Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4746086-20131112182225/@comment-995426-20160603213637

That's what this is about? You really shouldn't take opinions as if they're an insult to your interests by virtue of disagreeing. TMNT fans are always going to disagree on all sorts of stuff. Here on Turtlepedia, we users are entitled to comment whatever criticism of works of fiction we please, within the rules of civility. What we are not allowed to do is be uncivil toward other users (personal attacks, etc.). And even strong criticism of a work of fiction someone else likes is not incivility. And in the TMNT fandom and multiverse, you're going to encounter criticism a lot, even from creators themselves. Some of the writers at Mirage in particular had plenty of disdain for the 1987 TV series, which would sometimes show through in the comics.

Peter Laird has made it pretty clear he has no affection for the 1987 TV series, as Murakami-Wolf-Swenson shut out Mirage's creative input as much as possible, and the resulting TV series was more of an anti-TMNT with a style and substance largely opposite that of the comics. Adult TMNT comic readers not only couldn't warm up to the TV series, but became so embarrassed it existed that they became afraid to openly identify as TMNT fans because of the perceived creepiness of adults liking a franchise "for kids" that was never actually for kids. Now that those 1987 TV series fans have become adults themselves, that stigma has become less of an issue, but there's still a noticeable difference between adult TMNT fans who like TMNT through an adult lens and adult TMNT fans who like TMNT out of childhood nostalgia, because the two demographics don't always have a lot in common, so they often have different interests, different tastes, different priorities, etc.

The 2003 TV series was another attempt at making an adequately child-friendly TV series more in the spirit of the comics, so that adult TMNT comics fans could appreciate it too, but it strove to discard most of the changes the 1987 TV series had made. It kept color-coded bandannas and a red-headed April, but not much else. (And if you watched Turtles Forever and sensed that it was repeatedly mocking and ridiculing the 1987 TV series, that's exactly what it was doing.)

The 2012 TV series initially seemed to try to strike a balance between the appeal of the 1987 TV series and the appeal of the 2003 TV series and the Mirage comics. During the first two seasons, I'd say it mostly succeeded. But in season three, it went off the deep end and alienated every one of my TMNT fan friends, and then finally I couldn't keep enjoying it either. My friends and I are still pretty put off by what Nick's been doing to the franchise more recently. At least there's plenty of good comics and fancomics series still being published.

So yeah, there's a good three decades of history of broken fanbases and polarized opinions in the TMNT fandom. Long-time TMNT fans learn to live with it, because it's been here for a long time in various forms, and it's not going to go away. But we should count our blessings&mdash;at least it's not nearly as bitterly broken as the Star Fox fandom. :) Now that has seen some really ugly times.