The TMNT Mirage Continuity Timeline (complete?)

[John Pannozzi]

Originally Posted by thingy

I was just flicking through the Turtle Soup issues and wondered could "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" from #4 be included in the timeline?
Quick summary: Mikey is reading comics, has strange dream, wakes up. OK his comic pile includes TMNT and Usagi but it seems like it could fit during one of the Living with April years (as it takes place in an apartment).

I second this. Also, there's the story "King for a Day" from the Collected Gizmo TPB, which stars Gizmo, but Renet has a major supporting role, so I think it should be added.

[DrSpengler]

I own the Viking Heroes crossovers but haven't read them yet, which is why I haven't added that one to the timeline since it's part of the Viking Heroes crossovers (I think?).

I'll review those next, I guess, and then add em if need be.


As for "King for a Day", yeah, sure. If I'm gonna include Gizmo & the Fugitoid which only features a crossover with a supporting TMNT character, I might as well include "King for a Day", too.

[John Pannozzi]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

I own the Viking Heroes crossovers but haven't read them yet, which is why I haven't added that one to the timeline since it's part of the Viking Heroes crossovers (I think?).

I'll review those next, I guess, and then add em if need be.


As for "King for a Day", yeah, sure. If I'm gonna include Gizmo & the Fugitoid which only features a crossover with a supporting TMNT character, I might as well include "King for a Day", too.

Cool.

I would place "King for a Day" before the Gizmo & Fugitoid miniseries, simply because it was published first, and thus we can assume it also took place first.

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

Yeah, in the story Myzoko challenges Splinter and Splinter spends the first few pages studying how to astral project. When he confronts Myzoko on the astral plane, Myzoko is impressed he could learn such an advanced technique so quickly.

Myzoko doesn't know that Splinter has any connection to the Foot, as when they fight, Myzoko is surprised to see Splinter using Foot techniques and gets confused.

At the end, we learn that the Foot Mystics sent Myzoko to challenge Splinter as an initiation test, but they only refer to Splinter as "the rat". I guess there's no telling if they knew Splinter's connection to their clan prior to that or not, but Splinter seems to be under the belief that the Foot don't know he exists at the start of the story (when Myzoko challenges him, he's upset that the Foot have found him out).


Honestly, I think the reason the continuity in this story is so confused is because it was originally written as a pitch to the Dreamwave TMNT comic based on the 4Kids cartoon and Murphy didn't really adapt it enough for the Mirage universe when rewriting it for Tales.

Reread it earlier and it looks like you're right (also, I kind of like the coloring job it has in the new Tales collections?).

However -- I also think it's flexible enough on all those points to fit comfortably in several different spots. It could at least easily be after Vol. 1 #9, as Splinter is guided in that story by Hattori's ancestor as well, and not doing anything nearly as complex as the astral-realm fighting he's doing against Myzoko, which could be the sorts of techniques he's studying. (This plays a little bit better with the Turtles' designs; they've lost the skull-cap bandanas by the time of Tales #2). If not for previous forays into the astral realm in some capacity, how would Myzoko even be aware of him? (I suppose he could have just found him in his astral journeys, but it makes for an odd "initiate challenge" in that case.)

Wasn't aware about the Dreamwave bit. That's interesting.

[DrSpengler]

Yeah, it was one of those details I wrestled with a bit. The skullcap vs strip bandanas really make placing Tales #2 after TMNT #9 unwieldy, and I like your rationalization that astral plane fighting was a more advanced technique. In the end, though, I didn't want to do too much gap-filling with my own imagination and had to go with what was on the printed page, which said it was Splinter's first time astral projecting. I just have to write it off as one of those incongruities, personally.

I'd have to go through the letters pages, but I'm also pretty sure Murphy gave a placement for it and had it happening way down the line like after Return to New York or something. I can't recall that well-enough to confirm, though.

When I'm done with Tales Vol. 2, I plan to go through every letters page of every issue to glean out all the little trivia notes and add them to the Turtle Tips section of each review.

That'll be a grind in and of itself, so I'm gonna wait until I'm at a solid breaking point to dive into it.

[John Pannozzi]

Well, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" is seemingly set in the Viking Heroes universe, so I guess it doesn't fit in with the Mirage timeline.

But "King for a Day" and TMNT vol. 4 #32 should still be added to the timeline ASAP, even if Spengs doesn't review them until later on.

[jase]

Wouldn't the Michaelangelo (micro-series) one-shot be better placed right above the Leonardo (micro-series) one-shot? Tales Vol.1 #3 is set during Halloween and would definately not be between them.

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by jase

Wouldn't the Michaelangelo (micro-series) one-shot be better placed right above the Leonardo (micro-series) one-shot? Tales Vol.1 #3 is set during Halloween and would definately not be between them.

The Michelangelo micro and the Leonardo micro take place on two separate Christmases (in the Leo micro they remark that this is their second Christmas with April).

That is why the Michelangelo micro ends the "Living with April Year One" section and the Leonardo micro/TMNT #10 arc ends the "Living with April Year Two" section.

[baljazz]

i posted a new thread about this question

[Powder]

Yes, that's the point.

[baljazz]

have you tried? just my first time reading it and this seems like a cool way of reading it. would you recommend it this way considering that? or would you do it another way. also is this the final product?

[funatic]

Originally Posted by baljazz

have you tried? just my first time reading it and this seems like a cool way of reading it. would you recommend it this way considering that? or would you do it another way. also is this the final product?

Thematically, I'd recommend reading them in order of release date for your first read through. That way story arcs and styles will remain tighter and more coherent.

[johnbond87]

Hey Mark, I had been thinking about the issues in the guest era that don't work with continuity, what if one were to just think of those issues as the turtles dreaming, or even stories michelangelo made up.

just wondering

-John Kiss

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by johnbond87

Hey Mark, I had been thinking about the issues in the guest era that don't work with continuity, what if one were to just think of those issues as the turtles dreaming, or even stories michelangelo made up.

just wondering

-John Kiss

I mean, sure, one could look at them that way. But that's sort of a "personal canon" thing, I guess.

[baljazz]

so if I was to read it in release order would I read it from vol 1-4? or is there another way to read it.

[funatic]

Originally Posted by baljazz

so if I was to read it in release order would I read it from vol 1-4? or is there another way to read it.

yes volume 1-4, and make sure to read Tales of the TMNT volume 1 with the regular volume 1, and Tales of the TMNT volume 2 with TMNT volume 4... a bit tricky I know. Back before I even knew about the technodrome I used Mirage's site to find out the exact months those Tales issues were released, to intersperse them into the regular volumes: http://www.miragelicensing.com/html/comics.html

[ToTheNines]

Just noticed a little minutia. Fun With Guns is time stamped for August and you only have Bodycount separating it from the Halloween stories of that year. Could it possibly be year two story?

Maybe after Tales #5, since that takes place in July?

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Just noticed a little minutia. Fun With Guns is time stamped for August and you only have Bodycount separating it from the Halloween stories of that year. Could it possibly be year two story?

Maybe after Tales #5, since that takes place in July?

The only hiccup with that is Casey's opinion toward guns changes between the two stories. In "Fun With Guns" he says they're cool, in "Bodycount" he says he hates them.

I think I deliberately placed "Fun With Guns" before "Bodycount" as a sort of means of explaining his change of attitude toward guns between the two stories.

Obviously I'm just guessing around with these odds and ends sort of stories, but that was my reasoning, for what it's worth. You could always take more ambiguous shorts and stick them between "Fun With Guns" and "Don't Judge a Book" to put more distance between the August and October dated tales, I suppose.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

So is Volume 3 non-canon or does it take place in a alternate storyline (ala The Dark Knight Returns)?

[Powder]

It was written to continue where vol. 2 left off & be a part of Mirage continuity, & it was, until one day in the early 2000's Pete wanted to do comics again without having to address the events of that volume & decided it was no longer canon. But 8/10 Mirage readers still consider it canon as it was never really contradicted, it had great character development, & there was enough time between it & vol 4 in their world for everything to have been resolved "off screen" so to speak. & there's all kinds of stuff Pete doesn't consider canon anymore, to the point where it kinda takes the fun out of things, so it's easier to make your own calls a lot of the time.

Plus vol. 3 was finished as a group effort between both fans & the books original creative team in just such a way to seamlessly cement it's place in the Mirage timeline, undoing the radical changes made to the turtles & taking care of the conflicts that came about.