Mutant of the week show?
 

One thing the show seems to fail at: everytime anyone is mutated there is never any horror, never any, "Oh my GOD, what will become of my life now??! My job, my wife/kids/parents/friends!!!" The mutated people just kind of shrug and go, "Oh nice, now I can really f*** up the Turtles! Rahhh!!!" It's never not fun, but this show is hardly making a stellar case for how one can sensibly embrace what Peter went to great pains to avoid, which is mutant-of-the-week type of fluff.

Ordinarily they seem to mutate people who're self centered loners, like that Snake thug who worked for the Kraang and Vic who got mutated into Spider-Bytes. Odds are neither of them had any loved ones in the first place. Maybe at some point down the line they'll do a storyline where someone with a family gets mutated and we'll get to see the consequences of that scenario.

To be fair it's like this in Archie and the OT too. Ray Fillet didn't mind being a mutant, Leatherhead got over it fast, same for Mondo Gecko.

Bebop and Rocksteady also enjoyed being mutants and never showed a desire to become human.

I think the only character who hated being a mutant was Baxter Stockman since he considered himself a hideous freak.

That's a good topic. I was wondering about as Shredder talked to Bebop and Rocksteady before he mutated them. In Episode 2 of the OT i think..he said to them.."well you will not get a date at sunday evening after this " or something like that.

I was starting to think about.. How hard must it be to be a mutant and try to get a girlfriend? I think this is really sad if you think about.. The only way to find love as a mutant is

A. You have good friends like the turtles (And still then you will not have body-love)
B. You have a mutant of the same kind of your friend/partner

Mostly theres just only one Mutant of his kind...sad story. Most of them will never find love.

The OT is a child's show so i can understand they don't show the feelings of mutants and so on.. It's about turtles kicking butts !

In the Nick show Splinter is shown on a picture (as human) with his family and he talked about once...i think Splinter is the only mutant that offers the tragedy of beeing a mutant without wanting it sometimes. A more complex character if you ask me.

2k3 did very good in this department...

Archie Leaterhead at least struggled with it. He said he was considered a monster on Earth, but wanted to be a hero on Stump Asteroid. Also, Archie Ray Fillet had to struggle with his new body, Even Archie Mondo Gecko had a hard time, so Archie did it better.

Honestly, this is an element that's bothered me since I was a kid and similar things would happen in the cartoon, toy bios or Archie comics.

I like the mutant-of-the-week schtick in certain versions of the TMNT, but I do feel this aspect could be better handled.

Splinter No More
 

The 1987 show at least dealt with Splinter's emotion, especially season 1-2. Splinter No More is, together with Shreddervile, the deepest works of that show, dealing with mankind at all.

The reason it didn't matter as much because most mutants in the past were animals who became intelligent, not humans. When animals are given a higher form of life and become self aware, of course its going to be a benefit. (See: Leatherhead, the Frogs, Groundchuck/Dirtbag, Rahzar/Tokka, Slash, Mondo Gecko (OT origin), etc.)

Baxter Stockman constantly considered himself a freak, spent his entire run trying to find some way to turn back to a human, and blamed both Shredder/Krang and the Turtles for his misfortune.

As for Bebop/Rocksteady, their charm was probably that they were just so stupid that they didn't care about being human again.

So as you can see, most mutants weren't human prior to mutation, so what did they have to complain about? The only exceptions is probably Mona Lisa, Muckman, and Mutagen Man...but they were all one-shots.

Well there's always fan fiction....

Actually, now that you bring it up, you're right. There weren't many human-to-animal mutations in the Fred-Wolf cartoon, and when there were, they were usually treated with some level of outrage and horror, or at least a period of settling in.

The Adventures characters seemed to more or less shrug it off though.

But yeah, the Nick cartoon could have a slightly more somber approach when it comes to this.

Bradford and Xever seemed pretty horrified at first, but no follow up.

I prefer animals becoming intelligent in most cases for the mutants anyway. The only ones I prefer being human prior is obviously Bebop/Rocksteady and Baxter...both of whom were our, "gateway drugs" to human ---> animal mutants other than Splinter.

There weren't really that many Archie mutants that were human prior either besides the Mutanimals and...Scumbug I think. Armaggon was a normal shark I'm sure, Slash was from an alien turtle planet, etc. Most of the other characters were aliens, (Malinga, Scul/Bean, Wingnut/Screwloose), or demons (like Null)

There was also Verminator-X, but I believe it was stated he was a normal cat prior. Certainly no mention of him ever being human.

That was disappointing to me to be honest. I would have liked to see even one scene of them (or either one of them) having trouble accepting what they have become.

Xever in particular bothered me. He became a fish stuck in a giant glass tub and all he can think about is "If I wasn't stuck in here, I would have caught the Turtles by now". Talking about priorities.:roll:

As for Spiderbitez and Snakeweed, they were kinda stereotypical douchey characters as humans, so the lack of angst from their side doesn't bother me.

I really don't care about Snake and Vic's social lives.

Falco seemed to be set up as a regular character more than Rockwell did, so I doubt we'd see the latter. The only wrinkle was Bradford, since he was famous.

I see your point here, but like to give something to think here.becomming humanoid may not be a 'higher lifeform' as you put it...also we as a species are terribly ignorant while not all-knowing at the same time..why would it be better to be a humanoid?..I dont see them mingle with other people..and we still dont know **** if ou ask me on the topic whether animals are aware of themselves, are activelly thinking and such..we in many fields just assume that animals dont...

Its just that these characters prefer having mutant powers feeling that they feel more evil than simply remaining human. Baxter is an important exception since he could just build machines/electronics and feels that being mutated will limit his powers and reception.

Every series with 50+ episodes will have some one-shots, whether its in Mirage, Archie, 4kids, or the OT. So far, most of the characters aren't one-shots, so its too early to judge if this series will evolve into a mutant of the week formula like the OT did later on.

The monkey professor and pigeon pete could've been two examples to illustrate the point Andrew made.

Being a kids' show though, any of that type of stuff is fodder for a tie-in comic.

Pidgeon Pete wasn't a human prior. Didn't you hear him say he started off as a pigeon?

As for the monkey professor, we're probably going to see him again and hopefully see him revert to normal.

Actually no, I only saw the last few minutes of the episode. :tsmile: