TMNT: Villain Micro-Series: Old Hob Preview

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Old Hob becoming Verminator X has been speculated for some time.

I must have missed ALL of those discussions.

I don't think he put the Mutagen under his shirt knowing Baxter would shoot him in the chest. I think he broke the vial and shoved it up under his chest immediately after Baxter left with Kraang and the Stone Soldiers.

What I don't understand is this: if Mutagen Ooze has such powerful healing abilities (like enabling Tatsuo to grown another leg in "Secret History"), shouldn't Hob's eye have grown back, considering he lost it at the same time he was exposed to the mutagen?

[Warboss74]

Originally Posted by ***The One True Shredder***

I must have missed ALL of those discussions.

I don't think he put the Mutagen under his shirt knowing Baxter would shoot him in the chest. I think he broke the vial and shoved it up under his chest immediately after Baxter left with Kraang and the Stone Soldiers.

What I don't understand is this: if Mutagen Ooze has such powerful healing abilities (like enabling Tatsuo to grown another leg in "Secret History"), shouldn't Hob's eye have grown back, considering he lost it at the same time he was exposed to the mutagen?

Was is it the Ooze or Mutagen that Old Hob had? The Ooze is the base component from which the Mutagen is created, and the Ooze is what is keeping the last of the Utroms alive, gave the Shredder eternal life, and healed Tatsuo and extended his life. Mutagen hasn't shown any healing effect before, so I would guess he stole some Ooze from Stockman/Krang. (Haven't read the issue) Is the vial labeled Splinter his blood or the reverse engineered psychotropic serum? If it's Splinter's blood and the Ooze, Old Hob could be searching for someone to create the Mutagen and the psychotropic serum, which could lead to Chaplin or even Bishop in the future.

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

The mutagen is made from the ooze, so it should have the same healing powers. The ooze is its main component. There needs to be some explanation for Hob's lost eye not growing back, other than "he needed to look like Nick Fury/Verminator X."

[Tazi]

An other thing I'm curious about: So now his body is absorbed Splinter's blood combined with the Ooze, right? Baxter said Hob is unstable, but Splinter is not, this is why they need the rat's blood. Maybe Hob's unstableness is fixed with the shooting/testtube break, and this is why he is more intelligent now?

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

I don't see him as being more intelligent, maybe more reasonable if anything. He still seems like kind of a jerk but I guess that's understandable considering what he's been through. It seems like he'll always be out for someone's blood... but then that's the nature of a cat.

[Tazi]

One more: so does the blood canister broke? In the Slash arc when Hob appears at the end they show it inact, so I don't exactly get it...

[Warboss74]

Originally Posted by ***The One True Shredder***

The mutagen is made from the ooze, so it should have the same healing powers. The ooze is its main component. There needs to be some explanation for Hob's lost eye not growing back, other than "he needed to look like Nick Fury/Verminator X."

I don't think that's necessarily how chemistry works in real life, though.

[corvus]

Originally Posted by ***The One True Shredder***

I must have missed ALL of those discussions.

I don't think he put the Mutagen under his shirt knowing Baxter would shoot him in the chest. I think he broke the vial and shoved it up under his chest immediately after Baxter left with Kraang and the Stone Soldiers.

What I don't understand is this: if Mutagen Ooze has such powerful healing abilities (like enabling Tatsuo to grown another leg in "Secret History"), shouldn't Hob's eye have grown back, considering he lost it at the same time he was exposed to the mutagen?

Tatsuo was covered in ooze. Hob put a vial of it directly on a wound. If he poured it down his empty eye socket or bathed in it he'd probably get his eye back.

[Warboss74]

Originally Posted by Tazi

An other thing I'm curious about: So now his body is absorbed Splinter's blood combined with the Ooze, right? Baxter said Hob is unstable, but Splinter is not, this is why they need the rat's blood. Maybe Hob's unstableness is fixed with the shooting/testtube break, and this is why he is more intelligent now?

They needed Splinter's blood to reverse engineer the psychotropic serum because Old Hob, Slash, and the Turtles were all exposed to contaminated psychotropic serum that leads to mental instability. I don't think just using Splinter's blood would do anything. From what I've heard about the story, Old Hob is depicted as being more intelligent before the gunshot wound. My question now is how has Slash overcome the mental instability and turtle hunting programming without ghe psychotropic serum? Is it confirmed that he lost it all in this issue? If it was, it would certainly contradict the end of #16, and maybe it was just a miss by Curnow?

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

Originally Posted by corvus

Tatsuo was covered in ooze. Hob put a vial of it directly on a wound. If he poured it down his empty eye socket or bathed in it he'd probably get his eye back.

The point is that the ooze is the main component in the mutagen, so the mutagen by default should have healed his lost eye since he lost it at the same time he was exposed to the mutagen. I'm telling you, the only reason his eye was not healed was so that he'd resemble Nick Fury/Verminator X

[Warboss74]

Originally Posted by ***The One True Shredder***

The point is that the ooze is the main component in the mutagen, so the mutagen by default should have healed his lost eye since he lost it at the same time he was exposed to the mutagen. I'm telling you, the only reason his eye was not healed was so that he'd resemble Nick Fury/Verminator X

Just because it was the main/key component doesn't mean all of it's properties transfer when mixed/combined with other components. The Mutagen is no longer the Ooze, and it has a very different property that the Ooze doesn't have. The design of the character may be meant to resemble those characters, but it seems a very flimsy reason for a certain property of the mutagen.

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

The ooze is the primary component in the mutagen, and for the very reason that it has healing powers, in Hob's own words, it was like being torn/broken apart and put back together again. So essentially, the components in the mutagen that cause Mutation would kill the being mutating were it not for the "healing properties" of the ooze. Does anyone else disagree with me about this?

[Bobby Curnow]

Yeah, we've tried to make it straightforward though obviously it's still a bit unclear— Ooze has healing properties, mutagen mutates. Mutagen has no healing properties (even though it comes from Ooze). Hob states that he swiped some Ooze, in addition to Splinter's blood in the micro. It's the ooze he used to heal himself from the gun shot.

Pretty much the entire modern pharmaceutical business is based on changing something's inherent properties through science in order for it to do something completely different, so makes sense to me that Mutagen doesn't heal in a traditional sense. (to me at least!)

As for Slash's programing, he moves to attack the Turtles in the Hob micro, but Hob's stops him. One assumes Hob has been acting as a bit of a mentor towards Slash, and has some influence over him at this point.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Bobby Curnow

Yeah, we've tried to make it straightforward though obviously it's still a bit unclear— Ooze has healing properties, mutagen mutates. Mutagen has no healing properties (even though it comes from Ooze). Hob states that he swiped some Ooze, in addition to Splinter's blood in the micro. It's the ooze he used to heal himself from the gun shot.

And that, my friends, is the real secret of the ooze!

[Cipher]

Finally read this guy.

Foot in mouth. This was my favorite issue of the current micro-series volume, and one of the more fun issues in a while.

The story never strayed too far from Hob's voice or sense of humor, which made it really work. I love that his one exchange in the issue with Slash, after he drops his entire monologue, just has Slash saying, "No more pain." It also presented a fair backstory for him having amassed a gang prior to the first issue, which was something I'd always wondered about.

Liked this issue. Like Hob. Looking forward to #23.

[ToTheNines]

How awesome is Dave Watcher? If you liked this issue, check out the 3 issue mini-series Night of 1,000 Wolves by him and Bobby Curnow. It's great.

Favorite part of the flashbacks the decent explanation of how Hob had a bunch of humans working for him, I never quite bought that back in the day. Everything else was pretty cool too. I'm definitely excited for Hob's upcoming storyline.

[TonySiegel]

yooo this issue was ill! old hob was getting his thug life status going on... really enjoyed this issue...

i don't know why but i wondered if hob's original owner (the lil' kid) would ever show up in the comic...

would be a crazy bitter sweet/tender moment...

hob was reminding me of revolver ocelot with an eye patch in this issue:

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Bobby Curnow

Yeah, we've tried to make it straightforward though obviously it's still a bit unclear— Ooze has healing properties, mutagen mutates. Mutagen has no healing properties (even though it comes from Ooze). Hob states that he swiped some Ooze, in addition to Splinter's blood in the micro. It's the ooze he used to heal himself from the gun shot.

Pretty much the entire modern pharmaceutical business is based on changing something's inherent properties through science in order for it to do something completely different, so makes sense to me that Mutagen doesn't heal in a traditional sense. (to me at least!)

As for Slash's programing, he moves to attack the Turtles in the Hob micro, but Hob's stops him. One assumes Hob has been acting as a bit of a mentor towards Slash, and has some influence over him at this point.

I only just caught this. Thanks for the clarfication,Mr. Curnow. I always thought of ooze as another word for mutagen. I suppose it is outside of IDW. I understand the explaination to the "t" in mutagen.

Also, thanks for the laugh Winters!

[***First of Two Latin Kings***]

Originally Posted by Bobby Curnow

Yeah, we've tried to make it straightforward though obviously it's still a bit unclear— Ooze has healing properties, mutagen mutates. Mutagen has no healing properties (even though it comes from Ooze). Hob states that he swiped some Ooze, in addition to Splinter's blood in the micro. It's the ooze he used to heal himself from the gun shot.

Pretty much the entire modern pharmaceutical business is based on changing something's inherent properties through science in order for it to do something completely different, so makes sense to me that Mutagen doesn't heal in a traditional sense. (to me at least!)

I thought that the Mutagen had some residual healing properties because it did in the Image Universe (at least it did in Andrew's conclusion), but also because of how Hob described his mutation. You would think that if an agent could cause you to literally be broken apart on the inside in order to build you up as something else, than that same agent would HAVE to have the ability to heal you, also. The artwork showing Hob's mutation also led me to believe this. I just assumed that the ooze was the component of the Mutagen that was used to insure that mutation wouldn't kill the test subject or anyone else exposed to it.

[Bobby Curnow]

I can see where you're coming from, but nope, not the case. Hob's eye would have healed if that were true.