Was Titanus almost a preview to Lord Dregg?
 

What I mean by this is, it almost felt like Titanus was becoming a replacement for Shredder/Krang in Season 8. Sure he only got a 3 parter, but the whole Havoc mutant organization was quite large.

Shredder/Krang only appeared in 4 episodes of Season 8, so it seemed like even back then they were trying to phase them out.

It seemed like David Wise was experimenting with characters that could possibly replace them, like Beserko or Titanus, but eventually decided to bring in Lord Dregg.

I prefer to Titanus to Dregg I think.

I think they were trying to replace Shredder and Krang with Titanis. The purpose of HAVOC was to get mutants in their army. Bebop and Rocksteady were in the city at the time and HAVOC never found them. If Titanis wanted every single mutant to be in HAVOC and knew about Bebop and Rocksteady, he would have took them.

Plus, all 3 villains, Shredder, Titanis and Dregg tried to get the turtles to join forces with them, if they refuse, they would be destroyed. Raphael said Go Suck A Lemon to Shredder and Titanis and he said something similar to Dregg.

I really like all the anti-mutant propaganda spread in those episodes. It reminded me of something from X-men, and the TMNT cartoon only touched upon it a few times before in earlier seasons.

Its also odd that Titanus mutants were all exclusive to him, and none of the shows established mutants joined him. Like no Leatherhead or Rahzar/Tokka or Slash....they were like a cult of their own with Titanus.

That would have been cool. Heck, even Mondo. That'd be an awesome episode, the Turtles have to try and bring Mondo Gecko back from the evil of HAVOC.

In the eps we also see Havoc creating his own mutants, so perhaps that's why they were so loyal to him? I think Titanus created all those mutants, rather than them just being ones who joined.

It would explain why we never saw them before.

Yeah, I see it as "testing the waters" since it was evident it would be Krang and Shredder's last season. That whole anti-mutant buildup was kinda annoying and I would've loved to see April when she told Burne she quit. Oh well.

Yeah, in Season 8 Bebop and Rocksteady didn't really work with the new serious tone of the show.

Its no surprise that during Season 10 they only bring back Shredder and Krang and we don't see Bebop/Rocksteady.