#Chris allan

[thecomicsnexus]

TMNT: 40TH ANNIVERSARY COMICS CELEBRATION

July 2024

By Kevin Eastman, Edgar Alan Poe, Jim Lawson, Tristan Jones, Gary Carlson, Chris Allan, Erik Burnham, Lloyd Goldfine, Ciro Nieli, Andy Suriano, Tom Waltz, Ronda Pattison , Tom Napolitano, Steve Lavigne, Paul Harmon, Frank Fosco, Adam Guzowski, Sarah Myer, Luis Antonio Delgado, Shawn Lee, Khary Randolph, Emilio Lopez, Michael Dialynas, Pablo Tunica, Freddie E. Williams II, David Petersen, Ken Mitchroney, Aaron Hazouri, Dan Duncan, Sophie Campbell, Jodi Nishijima, Stan Sakai, and Emi Fujii.

Come and enjoy stories that will remind you of the 40 years of turtle history.

SCORE: 10 *

* Assuming you are familiar with these iterations.

This is a strange read, and curiously, there are three or four highlights for me, and they are not exactly the ones you would imagine.

Spoilers after the break...

The first story by Kevin Eastman is in the Mirage section of the book but... well... I'll leave at that... I wouldn't call it the Mirage we knew.

There is a story by Lawson and Lavigne with the Rat King that... it's fun. But, you know... I wouldn't even try to fit it in canon... the amount of continuity physics you need to bend to place this story is not worth the time. Just enjoy as a new story by these two iconic Mirage artists.

This other story by Tristan H. Jones and Paul Harmon requires more analysis. I'll revisit it on my gang wars video and try to give it more context... but unfortunately... it's just too vague. All I can say for sure is that it happens in the future of that incomplete saga, but the narrator just takes too many artistic choices to be taken at face value.

Also... I believe this is the first official (frontal) appearance of Agent Bishop (unless I got the character wrong, but Jones already tried to introduce him in this saga). I think he is still holding on to it, and I really hope he gets to tell his story. I wouldn't mind a mini-series... just saying!

The Volume 3 story was... not for me. The dialogue alone felt tired.

The Archie adventure was short, eventful, and funny... and it looks amazing too!

In just four pages a new character was introduced and... a new love story was implied! And it's not just a gratuitous cameo... this is a funny sequence.

The Saturday Morning Adventures (the de facto 87 story) looks amazing as usual, but I didn't find the story that interesting. However, it started a theme that would run across most of the stories in this special after this one: Master Splinter.

The 2003 story is a... loose canon?

Hun is Slash, and Shredder is back... so make of that what you want. All I'm going to say is that this felt a lot like watching the beginning of a 2003 episode, with the narration setting the tone.

The 2012 story was one of the least interesting in the previews, but I have to say... it was probably one of the best. It brought back a villain and it technically serves as an excuse to continue the series?

But to me the best thing about the story is the art. I am surprised Ciro Nieli didn't do more comic book work for the Turtles all these years. In fact, if they somehow decided to continue the 2012 universe in 2D in this style... I'm all in. Well, who am I kidding... I would be in anyway... but this looks amazing.

Andy Suriano did probably the most interesting story in the book. Now, I am not sure if his style doesn't translate well to static panels or what the problem is with the comic format... but it doesn't matter... this small story brought in a lot of things that ended on the editing floor after the show's second season was reduced to a few more episodes. There was a rumor about a female turtle, and not only it is here in all its glory, but there is also a brother?

And come on... it's so Lou Jitsu to die with a cliffhanger.

There are two IDW stories. One is another Splinter story, but the other one is perhaps one of the best in this book.

The Ronda Pattison story takes place just before the Armageddon game, and it shows the five turtles in full sibling dynamic (even Jennika). It was refreshing to see these turtles having fun for a change.

There are no stories by the new team, but... well... that's just starting.

[panzerdrako]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

40th Anniversary Comic Celebration

[kamenwriter]

"The Man Behind the Mask" by Chris Allan Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 40th Anniversary Special

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[ramblingsonic]

[graphicpolicy]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and IDW celebrate 40 years this July

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and IDW celebrate 40 years this July #comics #comicbooks #tmnt

After the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) made their debut in a black-and-white comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the Heroes in a Half Shell went on to become a global phenomenon. Over the next forty years, countless talented people across the entertainment industry worked passionately with the beloved franchise, allowing adventures with new iterations of TMNT to consistently…

[cccovers]

Furrlough #52 (April 1997) cover by Chris Allan and Pat Duke.

[jhsharman]

duh hic

I wonder if the company had not consolidated their line and cancelled Archie's Pals 'N Gals if Mark Waid and Chris Allan would have created a few more stories for Archie at this time. As it was, they snuck in two -- both explorations of Moose's rage.

They decided they needed to show someone observing Reggie's treatment of Moose, I guess -- I post this here with one question -- why did they make Jughead shirtless in the reprint?

[dirtyriver]

Ninjara on the cover of Furrlough #52, April 1997, featuring the third and last part of "Seeds of Destruction", her unfinished "adult" solo story written by Dean Clarrain (Stephen Murphy) with art by Chris Allan. Cover by Chris Allan.

[ironsaguaro]

TMNT 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration! Creators From Across 40 Years ...

[urbaneturtle]

Review: IDW Publishing's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration has something for everyone

Reviewing the everything you could hope for TMNT 40th Anniversary Celebration!

The name of this website and my general online presence was not consciously a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but my love of the TMNT is well documented both on here and in every aspect of my public and private life. I’ve ragged on cash-in anniversary celebration issues in the past. They can often feel manufactured or arbitrary. But Ninja Turtles turning 40 feels like a genuine…

[thecomicsnexus]

TMNT ADVENTURES: THE FOREVER WAR (kind of FAN MADE)

April 2024

By Steve Murphy, Chris Allan, Andrew Modeen, Artem Tsarkov, Arseniy Dubakov, Egor Prutov , Jon D'Agostino, Dmitry Bobrovnik, Yuri Kochin, and Jim Lawson.

The Shredder finally succeeds at erasing the Turtles from history and conquering the world. But the Turtles and Splinter will try to defeat him and ensure their existence in this conclusion of the iconic Archie series.

SCORE: 8

You'll have to forgive the lack of images, but it is very hard to scan this book (I'll see what I can do for the video review, but I may need to work with photos of it). In any case, this is another of those fan projects by Arseniy Dubakov and Andrew Modeen... but with some interesting twists in its genesis.

You probably remember that this saga was announced in 1995 before the Archie adventures were canceled, and fans have been speculating forever about how the story ended.

In 2009 we almost got the conclusion by the original team (Steve Murphy and Chris Allan), but the turtles were sold to Viacom and the plans never materialized. In any case, Murphy couldn't remember where he was going with the story, so it would be fair to say that it was never going to be the same arc.

More recently, Chris Allan met Arseniy and the two got together to make this project happen. The first chapter (which was made public at some point in the past few years), was mostly recovered from 1995, but it had been colored and edited by the new team.

As far as I know, the second chapter was plotted by Steve Murphy, and I can say that the two first chapters feel the most like the original book... with some annoying differences.

After that, the book does its job, and the story works very well. The project was promoted as "closing all open plots" of the original series, but fortunately, it only tried to solve a time paradox that has always been a problem in that book. I applaud the restrain of the writers from bringing up every single plot point just to let readers know they read the book (as is usually the case with these projects).

The art is probably the most spectacular aspect of the book. It's an updated look for the Archie adventures that for the most part, looks like a continuation of the story. There are some stylistic differences when it comes to inking after chapter one, but you get used to them after a while.

The book comes with two back-up stories. One penciled by Jim Lawson that tries to make sense of the convoluted Archie timeline (specifically about which Shredder you were looking at in each adventure). The second backup is some sort of epilogue to Forever War that will leave you with more questions than answers.

For me, the weakest point of the book is the "overwriting" from Andrew.

It's hard to explain, but Andrew goes into these long narrations directed at the reader that just feel overproduced and underproduced at the same time. There is an overuse of "Modeen" expressions that can be said by any character at any time. Perhaps because he is not doing the writing/plotting alone, this is his best story yet. We know Andrew is a fan, an we know he can write. But it would be nice if he could work on his dialogues and... I'm going to call it now... think twice before adding an unnecessary celebrity quote at the beginning of each chapter.

I am not sure if this was in the original plot, but some elements in this story were even darker than the original series (like slashing a classic character in two). I get that we all grew up and we can take it, but this should be a continuation of that book, and I feel that it wasn't this bloody (most of the time).

But again, this story worked for me, it didn't bring up characters and plots just for the sake of it, and the turtles were front and center.

Should we consider this an ending for the Archie series? Well, just like it happened with Volume 3 before Urban Legends came out, this is all we can get. It's technically just the story, and not a proper ending, so you could still consider "Year of the Turtle" the final story (I assume that it not being referenced was intentional). There is one reference to "TMNT: Odyssey" (because for some reason, all these projects need to share the same multiverse), but it can be easily ignored... I think.

Maybe one day IDW will decide to do their own version of Forever War, but I don't think Chris Allan would go through this ordeal again... I think it could be published as is (fourth-wall monologuing included). Perhaps censoring some of the blood, to keep it consistent with Archie guidelines.

Now, let's take a look at those spoilers after the break...

You guessed it, most of the chapters take place in an alternate timeline. This allows for familiar characters to return even if they were already dead. And also introduces Carter to the Archie universe... and he may be British... I don't know.

Most characters show up to die... which isn't unusual on alternate timeline stories, but feels like a waste. Carter and Claire had very little time to do anything, and Claire being April's sister is an interesting twist... but I wonder what caused it? It is implied that they may have been separated at some point, but the existence of the same photograph without her suggests there wee further alterations to that timeline.

The Mutanimals play the bad guys... probably for the better. I wonder if the reason they didn't undo their deaths, or brought back Cherubae, was so that it could all tie into "TMNT: Odyssey"? Whatever the reason was, I appreciate it.

Perhaps the biggest reveal was that Chet was the Rat King. While this is a fun twist, some things are a bit too convenient. Why did he choose the H'antaan name? And why didn't he ever mentioned this to anyone in the original timeline? (Apart from the flashback in this book).

Overall, Shredder's plan makes sense (for once), although he somehow recreated all the mutants from the original series, even the ones that weren't mutants (like Katmandu)... perhaps he and Al'Falqa simply joined the cause.

There isn't much characterization for the turtles, but I think is in line with the original book as well. And to be fair, the main focus is the story.

The Jim Lawson back-up also introduces another problem, a Shredder that finally remember everything (this may be the one in "Year of the Turtle"). Mr. Null decides to share all of this, searching for the Turnstone (a "TMNT: Odyssey" plot). I don't like these fan-projects being all connected, but I appreciate the long explanation of the Shredder paradox in the Archie adventures. It also officialized that Armaggon created the Archie universe.

I would have appreciated a Mr. Null origin story... but I guess that would have clashed with "Odyssey" (and this is why I don't like them being connected).

I may sound negative, but my nitpicks only took two points from the overall score. I am happy with the results, and I think we can now stop wondering what it could have been.

Although... can you imagine what it could have been in 1995?

That my friends... is the forever war.

[Include some super serious celebrity quote here]

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: A Major award

JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i have exccciting newsss Rowling: I've jussst been awarded tablet magazine'sss new sssinai award Rowling: this will make the perfect replacement for that human rightsss award that got revoked

Stephen King: what's this award for, joanne? Rowling: it's for being one of the 36 people whossse presssence ssstopsss god from dessstroying the earth King: Lovecraft: Koontz: Poe: Barker:

Barker: how exactly are you stopping god from destroying the earth Rowling: well, obviousssly it's becaussse Rowling: god is a big cormorant strike fan Rowling: i mean, duh Rowling: that's my legacy Rowling: and, you know, the transssphobia

Rowling: i don't need you lot anymore Rowling: from now on, i'm going to be sspending my time with my intellectual equalss Rowling: fellow sssinai recipients like famous rapist conor McGregor, famous nazi Christopher rufo, the zodiac killer, and Anonymous UPenn student

[later] Rowling: hello fellow sssinai award recipients Rowling: how goesss it? Ted Cruz:

Rowling: how goess it, fellow sssinai recipients? Chris Rufo: we were just talking about how black people have smaller thinking bones than Aryan supermen Thomas Sowell: it's true! we do Sowell: ya know, we were really so much happier back in the slave days

Rowling: ah! ssso good to be among the 36 people who convince god to ssspare humanity Elon Musk: mama mia itsa me elon! Rowling: elon musssk?? what are you doing here? Rowling: isss it cuz you don't raisse your kidss? Musk: da god, he find ita very relatable!

[girl-named-matty]

A group photo with a bunch of our babies 🥺I wasn't able to fit everyone I wanted so pls lmk if you want your mc to be included in another one sometime! Creators of the MCs in the comments! And more down below!

[artsy-1diot]

autism creatures the third

(as usual here's the second one and the original)

also I compiled all the creatures I've made so far into one place for easy access!! go check it out :3

[ramblingsonic]

So the art in this issue has been... Okay. Some of it good, definitely leaning into a certain unusual style- but the further this goes on the more worried I'm getting.

This story is the one with that terrible art of everyone dancing in the club, isn't it? The one with insane proportions?

oh boy...

Also Vector looks mad with something in the last panel- what?

At some points in this issue, the proportions actually work rather decent I feel- then the very next panel, we see them from a different perspective or the proportions are inconsistent or they're making some kinda of motions, and it all looks completely off.

Panel 1 Vector below looks pretty alright to me (weird and different, but not bad), but the next two panels are completely bizarre.