Is "Turtles Forever" canon in the comics?

[Andrew NDB]

It's kind of a rhetorical question, and I guess I mean more: "Is it canon... to YOU?"

What I mean is, for example, let's say if the Turtles in TMNT Vol. 4 were to sit around and table and reminisce about their first battle with Shredder, would they go, "Oh yeah, I remember that... Leo ran him through with two swords, Don knocked him off the roof and he blew up from the grenade that went off next to him!" or would they go, "Oh yeah, I remember that... that Ch'rell Shredder showed up and pushed him off the roof! What a lame-ass!"

One problem -- if we do consider it canon -- is that it'd make the multiversal reveal in Tales Vol. 2 sort of moot.

[oldmanwinters]

Um... no. It's about as canon to me as Mark Martin's series of misadventures. You read #16 and you think... "eh... that might could fit." Then you read #22-23 and you realize, "oh no, I guess not."

[CyberCubed]

Not with the comics, but as an alternate timeline.

Anyone play the new Mortal Kombat game? Know how Sub-zero gets changed into a Cyborg instead of Smoke due to the timeline being altered?

That's how I see it. Turtles Forever altered an alternate timeline of the Mirage comics where they all join together to fight Ch'rell, but in the original timeline it is maintained.

[Thorneyeagle]

I never really considered the cartoons and comics as cannon together. Turtles forever does kind of blur that line in a way.

I kind of feel it states more that there are many versions, all "cannon" in the sense they exist.

I agree with CyberCubed aboout the alternate timelines and such. I always felt time travel a trickey thing to leave to two specific Doctors.

[DrSpengler]

I kind of avoided this discussion in the main Turtles Forever thread, but to put in my interpretation...

Nah, I don't really take it that seriously. I mean, I can see the dillemma, sure. From the POV of the Turtles Forever narrative, they were going to "Turtle-Prime": THE one and only original universe where all other Turtleverses sprang from... which pretty much insists that it WAS TMNT #1, and not an alternate version of TMNT #1 but THE TMNT #1...

But that sort of does more harm than good, so I enjoy the film and I do accept the whole multiverse as canon, but I'm content to form my own "No-Prize" to explain away discontinuity.

Wanna hear it?
OF COURSE you do!

TMNT Vol. 1 #1, AKA Turtle Prime, went along its merry way exactly as we recognize it... until Ch'rell and the other Turtles showed up and began messing with the timeline. Then Turtle Prime split off into a divergent timeline where the events of Turtles Forever ocurred, but still leaving behind a timeline where TMNT #1 as we recognize it happened.

Remember Doc Brown's chalk board explanation of divergent timelines from Back to the Future part II? Yeah, that's what I'm gettin' at.

Sloppy, yeah, but I mean really, I think this was one of those things were the writers were like "Don't think about it too hard, just have fun watching the Fred Wolf Turtles and the 4Kids Turtles team up with the Mirage Turtles."

Kinda like trying to explain how the Technodrome was modified by Ch'Rell then returned to the Fred Wolf universe where it returned to normal.

That way lies madness.

[Andrew NDB]

Or let's look at it this way... if the Turtles in Vol. 4 hopped through a dimensional gateway right now to end up in the 4Kids or Fred Wolf cartoon universes and saw those TMNT, would they go, "Hey you guys! It's been ages!" or would they say "Uh, who are you guys?"

[gobo]

Where's the "HELL no" option? O_o

[Adam]

As others have said -- and as has been talked about in that thread about Image/SD -- it can all be canon if you're dealing with multiple universes.

So... sure. Why not?

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Or let's look at it this way... if the Turtles in Vol. 4 hopped through a dimensional gateway right now to end up in the 4Kids or Fred Wolf cartoon universes and saw those TMNT, would they go, "Hey you guys! It's been ages!" or would they say "Uh, who are you guys?"

It would probably be the latter because the writers (no offense to any of them) wouldn't have spent as much time working these things out as the fans have. And then we'd have a new logical obstacle course to crack.

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Or let's look at it this way... if the Turtles in Vol. 4 hopped through a dimensional gateway right now to end up in the 4Kids or Fred Wolf cartoon universes and saw those TMNT, would they go, "Hey you guys! It's been ages!" or would they say "Uh, who are you guys?"

The way I see it; no, they probably wouldn't (unless the writer wanted them to).

If their shock and awe at the reveal of the multiverse in that COWboys issue is any indication, the Turtles Forever events ocurred in a divergent timeline from "Turtle Prime".

Diverging timelines have never really bothered me. I've viewed the Fred Wolf universe as diverging at one point; one universe goes into the Red Sky seasons while another goes into the Japanese Super Turtles OVAs. Likewise, after TMNT 3, the movie universe either goes into Next Mutation or it goes into Imagi's TMNT film (oh boy, *that* argument again).


On a related topic, though, I view the Battle Nexus from Volume 4 as being the same Battle Nexus as the one from the 4Kids cartoon. The Battle Nexus is supposed to be the meeting point of all universes, kind of like the center of a venn diagram, so I figure there's only one of those.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

On a related topic, though, I view the Battle Nexus from Volume 4 as being the same Battle Nexus as the one from the 4Kids cartoon. The Battle Nexus is supposed to be the meeting point of all universes, kind of like the center of a venn diagram, so I figure there's only one of those.

I was thinking that too, unless anyone can think of anything that would specifically contradict any Battle Nexus stuff from the 4Kids cartoon (myself, I just wasn't able to suffer into 4Kids long enough to even get to that material).

I was also thinking that -- talking about Fred Wolf now -- there'd be only one Dimension X. Dimension X is Dimension X, not Y or Z or W. So that'd be a point of unity between, say, the Fred Wolf cartoon and the Archie stuff -- one Dimension X with one Krang.

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

On a related topic, though, I view the Battle Nexus from Volume 4 as being the same Battle Nexus as the one from the 4Kids cartoon. The Battle Nexus is supposed to be the meeting point of all universes, kind of like the center of a venn diagram, so I figure there's only one of those.

As much respect as I have for you intellect, I feel you're wrong on this one...I honestly feel that if there are alternate universes, and the Battle-Nexus is a universe in and of itself...then there can be alternate Battle-Nexi.

Edit: It also depends on how you define "canon."

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ***CJJ***

As much respect as I have for you intellect, I feel you're wrong on this one...I honestly feel that if there are alternate universes, and the Battle-Nexus is a universe in and of itself...then there can be alternate Battle-Nexi.

If there is, then wouldn't it have been a roll of the dice which Battle-Nexus they'd end up in every time they traveled there?

It makes sense there'd be only one unless there's hard reasoning that there wouldn't be.

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I was also thinking that -- talking about Fred Wolf now -- there'd be only one Dimension X. Dimension X is Dimension X, not Y or Z or W. So that'd be a point of unity between, say, the Fred Wolf cartoon and the Archie stuff -- one Dimension X with one Krang.

Well, Archie's Dimension X isn't really a "dimension", but another galaxy that's oddly called a dimension for some reason.

Originally Posted by ***CJJ***

As much respect as I have for you intellect, I feel you're wrong on this one...I honestly feel that if there are alternate universes, and the Battle-Nexus is a universe in and of itself...then there can be alternate Battle-Nexi.

Edit: It also depends on how you define "canon."

It's highly possible; there's no guarantee that there's only ONE nexus point where all realities merge. Though, since there's nothing I can recall where the 4Kids and the Mirage Battle Nexi contradict one another, I'm comfertable interpretting it my way for now.

[Spitfire]

Honestly, as with almost everything turtles, what's canon and what isn't is up to the reader. It's like a pick your own adventure book. The creators have never really chimed in and told us what is or isn't canon and all this alternate universe stuff just adds confusion to the ordeal. I think a lot of the stuff you guys are discussing is logical but I don't think any of it was intended. They wanted a Battle Nexus in the Mirage books so they added one. Turtles Forever to me seems like one of those events where once it's all over everyone forgets what happened. I mean it breaks the 4th wall at the end, takes us out of the cartoon and into the real world. It's showing us that the turtles are nothing more then a creation of two men.

[DrSpengler]

Oh yeah, I don't think anybody here is arguing that. Everyone's free to pick and choose what they want to include in their own personal canon; no "permission" necessary.

We're just havin' fun.

[oldmanwinters]

Great Scott, Back to the Future logic can explain practically anything!

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I was thinking that too, unless anyone can think of anything that would specifically contradict any Battle Nexus stuff from the 4Kids cartoon (myself, I just wasn't able to suffer into 4Kids long enough to even get to that material).

The only contradiction I found was that when Mirage Leo went to the Battle Nexus, everyone was speaking gibberish until he was bitten by the magical mosquito, then all was translated. Whereas in the 4kids show, everyone just spoke English.

However, even though I hate them to hell, I like to believe that the Super Turtles that we see in Volume 4/Tales V.2 are the same guys we see in season 3 of the 4kids show.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I was also thinking that -- talking about Fred Wolf now -- there'd be only one Dimension X. Dimension X is Dimension X, not Y or Z or W. So that'd be a point of unity between, say, the Fred Wolf cartoon and the Archie stuff -- one Dimension X with one Krang.

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

Well, Archie's Dimension X isn't really a "dimension", but another galaxy that's oddly called a dimension for some reason.

Even in the Old Toon & Archie Comics, the writers seemed to be inconsistent on whether "Dimension X" was a true dimension or just another name for a galaxy in the space-time continuum.

Also see:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=18135

Also, lol, Andrew just made a serious point about the Fred Wolf cartoon without bashing it!

So is it too soon for...

Spoiler:

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

It's highly possible; there's no guarantee that there's only ONE nexus point where all realities merge. Though, since there's nothing I can recall where the 4Kids and the Mirage Battle Nexi contradict one another, I'm comfortable interpretting it my way for now.

Nothing explicit, maybe...but I am thinking that because 4Kids and Mirage are SEPARATE universes, that they'd have separate Battle Nexi (Nexuses?) as well...

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by ***CJJ***

Nothing explicit, maybe...

See my last post.