TMNT: Saturday Morning Adventures #1. Preview and discussion

[AlZarkovski]

First look:

Spoiler:

[neatoman]

Pointing out that it makes no sense for April to report on the weather when that tends to be a specialised position... I can see where this might be heading.

[Chaotix12345]

Dialogue seems on-point for the universe, save for the use of the usual nicknames. (Only Mikey was used exactly once in the '87 show. Other 99% of the time it was full names.) Love the nod to the Arcade game.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Chaotix12345

Dialogue seems on-point for the universe, save for the use of the usual nicknames. (Only Mikey was used exactly once in the '87 show. Other 99% of the time it was full names.) Love the nod to the Arcade game.

Also, I don't think Splinter ever dropped the "my sons" line in the show.

[Chaotix12345]

Yeah, "My Turtles" was his verbiage of choice since the whole family aspect wasn't really a thing in that show.

[Coola Yagami]

The art style is kinda... idk... trying too hard?

I always wonder if they get consultants for this sort of thing. Raph seems a bit more 2K3-ish and less 80's with his dialogue with how he's antagonizing Leo.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Pointing out that it makes no sense for April to report on the weather when that tends to be a specialised position... I can see where this might be heading.

This is a consistent thing I've always noticed, people who work outside of TV or newspaper media apparently have no idea how it works. So therefore April can be a reporter OR a weather girl so long as "She stands in front of a camera and talks" remains consistent. But this is a very common error.

Some people cite Clark's role at the Daily Planet in BvS as another example of the "nobody knows how a reporter's job works" error, since at one point Perry just casually tells him "You're on Sports today" when that too is generally a specialized position... but the loophole in that is that Clark was hired at the paper as a "stringer" and the paper was notoriously going broke, so it's actually not inconceivable that an editor like Perry would send a low-level freelancer like Kent on such a paint-by-numbers assignment as reporting on a football game. What's more implausible in that example is that Kent would still have such a low-level position after working there for a year. But that's a whole other can of worms.

Anyway yeah, I always chuckle when people misrepresent how a reporter's job actually works. I've seen more egregious examples than this, though. Let's be honest, FW April probably got her start as a weather girl anyway.
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I like the art, I actually think that's the best that the FW TMNT have ever looked outside of the opening animation intro. None of the merchandise or stock art or other comics have ever looked that sharp, I really dig it. FW Style isn't my preferred look but I do like it when it's done well and I think this is really good. It's not "just like the cartoon" but is in fact a lot better.

[Ninjinister]

Nice nod with the select screen.

Isn't this a little early for a preview?

[AquaParade]

That preview was really...boring.

I guess it's not for me, but I'll enjoy looking at the covers.

[Andrew NDB]

My suspicion is that this will more than likely be a situation where "be careful what you wish for" and once the novelty of it wears off in 4-6 issues, that'll be that. But whatever. If people enjoy it why not? Let's bring back Fred Wolf as a cartoon and all, too, and see if it survives or fails in 2022. Let's do it, and then finally get it out of their system.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

My suspicion is that this will more than likely be a situation where "be careful what you wish for" and once the novelty of it wears off in 4-6 issues, that'll be that. But whatever. If people enjoy it why not? Let's bring back Fred Wolf as a cartoon and all, too, and see if it survives or fails in 2022. Let's do it, and then finally get it out of their system.

It's only a 4 issue mini-series: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/now-...omic-from-idw/

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by hypered1

It's only a 4 issue mini-series: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/now-...omic-from-idw/

I think he might be talking about the possibility of extending it.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

That preview was really...boring.

I guess it's not for me, but I'll enjoy looking at the covers.

I mean isn't the preview/story kinda obvious? They're gonna enter the VR, lighting strikes, suddenly it's a case of 'if we die in VR we die in real life' while facing all their enemies.

The dialogue does worry me. I do hope at least one person on the team watched the show. Like, would the Turtles even remember Tokka and Rahzar by name? I get the feeling they're gonna act like they faced Groundchuck and Dirtbag a zillion times or some nonsense.

Also... not too crazy of the way the turtles 'talk' in the comic. If you notice they have almost the same same facial/mouth expression in almost every panel except or the one or two times they open their mouths 'all the way'.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Also, I don't think Splinter ever dropped the "my sons" line in the show.

He did in at least 2-3 episodes, I noticed it on my last bi-annual marathon of all 193 episodes of the show.

[ZariusTwo]

Looks alright, it's a bit mouthy though, I'd have condensed a good deal of that preview into one page.

[AlZarkovski]

Full preview.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by AlZarkovski

Full preview.

I really like the mock [turtle?] title page!
https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/...rnadv_01-pr-2/

[Chaotix12345]

Loved the Tournament Fighters nod in this one. Tiny weird inconsistencies aside (the nickname thing, Donnie saying "dudes" unless that was a subtle gag relating to one Turtle speaking another's line, Casey being implied as being as chummy towards the guys as April,) this felt like a pretty genuine '87 TMNT episode and I could definitely hear the OG voices in my head while reading it. (Especially Raph's little comments.) They definitely went deep with the villain selection. Even Smash and the Turtle Terminator got in! (Wonder how many more casual readers will be confused over Irma being among the baddies? XD)

[neatoman]

It was alright, definitely has the "Fred Wolf cartoon as you remember it, not as it was" vibe. Not a great story by any means but more or less what I can expect from this. It's kind of like the 2012 tie-in comics IDW also made, in that it's obviously not designed to be much more than pointless side-stories that aren't meant to be expanded upon. And this first story for the mini-series is literally just " Turtles play a video game and face off against fake versions of their enemies", it's not bad per se but it's hardly the most satisfying thing they could done.

Can't quite decide if it a worse choice here or in the Nick Tie-Ins though. I get appeal of this sort of thing being the "off-screen adventures" of the cartoon characters rather than just the "adventures of a similar but clearly distinct version of the characters" but it is kind of limiting and for all it's faults, I doubt the Archie comic would have been nearly as well remembered if it didn't do it's own thing. With the 2012 tie-ins, it was tied to an ongoing show, so the result was that most of those stories were especially pointless, so I'm convinced that they really should have just ignored the show entirely. Here I'm not so sure, on one hand it's a tie-in to a show that has been off the air for 26 years and probably won't ever get a proper revival, so clearly they don't need to worry about the show eventually contradicting it, it's not going to happen. Which does mean they can make somewhat more interesting stories but that also means they could just have the series take place after season 10 and do whatever the hell they wanted. I'm not even sure anyone would have cared if these comics replaced season 2 and just did they're own thing from there, that almost the exactly what the Archie series did.

Then there is the homage to Tournament Fighters... Makes me wonder if it would have been too "off-brand" to put Karai, War, Aska, Armaggon, Hothead or Ray Fillet in this comic?

[CyberCubed]

Yeah as a story itself it was fine and the art was good.

But it still doesn't "feel" like an episode of the original cartoon would be. I understand writers of today don't really know what the original cartoon really was, even the dialogue has to be a certain way. For example here Leonardo seemed way too serious and into training, in the original show he wouldn't be like that outside maybe a few episodes. Some inconsistencies with using nicknames too like, "Donnie" and so forth.

It's mostly a comic tie-in to Shredder's Revenge and the Cowabunga Collection, so basically the Konami universe based on the OT, rather than the original series itself.