Sick Of All These Useless Mutants/Characters
 

Snakeweed. Squirrelanoid. Punk Frogs. The Creep. Turducken. Spider Bytez. Newtralizer. Mutagen Man. Parasitic Wasp. The Fungus. Dr. Rockwell. Pigeon Pete. Rat King, the Dream Beavers. What do they all have in common? They all appeared in a few episodes, sometimes even just one, and then drifted off into one of two voids. The first one is the "Void of Unlikely Return" This is where Punk Frogs, Creep, Turducken, the Fungus and Parasitic Wasp fall into. Because of their current circumstance, it's nigh impossible or unlikely for them to come back. Creep? Last we saw of him was stuck in a jar in West Virginia (EDIT: NORTH HAMPTON sorry I don't pay attention). And I had such high hopes for him. Punk Frogs went to live in Louisiana, so we aren't going to see them unless plot tells us to. Parasitic Wasp, well.. they died. Save for one that left the mutant holding cells in Metalhead Rewired. It may have been recaptured by the Kraang after they took over New York. What about Turducken? Under some rocks in North Hampton with the slim possibility of it returning. But is it going to fly all the way to New York without getting spotted or shot at? The answer is no. Finally we have the Fungus, who was most likely obliterated by the light. The second void is the "Void of Kaptured by the Kraang" Everyone else pretty much falls into this category. Maybe Newtralizer and Mutagen Man will be seen soon, because mutants like Leatherhead and Slash have been or will be central to the plot in Season 3 Spider Bytez made one appearance in Season 1, then again in Metalhead Rewired of the second season, and, like I presume, is now enslaved by the Kraang. Squirrelanoids? One appearance and then at the end of that episode they were in the sewers attacking anyone unlucky enough to come by. Since the Kraang came through the sewers, they were probably captured. Doctor Rockwell, Monkey Brains, Metalhead Rewired, now probably enslaved by Kraang. Pigeon Pete. I think he appeared in New Girl in Town? Don't quote me on that, but he flew through the portal in Metalhead Rewired and seeing how he is pretty weak, was without a doubt captured by the Kraang. Now, Rat King is different and probably isn't captured by the Kraang but more than likely he is dead. Unless he survived the fall. But Nick doesn't seem afraid to kill off characters, exhibit A being Justin and exhibit(s) B (C and D) being the Shredder Clones. Dream Beavers, oh lord. No way they are making another appearance. And I liked the concept. Well, thanks for reading the post. What do you all think? Any characters I missed or shouldn't be in one of the voids? I'm open to input.

Despite what many people say, I have zero problems with the 'monster/mutant of the day' formula. It's the least of this show's problems. I do think that monsters/mutants should be killed off in the same episode they appeared in unless there's an absolute need for them in future episodes.

Holy Wall of Text batman that was a eyesore to read. Nonetheless The Beavers & Frogs just debuted this season so don't count them out just yet Rat King was used heavily in the first 2 seasons.

The Chimera broke out of the rocks, so it's likely it will return again. Not all mutants are one-off things. And they weren't in West Virginia either. They were in North Hampton. You really need to pay attention more. And the Dream Beavers were sent through a portal but that doesn't mean we won't see them again.

The random mutants are one of my favorite things about the 2015 series because it brings me back to what I liked about the original.

It would at least be nice if they had decided to make one of two things instead:

A. Make them something other than mutants.

B. Gave more of them a bigger role instead of just being monsters of the week.

Like Bigfoot, or extraplanar beavers.

Well the vast majority of these monsters are still mutants.

I wouldn't be surprise, if some of the mutants show up during the final episode of this season, To help aid the Turtles in there battle with the Kraang. We got Mondo Gecko coming up soon.

That's the problem, IMO. All the pandering to nostalgia is a serious wrench in the gears of this property.

Agreed.

I completely get where the OP is coming from. However, the main problem isn't so much that there are too many mutants. The problem is that the writers are not bothering at all (so it seems) to resolve the mutations of these characters or creatures. A mutant is created and instead of "killing" them, finding a way to explain their disappearance for the time being until they show up again in the series or find a way to return them back to their former selves they just somehow come back to life after being defeated by the turtles or they are just left to exist in the world.

One of the things I LOVED about the episode "Metalhead Rewired" is that it did provide an explanation as to where these mutants have been this whole time and why we have not seen them for a while. This made me feel like the writers did not completely forget about this corner they may have been writing themselves into by creating so many mutants that are still out there. I still want to believe that the writers will come back to some of these characters and even give them resolutions to their mutations. Unfortunately, so far that doesn't seem to be in the cards just yet.

Some would say that rebooting the Ninja Turtles to begin with is pandering to nostalgia. When did nostalgia become a negative thing anyway? You could always just stop watching if you don't like what they are doing. That's what I did with the 2k3 series.

Why did you stop watching a good cartoon?

Well It may be good to some people, but not so good to others. (I can see the strengths and the weaknesses the show has)

also different strokes for different folks.

& those people would be reaching...

Pandering to nostalgia is usually a matter of appeasing crybabies who can't accept change. Mind you, I use the word "pandering", because it suggests people are demanding certain things. Giving people a dose of nostalgia once in a while, is fine. You tickle a persons sentimental sensibilities, they have their warm & fuzzies, life goes on. You put in a nod here, an homage there, great, you have respected the roots & acknowledged the fans. But when you start to put these things/themes/whatever into almost every single episode, it's like "Hey guys! Look! Here's another one of those things you vaguely remember from you childhood, please don't stop watching!" which is ridiculous. I'm not saying the Nick series does that on a whole (though season 3 has very much felt that way to me), but there's no denying there's been a fair share of Fred Wolf overkill in all 3 new iterations, & that's a trend I wish would cease immediately.

Nostalgia is always a negative thing when it comes to how it affects the mechanics of a popular series, such as TMNT. It stifles creativity, innovation, new ideas, etc. Take Bebop & Rocksteady, for example. We're getting them because a bunch of casual fans on social networking sites bitched & moaned that they wouldn't give the new show the time of day because it didn't have B&R in it. These are people too closed-minded to give a chance to one of their supposed favorite properties because it wasn't EXACTLY the same as it ever was. Why should those people EVER have their opinions taken into consideration (for any other reason besides the higher ups capitalizing on their viewership)? Let's say you're an artist. You're passing out flyers for an exhibit you'll be doing soon. Some guy walks up to you yelling (which is what I assume caps lock translates to in reality) "I WOULDNT GO TO THIS GAY BULLSH*T SHOW OF YOURS IF YOU PAID ME. IT LOOKS REALLY STUPID, WOW. WHY DOES THE GUY IN THAT PORTRAIT HAVE GAP TEETH? WTF. DOESN'T EVEN HAVE CRAYON DRAWINGS, MAKE SOME F*CKING CRAYON DRAWINGS. YOU ARE COMPLETELY RUINING MY ABILITY TO ENJOY ALL ART, OLD & NEW." would you spend the following weeks creating portraits in colored wax to please that jerk, or would you instead only humor those who have shown you support? That jerk who loves Crayola, he's the Bebop & Rocksteady fans, & they went ahead & drew him a picture. But he's not the one who waits on baited breath for a new episode, buying the toys, hash-tagging on twitter, oh no. He's off somewhere banging his head against a concrete wall to a new Taylor Swift record, probably.

I have no reason to stop watching the show, it's a great show. I would at times prefer they do things a different way, but that doesn't mean I don't like what they do most of the time. Why did you give up on the 4kids series? Did the lack of pizza & incompetence bother you?

A lot of the mutants Nick is using are all-new characters though. The Creep, Dream Beavers, Speed Demon, Bigfoot, the Chimera bird, etc.

Can't say they're nostalgia pandering with the mutants when many of them are all new.

Like I said, it's a problem in general, not with the Nick series specifically, or it's mutants in particular.

But, one could argue that the who is less important than the what, in that, it doesn't matter if it's Muckman or Turducken, it's still a MOTW, which takes cues from the OT (at times). That format is the same. Bebop & Rocksteady's inclusion is 100% pandering. Little else is, though, that's true. As I said before, it's an issue across the board, so when I brought up pandering, I meant it was irksome in all of the new versions.

Let it be stated for the record, however, that I very very rarely complain about the Nick series, & even these things that I speak on now, don't really bother me.

Unfortunately, I think the mutants are the most creative thing they did in this version (other than tweaking the story a bit: Miwa, April, the Utroms). Many of them are new with really nice designs. If anything, they should drop most to all of the cast (including April and Casey) and made a completely different one surrounding the Turtles if we want something original. Heck, even dropping Splinter would have been interesting. The series could have started when Splinter just died. They could learning how to cope from losing him and trying to finish their training alone (with disasterous/hilarious/whatever results).

So I argue, it's who, not what, that is making the show too familiar. And that they need to start killing off mutants and other characters. ^^;

at first (first season) i was worried we would only get one shot mutants wrapped up in one episode. but then i noticed even if the mutant didn't return right away or at all other things from the episode carry over to tell more of the bigger story. even some of the episodes that don't and are more or less "filler" episodes i find enjoyable because of the characters , the interaction between the turtles and april and such.
i also have no problem with thrown backs from the original series, it has been done well with out trying to copy what has come before.

I most certainly agree. Killing off mutants would be a good idea. They killed off Speed Demon, which I think was one of the most unnecessary MOTW and overall mutants ever. They killed off the Shredder clones, which is "good". They would have only been things to see during a breach of Shredder's Base so it's not like we are missing something. They failed to kill off other mutants like Chimera/Turducken or the Squirrelanoids but it's probably a matter of if they were human to begin with. Because if you killed a mutant that was human, that would probably be "wrong" to do, especially on a Nick Show.

When the show was still doing little homage bits, I thought it was actually cool as those little moments here and there felt special. :D


The bolded part is when I started feeling a dissatisfaction with it. I didn't mind the small homages (in fact I loved them) but there is a point where there is such thing as overkill. I think the producers actually made a big mistake in including a direct OT cameo in Wormquake, because at that point it looked like they were almost saying that at this point they lost confidence in the show. The 'overkill' bit is dead on, because now they aren't even trying to be creative.

With this I 1000% agree. It's why I am protesting so much of the OT inclusions now, because they're killing this show's creativity.

I didn't know there were people doing all of that stuff to get Band R included, wow! :o There is one point of asking nicely, and there is another when folks start acting like turds about it. :tgrumble: I admit I like B and R here, but mainly it's because they aren't the B and R of the OT. They never wanted to become mutants, they feel like they will backstab Shredder at some point, and they hopefully won't be stupid. The only bad thing is they will probably overshadow Xever and Bradford fora time, but I'm hoping that this leads to a rivalry and something interesting.

Same here. I do like the show overall, and I can't wait to see where it goes. I think I just wish they'd start pulling form other sources (or come up with their own ideas) more often. :P

I guess it just depends on how well the reception of the characters from the OT get but for me, even the likes of Krang and Rocksteady & Bebop have a crazy fan-base like say, Harley Quinn does. I don't know how I feel about canon immigrants in general but this show does it to the point where it's pandering. I admit I was happy to see Hun announced for this series just so the 2k3 can get SOME exposure but when Ciro said the words "we had to please the 2k3 fans somehow", it felt like a huge slap in the face to me since I love that series so much. But I wouldn't want the show to pander to that series either.

The thing about this show is that I feel that it tries to be a bit like the OT without actually being anything like the OT. When it does it's own thing, it works fine for the most part. But to me there's more to the Ninja Turtles franchise than just mutants and nostalgia. If they want to add mutants that's great but don't rely primarily on just those type of aspects of this show. And as far as nostalgia goes, this is suppose to be a new iteration for the new generation, not the old.

I know I sound like a hypocrite when I say this but I get super excited when ever they add an aspect of the Mirage comics into the show but this is also because I would love for this property to be realized as a comic book IP and not a cartoon.

I do kinda consider this a bit of a remake of the OT. In a way it kinda is, just more modern and kick-ass, cause face it, had they made a straight-up 80's TMNT remake nowadays they would have HAD to make the turtles lurk in the shadows and use actual martial arts and whatnot to still resonate with today's audiences, while still adding pizza and as many 80's characters as they can. Oh wait....

I honestly think the only difference between what we have now and if they did do a straight up 80's remake was that they would have had April as a reporter and Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady in the Technodrome since day one (or two). Everything else is pretty much to what one would have expected, the sillyness, the pizza, the modern takes on classic characters, so forth. Booyakasha is basically the new cowabunga.

As for what Ciro said... what can I say? Randomly tossing Hun into the mix when they really didn't have to was literally telling the 2K3 people to stfu. At least he was honest about it.

Honestly the only ones I see "bitching and moaning" the most are people like you. Your novel of a post is proof of that. Why did I give up on 4kids? A combination of things really. One big reason was I hated the artwork and felt the turtles were too tall and just not liking their personalities. I couldn't care less about the pizza but some other mutants would have been nice. Utrom shredder was the last straw.

You thought the Turtles were too tall? Have you not noticed that Donnie in this one is probably the tallest animated TMNT we have ever gotten?

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that that average person in 2015 gets offended when met with a response over 140 characters. & God forbid you give my points some thought. People like me? What kind of people is that, exactly? Those who like their TMNT influence map to be well rounded? The folks I was referring to are outside of this little bubble, they're on social networks, FB "like" pages & that sort of thing. We're also talking about the past, as B&R were confirmed probably well over a year ago, now.

From where I stand, you look like an OT fanboy with a bias. You didn't like the 4kids turtles because they were "too tall"? What the hell kind of complaint is that? They're about the same size as every other iteration (besides the latest film). Not to mention Nick's Donnie is taller than ever, yet that's apparently fine. What's wrong with their personalities, exactly? Leonardo is the straight laced leader, Donatello is the tech wiz, Michelangelo is the humorous goof-off, & Raph makes wise-cracks & gets pissed off. That's... pretty much the same as any other. Not enough mutants? Okay, but there's still a crap-ton of monsters/aliens, which are more or less the exact same thing. They serve the same purpose & are similarly designed. So what's the problem? You dislike the art style & Utrom Shredder concept, alright, that's fair, they just don't tickle your fancy. But I think your other reasons read like "It wasn't enough like the old cartoon".

The only one getting offended is you it seems. Yes they were too tall and slim even And no the current series Donnie is not taller than the 4kids. Look at the 4kids hight compared to the Nick version or most any other and you will see that the 4kids version has them above average adult height. it's just a preference. I like the idea that heroes don't have to be tall and statuesque. It's one of the reasons I always liked the turtles more than other heroes.

If I'm offended by anything, it's that I make valid points which you choose to ignore. Guess I'll stop wasting time.

If I'm ignoring points you are making its because I either disagree or think you are blowing things out of proportion. Also you calling me a "fanboy" because I enjoy OT content tells me you aren't much for civil discussion anyway. When people resort to name calling or lumping people into groups that's when I start ignoring them. Elitism is an ugly part of any fandom and I refuse to take part in it.

Since when is "fanboy" an insult? Literally every member of this board is a fanboy (regardless of gender :tlol:). Talk about blowing things out of proportion...

The only mutants that will probably be cured are Karai, Mutagen Man, and maybe Baxter and Spiderbitez. The others will probably all just disappear or just have a few minor appearances until the end of the show.

When did he say that?

Just weighing in here but I don't know why you think the 4kids Turtles are above average height (or slim, for that matter) - they're shown as around 5 feet tall, shorter than most humans, and clearly stocky in build.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130424145749

http://i.imgur.com/oUglGBp.jpg?1

https://31.media.tumblr.com/28fb8b01...XVn1ro1bch.png

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5_1up3NKqv4/hqdefault.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ulyp8CCjKqU/hqdefault.jpg

I'm not trying to be rude, but I don't know what show you were watching - you're completely off-base here.

Nickelodeon Donnie is absolutely taller than 4kids Donnie.

The stats card for 2k3 Donnie's figure clearly lists his height as 5'2": http://mutantooze.org/wiki/playmates-2003-donatello/

Donnie's stats on Turtlepedia list his height as 5'8": http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Do...2_TV_series%29

I was looking for the model sheets, but those will work too. :P

How were they tall? They were still pretty damn short.



As for the Utrom Shredder, I will never fully understand why that's a big deal, the Shredder was a character created to die and was then turned into Doronjo-style villain for a cartoon, the fact that he was turned into an Utrom is an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah but you destroy your own credibility by throwing out invalid criticisms like "These characters who are actually shorter than most other characters in the show are too tall, that's one of the reasons not to watch this cartoon" or "It would have been nice if a show full of monsters had more monsters of a particular variety".

This post needs to be framed and put on my wall. It's so ass-backwards that it deserves an award.

You know, I don't mind all of the characters, as long as the episodes themselves entertained me in some way or form...but, I will admit, that Fly Baxter, Bebop, and Rocksteady felt like pandering and I'm still only lukewarm to them, but, I do like the take on the characters (minus Baxter). I don't mind them reimagining certain characters and stories. That'll always be the case regardless of the franchise in question if it gets a revival or a reboot or an update.

Personally, I wouldn't write off most of what's happened. Still seems that some things that may seem miniscule or insignificant may show up again at some point, and given that they're going to do the "Take back New York" story, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of past mutants show up again to fight against the Kraang. If not...man, such a missed opportunity, especially with someone like the Newtralizer. I'm still waiting for him to show up again, given his hatred of the Kraang. Maybe the Cockroach Terminator will return or Pigeon Pete or Sir Malacchi or the Squirrelnoids, etc. I'm hoping the Dream Beavers show up again (I know, not mutants, but I loved them! "Shut up Dave!" :lol: ) Ho Chen may show up again somehow too. I just don't write off anything when it comes to this show. I mean, look at Slash & Destroy and Leo at the tea party. She taught him to use his pinky when drinking tea. In Buried Secrets, Leo is drinking his tea with his pinky out. I just found that to be too darn cute!

Oh, I noticed some were talking about the 2k3 series. I personally couldn't get into the 2003 turtles series for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I was in college and didn't want to wake up early for cartoons since usually I stayed up late on Friday nights. I also worked. I did try watching it before, though, when it originally aired when coming across it by chance with my parents. They were like, "Hey, didn't you used to like that turtles stuff?" I tried watching it and then the ep after. For me, the show seemed to be taking itself too seriously and I missed the humor of the original, so I guess I wasn't very fair about it, but I never thought it was bad or anything like that because I'd never sat down and watched the entire series. Maybe I'd feel differently if watching it now. I do promise to give it a fair chance someday, like I finally did this Nick series last year.

Ok so let's if I can explain my tolerance for what they do bring back.

When I have no problems at all with something they bring back, that's when they bring back something I thought was already good. Let's say Leatherhead or Karai.

When I can ignore my problems it completely, that's when they bring back something I didn't like the way it was originally potrayed but can see the potential in it. Let's say the Mutagen Man or Metalhead.

When I have problems with it but I still understand why they brought it back, when they bring something back that I didn't like and it seems pointless to do so but I know they probably wanted to make use of it anyway. Let's say Bebop and Rocksteady or Stockman-Fly.

And finally when it's just plain meaningless, when they just bring something back when it's vaguely remembered but just has no place at all coming back. Let's say the Punk Frogs. I mean really, the damn Punk Frogs? What was the point? A Napoleon Dynamite joke? Really?

leather head and Karai? i love the incarnations of them in the new series far more than any past ones.

I really like all the mutants and villains the show creates! :D The Dream Beavers were amazing. They looked like evil Care-Bear beavers with those creepy skulls on their tummies xD Is it just me or is season 3 for some reason incredibly dark!?

But yeah, bring on more mutants and characters! I'm diggin it :>