Future Shark Trilogy: The Divergant Thread in the Fred Wolf/Archie Universe.

[Jester]

This whole thing is totally random, but hear me out. I was mentioning to someone how I read Baxter Stockman with Scottie Williams' voice when I read comics, all save Archie. Then I thought just how many Archie books does Baxter appear in. Then this theory hit me like a ton of bricks.

The Fred Wolf and Archie time lines are all the same until a certain point, and there's an fuzzy in continuity reason for it: Shredder is taken to the future by Armaggon. I say fuzzy, because the Shredder who is sent to the future seems to remember things in his life from AFTER he would have been taken to the future. It could be that Armaggon takes Shredder back to the modified world where Baxter is arrested, and he continues going through the TMNT Adventures continuity as we know it until he is confronted, this time by Verminator X, to help Armaggon AGAIN.

All that to say this, if Armaggon HADN'T taken Shredder to the future, the Archie Universe very well could have happened exactly like the Fred Wolf Universe. By taking Shredder to the future, and I'm assuming putting him back when the coast was clear, the Turtles gone, and Baxter arrested, Armaggon inadvertently created an Alternate Fred Wolf Universe! GREAT SCOTT!

[rufus]

This is Heavy Doc!


Reading this makes me want to go and start collecting the Archie TMNT. Only have read a few issues.

[oldmanwinters]

Hmm... I think I might be able to buy that. It seems like that particular point is where everything started to get different in the Archie-verse. They didn't continue the Eye of Sarnoth saga into It Came from Beneath the Sewers/Mean Machines/The Evil Eye. Shredder never mutated the Punk Frogs. The Neutrinos never returned. Irma never met the TMNT (or even became close friends with April) because April never got mutated into the Cat Woman from Channel Six. And Krang decided not to bother with bringing the Technodrome back to Earth.

The only other point left to explain is why the TMNT decided to go ahead and pursue Shredder & Baxter at the end of Incredible Shrinking Turtles when Splinter explicitly forbade them from doing it.

[Jester]

It would also be a universe where Baxter is never mutated into a fly. It would explain Bebop and Rocksteady's sudden reappearance in issue 5, as with Baxter arrested Saki would need new lackeys. Not sure what story he fed Krang as to how he escaped the Turtles...

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

The only other point left to explain is why the TMNT decided to go ahead and pursue Shredder & Baxter at the end of Incredible Shrinking Turtles when Splinter explicitly forbade them from doing it.

Then again, since Splinter basically let them get away, it won't be too hard. Really seems like a bonehead move to just let them get away.

[CyberCubed]

Good theory. Although what never makes sense to me is why Krang never utilizes Traag or the Rock Soldiers in Archie.

It also really bothered me that Baxter never came back. I like to pretend those cereal comics that show Baxter as a fly and Casey Jones takes place in the Archie series.

[pannoni1]

Also, the Technodrome is presumed to be stranded somewhere in Dimension X and wasn't utilized, though it would be still operating, and there should have been a plot that reveals the Technodrome's fate. But then in issue 47 there is a creature named Sarnath and it could be presumed that the fragments of the eye were recovered, and then the Black Hole trilogy fulfills the divergence of the Eye of Sarnath plot from Fred Wolf. Check out the recent TMNT-Entity reviews of the Year of the Turtle finale:

http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2012/...-turtle-1.html
http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2012/...-turtle-2.html

[MikeandRaph87]

It always bothered me that they stopped in the middle of the Eye of Sanreth storyline. It seemed like they would have jumped into Man-Ray's origin right after Return of Shredder instead of going forward with The Incredible Shrikening Turtles.

Its great they played off that later on and heck made it better,but it seemd like at the time of #4 and #5 being written it would have been and odd choice to put the breaks on a story unless they knew that 40 issues later it would be picked up which I doubt.

[oldmanwinters]

I am curious as to whether David Wise and the Season 2 writers actually had any plans about the Sanarth behind the Eye of Sarnarth (it was actually spelled "Zarnov" on the old TMNT website episode summaries). Wise took the "peeling back the onion" approach to the first season, trying to plan episodes based upon questions raised about plot points in previous episodes), so I wonder if he had hoped to dig deeper into the history of the Eye.

I don't think he worked on the later half of Season 2, so I guess whatever ideas he may have had for it might have just fizzled out as the series earned its 3rd Season and the coveted syndicated status.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

I am curious as to whether David Wise and the Season 2 writers actually had any plans about the Sanarth behind the Eye of Sarnarth (it was actually spelled "Zarnov" on the old TMNT website episode summaries). Wise took the "peeling back the onion" approach to the first season, trying to plan episodes based upon questions raised about plot points in previous episodes), so I wonder if he had hoped to dig deeper into the history of the Eye.

I don't think he worked on the later half of Season 2, so I guess whatever ideas he may have had for it might have just fizzled out as the series earned its 3rd Season and the coveted syndicated status.

Aside from the opener, "Return of The Shredder" did David Wise have any input? I don't think he had any writer credit after that one in the second season set. There three other writters I thought that tackled that storyline.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Aside from the opener, "Return of The Shredder" did David Wise have any input? I don't think he had any writer credit after that one in the second season set. There three other writters I thought that tackled that storyline.

I remember him saying that he at least helped planned the first major arc of the season (in addition to writing duties on Return of the Shredder). I'd probably have to dig it up again somewhere, however.

[Jephael]

It makes for an interesting theory, Jester, except for a couple details. One being that in the cartoon series Mondo Gecko was a baby lizard mutated around the same time as the Turtles, wheras in the Archie comics he was a teenager in a heavy metal band who got mutated into a lizard during a fight between the TMNT and some Foot Soldiers. Lets also not forget how not only was Leatherhead once human in the Archie comics, his transformation didn't even involve mutagen.

[Jester]

With Mondo, you're right. That's a major incongruity. LH I'll just chalk up to alternate reality....

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Jephael

It makes for an interesting theory, Jester, except for a couple details. One being that in the cartoon series Mondo Gecko was a baby lizard mutated around the same time as the Turtles, wheras in the Archie comics he was a teenager in a heavy metal band who got mutated into a lizard during a fight between the TMNT and some Foot Soldiers. Lets also not forget how not only was Leatherhead once human in the Archie comics, his transformation didn't even involve mutagen.

Hmm... side effects of temporal corruption?