I hate to bring this up again, but what exactly was the point of Volume 4?

*CyberCubed* · 08-12-2013, 10:56 AM

It seemed like in the early 2000's PL got a sense of nostalgia or longing to do more TMNT comics again after the Image run was canceled. That would be fine, but what was the point in taking the series in the direction he did?

One of the things I liked about the first 10 issues or so was that Splinter finally passed away, which was something foreshadowed in the very first issue in 1984 that never happened till then. And they tied up the loose end of cyborg Baxter injecting April with nanomachines in Volume 2 where he finally gets his last revenge. (Also we see Don finally kill Baxter which was a plus).

But after that...what was the point? It then spirals out of control into a mix of sci-fi adventures that never goes anywhere, with Leo fighting Aztec Warriors from another dimension, Raph being transformed to a gamera after fighting Vampires, Don fighting talking dino's mutated by leftover mutagen from Utroms, and Mike being kidnapped by Styradcons after flirting with an alien queen, and then vowing revenge on them with Triceratons.

And this is not counting the other random stuff like April being a drawing or the Utroms/aliens landing on Earth making their presence known, or whatever.

I would have rathered Volume 4 just be a 10-15 issue short series just covering Splinter's death and April's survival than everything that came after.

Matches Malone · 08-12-2013, 12:21 PM

Peter Laird has basically chalked this up to the fact that while he had some interesting ideas he wanted to explore and revisit in TMNT, he was not interested in traditional "story arcs." This makes the series seem a bit aimless, but ultimately I think the "point" was that he thought what he was writing was interesting, naturally, and wanted to do these comics. It may seem pointless to those who did not find the open ended nature of the series interesting, but obviously that's a matter of opinion.

liugeaux · 08-12-2013, 12:26 PM

Well, when you boil all the plot points down like that, what is the point in ANY TMNT story? Peter, clearly had some things he wanted to explore with the characters that, at the time, he was excited to write about again. Unfortunately his interest in the project petered out (pun intended) before the actual story did.

I personally loved Vol 4, It went in some weird directions and nothing really got tied up in the end, but it was serialized Mirage TMNT at its finest.

funatic · 08-12-2013, 12:26 PM

Yeah the book really lost its footing after issue 11: too many plots with too little substance and delivered at a snail's pace. I'd like to think it was all working up to some grandiose finish, but I couldn't really foresee what that finish could be, and if it could redeem the lackluster threads leading up to it. I wonder if Peter Laird felt the same way.... I think he stated somewhere that he had the rest of the story plotted out. At this point I wish he'd just release the plot summary online, or better yet, hand all the goods over to Jim Lawson and let him draw AND write the rest, that guy is prolific personified.

*Cowabunga Carl* · 08-12-2013, 12:48 PM

I really liked volume 4 as that is the comic I started with. Yeah it was different, but different is okay. It was fun seeing the Turtles be older and not just the goofy characters I knew from cartoons. When I went back and read the older stuff I could see how they had gotten to that point.

Now I'm not saying 4 didn't have its fair share of issues, but over all it was fun. I think Kevin might have kept Peter more grounded and the sci-fi bits a little less wild. However it was Peter's to do with as he wished at that point. He was making it for himself and we were along for the ride.

*Coola Yagami* · 08-12-2013, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cowabunga Carl

I really liked volume 4 as that is the comic I started with. Yeah it was different, but different is okay. It was fun seeing the Turtles be older and not just the goofy characters I knew from cartoons. When I went back and read the older stuff I could see how they had gotten to that point.

Now I'm not saying 4 didn't have its fair share of issues, but over all it was fun. I think Kevin might have kept Peter more grounded and the sci-fi bits a little less wild. However it was Peter's to do with as he wished at that point. He was making it for himself and we were along for the ride.

I liked some of the ideas and wish they were explored further so we could have gotten a resolution. I wanted to know what happened to Gameraph. I wanted to see what happened with Leo, the Battle Nexus and Oroku Yoshi. I wanted April to deal with the fact that she was a drawing, and dare I say it, eventually fade away and the aftermath. There was a lot of interesting ideas here and there, I really wish he had a bigger team or whatever to get these out on time.

*Cipher* · 08-12-2013, 07:00 PM

More and more, based on re-reads and Peter's own comments after the volume went on hiatus, I get the impression that the purpose of Volume 4 was that Peter wanted to create a sort of anything-goes, sci-fi indie ongoing in the vein of Cerebus, Bone, etc. Hence the sprawling, at-times directionless seeming narrative, the universe expansion, the character drama, etc.

While I'm not sure it's entirely successful in that vein, you can see little glimpses of what it might have been shining through, and I'd rather it exist than not. I do hope it gets an ending one day.

In my mind, Volume 4 could've been excellent had it only seen the following changes: 1) A little more end-game planning/tightening and knowing where to take plot lines, and 2) Peter passing off script duties to someone else (Lawson, Murphy) because, while I enjoy the ideas, that dialogue is rough. What Laird really needs is a Stan Lee to his Kirby, to pull from one of his inspirations.

DK2 · 08-12-2013, 08:15 PM

What bugged me was it was slow paced and way too long. I mean the odd issue was extra long in pages. If you can't tell a story within regular comics size, then you need to tighten up the writing. The other thing was the nasty dialog. At times (or quite often) there was dialog coming out from characters' mouths that should've been in the inner dialog text thought balloons. It made any character sound nutty talking out loud to themselves. This is where Eastman and Laird aren't really professional comic creators shows. And of course they had no editors guiding them either really. But I didn't mind Vol. 4. I guess its because it was the only TMNT we were getting besides the Dreamwave TMNT '03 comic tied to the toon. I agree, I think the earlier issues in the run were better. Had it maintained that kinda focus, it could've been more liked overall and tighter plotting.

*Andrew NDB* · 08-12-2013, 08:56 PM

What was the point? It never concluded, so until we get the conclusion we never know. I like to believe that while Peter Laird went a bit sideways on some things in the middle "act" of Volume 4, things would have resolved nicely at the ending to make us all go "Ohhhh, that's where he was going with all of that!" but without more issues there's just not enough data to say either way.

~~Leo656~~ · 08-13-2013, 12:24 AM

I'll agree that the first few issues were solid, and then it went off the rails. I "get" that it was meant to be more long-form and open-ended, but that's something that so rarely works well in commercial entertainment like the comic book medium, or TV. Fact is, "story arcs" happen so often because they are efficient ways to tell one story with a beginning, middle, and an end, all while planting minor seeds that will play out in future stories. Having a long-term plan is fine, but each few issues should form a cohesive beginning, middle, and end. It gets boring when things just stay hanging with no good resolution. "We'll get to it, or maybe we won't, because real life doesn't have clear beginning, middle and end points" just seems like laziness, and it tells the reader/viewer to avoid deep emotional investment.

TV shows like "Twin Peaks" and "Lost" are good examples of similar execution problems. Both shows were insanely popular at first based on various mysteries that the series promised to explore. At first, both shows' writers swore that viewer patience would play out as all plotlines would be resolved. When it came around Season Two of each, and it became clear the writers had lied and were now making things up as they went along, viewership left in droves, because people want to know that what they're investing in is going to mean something.

Vol. 4 had lots of potential; the lack of payoff hurts more than anything. Although some of it wasn't good. But some of it was, or could have been.

*DrSpengler* · 08-13-2013, 07:36 AM

I suppose the "point" was that Laird had some stories he wanted to tell and published Vol. 4 to tell them. If his messages in the letters pages are to be believed, he published the book at his own expense, at a loss, and it was meant to be "for himself" and no one else (which is fine; I'm not opening up THAT particular can of worms). And it lasted until he lost interest and didn't feel like telling those stories anymore.

Vol. 4 has it's highs and lows. What hurts it most is how it pulls in 10 different directions at once, so the multiple plot lines each get so decompressed you can't invest in any of them.

That and the truly terrible, rambling, inane dialogue.

On a conceptual level there were a lot of neat and innovative ideas, but they were all squandered by the pacing (or introduced and discarded with astounding flippancy, such as April dramatically taking on Nobody's identity, then discarding it a few pages later). It's hard to stay enthusiastic about an idea when it's being stretched to the breaking point.

Oh, and the blunt product shilling for Mac was pretty embarrassing.

*Luckyday* · 08-13-2013, 08:58 AM

Volume 4 was aimless but it had a lot of great potential. Aliens exposed, the aftermath of Splinter's death, the turtles going fully topside, and not mention turtles are stating to split up? I would love to see that being used as a final season of TMNT but with someone at the helms with editing and organizing skills that can turn into something that is coherent and great for story telling.

ianke_2002 · 08-13-2013, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo656

TV shows like "Twin Peaks" and "Lost" are good examples of similar execution problems. Both shows were insanely popular at first based on various mysteries that the series promised to explore. At first, both shows' writers swore that viewer patience would play out as all plotlines would be resolved. When it came around Season Two of each, and it became clear the writers had lied and were now making things up as they went along, viewership left in droves, because people want to know that what they're investing in is going to mean something.

I resent that comment. Lost, is, and will always be, in my opinion, the greatest show of all time. Tell me a network show that has ever gotten THAT creative and original with its storytelling? Tell me a network show that has ever written so many extremely interesting characters with amazing back stories? The show was brilliant.

*Cipher* · 08-13-2013, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianke_2002

I resent that comment. Lost, is, and will always be, in my opinion, the greatest show of all time. Tell me a network show that has ever gotten THAT creative and original with its storytelling? Tell me a network show that has ever written so many extremely interesting characters with amazing back stories? The show was brilliant.

You read a post that referenced both Lost and Twin Peaks in its first sentence and came away saying Lost is the greatest show of all time?

Oooookay, dude.

*CyberCubed* · 08-13-2013, 03:57 PM

I think the main problem is how unrelated the Turtles issues are from each other.

What do the Vampires attacking Raph have to do with anything? It seems like they only existed as an excuse for Raphael's mutation. They could have been eliminated entirely. And are these the same vampires as the ones from Volume 1 #29?

I really liked Don fighting mutated dino's/lizards from leftover Utrom mutagen, but the whole story could have been told in a single Tales issue rather than stretched out over literally 20 issues.

zbowen · 08-13-2013, 06:57 PM

I believe that Volume 4 was nessisary. Volume 1 and Tales Volume 1 wrapped up nicely, no open ended plots and has a nice arc for the characters. Then Volume 2 happened. Slow at first, then rushed to an awful conclusion. Volume 3 was just weird, it has its highlights, but overall I'm not really a fan. I always looked at Volume 4 as what would be the final conclusion to TMNT. Except there was no frigging conclusion! I feel like the purpose of Volume 4 never really came to pass.

~~Leo656~~ · 08-13-2013, 09:12 PM

I wasn't arguing the quality of either "Lost" or "Twin Peaks", simply stating the fact that in both cases a lot of people stopped watching the show once it started to meander from the focus they started with.

"Twin Peaks" was f*cking nuts, though.

*CyberCubed* · 08-13-2013, 10:44 PM

I do hope Volume 4 is concluded someday, if only because that's pretty much the end of the Mirage universe.

Its actually kinda sad that the very first Turtle universe that started it all was the one that never got an ending. I know its mostly PL's fault in that, but you'd think Mirage would have had a grand finale before the series was phased out.

Sometimes I actually wish Mirage ended right before IDW began, so we could have said "farewell" to the Mirage era and IDW would have been the reboot that it was intended from the start.

~~Leo656~~ · 08-13-2013, 11:09 PM

It sure was anti-climactic, after all those years. Totally went out with a whimper rather than the bang it deserved.

~~Davetello~~ · 08-14-2013, 12:41 AM

I enjoyed it, but I echo most of the comments in here - it had plenty of flaws and seemed like a mess of too many plots at times. The concept was interesting in that the turtles would have to stop 'hiding' as the utroms came to Earth. I suppose a problem with that is the turtles' necessity to live in secret is inextricably linked to the whole concept in the first place - they're mutant ninjas who can't just freely walk the streets in broad daylight.

Laird totally threw that wide open and it seemed to work for a while but there was plenty of tangential material. It's been a few years since I've read the run but I do remember feeling like there was a sense of incoherence as it went on.

I agree though that Splinter's death was something which had to happen as part of the turtles' 'coming of age' and transition from teenagers to the older adults they are in v4. In my eyes sensei's death was the vehicle which facilitated that. The problem was it wasn't explored enough for my liking.

Hopefully we will see a conclusion in the future what with Laird having the right to publish some comics each year. But who knows?

08-12-2013, 10:56 AM	#1
CyberCubed Overlord Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 43,751	I hate to bring this up again, but what exactly was the point of Volume 4? It seemed like in the early 2000's PL got a sense of nostalgia or longing to do more TMNT comics again after the Image run was canceled. That would be fine, but what was the point in taking the series in the direction he did? One of the things I liked about the first 10 issues or so was that Splinter finally passed away, which was something foreshadowed in the very first issue in 1984 that never happened till then. And they tied up the loose end of cyborg Baxter injecting April with nanomachines in Volume 2 where he finally gets his last revenge. (Also we see Don finally kill Baxter which was a plus). But after that...what was the point? It then spirals out of control into a mix of sci-fi adventures that never goes anywhere, with Leo fighting Aztec Warriors from another dimension, Raph being transformed to a gamera after fighting Vampires, Don fighting talking dino's mutated by leftover mutagen from Utroms, and Mike being kidnapped by Styradcons after flirting with an alien queen, and then vowing revenge on them with Triceratons. And this is not counting the other random stuff like April being a drawing or the Utroms/aliens landing on Earth making their presence known, or whatever. I would have rathered Volume 4 just be a 10-15 issue short series just covering Splinter's death and April's survival than everything that came after.

08-12-2013, 12:26 PM	#3
liugeaux Hench Mutant Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 328	Well, when you boil all the plot points down like that, what is the point in ANY TMNT story? Peter, clearly had some things he wanted to explore with the characters that, at the time, he was excited to write about again. Unfortunately his interest in the project petered out (pun intended) before the actual story did. I personally loved Vol 4, It went in some weird directions and nothing really got tied up in the end, but it was serialized Mirage TMNT at its finest. __________________ My Blog: liugeaux.com My Podcast!: Reality Breached My Ninja Turtles Podcast: Shellheads: A TMNT Podcast

08-12-2013, 08:56 PM	#9
Andrew NDB Weed Whacker Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Auburn, WA Posts: 34,335	What was the point? It never concluded, so until we get the conclusion we never know. I like to believe that while Peter Laird went a bit sideways on some things in the middle "act" of Volume 4, things would have resolved nicely at the ending to make us all go "Ohhhh, that's where he was going with all of that!" but without more issues there's just not enough data to say either way. __________________ [ ODYSSEY \| ORIGIN \| THE IMAGE/VOL. 3 CONCLUSION \| THE SHELLSHOCKED PODCAST \| ON FACEBOOK ]

08-13-2013, 08:58 AM	#12
Luckyday Mad Scientist Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 2,292	Volume 4 was aimless but it had a lot of great potential. Aliens exposed, the aftermath of Splinter's death, the turtles going fully topside, and not mention turtles are stating to split up? I would love to see that being used as a final season of TMNT but with someone at the helms with editing and organizing skills that can turn into something that is coherent and great for story telling. Last edited by Luckyday; 08-13-2013 at 10:46 AM.

08-13-2013, 06:57 PM	#16
zbowen Random Punk Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 36	I believe that Volume 4 was nessisary. Volume 1 and Tales Volume 1 wrapped up nicely, no open ended plots and has a nice arc for the characters. Then Volume 2 happened. Slow at first, then rushed to an awful conclusion. Volume 3 was just weird, it has its highlights, but overall I'm not really a fan. I always looked at Volume 4 as what would be the final conclusion to TMNT. Except there was no frigging conclusion! I feel like the purpose of Volume 4 never really came to pass. __________________ Check out my TMNT reviews at: http://tmnt101.blogspot.com/

08-12-2013, 12:21 PM	#2
Matches Malone Stone Warrior Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: California Posts: 954	Peter Laird has basically chalked this up to the fact that while he had some interesting ideas he wanted to explore and revisit in TMNT, he was not interested in traditional "story arcs." This makes the series seem a bit aimless, but ultimately I think the "point" was that he thought what he was writing was interesting, naturally, and wanted to do these comics. It may seem pointless to those who did not find the open ended nature of the series interesting, but obviously that's a matter of opinion. __________________ "Baxter, you slime puppy!"

08-12-2013, 12:26 PM	#4
funatic Mad Scientist Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Northampton, MA Posts: 1,226	Yeah the book really lost its footing after issue 11: too many plots with too little substance and delivered at a snail's pace. I'd like to think it was all working up to some grandiose finish, but I couldn't really foresee what that finish could be, and if it could redeem the lackluster threads leading up to it. I wonder if Peter Laird felt the same way.... I think he stated somewhere that he had the rest of the story plotted out. At this point I wish he'd just release the plot summary online, or better yet, hand all the goods over to Jim Lawson and let him draw AND write the rest, that guy is prolific personified.

08-12-2013, 12:48 PM	#5
Cowabunga Carl Mad Scientist Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Salt Lake City Posts: 2,384	I really liked volume 4 as that is the comic I started with. Yeah it was different, but different is okay. It was fun seeing the Turtles be older and not just the goofy characters I knew from cartoons. When I went back and read the older stuff I could see how they had gotten to that point. Now I'm not saying 4 didn't have its fair share of issues, but over all it was fun. I think Kevin might have kept Peter more grounded and the sci-fi bits a little less wild. However it was Peter's to do with as he wished at that point. He was making it for himself and we were along for the ride.

08-12-2013, 07:00 PM	#7
Cipher Foot Elite Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 3,454	More and more, based on re-reads and Peter's own comments after the volume went on hiatus, I get the impression that the purpose of Volume 4 was that Peter wanted to create a sort of anything-goes, sci-fi indie ongoing in the vein of Cerebus, Bone, etc. Hence the sprawling, at-times directionless seeming narrative, the universe expansion, the character drama, etc. While I'm not sure it's entirely successful in that vein, you can see little glimpses of what it might have been shining through, and I'd rather it exist than not. I do hope it gets an ending one day. In my mind, Volume 4 could've been excellent had it only seen the following changes: 1) A little more end-game planning/tightening and knowing where to take plot lines, and 2) Peter passing off script duties to someone else (Lawson, Murphy) because, while I enjoy the ideas, that dialogue is rough. What Laird really needs is a Stan Lee to his Kirby, to pull from one of his inspirations.

08-12-2013, 08:15 PM	#8
DK2 Stone Warrior Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 621	What bugged me was it was slow paced and way too long. I mean the odd issue was extra long in pages. If you can't tell a story within regular comics size, then you need to tighten up the writing. The other thing was the nasty dialog. At times (or quite often) there was dialog coming out from characters' mouths that should've been in the inner dialog text thought balloons. It made any character sound nutty talking out loud to themselves. This is where Eastman and Laird aren't really professional comic creators shows. And of course they had no editors guiding them either really. But I didn't mind Vol. 4. I guess its because it was the only TMNT we were getting besides the Dreamwave TMNT '03 comic tied to the toon. I agree, I think the earlier issues in the run were better. Had it maintained that kinda focus, it could've been more liked overall and tighter plotting.

08-13-2013, 12:24 AM	#10
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	I'll agree that the first few issues were solid, and then it went off the rails. I "get" that it was meant to be more long-form and open-ended, but that's something that so rarely works well in commercial entertainment like the comic book medium, or TV. Fact is, "story arcs" happen so often because they are efficient ways to tell one story with a beginning, middle, and an end, all while planting minor seeds that will play out in future stories. Having a long-term plan is fine, but each few issues should form a cohesive beginning, middle, and end. It gets boring when things just stay hanging with no good resolution. "We'll get to it, or maybe we won't, because real life doesn't have clear beginning, middle and end points" just seems like laziness, and it tells the reader/viewer to avoid deep emotional investment. TV shows like "Twin Peaks" and "Lost" are good examples of similar execution problems. Both shows were insanely popular at first based on various mysteries that the series promised to explore. At first, both shows' writers swore that viewer patience would play out as all plotlines would be resolved. When it came around Season Two of each, and it became clear the writers had lied and were now making things up as they went along, viewership left in droves, because people want to know that what they're investing in is going to mean something. Vol. 4 had lots of potential; the lack of payoff hurts more than anything. Although some of it wasn't good. But some of it was, or could have been.

08-13-2013, 07:36 AM	#11
DrSpengler Foot Elite Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 4,842	I suppose the "point" was that Laird had some stories he wanted to tell and published Vol. 4 to tell them. If his messages in the letters pages are to be believed, he published the book at his own expense, at a loss, and it was meant to be "for himself" and no one else (which is fine; I'm not opening up THAT particular can of worms). And it lasted until he lost interest and didn't feel like telling those stories anymore. Vol. 4 has it's highs and lows. What hurts it most is how it pulls in 10 different directions at once, so the multiple plot lines each get so decompressed you can't invest in any of them. That and the truly terrible, rambling, inane dialogue. On a conceptual level there were a lot of neat and innovative ideas, but they were all squandered by the pacing (or introduced and discarded with astounding flippancy, such as April dramatically taking on Nobody's identity, then discarding it a few pages later). It's hard to stay enthusiastic about an idea when it's being stretched to the breaking point. Oh, and the blunt product shilling for Mac was pretty embarrassing.

08-13-2013, 03:57 PM	#15
CyberCubed Overlord Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 43,751	I think the main problem is how unrelated the Turtles issues are from each other. What do the Vampires attacking Raph have to do with anything? It seems like they only existed as an excuse for Raphael's mutation. They could have been eliminated entirely. And are these the same vampires as the ones from Volume 1 #29? I really liked Don fighting mutated dino's/lizards from leftover Utrom mutagen, but the whole story could have been told in a single Tales issue rather than stretched out over literally 20 issues.

08-13-2013, 09:12 PM	#17
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	I wasn't arguing the quality of either "Lost" or "Twin Peaks", simply stating the fact that in both cases a lot of people stopped watching the show once it started to meander from the focus they started with. "Twin Peaks" was f*cking nuts, though.

08-13-2013, 10:44 PM	#18
CyberCubed Overlord Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 43,751	I do hope Volume 4 is concluded someday, if only because that's pretty much the end of the Mirage universe. Its actually kinda sad that the very first Turtle universe that started it all was the one that never got an ending. I know its mostly PL's fault in that, but you'd think Mirage would have had a grand finale before the series was phased out. Sometimes I actually wish Mirage ended right before IDW began, so we could have said "farewell" to the Mirage era and IDW would have been the reboot that it was intended from the start.

08-13-2013, 11:09 PM	#19
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	It sure was anti-climactic, after all those years. Totally went out with a whimper rather than the bang it deserved.

08-14-2013, 12:41 AM	#20
~~Davetello~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Greater Glasgow, Scotland, The Ununited Kingdom Posts: 1,712	I enjoyed it, but I echo most of the comments in here - it had plenty of flaws and seemed like a mess of too many plots at times. The concept was interesting in that the turtles would have to stop 'hiding' as the utroms came to Earth. I suppose a problem with that is the turtles' necessity to live in secret is inextricably linked to the whole concept in the first place - they're mutant ninjas who can't just freely walk the streets in broad daylight. Laird totally threw that wide open and it seemed to work for a while but there was plenty of tangential material. It's been a few years since I've read the run but I do remember feeling like there was a sense of incoherence as it went on. I agree though that Splinter's death was something which had to happen as part of the turtles' 'coming of age' and transition from teenagers to the older adults they are in v4. In my eyes sensei's death was the vehicle which facilitated that. The problem was it wasn't explored enough for my liking. Hopefully we will see a conclusion in the future what with Laird having the right to publish some comics each year. But who knows?