Is the Ooze radioactive?
 

The discussion about Last Ronin's final issue sparked an... Interesting discussion about how the Turtles contaminated April and Casey. I'm not going to to go into the more exotic theory about what specific thing would cause it, I'm just assuming Waltz and Eastman wrote it under the notion that the ooze is radioactive and that's enough for exposure, either that or it leaked out in some other way that wasn't considered. What was discussed is whether or not there are any previous mentions of the ooze being radioactive or if this was just an assumption.

So, do you think it's radioactive?

I voted "I don't have an opinion" because it works differently in every iteration and there's already no consistency. Like in the Nick cartoon, it's just "magic" and does whatever it wants.

I'm sure the argument can be strongly made that we should infer that it is, but I think the simplest and most honest explanation is, "Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No."

It's only ever been 3rd party people or fans mentioning radiation or that the ooze is radioactive, I've noticed. For example, I remember reading movie reviews of TMNT 1990 mentioning, "Pet turtles, mutated by a radioactive ooze!" and so on. Stuff like that. But the "radioactive" part isn't substantiated in anything. Not the Mirage comics, not the Archies, not the movies, not the cartoons that I'm aware of. Nothing. Just kind of an assumption in the public that, "mutations happened" = radiation/something must be radioactive.

But if that were true wouldn't the Turtles be riddled with cancers after a year or two and probably not even make it out of their teens? You may get to be a "radioactive monster" but you can't be that for very long.

I'm pretty sure that the second movie at the very least makes the strong case that something "radioactive" is going on despite the fact that the term is never spoken.

But it does pose an interesting question: So if the mutagen isn't "radioactive", then how would one imagine that it works?

I think it probably gets assumed as "radioactive" because otherwise any possible explanation is so farfetched you may as well just call it "magic", and radioactive mutation is at least a thing people are aware exists and can sort of wrap their heads around a little bit. Even if it falls apart the more you think about it, it's still the most plausible and "realistic" explanation.

But in the end, this is one of those "It's all fake anyway and has absolutely no basis in reality so I think it's a bit silly to even attempt over-thinking it" type of things.

...Which is MOST TMNT things, to be blunt about it. "How does Superman fly"? The writer says so, that's how. Otherwise, there simply isn't any explanation that makes even a modicum of sense. Best to not even ask.

Brings back some unexpected flashbacks to the tragic backstory of Spider-man: Reign. I have never brought myself to actually read that thing because of how... gross it gets.

I own it. It's dumb. That's maybe not even the dumbest thing in there.

I gotta come right out with it. Whenever people rip off The Dark Knight Returns it annoys me, because that book isn't even half as good as people pretend it is in the first place. Which means the copycat imitations are even worse.

Any thoughts about the infamous Marvel "Trouble" ?

As awkward as the whole story synopsis sounds to me, I can never get past the covers that look like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen trying to appeal to the pre-teen market, even though I thought comics by that point were being primarily being bought by adult males.

It's a waste product of the Transmat machine. An alien machine that can beam someone instantly to another world... whatever it is that makes such a machine work, whatever fuels it, the waste of it is what turned the turtles into humanoid, sentient Turtles.

It's inobtanium, who knows. But it never bothered me that whatever depleted form of that alien fuel is for the Transmat -- and who knows what it would be -- might believably cause TMNT-like mutations.

It's never occurred to me as something weird. I'd imagine for him it'd just be like flexing a muscle that only he has. Like... wiggling your ears, or something, but on another level.

I even have many recurring dreams where I can fly like Superman. It's hard to articulate, but it's just a mental thing in these. Focus hard enough, you start levitating, then as you start concentrating in multiple dimensions (1 to keep yourself levitating, 2 to propel yourself forward, and if you ease up on 1 then you start dropping even if you're still going forward). Then, you do it enough it becomes less of a chore and more "mental muscle memory," if that makes sense. I really, really enjoy those dreams. Also, it's funny because in my "head" in the dreams me flying around is like the coolest thing/biggest breakthrough ever and I want to show it to everyone, but everyone I run into in the dreams is like, "What? Oh. You're flying. Huh. That's nice, I guess."

I own it. It's dumb. Those covers aren't even the dumbest things in there.

I bought it on a recommendation and never trusted that person's word again. I don't know if they thought I'd like the twist ending that "Aunt" May was really Spider-Man's Mom or just the general "Everybody's F*cking!" nature of the plot, but... it's incredibly stupid.

And yeah, thanks to the covers I'm sure that I and everyone else who bought it is probably now on some Watch List somewhere. F*cking Marvel.

It's very "weird", for many reasons.

It can't simply be a muscular strength thing because it's not as simple as "jump high and go"; he can hover in one place, change directions on a dime, and gain (or lose) speed and momentum as he pleases. Even if all it took was "flexing a muscle" to get him in the air, it would HAVE to be something else entirely that kept him there, and furthermore enabled him to do All That Other Stuff.

The old "Earth has weaker gravity than Krypton" explanation they used in the 40s was dropped when someone with greater than a Kindergarten education realized that Superman can also fly in space, where there's no gravity, and furthermore, has also been seen flying within the atmosphere of planets that would probably have much stronger gravitational pull than that of Earth.

He has no propulsion system, so he should not be able to travel in any direction in areas like the vacuum of space. Unless his super-farts are what gets him in the air and helps him move and if that's the case, I really don't need to know.

John Byrne gave the half-explanation that it was "maybe" some form of tactile telekinesis - which furthermore explained how he could lift and carry things of huge size and weight while flying and yet those things didn't simply collapse under their own weight as they realistically would - but of course, "tactile telekinesis" isn't real and so this is just more Comic Book Make-Believe Science to explain the unexplainable. Furthermore, later writers either ignored or completely contradicted this theory. Pretty sure Mark Waid went back to the "weaker gravity" explanation, but Mark Waid is not a very smart man and likes cartoons and comics made for 4-year olds so I'm not shocked he only has a 4-year old's understanding of physics.

There simply is no explanation that doesn't rely on Total Make-Believe.

And that's fine, I'm a huge Superman fan and I don't mind that him being able to fly is absolute bullsh*t, I'm just glad he can fly. But because it's absolute bullsh*t, not only do I not waste time dwelling on possible explanations, I'd rather they not even bother trying. When they try they just make themselves look dumber for trying. "It's a f*cking comic book" is all the "explanation" necessary.

That's how I feel about a chemical waste product being able to turn turtles into turtle-men, or rats into rat-men (or humans into rat-people, whichever your preference). "It's fake, who cares?"

It's only a plot device and Eastman & Laird never gave it more than a half-second's thought when they came up with the idea, I promise you, so why should we or anyone else?

I will say, thought, that in their drunken and stoned state when they sat down to plot the first issue, I would not be shocked if in the back of their minds that "radiation" was involved, even if they didn't put it down on paper. It was a pretty common plot device back then.

Wait a minute, aren't TMNT #1 and Daredevil "canon" to each other? Like isn't that "the gag" in TMNT #1, as-penned by Eastman & Laird? Wasn't the chemical that blinded Matt Murdock "radioactive" waste (Google says "Yes")? And isn't that supposed to be the same exact stuff that mutated the Turtles and Splinter? Well, that settles it then, doesn't it? At least as far as that issue goes, the ooze is radioactive. But it should still be stated that doesn't necessarily apply to other TMNT universes.

The 1st movie is a positive on being radioactive:

It's amazing what we forget. I've seen that a hundred times and yet it didn't immediately jump to mind somehow. How awful and embarrassing.

I want to say no, but here you guys are proving things so I can't. lol

They don't seem to have cancer or other health issues, and even if they don't have access to medical care to even find any problems in the first place, if they had radioactive contamination they could spread it to their friends, but they've been fine too. So I want to say no, even if some media say otherwise.

Maybe the TGRI scientists (covert Utroms?) just put that on the canister to deter the average Joe on the street from touching it... should one or two go missing?

The movies wouldn't be the best spot to cite since, #1, what's written on the tube changed between movie 1 and movie 2, #2, TGRI ooze is entirely man-made. No aliens and no Transmat machines in existance for it to be the waste product from or anything. Though if it IS radioactive, there is the whole thing about none of the Turtles being sickly or suffering from radiation sickness.

Not a very graceful way of addressing this:

:trazz:

You're allowed to say ya goofed, bro. "Yeah, well... THAT doesn't prove ANYTHING!" just makes it look like you're moving the goalposts back. And we know how much Aqua hates it when you do that. :lol: He's gonna have a fit when he sees this thread. :trazz:

Whatever mutated them also made them immune to radiation sickness.

Because it's fake.

It depends on the version and if it is something a creator wants to play with then its there. I am open to it of a solid story can become of it.

Alright, I decided to look up the exact explanation in the 4kids show:

Technobabble, obviously meant to be vague to the point where it says nothing and any semblance of an actual explanation is clearly just supposed to fly over the heads of kids. That said, while the explanation ironically doesn't explain anything, "shifting subatomic particles" does sound a lot like radioactive decay or fission/fusion.

This thread is low energy. Pay a huge fine!

The thing that bothered me about the Mirage ooze is the fact that somehow the mutagen was still in their bloodstream, years after their transformation. It's not like they continue to mutate, barring any outside interference, like Raph being bitten by vampires and what-have-you.

The whole story where Bloodsucker sucked the ooze out of Raph to the point where he turned back to a barely sentient regular turtle.... and then Raph bit him back and sucked out enough ooze so he can mutate back to his older self. Like WTF?

Yeah... that's more than a little dodgy. Also, how Bloodsucker got full adult-level sentience after only a day or so (though it's implied he's absorbing aspects of what he blobloodsucking, there's that explanation). He's never spoken on that specifically, but I believe that's a big part of why Peter doesn't consider it part of his canon.

I like the story overall, though, personally.

Frankly, I don't even understand why we're arguing on the basis of how radiation works in real life. If it's a waste product, it's probably radioactive. Why don't they have cancer? Because it's the comic book version of radiation that gives you superpowers instead of cancer. It's the same reason why the Hulk and Daredevil and the Fantastic Four and Captain Atom and Firestorm don't all have cancer. It's such a non-argument that I don't even really understand why it was ever brought up. And it's not like it matters anyways. It's a comic book; ergo, it operates off of comic book science like every other comic book, and if you can't get past how it doesn't line up with "real" science then comic books are probably not your preferred medium.

Maybe a somewhat better question might be, "Are the Turtles themselves inherently radioactive post-mutation?" Like, if you were to drink their blood even if they were at age 17, would you be giving yourself radiation poisoning?

I don't think so.

Now that I think about it, Bloodsucker is probably the only non-fox mutant to suck Raph off.

I would agree with that. Comic book radiation stops at superpowers and doesn't ever linger, unless it's a supervillian and their power is radiation, or the story is tragic and the hero is a one-off.