Double Retro-Mutation?
 

This has been bugging me since season 2. If Rahzar were to get his hands on Donnie's retro-mutagen and use it on himself, would he immediately go back to being Chris Bradford, or would just the second mutation be reversed, turning him back into Dog Pound, requiring a second dose to be human again?

He would become human. This isn't Digimon or Pokemon, he's not going to go back to his previous stage. He'd turn human.

How can you speak with such authority? You write for the series? It's a valid question.

Interesting question Jephael.

Personally I feel it would be too easy to have the retromutagen to be the answer every mutation. We know it didn't work on Karai because her mutation was unique.

Mutagen man is technically a second mutation as he needs to absorb Mutagen to move around.

It could be possible that the Retromutagen may not even work on someone who is a double dipped mutant.

Because of the way Rahzar is, he's more of a reanimated corpse then a mutant so if it there might not be any living human DNA for in his body to enable him to return to human. Same thing with Muckman.

I'm inclined to think it wouldn't work at all at that point. But i guess it boils down to two possibilities depending on how you are looking at it:

From an in universe perspective (based on available observed evidence);

We dont know how the retromutagen is supposed to work exactly. Chances are good its relying on a kind of cellular memory - a little similar to how plastic has structural memory (which is why plastic objects tend to try to return to their original shape after you bend them)

Donatello refers to the mutant cells as 'unstable' suggesting that the DNA within each cell is in a state of fusion with other foreign cells (using Mutagen as a catalyst) - creating fused DNA strands, and spreading them throughout the hosts body and thus creating mutants.
Retromutagen would - theoretically speaking - break apart these mutated strands and repair them. Presumably it would have to work on the theory of a majority 'cellular memory' of the host's body and repair the mutated cells to that previous state.

However, this implies that each mutation would cause quite significant cellular damage and degradation - damage which would normally be made up for by the inclusion of the secondary subjects DNA (be it turtle, rat, dog, etc, etc). When the retromutagen removes that additional DNA, its likely causing significant cellular harm.

Which bodes badly for Kirby... and much of New York....

Its also possible that the retromutagen causes the parent primary DNA of the host to strengthen rather than remove the secondary DNA. In effect its not retromutating by removing the foreign cells, just overwhelming their influence. So in this instance Kirby is still carrying Bat DNA in his body, and is still part Bat, but the proportion of that DNA has been so significantly reduced it has made its effects almost irrelevant.

This might also explain why Karai's cells seem so unstable and she seems to partially return to semi human form and back again to snake.


But either way, the implication would be that a double dipped mutant wouldnt be capable of any form of retromutation.

In the first possibility; Rahzar's cells are so heavily mutated that removing the foreign cells would likely cause irreparable cellular damage and the process would almost certainly kill him.

Even if its the 2nd possibility, his mutation is now so rampant its likely that the retromutagen could no longer distinguish what was the primary DNA source and simply wouldn't work at all. I suspect this may be why Karai's retromutagen didn't work.
Her cells are so unstable it can't determine what was what originally. Rahzars - similarly - are likely to be so far from what they once were from either DNA source making him up, that there is no possibility of the formula determining what to strengthen.


From the second perspective of the writers point of view;

*shrugs* :lol:

I don't think he'd turn human given that he has a secondary mutation. Karai couldn't even be restored, so it's possible that Rahzar wouldn't be able to either unless Donnie can perfect it in a way that would stabilize both mutations.

^^^ Yeah, I think that's the case. Hard enough to come up with any 'alternative' retromutagen, but a double mutation might be essentially undoable by it's very nature. It might be why they haven't done any other double-mutations in the show, they are probably a point of no return.

@Victory_Angel- How would Rahzar be considered a reanimated corpse? He can still eat stuff (judging by his comments about Xever) and Spirit-Quest 'Rahzar' had his throat cut by Mikey, suggesting that he's still alive (and still has blood in his veins, otherwise the throat-cutting would be pointless.) 8)

Digimon or not, I think it would turn Bradford into his previous form, and in this case it was Dogpound. I don't know. It feels kinda weird or wrong for it to skip his Dogpound form and go straight to Bradford. Rahzar is a mutation of a mutation after all.... it's a mutation that must be undone... twice.

This is not Pokemon or Digimon. He's not going to "de-evolve," retromutagen will turn him back into a human. His Dogpound stage does not exist anymore.

No, it won't turn him human because he was double mutated. If anything, like Coola said, it will turn him into Dogpound first and then turn him human if given a second dose. Or at least, that's how it SHOULD work if you're double mutated.