Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comicon, Eric Burnham, idw, kevin eastman, san diego, sdcc, teenaged mutant ninja turtles, tmnt, Tom Waltz

Sorry Folks, Still No Venus de Milo – The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Panel at SDCC

Jacob Dadon writes for Bleeding Cool:

San Diego Comic Con with one of the first panels of the day being the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles panel, promising a discussion on all things Turtle. But, seeing as how there's another panel devoted to the cartoon show scheduled for tomorrow, this one ended up focusing mostly on the IDW comic series.

The panel was made up of Turtles stalwarts Eric Burnham and Tom Waltz, as well as co-creator Kevin Eastman, and moderated by editor Kevin Curnow.

Jumping right into it, Waltz touched on the series' current arc, City Fall. Comparing Leonardo's role on the team to that of Cyclops (pre-AvX, certainly), He said he really wanted to shake up the dynamic between the brothers, and Leo's new relationship with Shredder and the Foot Clan will also lead some tensions with Kirai.

The Secret History of the Foot Clan was apparently popular enough around the office that Kitsune made enough of an impression to get resurrected here, and she'll play into Leo's corruption. Hun, a character from the 2003 cartoon series, also makes his debut before City Fall sees its' completion. So far most of the story has been build up, and they promise that the next four issues will be much more action-packed.

Touching on the arc following up City Fall, we were shown a slide with the title "Northhampton", a four-issue arc dealing with the aftermath of City Fall. They refused to go into specifics, but promised art by Ross Campbell, showcased in the slide. Later in the panel during the Q&A, Northhampton would be brought up again, and despite not being able to divulge details, Waltz did mention that the brothers would be at a particularly low point, and that the arc would see the introduction of a brand new original mutant.

Moving on to the villains Micro Series, the crowd was given sneaks peaks at all the upcoming stories. The Kirai Micro was shown off, revealing that the antagonist of the story will be none other than Leonardo, in his Foot Clan regalia to boot. Next up was the Hun Micro, promising us a look into the origin of the Purple Dragon Clan.

The highly anticipated Bebop and Rocksteady Micro was touted as focusing more on having fun, as evidenced by the wild variant cover that was shown off. Finally, the last of the villains Micros was announced, and it's none other than Shredder. I missed the name of the writer over the den of cheers from the audience, but the book has Dan Duncan on art duties and will be presented entirely in Black and White. It'll tell the story of Shredder in between his death and resurrection, and act as something of a semi-epilogue to City Fall.

From there, the panel moved to the recently released New Animated Adventures series, taking after the light hearted cartoon show rather the grittiness of the regular series. Eastman and the other panelists lauded Nickelodeon for their treatment of the property, allowing the more serious comic to exist while they go in a different direction with the cartoon.

The regular section of the panel ended with a quick advertisement for the video game, Out of the Shadows, coming to the Xbox Live Arcade and PC this August.

The Q&A was standard fare, with a number of questions regarding the status of numerous characters throughout the franchise's history, including one courageous fan asking for a possible revival of the much maligned female turtle, Venus de Milo, met with jeers from the crowd. The panel claimed there were no plans to bring her or any of the original characters currently appearing in the Nick cartoon show to their series, as Nick asked that they stay as separate as possible.

At one point, a young girl dressed in a Michelangelo costume asked the panel who their favorite turtles were. Eastman gave the only correct answer, Raph, while Waltz and Burnham answered Mikey and Donny, respectively.

As the panel came to a close, Eastman chose to address the elephant in the room and claimed that everything he had seen about the upcoming 2014 live action movie blew him away, and assured us we would feel the same way.

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