TMNT rogues gallery expansion
 

With Hun and several more new villains set to appear in the comics later this year, what type of new villains would people like to see the turtles face, or what direction should existing villains be taken in.

I always thought it would be great to see each of the turtles get their own individual nemesis, creating new story possibilities and advancing each turtle's own character developement.

I would like to see the Foot Clan removed from the street crime level threat that they have, for the most part, been portrayed as, and placed into more high level types of operations, they could own a worldwide monopoly on espionage and black ops.

Leave the street crime to the gangs and other organized crime syndicates, such as the mafias, triads, and Yakuza, all of which can be developed into their own individual threats.

If you're talking about the Mirage comics, why not bring in Armaggon? Didn't Peter Laird create him? I always wished to see him in something else, like the old or new toon, the toys, but it never happened.

Anyway, the Mirage comics rogues gallery is abysmal. Its almost all one-shot aliens or monsters.

At least the 80's cartoon, the 2k3 series, and the Archie series had a rogues gallery worth mentioning.

Mirage continuity on the other hand is sad.

and what was armaggon?

None of the above.

sorry, i was thinking of war for a moment there (not sure why). still a mutant shark man isn't far off from "monster".

The point is all the one-shots in the Mirage universe are usually resolved at the end of the issue. There is no on-going rogues gallery like the other TMNT universes have:

- Shredder: Killed in first issue. His clone is killed by Issue 23.
- Karai: Forms a true with the Turtles
- Baxter, in second appearance turns himself into a cyborg and is defeated, only a brief cameo in Vol. 4.
- Rat King, dies in first issue. Becomes spiritual
- Leatherhead, becomes a good guy
- Savanti Romero, ok I suppose you can count him
- Triceratons, fine, but they appear too irregularly. They never invaded the Earth like the 2k3 series did.


And in all seriousness, who else is there besides various Foot Clan members like Cha Ocho and the like?


The rogues gallery for the two cartoons and the Archie series is far superior.

why dont you stop raggin on the mirage comics not having villains until you have seen what is coming. tristan and dan both said there are more villains being set up in the next few months. i would rather have decent character development than have villains spat at me each week. the OT and new toon also had far more stories than the mirage comics and even then archie poached half of their villains from the OT. everyone knows that the mirage universe lacks villains. the point of this thread is finding out what people are interesetd in seeing in villains. mirage are actually doing something about it but you do not seem to give two *****.

and wait. savanti counts in his three appearances but the whole return of the shredder and return to new york stories don't? karai has been in and out of the comics constantly since city at war. leatherhead was never a villain. baxter had almost the entire vol.2 devoted to him.

its not as though they could not put more villains in. murphy was the main writer of tales and while he introduced some villains most of his stories were one-shots. his stories were usually very good but they did not often involve reusable villains (or they did but he chose to tell other stories).

Leatherhead never was a villain in Mirage dude >.< In fact, he never even fought the Turtles until his second appearance, when he had just gone nuts. He befriended them prior to that.

As far as I'm aware, here's the recurring villain list for Mirage:

- Foot Clan (Officially have a truce with the TMNT but conflict still exists with various members and mystics.)
- Complete Carnage (Still at large. Killed by Leonardo in the far flung future.)
- Savanti Romero (Still at large.)
- Triceratons (Like the Foot, at peace with the TMNT on the surface)
- Oroku Saki Shark (Still at large. And hey, closest thing to Armaggon we'll see.)
- Cha Ocho (Still has feud with Leo.)
- Razorback (Little is known about him or if he's active by the Volume 4 era.)
- Hunter Mason (Ditto.)
- Xihadists, Vampire gang, Nexus Warriors

Plus various one-shot Tales villains which could reappear.

So it's not exactly dead, but the existing villains don't seem to be used very much (Carnage has been grossly overlooked) and there could be a few more. I know Tristan's been saying he plans to introdruce more villains, which is cool.

Here's the thing though, and I'm paraphrasing someone's post in another thread: Mirage TMNT is less about the Turtles fighting villains, and more about the Turtles trying to live their lives, trying to be normal in a completely surreal world. I'm all for more villains and action, but I wouldn't want them to lose that down-to-Earth aspect that comes from not fighting crime. That's what I love about the comics.

The point of this thread is to brainstorm new ideas for new villains or moving the development of older villains beyond one-dimensional status for the future of the TMNT franchise, not to compare and debate the different TMNT Universe villains. If you have any new ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them.

Hunter Mason will appear in three issues of Tales, Lin will appear in three, Diamondback (from #36) will appear again this year, Razorback will appear, as will other villains (but if I say, I spoil, so sorry). The Elite that was mangled at the end of #36 will also be back. Complete Carnage has appeared a few times now (another villain I'd love to use). Baxter is also back in Don's mini-series.

Dan also brought back the magi from the original Tales. I don't have them onhand unfortunately, but someone here knows what I'm talking about. The Thieving God Idol followed by the Werewolf dimension one (art by Andie Tong).

If Tales continues, you can bet your arse they'll all be back, as will the villains that have appeared and will appear in Dan's stories. As long as everyone feels THE STORIES are appropriate (what Cipher said about the focus of the comics is spot on). You can have new villains, but you can't force them.

Anyway, villains are coming and hopefully they'll stay. Bottom line is, without support, you're right, the books are done for and those villains become one/two/three-shots.

I love that idea.

Although I know it's next to nill, I would LOVE to use the Battle Nexus to bring villains from other universes to meet the turtles.

Tempestra from the original toon always had some potential, and could be used as a sort of elemental witch like character the turtles could face :).
Since she seems to control all the elements (Air, Water, Lightning, etc)

How about an evil Utrom in a larger than life exoskeleton, leading an army of evil robots and mutants? :P

Will more of Razorback's past and motivations be revealed in upcoming issues of tales?

So Baxter is coming back, that's nice, I always liked how Baxter was his own villain in the Mirage comics, and he makes an excellent arch-nemesis for Donatello. And hopefully the Mangled Elite Foot Ninja can inject some personality into the Foot Elite.


The Battle Nexus could be used introduce new villains, in fact I believe it's a given, although I would also like to see new allies introduced, the turtles could use more of them as well.


If he's interesting, then I say why not.

Baxter was always underused in the comics.

Yet another example of both cartoons taking full potential of an underused character from the comics. I swear, Pete and the other Mirage dudes could learn a thing or two from the cartoon writers.

There also needs to be more mobsters in the comics. Like the ones in the Image series who kidnapped Shadow.

Razorback is still something of an enigma, but I do have a big backstory that will be hinted at on the last page of #61. In my mind, it ties into why you don't see any superheroes in a world you know they exist in. But that's something for later (if things go well this year).

The Mangled Elite is more of a cameo at the moment, but when you see where he is placed and think about the situation it puts a new slant on certain characters and a big question mark over the intentions of others.

Pardon my ignorance... who's Razorback?

I think it would be really cool to see Rocksteady and Bebop in the comics. Less goofy versions, of course. Not sure what their origin would be like. I've heard that there would be some kind of rights issue that would keep them out of the Mirage comic, though.

Maybe Tokka and Rhazar, then?

Pitched it, but no dice. I think I posted the pitch on my blog about a month ago...

Go grab Tales of the TMNT #50, he'll also be in #61.

The day Peter Laird ever lets Rocksteady/Bebop into Mirage continuity is the day hell freezes over.

But honestly, would you really want them in there? I mean, really, really want them there. You could make them work for maybe one or two stories without them becoming repetitious in their antics. Chances are that once they were introduced, they'd be under more fan scrutiny than any other character. I did say that Peter was open to the idea. Cudley worked in the C.O.W.Boys crossover, but I can't think of too many more stories you can use him in without just retreading over the Archie material or making the stories straight-up bizarre. Admittedly, this is just my opinion based on the stories I've been thinking about.

I think Cudley could work in a Renet capacity. Sort of this thing that transcends dimensions and can meet multiple versions of the Turtles.

Thank god.

I'd really only want them in there if it was some Mirage meet Archie/Old toon kind of thing.

Part of Bebop/Rocksteady's charm was their stupidity, I could never see them fitting in the Mirage universe, even if they were different.

I haven't been following, is Bishop going to appear in Tales?

I was always surprised somethign like Slash never appeared in mirage. Given the turtles parody origins, I figured a parody evil twin thing woudl be obvious.

I was wondering if their was some significance to Razorback's armor, he always struck me visually as a traditional superhero comic book character.



Does Mirage own the rights to use Bebop and Rocksteady, the whole rights to various elements of the old cartoon are pretty complicated, with Fred Wolf Films selling pieces of it off left and right.

Conceptually, I don't see anything wrong with Bebop and Rocksteady, any character can become repetitive if their characters aren't developed from their initial appearences, a big reason why I don't particularly care for most arch villains in mainstream comics who are, for the most part, fairly one dimensional.

I always saw Bebop and Rocksteady as possible products of a Doctor Moreau type villain or an evil corporation out to create disposable yet powerful mutant soldiers. Personality wise they could go through the same shift between old toon and Mirage as did the Shredder.

Who says they'd have to have "antics"?

As a one issue homage, or infrequetly returning characters, I think Bebop and Rocksteady could work. They're violent thugs with super human abilities. That's potentially scary sh*t. Maybe they could be some sort of mutant hitmen created by one of the Turtles' enemies. I like Dragon Turtle's experimental mutant soldier idea too. What if an agency (Razorback?) got ahold of the Turtles' DNA and used it to create them and send them out on tests? There's plenty you could do with those two.

I wouldn't want them becoming main characters or anything, but a one-off appearence by a retooled Bebop and Rocksteady could be, well, fun.

It's been well-documented that Laird has said that Bebop, Rocksteady, and all of the Fred Wolf camp characters could be used to his whim. He just doesn't want to.

On this, I 200% support him.

Not a bad take on the characters, but it's not the Mirage Comics' duty to somehow redeem the characters. Better just to make new, better characters from the ground up.

I don't agree with the "parody" aspect to TMNT (homages and nods to Daredevil and Frank Miller's Ronin do not a parody make, even if the titular characters have an over-the-top title... their origin isn't any weirder than many existing superheroes at the time) but I will say at the same time... of all the spinoff children's characters that spawned via the cartoons and Archie comics and such... I think I'd be very OK with a revisionist take on Slash at Mirage.

I just meant whatever they do within their characters and stories.

That's what I meant as well. You could only do so many stories with those characters before they became repetitious, so they'd have to be infrequent characters.

My initial idea was that they were extra-dimensional criminals who accidentally crash into our dimension thanks to the Foot Clan's meddling with supernatural forces. A mystic is trying to summon some sort of para-natural being and ends up opening a hole to Bebop and Rocksteady's dimension, who, at that moment, are in a high speed pursuit with that dimension's authorities. They literally come crashing into our world. To make matters worse, they're about two to three stories tall. Anyway, all sorts of **** happens, lots of poking fun at the OT, and Don and Karai's Foot try to work together to send them back to their own dimension (first using the incantation the mystic used, then modifying Leatherhead's transmat) with Renet showing up and Splinter ultimately sending them somewhere using his own mysticism.

That was just one of the ideas I had, but I thought that one would leave things open for a potential return and was also the most fun out of the others.

But what would you prefer, Renet, or Cudley? It'd be like seeing Renet in Archie -- cool, but they had Cudley.

Mmmmaybe...

When I wrote him, the main inspirations for me were Ninja and Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series, and the Interrogator from GI JOE (I think Cobra had some of the coolest looking villain designs around). You're on the money though, as I did want him to be one of those traditional comic book villains, kinda like Boba Fett in Empire, or Facade in Paul Dini's first Detective Comic. Initially they were more tech based visually, but then they became more like the Hydra-esque dudes we see now. They've undergone upgrades since though (you can check out Andres' designs on both our blogs). I think Paul is going to be drawing them in a slightly transitional fashion in #59.

Wait until you see Razorback in #61 though!


I'm pretty sure they got them back a couple of years ago in preparation for the anniversary.


This is true, but I think the nature of the characters (depending on how you introduce them) limits them somewhat. The TMNT universe (Mirage) is fairly grounded in its own hyper-reality. Unless you introduced them post-volume 4, it'd be harder to really push their interactions with the Turtles and the outside world of Earth when most of the freak villains are still relatively human in nature. The Turtles are the only true freaks that are limited by their appearances and nature in general. People complained that they lost something when they could walk around freely in Volume 4, it'd be the same with Bebop and Rocksteady -- until you had a world where they could interact without everyone freaking out at the mere sight of them, you would be similarly limited in the stories you could tell with them.

I'm not saying that the number of stories are small, but they are limited.

I agree... with some exceptions, of course :P

Honestly, probably Cudley. Renet has never really been established as someone that hops across dimensions, but rather just different points in time. Cudley demonstrated the ability to hop dimensions in the Archie books... it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that one dimension might be the Archie TMNT, and one might be the Mirage TMNT. I'm OK with that, and I think the bridger is cool (and doesn't necessitate a ton of baggage or continuity or anything... he's just a travelin' cow head). If I were to write a Mirage TMNT meets Archie TMNT story, he'd be a must.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna read your Hun story with an open mind. If it seems lame or abitrary you know I'm gonna spank you, though, just the same... :)

Bebop and Rocksteady could work very well in Mirage, actually. Tristan Jones offered this pitch as the story to the "Free Comic Book Day" issue of TMNT:

I think that would have made for an amazing issue... but unfortunately, it was turned down. So instead of that, we're just getting another reprint of TMNT Vol.1 #1.

Ha, and I just realized that Tristan Jones was right here in the thread. Maybe I should read every single post first before offering my own comment, rather than just skim through everything. :lol:

Well, I certainly have egg on my face. :P

Hm... well, having read that now, actually -- literally -- having the Bebop and Rocksteady of yore cross dimensions and enter the Mirage universe/dimension for a minute/for a story, that might be entertaining. That might be fun.

It's just the idea of, actually creating a Mirage version of Bebop and Rocksteady and shoe-horning them into things... (arbitrarily, just out of some kind of nostalgia for the old cartoon by TPTB) that would make me think about burning my collection.

Can you spank me anyway?;)

Yeah, I totally see where you're coming from. The intention was that it would be a one-shot that people could either leave or take, and the two characters would simply appear for the anniversary and be banished back to another dimension. It was simply an Avengers style bit of fun that would neither affect nor detract from already established continuity. As much as I hate the word, it'd be a filler. It wouldn't progress anything, simply be a one off bit of fun -- hence it being pitched for the anniversary year.

Tokka and Rhazar are goofy. Let Bebop and Rocksteady rock instead.
 

Tokka and Rhazar are goofy. Let Bebop and Rocksteady rock instead.

But isn't Hun also 'a Mirage version of Hun being shoe-horned' in there instead of making some new big guy from the ground up?

I say who cares if they want to bring things into the comic as long as it's for fun and isn't going to screw things up.
I'd def. rather see the Archie versions of Bebop & Rocksteady though than say the cartoon ones, or hell make them dif. all together.

Cody Jones should appear in Mirage with the future Turtles, like with old Leo, old Raph, that we've seen in the other issues.

Yeah, he is. Jury's out on this one.

This man may need to be dispatched after Tristan:

http://www.toadking.com/6x9=42/paddlin.jpg

You think Mirage should tie into the Fast Forward stuff? F*** no.