How long would an accurate TV adaption of Mirage be?

[neatoman]

Accurate as in there are as few omissions as possible, as little filler as possible and as little streamlining as possible. So for example, yes, this hypothetical show would start off with Shredder being killed off and the Turtles going space after rescueing April and getting chased by the cops.

And to simplify this, let's cut off at the end of City at War, omit the guest stories, bonus stories and only add the micros and Tales. That would be about 45 issues to adapt. And to make this a little easier to compare, let's say the episodes are about 20 minutes long, given that is about how long an episode 4Kids is and that is the show that has come the closest to being this so far.

Now then, while 4Kids is hardly a super accurate adaptation in general, the Don Micro, Mike Micro and Tales #4 adaptations are examples of fairly accurate adaptations and all of them managed to do these stories in a single episode. And no, Mirage issues being fairly long for comic book issues did not mean that they had to omit much, in anything they had to add filler to even get to 20 minutes. Admittedly their adaptation of 4-7 is ten episodes long but is clearly quite filler heavy, obviously the Utroms never used VR to explain their backstory in the comic, nor did Shredder attack them. So yes, most Mirage issues can fit neatly into 20 minutes, that isn't a problem. If anything, it'd be harder to avoid filler.

So what is my estimate? How many episodes would it take to adapt these 45 issues? Probably around 35-40 episodes if you're willing to make cuts in the middle of issues that are parts of 3+ issue story arcs. Maybe you'd crack 50 episodes but only if you are determined to make sure at least every episode only covers content from one episodes but that that point you are just writing filler scenes.

[CyberCubed]

The entire span of Mirage could probably be covered in around 26-30 episodes. Maybe around 50 if you include Volume 4 and some of the second volume of Tales.

[oldmanwinters]

I'd like to see some of those "Guest-Artist" era stories from Volume 1 adapted to animation.

Obviously, Michael Zulli's "Souls Winter" stories would be incredible, but imagine how bonkers insane Mark Martin, Hedden & McWeeney, and Matt Howarth stories could be in the right hands!

[AquaParade]

Sky Highway or bust.