Thursday, July 18, at San Diego Comic-Con, IDW and moderator Bobby Curnow hosted a panel along with Kevin Eastman showcasing their upcoming plans for the on-going TMNT series, the Micro-Series books, and the New Animated Adventures series.
The first thing addressed was the current "City Fall" storyline. In this story we're seeing several different family dynamics in conflict with each other. On the Turtles' end, we see Leo and Don butting heads, which is a bit of a change [from the typical conflicts seen between Leo and Raph].
While Leo is typically straight & narrow and lives by the rules, Shredder manipulates his psyche to bring him to the "dark side." Having Leo on his side is appealing to Shredder, who looks down on Karai because she's female.
Above: A look at character designs for Dark Leo and Hun.
Below: Character designs for Bebop and Rocksteady.
Although Bobby and the rest of the panel danced around giving spoilers for the remaining issues of "City Fall," the nature of how solicitations in the comic book industry work means we're going to get an idea of how it wraps up anyways. Thus, he revealed to us the next storyline, "Northampton." The art shown, by Ross Campbell, depicts the four Turtles back together, but not quite back to normal. The brothers are in a bad place at the end of "City Fall;" "Northampton" is a time out, although the Turtles might not find the kind of peace they're looking for.
Of course, Northampton, Massachusetts, has been a second home for the Turtles in more way than one throughout the years. Interior art will be by Ross Campbell, who has also designed a new mutant that will be appearing.
Above: A look at a couple of the covers for the upcoming Micro-Series Villains #6 Hun.
Below: A look at a couple of the covers for the upcoming Micro-Series Villains #7 Bebop and Rocksteady.
Regarding the on-going series, Bobby acknowledged that characters such as Alopex and Kitsune were not created to be featured heavily in the story, but that their popularity puts them in more. Other characters are being seeded into the book. And we can expect to see more elements from the 4Kids series enter into the mix.
Bobby also revealed that Micro-Series Villains #8 would feature Shredder. Above is one of the covers.
The New Animated Adventures series has just launched! Woot! This book will remain completely separate from the 2-year-old on-going series. And likewise, the on-going series will remain completely separate from the Nickelodeon CGI cartoon series.
Above: A couple of upcoming covers by Kevin Eastman. Kevin expressed extreme satisfaction with the way the series has progressed and credited it with helping him to discover how much he loves to read, write, and draw comics.
