In Name Only or Never Seen Again?
 

The Nick and IDW series have both been introducing a lot of new (and old) favorites to TMNT canon. But many of them are familiar... either in name only, or in everything BUT name.

It seems that Nick prefers to come up with new characters and then slap familiar names onto them... I guess in an effort to ensure fans like them more? I don't personally see the appeal in these characters.

Examples: Nick's Bebop and Rocksteady (or Anton Zeck and whoever the Russian guy is) were nothing like the original characters, even after mutation. A stereotypical Russian gangster and a Tron hiphop jive master thief? Or their Rahzar, who started off as a human Chuck Norris, mutated into a lopsided dog mutant Dogpound, and then double mutated into a sharp skeletal werewolf?

Whereas IDW starts with familiar character designs and then assigns new names to what could have been revamped existing characters. While these characters are generally well accepted, it does pretty much guarantee that no similar and pre-existing characters will ever see the light of day.

Examples: A shark mutant that ends up named Bludgeon instead of Armaggeon; a female Foot assassin named Jennika instead of Pimiko; a fox badass warrior turned sappy romantic interest for Raphael named Alopex instead of Ninjara (thanks to rights issues and a terrible name).

My question to you is... which approach do you prefer?

I'm not too familiar with IDW but I actually really like the Nick approach, and its not like the Nick versions aren't anything like the original. They still do share many of the same basic elements, but Nick goes out of their way to make these characters unique and give them many original backstories. Thats why when characters like Bebop, Rocksteady and Hun were announced, I was naturally very excited, not just because I would see familiar faces again, but also because it would be interesting to see what new stuff Nick does with them.

In the case of the Nick approach, there really isn't much point to it as far as I can see, at least not from an artistic perspective. If you're going to make your own thing anyway, why even bother pretending you're trying recreate something? The only logical reasons I can see have nothing to do with artistic expression:

1. Like you said, hoping that older fans will feel more attached to them. I don't really see that being the case here, since old fans aren't really the target audience here.
2. It helps reinforce trademarks, this show is meant to sell toys after all.
3. It might feel easier for the creative team if the characters aren't really their own creations, they don't have to part with the copyright of their babies.

As for the IDW approach, well, there's nothing that really prevents the older characters from popping up later, is there? As long as the title is published, there's still hope they might show up.

Regardless, I think it's probably best for now that these aren't actually the same characters. Ninjara, Armaggon and Pimiko are all characters that would just open up a can of worms if you just used them for the sake of using them. Does IDW really need to complicate the story with an ancient foxman village, a timelooping cyborg shark trying to conquer the world and an alleged daughter of the Shredder? I don't think so, I'd say it's probably not a good idea to make things complicated for no reason.

This can apply to any new character in any series. Look at Slash:

- Original cartoon: Slash was Bebop's secret pet Turtle that he mutated. Then Slash went beserk, had an obsession with his palm tree and flew into Dimension X.

- Archie. Slash is actually an alien Turtle from some palm tree planet. He meets Krang in space then comes to Earth, eventually has an alliance with the Mutanimals and then sacrifices himself to stop Malinga.

- IDW. Slash is a mutant created by Stockgen, he joins up with Hob and goes from a mindless beast to being intelligent.

- Nick. Slash was Raphael's pet turtle Spike. Got mutated, when rogue for a while, then formed the Mutanimals.


Slash has had a widly different origin and personality every series he was in. This is no different than any other character.

Gun to my head, I kind of like the Nick approach on paper. When you accept it's sort of set in some kind of... heightened reality, old Playmates TMNT toys sandbox with a dusting of this or that... it works well and seems to follow its own set of rules. From where I'm at in season 3, it seems to have gotten a bit vapid, though.

I don't like the IDW approach on paper. Nothing seems -- forgive me if this sounds mean -- lazier than just jambalayaing together characters and stories from existing universes created by others.

Interesting thing is Wyrm is appearing in IDW around January, yet another old mutant brought back.

What about in practice though?

I'm with Andrew. Nick works better on paper but IDW in execution. Nick's reimaginings are sometimes underused, make you wonder why they even bothered, or just plain weird.

Really though, new original characters and stories are the way to go.

One thing I can see The IDW comic doing, is combining Old Hob with Verminator X from the Archie comic, if at some point he becomes half mutant half cyborg.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20140214031257

Given how Alopex is IDW's answer to the Archie comic Ninjara, They can do something with Old Hob, He wears an eye patch, so if he becomes a cyborg, his right eye can be cyborgnetic.

In practice it can be fun. I'm not even saying IDW is doing a bad job at it... they clearly have spent a really, really long time trying to figure out how to incorporate everything into... everything.

But it's, like... fanfiction fun. It's just rearranging the puzzle pieces of other people's puzzles to make your own puzzle... that's not good prose.

Nailed it.

I like both, but I much prefer how Nick has handled this, for the most part.

Bludgeon and Armaggon aren't anything unlike. Armaggon may still appear in IDW down the road

I prefer IDW, mainly because I prefer that they've remained focused on their overall story and not become bogged down in filler one-off toy commercial episodes.

Also, I think they've made huge original contributions to the TMNT mythos as a whole, with Old Hob, Kitsune, and the reincarnation angle. Also our first sympathetic Oroku Saki who achieved (partial) redemption.

I'm just getting started with the new comics, so I can't really say, but I think the Nickelodeon show has been a lot of fun, being the same but different. it scratches that itch, where you still want it to be like it was, but now it's fresh and new, like a remix.

Mutanimals
 

Wasn't Archie Slash's origin explained just in the Mutanimals comics?

The first sympathetic Oroku Saki can be found a ways into the Archie material. Somewhat.

On Palmadise? Yeah. Though I think he verbally covered it beforehand.

I just recall Krang, Slash and Bellybomb meeting on Morbus, and Krang recognizing Slash. They sneaked into a spacecraft and headed for one of the Eden planets, picking up Bebop and Rocksteady, and then flew further to Earth.

I think a lot of you are forgetting that 15 years ago the only material to draw from was Mirage. And Archie started off as a loose adaption of the original cartoon and Playmates toyline before going off on its own plots.

Nick and IDW now come later in the franchise history where there's been Mirage, Original cartoon, Archie, movies, 2k3 cartoon, etc.

Is it really such a surprise Nick and IDW are just re-using old concepts from every series?

Aren't you meaning 25 years ago? (unless you just mean comics)

Honestly I would be okay with either version as long as its executed well(like Andrew said) so I would be interested in the Nick version in theory however it feels like with the Nick version they give the new incarnation personalities and just forget them after their debut episode

Off Topic Rant- I feel as if Hun in the Nick TMNT version is the worst example, in the 4kids version he was Shredder's top enforcer and had a rivalry with Casey Jones(hell it was pretty much Hun who made Casey into a vigilante) on top of that we see Hun in various ways sometimes he follows Shredder, sometimes he leds the purple dragons and at one time we saw Hun at his lowest when he was shoveling coal with Baxter Stockman and we see him at his highest when he turned the purple dragons into a Highly Trained mercenary guild and he pretty much ruled a good chunk of New York. In the IDW version Hun is Casey's abusive father who followed Shredder in return for reclaiming his Glory days and being a better father(okay he failed at the latter but at least he tried). This Hun meanwhile.... does Bruce Lee noises and fights the main character, not don't get me wrong I didn't mind Hun's new design and I was looking forward to a new character who had a fighting style that stood out from other character(which is why I loved Xever) but they don't really do anything with the character he's pretty a non entity