Did you like the Nick show using old characters?
 

I don't mean as in using the standard tmnt characters from mirage like Leatherhead, the Rat King, Casey Jones and so on or any of the main cast.

I'm talking about the show using version exclusive characters in their show such as Bebop and Rocksteady, Bishop, Slash, Metalhead, the Neutrinos, Razhar, Tokka and so on.

Did you like the Nick show doing this and Did it make the show better or make it lose its unique identity?

Lastly, Would you like to see the next tmnt show take this approach?

I have very mixed opinions about this. While it is cool to see some semi obscure characters return into light and not fade off into obscurity, they haven't always done this right. An example of this would be the Neutrinos, sure they are a different take on the originals but they just are not to memorable and I kid you not but I thought they were just some army warriors and some Rock Soldier minions of General Traag. I also thought another theory that the Rock designs were just robotic suits and the real alien teenagers from the 80's who we all know and love but sadly we will never know since at this point it seems unlikely we will ever see them again, considering the fact that the show has not been renewed for a sixth season.

Another thing I am annoyed with is Mona Lisa. I find her annoyingly overrated, especially with the fan girls. I don't hate her but I find it annoying how she was only brought into the show because of fan service and she was very forced into the plot and her episodes were rushed (I still think The Evil of Dregg is the was one of the lowest of the 2012 series to date).

Honestly though, there are still many great 2012 reintroductions like Bebop, Rocksteady, Hun, Tatsu, Renet, Mondo Gecko, Slash, Wingnut, Screwloose, Armaggon, Rahzar, Triceratons, Scumbug, Antrax and Mutagen Man!

Depends on what the characters were and as far as I'm concerned they came in four varieties on a spectrum:

1. Pretty much the same as always: Splinter, Shredder, Turtles etc.
2. Relatively minor difference but recognisable: Rat King, Casey, Hun, Karai (Before snake powers)
3. Really different but still in the realm of recognisable: Bishop, Bebop, Rocksteady, Rahzar, April, Karai (After snake powers)
4. Why the hell not just make a new character to begin with?: Tokka, Neutrinos, Hothead, Wyrm.

That last really confused me, what's the point? The show clearly had no problem creating new characters, so why even bother? In Hothead's case he might as well even be Drako given how little he has to do with the original Hothead, his backstory and role even matches Drako a lot better than Hothead's.

Above that, it's pretty much a mixed bag, I don't like Karai's snake powers but I'm fine with the Rat King being a blind psychic and I have rather mixed feelings about Bishop basically being an amalgam of Bishop and Mortu. Hard to give a concrete opinion on such a broad subject.

While overall it was cool seeing old/obscure characters get some modern-day representation, they didn't really pull them off good. A lot of them were in-name-only, lame, or just decent. They could've put more thought into them, and made them better.

I don't care, really, but it does strike me as odd that what characters that would otherwise seem tailor-made for the show with their existing backstories mostly intact like Wingnut and Screwloose (refugees from a planet besieged by Krang) get completely changed (now they're... comic book characters given magical life?).

I voted 'no' because of how the characters were used. Old character in name only was much more common than using old characters. Its a main reason I prefer IDW to the Nicktoon. Would I want to see these characters again beyond in name only? Yes,definitely!

I like them using Karai, Leatherhead, Rat King, Slash, Rahzar, Rocksteady and Bebop.

It did feel that there were too many characters in the show and it's because fans kept asking Ciro and Brandon to add these old characters.

Mona Lisa was one of these characters that fans were asking for and Ciro and Brandon listened to them but it end up a lot of people didn't like her and didn't like her relationship with Raph.

So if Brandon and Ciro didn't listen to fans then we wouldn't have seen these extra characters.

Bebop and Rocksteady were always going to be there. It was pretty alarming to me the number of people on this board that were flabbergasted when they were announced.

Read my post again

I never said Bebop and Rocksteady, i'm talking about other old characters. Like Mona Lisa, Armaggon, Bishop, Wingnut and Screwloose ect. The only reason they were in this show is because fans kept asking for them and Brandon and Ciro listened to them.

I generally like most of the old characters reimagined, whether they are similar to the originals or completely different. I like Nick Bebop, Rocksteady, Razhar, Tokka, Mona Lisa, Mondo Gecko, Muckman, Lord Dregg, Wingnut, Screwloose, Metalhead, Slash and Pigeon Pete.

The only types of characters I didn't like were the ones that had been firmly established in previous versions and then were nothing like the originals in the Nick show. These include Hun, Bishop and the worst offenders, the Neutrinos.

While characters like Razhar, Tokka, Slash and Pigeon Pete were also guilty of not being faithful to the originals, they weren't firmly established in the originals so it felt more natural for Nick to use them, hence why I like their reimaginings.

Characters like the Neutrinos on the other hand were very well established in their show and they left an Impression on the tmnt fandom, who would always associate the name with the characters portrayed in the FW toon. Using that name in the Nick toon for something completely unrelated felt very off, as did calling Nicks version of Mortu "Bishop" and just placing the Hun label on Bruce Lee.

?

That's not true either. Concept art from before the show began:

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...ngnut_%262.jpg

What on earth? Nick's Bishop is very close to 4kids Bishop, only difference is he's an Utrom, which is a nod toward Utrom Shredder in 4kids. His design is nearly identical, runs the EPF, still fights the same way, etc. Nick's Bishop is perfect for their story.

Obviously your still confused of what I said

I like Nick using old Characters like Rocksteady and Bebop, Karai, Leatherhead, Rahzar and Rat King.

But it did feel there were too many other old characters that shouldn't have been in this show and the only reason they were in this show is because Ciro and Brandon listened to fans.

I expect there were a lot of concept art on characters they did and decided not to use them

Wingnut and Screwloose didn't get used until season 4 and i've seen plenty of people asking Ciro and Brandon to add them in to this show and that's including Mona Lisa, Bishop and Armaggon.

Some felt forced for nostalgic reasons, like the Neutrinos and Wingnut and Screwloose. But others, like Bebop, Rocksteady, Armaggon and Tatsu, are OK.

Nick Bishop was never like 2k3 Bishop

Nick Bishop is an alien wasn't an evil villain
2k3 Bishop is a human and was an evil villain, who liked to experiment and dissect things.

You claim Nick's characters are in "name only." Yet the vast majority of IDW used old characters are in "name only" as well. I don't understand your double standards.

In IDW:

- Krang is now an actual Utrom, instead of a disembodied brain from Dimension X. Now he's trying to rebuild his Utrom.

- Bebop/Rocksteady have superhuman strength and regeneration powers

- Rat King is an immortal God part of the Pantheon, and IDW's design for him looks vastly different than all previous Rat Kings

- Hun is now Casey's father

- Karai is Shredder's great+ granddaughter

- Slash is now a huge hulking character and ally of the Turtles rather than the maniac he was known for prior to 2011

- Fugitoid is a Neutrino

- The Triceratons were now mutated on Earth, instead of a natural born alien race

- Mutagen Man, Man Ray, Mondo Gecko, etc. now have new/different origins than what they're initially known for

And the biggest of all:

- The Turtles are now reincarnated humans from Feudal Japan!!!!!

etc.

I could go on and on. But I don't understand these bizarre double standards when all the IDW incarnations of the characters are also new or updated. You can say the "name only" thing here as well, which puts into perspective how ridiculous this argument is. Of course everyone is going to update characters.

I wouldn't call Bishop evil. More like a dark shade of moral gray since everything he did in the show proper was do things that he felt were for a greater good. And the Turtles were just expendable resource that he felt could be sacrificed for the protection of the earth.

Bishop was never evil in 4kids, he was always trying to save or protect the Earth from aliens or mutants. He just had shades of gray and was ambiguous because he thought his cause was just. He formed an alliance with the Turtles by Season 4, worked with them in Season 5 to stop Demon Shredder, and we know he becomes President of Earth in the future.

Cybercubed does not understand nuance. Only loyalty.

He still did bad things though.

He did turn a human into a monster in Dragon's Brew.

Bishop is what we call, "shades of gray." He believes what he is doing is for the greater good, even if he sometimes did shady or unjust things. He was always trying to save humanity from mutants or aliens though. Same reason he tries to stop Shredder (both Ch'rell in Season 3 and then Demon Shredder)

Basically 2k3 Bishop is lawful neutral on good days and lawful evil on bad days, unfortunately we see more of his bad days in the 2k3 series.

On topic, my main problem with the Nick show using old characters is that they don't really do anything with them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting much out of characters like the Punk Frogs and Bellybomb but when you have major players like Hun and Bishop and put them in the background, then maybe you should't have used them at all.

Because Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, Slash, Mutagen Man, Mondo and Ray were all garbage and in desperate need of reinvention.http://orig09.deviantart.net/a520/f/...ollfaceplz.gif

Alright, alright... Let's take this seriously and go over them one by one:

• Krang: Easy to explain, the disembodied brain origin just creates problems when the actual Utroms also run around. It's just a no-brainer of a compromise.
  
• Bebop/Rocksteady: The IDW Bebop and Rocksteady are pretty much the revisionist lie a lot of people seem to have told themselves, nobody wants Bebop and Rocksteady as they were in the show because that's not what people want to remember. Besides, it's not like it would have worked with the tone anyway.
  
• Rat King: Isn't it just building on the Pantheon stuff from Mirage? From what I understand the original version of that concept never really went anywhere, so why not expand on it.
  
• Hun: Hun being Casey's father doesn't change his personality or position, it just changes the nature of his relationship with Casey. And it's arguable the "you killed my father" narrative is a little too much of an old cliché.
  
• Karai: Pretty minor change from the 4Kids show.
  
• Slash: Did anyone want the "Deviantart Sonic fandom" school's version of a TMNT character with the added quirk being an obsession with palm trees? I don't think so.
  
• Fugitoid: Still a humanoid alien trapped in a robotic service robot, he's effectively the same character. Why neutrino specifically though? I guess because a seemingly human scientist on alien world seems kind of strange.
  
• Triceratons: A similar reason to the Fugitoid and Krang I guess. It pretty much just explains why they look like an extinct earth animals rather than leave it a mystery.
  
• Mutagen Man: Technically, it is the origin Peter Laird intended for the character, and the old origin relies on the mutagen just doing whatever the plot calls for regardless of established facts.
  
• Man Ray: ... Man Ray sucked... He had no personality outside of "Don't throw stuff into the ocean!" and his origin was just that he used to be a guy working at an aquarium before being hit with mutagen.
  
• Mondo: Which origin are you talking about? The one where he was a gecko bought alongside the Turtles and raised by a random criminal, or the one where he was a teenager playing a guitar in the sewer? His origin wasn't even consistant in the first place.
  
• The Turtles: ... Alright, that's actually kind of a big and somewhat important change since it deviates from every other version, but it doesn't really change their personalities or what they are. The rationale behind it (I think) is that it makes the mystical stuff seem more like it's part of the central theme from the start, where as in the other versions it just seemed to come out of nowhere when the time came for it.

That's what I mean, neatoman, all the characters were updated to fit into IDW's writing over a children's cartoon show. And that's fine, their original incarnations fit the Fred Wolf show, and the IDW versions fit their universe. But they're all still updated/changed, similar to what Nick or 4kids did, etc.

Bishop's been in quite a few episodes and he's going to appear again in the upcoming Newtralizer/Mona Lisa ep.

What neatoman is saying is that IDW integrated them into the narrative organically and made them even better.

Nick was just all "Memba Bishop?" "I memba!" "Memba the Neutrinos though?"

Now you're the one tilting at Cubedmills. :tlol:

He's got a brain in there somewhere.

Like I mentioned on another thread it's a matter of variation and deviation. I think the Nick show deviates too much that yeah they might as well not have brought them back. I haven't read IDW yet but most of those I feel are variations rather than deviations though some really are bad choices like Triceratons being mutated but maybe it works Stuff like Bishop being an Utrom seems fine by me as well.

Sometimes the personality might be ok but if the character design looks nothing like the original character why use that for that specific character? If it's a character that had a boring design then it can be fine as long as it has some redeeming features. Mona Lisa having a totally different story works fine since she was such a minor character but others it doesn't, it's really on a case by case basis.

Did I like Nick bringing characters back?

Yes and no. I want to see characters brought back in new incarnations of the turtles, when you have such a rich cast of characters, they need to be used but I also like seeing new characters, there needs to be a balance. And if an old character is brought back then they should resemble somewhat the original characters, some changes are fine but you have to be aware.

While we're on the subject... why the hell wasn't Zeno just Traximus? Swing and a miss there.

Also why Zanmoran instead of Zanramon?

Bishop has been handled just fine in the Nick cartoon. I enjoyed all his appearances so far, and looking forward to his Season 5 episode.

I also find it bizarre people are saying some characters only have a few episodes in the Nick cartoon, when the original cartoon, 4kids series, even Archie also only gave some characters a small handful of appearances.

Shredder and whoever his henchmen are are always the ones who get the most screentime each series. In 4kids Hun was Shredder's second in command, so he got the most screentime alongside Karai and Baxter. In Nick, Tiger Claw, Rahzar, Fishface, Bebop/Rocksteady and Baxter get the most appearances, since they work for him. All the other characters were always just one off or short lived characters in every series.

Slash has more appearances in the Nick cartoon than the original show or Archie, and Leatherhead has probably appeared the same amount of episodes as the 4kids version. Rat King also got 3 episodes in Nick, whereas in 4kids he only got 1 measly episode.

Double standards.

Well different strokes I guess because to me Bishop hasn't really been handled in a fine way. The dude was a major player in the 2k3 series and is probably going to be a major one in the IDW series but here he feels like an afterthought, hell even in the episodes he appears in, he feels more like a secondary character. Compare this to the 2k3 version where not only he appears in more episodes but he also gets his own pov, he actually feels like a big part of the TMNT world.

.

Not really a double standard because the Nick series does it worse, again you have numerous of characters who were major players in other series downgraded into secondary characters.

Because in 4kids Bishop was originally built up as an antagonist. That isn't his role in this show. Also you're imagining Bishop appearing in 4kids a lot more than he did. He didn't debut until Season 3, and he only appeared in about 5 episodes. He was in a large chunk of Season 4, but then in Seasons 5 only appeared in one episode prior to the climax with Demon Shredder, and he was only in 3 FF episodes.

I don't agree with Bishop, but other than that I don't see who else you mean besides Hun. All the big characters in this show like Karai, Shredder, Kraang, Baxter, Bebop/Rocksteady, Leatherhead, Rat King, Slash, etc. have just as much a major presence here as any other show.

In fact most of the one-off mutants who are only in like 1-2 episodes are new characters Nick created themselves.

Thats still a hell of a lot more than the Nick Bishop also I don't see why Nick Bishop can't be a major player without being an antagonist.



You are honestly saying Nick Baxter has much of a presence as 4kids Baxter or that Bebop and Rocksteady has much of a presence as their FW counterparts.

It depends on the character.

He's an important secondary recurring character in Nick. He just doesn't have as much appearances because as we said, he's not an antagonist.

You know good and well this is based on each individual series. Fred Wolf Bebop/Rocksteady were in nearly every episode Shredder appeared because that's how that show works. Nick's Bebop/Rocksteady appeared regularly since they've been mutated. They have the same presence when it comes to their focus episodes. Of course I'm not talking about episode count, 80's Bebop/Rocksteady were in somewhere around 140 episodes.

Nick's Baxter isn't as heavily focused on as 4kids Baxter, but he's still been in 24 episodes and worked for Shredder and came up with most of the mutation plans throughout the series.

Yes thank you, I'm glad that someone else understands the difference between changes that serve a real purpose and those which are just arbitrary.

It's barely even that though. Like with my previous "Hothead/Kavaxas/Drako" example, I will do the same with Wyrm.

There's really no point to making the genie character Wyrm, did anyone honestly take a look at the design and go "He totally seems like a genie type character!"? How does anyone connect worms to genies? It's not even like the character was completely devoid of previous characterisation. The truth is, much of this is probably just some vain attempt to make it seem as if the show has more to do with previous material than it really does.

The way he was written, they might as well have used Cudley, Jagwar, Nano, Stump, Hallocat, Cherubae, Null, Dreadmon, Viral, Sh'Okanabo or Triple Threat and it would have made about as much sense.

Even if that's the case, it's the same thing. IDW took a minor character like Angel and somehow turned her into an important character who became Nobody and is now one of the most appearing characters in the series.

Also from the looks of things Jagwar might be part of the Pantheon, both she and Null were changed to females from Archie, etc.

While I agree with this, Wyrm is such a minor character in TMNT it doesn't really matter. He never appeared in the original cartoon, and prior to IDW's one-shot with him, he only ever appeared in 2 Archie comics where all he did was attack Scumbug.

If Baxter wasn't voiced by an expensive star, then maybe he would of been more focus on him.

I do feel that them using expensive stars to voice characters was more important than the story itself.

But Angel isn't really that different from the original version aside from being older and what was added with time. She was originally a minor character, yes, but it's not she was changed as much as she was just expanded upon and it's all in line with the comic's tone and progression. It's not like they just combined Angel and Nobody from the start and ignored what the show had already established about her, so I don't get what the problem is? It's not contrived or random, neither as a version of Angel or as part of the series, so it works.

When Bebop and Rocksteady pops in halfway through season 3 it doesn't really feel organic in anyway. It happens after Shredder already had a ton of henchmen, they were created from characters who didn't seem to have anything to do with the original characters (if Zeck didn't have a purple mohawk, would you ever have guessed he would turn out to be Bebop?) and they don't seem to contribute much afterwards. So who were they appealing to by adding them? The target audience of little kids who didn't know who they were from before and already had a bunch of other characters to keep track of at that point? The periphery audience of older fans who might feel alienated by the new approach?

The original Jagwar was... An oddity to say the least. It seems to me like they're just combining Jagwar with his dad, the Jaguar spirit thing. Again, not really a change that's all that jarring and it does provide a better narrative that just having this bizarre Jaguar-Demigod-Avatar thing just running around with his creepy spirit bestiality origin. It was just... Weird and I don't like to think about it...

As for the female thing... Diversity? I'll agree that it's kind pointless to change that but I don't think enough people cared deeply about Null or Jaqwar for that to be a deal breaker.

Whatever... But why Wyrm specifically though? If they just went with him because he's such a minor character, why not just take something that fits the genie motif better? Why an oversized flatworm of all things?

Why would having expensive stars be more important than having a good story.

Also I don't think Phil Lamarr is that expensive