Volume 4 News!!

[Bircher]

I think it is so funny that fans always hate what is current and long for the past. In a year or so, most of the complainers will probably be longeing for the first 30 issues of TMNT v4

The cartoon series was this way, fast forward was this way (now that they are changing it again, a bunch want it to continue), I see it in other genres as well.

V4 is actually pretty good. Much better than vol 1 after Peter and Kevin left and before City at War. This volume is what I was able to hook my wife on, and she loved the stories with April being the result of a drawing (she's an artist).

I am looking forward to it being back again, and will be buying hard copies to support the work.

[Raph's Girl]

Originally Posted by Putrescent

haha I didn't even know that about wonder woman but hey yes now that you've told me that, yes I do that that's lame as hell.

Well the whole statue come to life thing is far more complicated then that. Queen Hypolita (who is kinda sorta the ORIGINAL wonder woman due to some weird time traveling) wanted a baby. Many of the Amazons who wanted kids carved them from wood and pretended they were real (which was recently revealed in the current Wonder Woman comics). Hypolita went even further. She made a clay statue of a baby and asked the gods to bring it to life. Which they did by infusing the statue with the soul of an unborn child from thousands of years ago (Hyppolyta had been a cavewoman in a past life who was killed by her husband. )

Funny thing tho is that Diana's birth wasn't revealed till like the 100th issue of the original WW book.

And reading Wikipedia I see that all the Amazons were statues braught to life by the gods (aren't reboots fun? ).... *blinks*

[R-iZZy]

Originally Posted by Raph's Girl

April's origin is lame yes but having her be a drawing come to life is really no different than Wonder Woman's origin (a statue come to life). Do people think Wonder Woman's origin is lame? Nope...well..maybe in the beginning but we're all used to it now.

Comic book logic is never logical. Neither is comic book magic. All April's origin did really was give a background for Kirby's pencil. Altho we don't know where the stone originated from (just that April's dad got it at some auction). I'd like to know the origin of the crystal! Maybe there's something neat to that that brings more things together....like it belonged to an Utrom named Krang or something.

Just because it's no different, doesn't make it good. I wasn't even aware of Wonder Woman's origin. But thanks to that tidbit, I'd have to say that's pretty lame too. But then again, that's just the Amazonian culture (or so it sounds like), so I can see why that would be accepted eventually. April's origin was just some random dumb arc because Laird wanted to make the franchise more sci-fi rather than what it used to be.

It's almost like Laird is saying, "Hey, let's take something my original fans loved and do something completely different with it, not taking into account of how poorly this might be received." I bought the first volume because point-blank, we got the brothers doing their thing in ninja action. That was what we loved. Now we're getting some Sci-Fi channel movie script with the Turtles being planted in.

As for the crystal ordeal, I don't think it needed that great of a role to begin with. That crystal was simply to tie in a tribute to Jack Kirby, which I thought was brilliant. It never played a major role in the TMNT universe before, so I don't see why it had to now [and especially in the way that it did].

You have to excuse me, I just have to keep venting, because my thorough disappoint for volume four still never died down. I know a few vets on this board saw exactly what I see, and they quit the series altogether. I'm still too much of a hopeful for the Turtles to quit. But perhaps even I'll reach that point and just stick to the new Tales of the TMNT series. That title is the closest thing we have to volume 1, and I think it's doing a fantastic job!

[Roseangelo]

Building on what R-iZZy said, I see April's pencil origin as being just another kick in the face to what Eastman contributed to the series/characters. Peter has a narcissistic need to put his own personal stamp on everything and this was him doing it to April. Since the Kirby pencil was Peter's concept/idea, that's what he used.

Issue 22 isn't even written well if you aren't completely repulsed by the content. It's long-winded and is obviously trying to be deep and thought-invoking... but it just fails. I figured out where it was going within the first few pages and there was just way too much text left in the comic before it actually got to that conclusion.

I also know handfuls of HUGE TMNT fans who gave up on the comic because of Vol. 4 and especially #22. But it's painfully obvious that what the fans think doesn't matter one bit at all. Not even just as far as the comic is concerned, but with all things TMNT. TMNT would be so much more successful in general if someone were asking us what we wanted and actually listened. Then we might actually get stories about ninjas instead of all the sci-fi & dinosaur alien crap.

[CyberCubed]

The thing is, if Pete wraps up Volume 4 and assumingly all the plotlines he's been doing...then how likely are we in getting another comic after that?

Even if a new creative team pitches a "Volume 5," Pete is still going to review and/or reject their ideas, so whatever the case the comics will still follow his guidelines.

And either way, Volume 4 is never going to be "retconned" like Image was, so aliens would still reside on the Earth even if a Volume 5 takes place afterward with a new creative team. So whether Volume 4 ends or not, everything that happened is forever going to be canon.

[Andrew NDB]

Just speculation, but in everything talking about Laird wrapping up Volume 4 implies some kind of "ending," likely for the whole Mirage TMNT. Whether or not he'll allow things like Tales of the TMNT to continue, though, is another matter.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Roseangelo

TMNT would be so much more successful in general if someone were asking us what we wanted and actually listened.

See, this is something I'm never going to be able to agree on. Turning to the fans and basically asking them what they want to see written is just never the way to go, really in any fandom. Often times the best thing in good comic book writing is not giving the fans exactly what they want (and if you think about it, how fun would that be, really?)... but rather giving them what they didn't even know they wanted, and it working.

Of course, that's really not the case here, to be fair. The situation here is... Laird is giving fans what they didn't know they wanted... but what they didn't know they wanted is so out there and unlike what's come before that they just don't care/have little interest in it. And it's not even laid out in concise story arcs or anything... it's just one ongoing story arc of story arcs that never seem to wrap up anything satisfactorily.

But I'm not even sure I'd want Laird to look to the fans. If he grabs a handful of your average, active TMNT fans right now here on the forum, half of them would probably say, "I want you to bring in Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang! Why can't you do that??", a quarter of them might like the sci-fi oddity stuff just fine, leaving only a quarter of so of fans that may actually be interested in what you or I would want to see in Volume 4. I bet you 99% of the fans that were very much into the Mirage Ninja Turtles gave up on the whole thing a long time ago and never looked back (or have no idea there's even still a comic going on).

It's a can of worms you just don't want to open up. Better or worse, I'd just like to see Laird wrap up TMNT the way he sees fit... and let history judge whether it sucks or has any merit. Hopefully down the line this can be learned from.

Then we might actually get stories about ninjas instead of all the sci-fi & dinosaur alien crap.

Or we might get Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang, and Pizza Monsters.

[Roseangelo]

No, fans should not have any real control.. that's dangerous territory.

But fans gave high praise to Tristan's Tale of the TMNT and what happened? The follow-up to that got shot down with no explanation.

Look at what people have had to say about the Archie series/Forever War on Murphy's blog in the last week, yet even though TFW will be seeing print, Archie TMNT is still seen as a lower form of life in the eyes of Laird.

He approved the Overload idea, yet look at the virtually universal outcry of anger that erupted when we found out what almost became of next season.

That's what I mean when I say we deserve to be listened to, and that's not happening. But no, fans shouldn't actually be involved in the creative process.

[tOkKa]

-->> i don't want TMNT to go away as a comic..

.. V.4 is crazy ..

but i don't want it to disappear..

.. my heart is sinking..

[Mr._Mutant_Man]

Originally Posted by Roseangelo

Nope, Image is far superior to Volume 4.

Volume 4 must really suck then, because I have the Image trade and have never been able to get more than an issue and a half into it. It just completely reeks of 90's comic trends/cliches.

Seeing as it was an Image comic, I probably shouldn't have been surprised by that. It was their characters that sort of inspired the DC comic Kingdom Come.

[xZAOx]

On the official site, Dan said that Peter was putting together the next issue of Volume 4, and is accepting letters emailed to [email protected]. So have fun

[Lord Nightwalker]

I have no desire to see the TMNT comics fade away into the night, and forgoton. There's so much untapped potential, and They realy could work in any genre, It's all in how you go about it. Look at AVP, Or Star Wars, They both share warrior aspects similar to TMNT, and are incredibly different animals. Animals that have transcended Genere and done fairly decent.
I gotta have my TMNT. Gotta. Or I'll end up making my own to fill the gap. That's how my fan fic, I still haven't finished, got started.