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rainbowfoxes · 3 months

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Yet Another IDW TMNT Theory: The Mystery of Donnie's Kids

Since the existence of Donnie's kids were first hinted at in #139, I have been foaming at the mouth about them. I adore turtle tots with my whole entire soul, so to say I was happy to have them confirmed in #146 is an understatement.

However, as we get closer and closer to #150 without seeing hide nor hair (or rather, shell nor mask) of these turtles, I become more and more insane about them and concerned that we will never see them at all, given the impending relaunch. I've got some Thoughts about these kids and since none of my friends read IDW TMNT, I'm going to inflict them upon you, the general public.

What are you even talking about, anyways?

For those of you who don't know, IDW! Donnie was recently confirmed to have kids in issue #146

[Image ID: Two panels from IDW TMNT #146. A young/current Donatello speaks with an elderly Leonardo. Their conversation is as follows: Leo: You created your children, and you left. Donnie: What? My Children?! Leo: Ah... I've said too much already. It's still hard for me to talk about. Donnie: I'm sorry, but... Is my future self still alive in this time period? Leo: Yes. He Lives in a Tower west of here, near Venus and Bludgeon's Aura Clan training grounds. :End Image ID]

These children were first hinted at in issue #139, during a vision Donnie had

[Image ID: A full page from IDW TMNT #139. Donatello holds a meditative hand sign with deep concentration as he sees four visions. The first is a vision of his past life as a human boy. The second is a vision of how he and Venus are connected through her having parts of his shell. The third is a vision of him looking into a tank containing four small turtles. The fourth is him in a cloak, holding a staff in one hand and small stick emitting some sort of energy in the other. In the air and on the ground around him are drawings of mutant turtles. behind him are three mutant turtles we've never seen before. There is a short monologue in text boxes scatter across the page. The text boxes read: "The lives you touch all have their own pasts and futures, and these are part of you, as well. And, in turn, your past and future are part of them. It is an eternal cycle. This is what the tenth cut represents. It is the whole." :End Image ID]

Now we don't know ANYTHING about these kids besides the fact that they exist. But there's enough hints available to us that I've come up with some Theories...

(Theories below the cut, to save you the long scroll)

Theory One: Donnie's Kids were Created Via Magi-Science

This one I'm pretty confident in. In #139 we see Donnie holding that weird looking stick. But this isn't the first time we've ever seen it! It actually first appeared in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game — Alliance #4. Donnie, having been messing around with time manipulation, ends up in the future.

[Image ID: Two panels from IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game — Alliance #4. On the far left is a fully body image of a much older Donatello. He is wearing a ragged cloak and various mystical-looking accessories. In his right hand he carries a staff with some sort of skull strapped to the top. In his left hand he carries a small stick with a glowing crystal attached to the end. He is saying "... Before my memory is wiped of all of it." Behind him is a larger panel, set inside his workshop / wizard tower. It features a close up of old Donatello contemplating his stick, which now appears to resemble a pencil. Hiding in the background, young Donatello looks on, whispering "It's me." :End Image ID]

But more importantly, we see the stone on that stick even earlier! It's part of Donnie's Gofu, an amulet he made back in #132 with crystals from the thin place to help him channel mystic energy.

[Image ID: Two panels from IDW TMNT #132. In the top panel, Donatello contemplates a glowing green crystal. To the right, a textbox reads "Rin, the first cut, is 'strength' and 'confrontation.'" In the bottom panel, there is a multifaceted glowing green crystals wrapped neatly in what appears to be some sort of vine or twine. To the right, a textbox reads "It is courage and steeling oneself for what will be confronted." :End Image ID]

And in IDW TMNT #135 — which takes places before Alliance #4 — we see Donnie experimenting with some of the crystals. Most notably, we see it attach to a pencil on his desk.

[Image ID: A page from IDW TMNT #135. It depicts Donatello in his workshop, tinkering with his gauntlet and adding pieces of his mystic crystal into it. A small chunk attaches itself to the eraser of his pencil. Swirls of energy curl off the various chunks to twist around his outstretched hand. As he is working, he is speaking into a tape recorder. His monologue is as follows: Donatello: After cutting the thin place crystal into sections, the gauntlet installation is much smoother. The energy of the crystal fragments — I hesitate to say magic, maybe arcane energy is better? — is successfully powering Dr. Lilja's gauntlet, but it's inefficient. Until I can determine where the crystal's power actually comes from, I won't know what limits this energy has, both physical and temporal. In any case, it's a very promising start, and I hope whatever I can create with these materials... will be enough to protect my family, friends, and community. Seri, off page: Donatello? :End Image ID}

So you might be asking: What's so important about these dang crystals?

I'm glad you asked!

Way back during Mirage Vol. 1, the very first Micro-series came out. Donatello's book was a story called "Kirby and the Warp Crystal." In it, Don meets April's downstairs neighbor, an artist named Kirby (in honor of the late great Jack Kirby). Kirby has a magic crystal that, when strapped to his pencil, makes whatever he draws become real, but only for a short time before they disappear.

That in-of-itself gives credence to the theory that Donnie drew up his children, but wait, there's more!

Mirage Vol. 4 #22 it's revealed that April is a living drawing herself. After being unable to conceive a second child, her father found the crystal and discovered it's magical properties. First attaching it to a pencil, he drew up a bouncing baby girl, who disappeared after a short period of time. He tried several more times before giving up. But he had one last idea — he strapped the crystal to a pen and drew the baby one more time. And she remained real, growing into the April we know today.

So, not only is it possible to create life with the crystal, it's possible to create permanent life with it. And it's not just the Mirage crystal, either! in Alliance #4, we see old Donatello draw up his family so he can say goodbye to them.

[Image ID: Two panels from IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game — Alliance #4. In the top panel, old Donatello draws ghostly green images of his family onto a blank white background using a pencil with a glowing green crystal attached. In the bottom panel, he addresses the drawings of his family morosely, "Hey, guys." :End Image ID]

So knowing what we do, we can conclude that magic was definitely involved in the creation of the Donnie-Spawn. However, I do not believe it's the only factor. For one, these drawings of his family are generally lifeless and disappear quickly. For two, We did see him looking at those baby turtles, and there were all those drawings in that vision, too...

I posit that Donnie did his preliminary designs on paper, then used magic to mutate his children from ordinary turtles. It has a nice circularity to it, I think, considering Donnie's own origin as an animal test subject.

Also of note is that Sophie Campbell once said that she wanted to make a turtle character that was a drawing come to life but for the life of me I cannot find the source on that.

Theory Two: One of Donnie's Kids is Artemisia

This one is really just me going

[Image ID: The "I've connected the two dots." "You didn't connect shit." "I've connected them!" Meme from Buzzfeed: Unsolved. :End Image ID]

But I like it and you can't prove me wrong (yet).

In IDW TMNT #117, we get a shot of what the future Splinter Clan will look like.

[Image ID: A page from IDW TMNT #117. Along the bottom, the six core members of the Splinter Clan observe a portal haloed in sparking blue energy that shows them a glimpse of the future. The image shown to them is a camp set up in a desert. There is a small waterfall and what appears to be a Japanese maple tree in the background, as well as the ruins of skyscrapers to the right. The clan and their various allies are there, along with new members we haven't met yet. Despite the rough conditions, everyone looks happy. :End Image ID]

At the top left, sitting on a balcony, there is a mutant turtle. She has a bow and pink face paint. Her name is Artemisia — her name is not mentioned in the comic, of course, but we know this thanks to Sophie Campbell's presence here on Tumblr and the website formerly known as Twitter.

Notable about Artemisia is that she's the ONLY turtle in that glimpse into the future we haven't met yet.

I'd also like to draw attention back to the panel from #139:

[Image ID: A panel from IDW TMNT #139. It is framed in wispy purple smoke, indicating it's part of a vision. in the center foreground, Donatello stands wearing a dark cloak. In his right hand he carries a staff with a bird's head on it, in his left a short stick with a crystal emitting a magic aura attached to it. Behind him stands 3 mutant turtles. In the air above them and on the ground below them are drawings of mutant turtles. :End Image ID]

That turtle in the middle reads female to me. They have a more feminine shape language — wide hips and a slim waist, softer facial features, and the impression of wearing a skirt and crop top.

Plus the naming scheme fits. Artemisia is named for Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi — it would not be out of line for Donnie to name his kids in a similar manner to how he and his brothers were named.

And that's about it for this one, really. The only "extra" turtle we have is a girl, one of the Donnie-Spawn reads feminine, ergo Artemisia = Donnie-Spawn.

I will not be upset in the slightest if this is not the case; the more turtles the merrier if you ask me!

Other Interesting Information

There was once a TMNT TTRPG called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness. One of it's expansions, Road Hogs, included a small comic set in a post apocalyptic future that featured old man! Raph with three students he all calls Mike (I am SO NORMAL about that fact, I promise). This is likely the inspiration between the old man! Raph we've been seeing in the current arc, as well as potential inspiration for the Donnie-Spawn. Sophie Campbell is a fan of the TTRPG turtles, and even drew them herself. It would not be impossible for her to have drawn inspiration from there.

Sophie Campbell also created another turtle for the group shot in #117. His name is Kirby, but he didn't make the final cut. His name is clearly a reference to Jack Kirby (tin-foil hat time: which could be a link to the Mirage Donatello Micro-Series story). There's another scrapped turtle named Kirby (again, for Jack Kirby), who was going to be in the would-be fourth TMNT movie who could also be a source of inspiration. He was dimensional traveler. Make of that what you will.

Fero Pe's designs for the Donnie-Spawn remind me of the new turtles from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin — The Lost Years. Particularly, the one on the far left is rather large like Odyn, and the one on the right is tall and slim, a bit like Uno. Considering IDW TMNT #139 came out in April of 2023, and the first issue of The Lost Years came out in January of 2023, it's possible that this is a result of synergy at the office — artists taking inspiration from each other.

Donnie being spiritual/magical isn't entirely out of left field. In Rick McCollum's "Donatello: The Ring" and "Twilight of the Ring" stories, Donnie proves to be very spiritual. I believe it also makes sense specifically in this context, because the crystal has always been heavily associated with him, even after the reveal of April's true origins. It'd be Odd to give the Kirby Crystal to anyone else, and having him use it to create his children is a nice homage to the original. Which also — it didn't come up in the main post, but old Donatello leaves a note for himself that reads "Life at best is bittersweet." This itself is a callback to "Kirby and the Warp Crystal" as Kirby leaves Donnie a note reading the same thing just before his death.

Donnie's design as an old man could possibly be a reference to the character Tsou-T'an-Jin from the TMNT/ Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa crossovers, being an elderly, mystically inclined turtle. That would be a bit of a stretch, I think, but it's not off the table.

Unanswered Questions

How many kids does Donnie have? We see four turtles in the tank, but only three mutants. For there to be a "true" next-gen, there should be four (potentially five, if you include Jennika, or even six if we consider Venus) turtles. If Lita is included in the count, there could be three Donnie-Spawn, which would be in line with one of their potential sources of inspiration the TTRPG turtles. But there were four turtles in the tank Donnie looks at, and why wouldn't he make a "full set," so to speak? Were there four at one point, and something happened to the fourth?

Where are they? We only see Artemisia in the group shot from #117, and Leo is not specific about what happened to the kids after Donnie left, and that conversation takes place after that group shot. Where are the others? What happened to them?

Why did Donnie make them? We don't know why, exactly, Donnie made them. We just know they exist. Does he make them because he was told by future!Leo that they exist? Because he wants children? Because he's lonely? For some larger purpose?

PLEASE talk at me about IDW turtles. Do it in the reblogs, send me an ask, messenger pigeon, smoke signals — l do not care so long as it's about IDW turtles. Tell me your theories, argue with me about MY theories, I do not care. I am chewing on my own arms for lack of people to talk IDW TMNT with.

#TMNT #teenage mutant ninja turtles #IDW TMNT #tmnt donatello #future donatello #idw donatello #turtle tots #tmnt donnie #idw donnie #future donnie #tmnt comics #donatello #my post #meta #PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT IDW TMNT #or Mirage TMNT I'm not picky so long as it's comics

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