter back and was even laughing about it. But then Ujigami was trying to kill her and she didn’t know his identity. But maybe she wasn’t in control of her body when he came back?

Idk, very confusing.

[TheLabRat]

Originally Posted by Dancefloran

The issue is not even released but we know the entire plot of issue 20 with every preview lol

Spoiler:

Stockman and Karai want the Ujigami door-knocker.
The turtles collect a birthday cake for Tang Shen's birthday, they're attacked by Stockman's Flyborgs on the way.
General Eight Thunders and Izanami give Tang Shen a dead-killing weapon.
Casey Jones visits the Hamatos, his mother came back from the dead. Tang Shen sends her back to Yomi no kuni.
The Foot (Koya, Karai, Bebop, Rocksteady) attacks the Hamato.
The Ujigami door-knocker is broken along the way, Raphael collects the eye piece.
Raphael gives the eye to Karai, in exchange of bringing back Casey's mother.
Karai doesn't respect her end of the bargain and reveals an alliance with Stockman, to Shinigami's dismay.
He created his own Ujigami device that becomes complete with the eye, he now has the coordinates of the Yomi no kuni dimension.
Karai brings back the Foot Elite of Takeshi Tatsuo from the dead, the Kamiza Shishi "High Seat Lions". They attack Raphael who escapes and survives with the help of the Hamatos.
Izanami is "killed" at some point by Karai's group.
Shinigami is assaulted by the Kamiza Shishi and sees a vision of the future (might be related to Bludgeon's vision in Mutant Nation).
The veil between the living and the dead is weaker than ever.

A big arc involving a multi-way conflict between the Hamatos, Karai's Foot, Stockman, Shinigami, Casey Jones, the Ghost Boys, General Eight Thunders, the Purple Dragons, Casey Jones, Slash, Umeko Ninjara, Shredder's EPF, the Deads and maybe more characters : begins.

All this raises a question, who gave the Ujigami mask to Splinter in the first place ? I don't think its Izanami. Is there a mastermind behind this ? Izanagi ? Or the Pantheon ?
Will The Dragon Traveler finally do something significant ?

I agreed with these prediction. If some of these come true then IDW Raph will just become a very insufferable character because this is the second time he has become someone else's accomplice, especially knowing that Karai is their enemy.

[Dancefloran]

Originally Posted by TheLabRat

I agreed with these prediction. If some of these come true then IDW Raph will just become a very insufferable character because this is the second time he has become someone else's accomplice, especially knowing that Karai is their enemy.

Yes, it can be hard to watch characters unlearn their lessons or forgetting events

[GameCobra]

Or maybe Raph is being emotional again since Casey's mom is involved?

I haven't read the issue yet, but i give credit for Raph trying to get Casey's mom back since him and Casey usually confide in one another and Raph i'm sure knows this is Casey's sore spot and he wants to help fix it. Even if he knows better than to trust Karai.

[Dancefloran]

Well that was a cool issue !
All that's left is to enjoy the show

Spoiler:

So the mastermind was General Eight Thunders all along, I didn't see it coming !
Raphael really messed up again lol (but this time he was not motivated by anger, but empathy, poor Raph !)
Casey must be heart broken, feeling rejected by both Splinter and Tang Shen, I wonder where he'll end up.

The Renet story is a nice tribute but is very different from what people expected.

Spoiler:

I wonder if they are planning a Battle Nexus 2 story where the IDW turtles meet the Ronin Turtles. Probably once Last Ronin 3 is done. But I have no feeling about that at the moment

[TheLabRat]

It's out and yes, some of the predictions were correct. Raph has once again completely exposed his incompetence and stupidity.

Spoiler:

General Eight Thunders God is the one who give Splinter that mask because he wanted to see humanity bring about its own destruction or something. And he "killed" Izanami.

Honestly, isn't it a cliche to have the gods of the underworld do evil like a demon?

[ToTheNines]

Man, I’ve been pretty easy on the Yang run for thus far, but this was not good. I can’t quite articulate how I feel exactly, but the way the plot unfolded just felt so… inorganic. Like all the characters walking into rooms and the scene cuts just feel like BAM-BAM-BAM.

Cubed referred to the scene from a couple of issues ago with Karai fleeing the fight and cackling as feeling like an old Saturday morning cartoon, which is what I’d say about this whole issue. I dunno.

Not really looking forward to the rest of this arc at this point. But if I survived the Jason Aaron run, I can endure anything lol.

The Renet story was ok. I’ll hold my nitpicks and enjoy it for what it was, but it was certainly overhyped. My favorite part was all the different snippets of goofed up universes, especially 2012 Venus and Lady Shredder in Archie lol.

[Heyowakka]

My expectations were low and I’m still disappointed.
Why is my guy, Raphael, always written to be a complete, utter imbecile in order to get the plot moving? I know this has happened with the other turtles too, but majority of the time it feels like Raph is this comic’s favorite idiot.
And with all that hyping up the backup, I was definitely expecting something more than a slideshow of splash pages that show off older, better comics.
Oh well. The only saving grace was seeing Ben Bates’ beautiful artwork in the book again.

[neatoman]

Let's see, "anyone who used to be dead"? As in "dead" dead and not saved by time travel or alien biology or something? Does that apply to any characters aside from the three we see here?

As for those multiverse screens Renet is looking at, let's see:

• Some really odd FW like shot of Mike being tied up but I can't quite tell what's going otherwise.
• That promotional image of the 2012 Turtles with Venus photoshopped in.
• A turtle with a green mask.
• A panel from the Bebop and Rocksteady micro in which they seem to have been edited to look like a mole and a shark, I think.
• A female version of Shredder fighting an oddly Mirage looking version of the FW Splinter.
• Some depiction of Ninjara that seems off, I think it's meant to be a recreation of a Battle Nexus panel just with the classic design but I'm not sure.
• An edited shot of the Christmas Aliens episode with Klunk replacing the little girl.
• A shot of the FW turtles with all red masks.
• A depiction of what I assume is Mona Lisa if the original pitch of her being a turtle had gone through.

The rest seem fairly normal to me, which makes me wonder why these bizarro images are even in there.

[TheLabRat]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Man, I’ve been pretty easy on the Yang run for thus far, but this was not good. I can’t quite articulate how I feel exactly, but the way the plot unfolded just felt so… inorganic. Like all the characters walking into rooms and the scene cuts just feel like BAM-BAM-BAM.

It feels like they're just looking for a scapegoat to downplay the mistakes Splinter and Karai made in previous story arc.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Heyowakka

I was definitely expecting something more than a slideshow of splash pages that show off older, better comics.
Oh well.

seriously.

One nice thing I’ll say, is those mock duotones in Lawsons spread were very nice. I guess he did that himself, I didn’t see anyone else credited.

[Fenryr]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Man, I’ve been pretty easy on the Yang run for thus far, but this was not good. I can’t quite articulate how I feel exactly, but the way the plot unfolded just felt so… inorganic. Like all the characters walking into rooms and the scene cuts just feel like BAM-BAM-BAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIKIOJpz8gQ

If IDW hadn't bent over backwards forgetting how numbers work to turn this into a milestone... would anyone have cared? This run sucks. Last run sucked. The run before that sucked. Time for these Turtles to move to a farm upstate.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Dancefloran

Yes, it can be hard to watch characters unlearn their lessons or forgetting events

It's not that hard to do if you just don't read it.