Which series had the best mutants?

[CyberCubed]

I'm going to have to go with the original cartoon on this one. Most of the 4kids mutants had no actual character and was just written as monsters like in Notes of the Underground or the Season 4 Mutant outbreak arc. Quarry was the sole exception but we didn't see much of her.

And while I like some of the Nick mutants like Tiger Claw, Fishface, this incarnation of Rahzar and Slash, etc....a lot of the others are just kinda mindless mutants as well just intended to be scary.

For the OT, I always found Bebop and Rocksteady funny. Leatherhead's OT version is my favorite incarnation of the character. I also loved Groundchuck and Dirtbag, and the one-off Rahzar/Tokka. Slash was OK, not as good as the other versions. Mutagen Man had more character in this show as well.

[CharmedSerenity]

None of the above - I'm going with the IDW comics.

[snake]

IDW or Nick. Archie had some cool ones too.

[TigerClaw]

The original series had some very cool mutants, Which can also be found in the archie comics.

Plus the original series was the first to have female mutants, IDW has done it, But Nick has yet to cover that.

[Jephael]

Archie was the best with mutants, but since you only did the cartoons, I'll vote the classic toon since that was what the Archie series was based on.

[LeoRaph]

Hmmmm - maybe I was bit too hasty with my vote. 4kids definitely had better human and non human characters. I do agree with CyberCubed that the 4kids mutants were a little monster like with the exception of a few but 4kids also had some great other worldly characters, aliens, supernatural, demons... what ever you want to call them.

In hindsight though, if I were to vote for Mutants only, I'd change my vote to Nick because there are at least more mutants with depth compared to 4kids and they are no where near as annoying as the OT.

[Powder]

None of the above - I'm going with the IDW comics.

IDW has only created like 3 new mutants, how can you honestly say it's got the best selection?

I voted for the OT but only because that's what Playmates' toys would fall under. Also, you forgot Archie, Cubed!

[slashpieturtlemix]

I went with original because it had some of my favs of all time in it. Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter, Leatherhead and the frogs are what did it for me.

[CyberCubed]

Yeah so far I prefer Baxter as a fly far more in the OT than the Nick version

[slashpieturtlemix]

Yeah so far I prefer Baxter as a fly far more in the OT than the Nick version

Hahaha I feel the same. I think its because he was super interlligent and once he became a fly, everything went wrong for him. I even felt a little pity to Mr. Sweater-vest at times lol

[Bry]

Plus the original series was the first to have female mutants, IDW has done it, But Nick has yet to cover that.

Karai is currently a mutant.

But yeah - I'd like to see more female mutants in the Nick series. That show is overwhelmingly male-character-heavy. Which I guess TMNT has always been a lot of the time, but... if there was ever a time to address that, it's now.

I'd be happy to see Alopex and Koya turn up in the Nick show.

[slashpieturtlemix]

We need a mona lisa :P constant flirting that makes Raph extremely uncomfortable lol

[TheCanadiandrome]

i think the OT for sure

[TigerClaw]

Karai is currently a mutant.

But yeah - I'd like to see more female mutants in the Nick series. That show is overwhelmingly male-character-heavy. Which I guess TMNT has always been a lot of the time, but... if there was ever a time to address that, it's now.

I'd be happy to see Alopex and Koya turn up in the Nick show.
Karai initially wasn't a mutant in past iterations. That's just Nick covering there tracks, I would like to see a proper female mutant.

So they should bring on Mona Lisa or Ninjara, But Ninjara isn't a mutant, But still, That show has taken so many liberties with there characters.

[Shark_Blade]

Nick and OT.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I went with the OT it had the best ORIGINAL mutants. Most of the other mutants were original back then, and the show (and Archie) had so many good ones- even some of the "monster" mutants! the Moo-tagen monster was a favorite of mine for its bizarre appearance.

That said, I also love some of the Nick mutants, like Fishface and Tiger Claw. Ice Cream Kitty is my personal fave, though!

And IDW also has some really cool ones. I'm really liking Hob, Alopex and now Koya.

[CharmedSerenity]

IDW has only created like 3 new mutants, how can you honestly say it's got the best selection?

Because it's my personal opinion on the matter. Can you please respect that?

[Powder]

Why are you acting like I'm attacking you? Relax. God forbid you ask questions for the sake of discussion in 2014...

[Davetello]

I'm going to go against the general sentiment and say 4kids. While the original show had a greater quantity of mutants, I felt that there actually was a lot of depth to the 4kids mutants. There was pretty rich character development. The characters in Notes From the Underground were especially well presented - we got to hear some of their backstory and I truly felt their pain and frustration through the screen. Yes, Quarry was the only one who was really sentient for a decent period and who spoke to the turtles. But that was perfect because she acted as a conduit for the others - through her words, tone of voice and body language we were able to understand what the others had also suffered alongside her. It was the best way to do it imo. The fact that their tale was fleshed out over multiple seasons also helped, as we had to wait for them to find their happy ending.

I also preferred the 4kids depiction of Leatherhead to the FW incarnation, as it was more true to the source material and he was an ally of the turtles rather than a goofy villain. And of course the 4kids show also had the outbreak arc, which can be described as a mutation storyline which was fleshed out over a number of episodes and ultimately led to some of the most heart-tugging and deep storytelling of the the entire series (Donnie's transformation into a monster). I just feel like 4kids was more layered and less one-dimensional.

Something I agree on is the way Tokka and Rahzar were depicted in FW...or more accurately Rahzar. I liked how he was made to be more intelligent than in SotO, but didn't enjoy how Tokka remained dumbed down. However, that was probably the only dynamic they could have used to tell the story in that episode. Guys like Mondo Gecko, Muckman and Joe Eyeball, Ray, Bugman etc were generally interesting and humorous, but there was little real depth to their characters. I mean most of them didn't seem to mind the fact they'd been mutated, whether they had originally been an animal or a human. Mutagen Man and Baxter were some of the few instances where we saw someone who was genuinely upset with their mutations/change. I liked that as it mirrored the portrayal of some of the mutants in 4kids - yes, the "NftU" creatures didn't know any better as savages, but we saw their pain when they they realised they couldn't leave the underground city in the first season. Overall, though, the FW mutants weren't as fleshed out. This is completely understandable as the original show is much lighter in tone, but it's the way I see it nonetheless.

I did enjoy the creations of Mona Lisa and Slash very much, however, and it was great when Slash went from being underdeveloped mentally to being a genius (and back again).

Overall the original show and Nick have had a greater quantity of mutants, but I feel that 4kids had more depth to their fewer numbers of mutants. Quality over quantity and all that.

What the original show does have over 4kids is legacy: the likes of Mondo Gecko, Punk Frogs, Slash, Baxter as a mutant, Mona Lisa etc have all shown up in other iterations of the turtles, so the show made its mark. But taking that away and talking about which mutants I just enjoyed more, I'd have to go with 4kids.

[snake]

IDW has only created like 3 new mutants, how can you honestly say it's got the best selection?

I voted for the OT but only because that's what Playmates' toys would fall under. Also, you forgot Archie, Cubed!

I say that IDW has a good selection of overall mutants, not just ones they created.

[neatoman]

I would say the Nickelodeon cartoon.
In the Fred Wolf cartoon most were pretty unimaginative, plain humanoid animals with some incidental creativity here and there, not bad but it seemed pretty basic to me. The 4Kids cartoon did have some cool mutant designs with the underground city and the one after Bishop's fake alien attack, but mutants were never really a big part of that show.

The Nickelodeon series however, there's a Plant-Human, an Upsidedown Spider, a Sparrow Wizard, HR Giger Squirrels, Acne Pidgeon-Man, Three-Headed Snake-Girl, Ice Cream Cat, Giant Brain on a Chicken, Cybord Carp, Bone-Spiked Akita, Big Daddy Roth homage, etc, this some creative stuff. My only complaints are that the mutagen seems to do whatever the writer wants for no good reason, and I wish most of them weren't just brushed aside after their introduction epsiode...