Baxter Stockman. A tragic character or cold villian.

[Sage Ninja]

In both the classic cartoon and the 2k3 cartoon Baxter has been given a tragic life. In the New Toon is quite evil and arrogant and kind of asks for the horriable things that happen to him. And yet despite this the show made him quite tragic and even pittiable with how he was treated by Shredder and slowly relieved of his body parts in violent ways til the point where all he wanted to do was just die in peace. The show even humanized him even more in Insane in the Membrane by showing his past and how he was actually a decent kid until his mother died, making him sympathtic to the audiance.

In the old toon Baxter is also a villan that was far more sympathtic than even his modern day counter-part by being portrayed as a niave, people pleaser who was treated like sh*t by Shredder, and then was mutated into a giant fly that became warped by madness and vengence.

In either case in the only two mediums where Baxter Stockman has been brought to life other than the comics, the writers have felt compelled to make him a tragic character that, inspite of him being a villan, would inspire sympathy for the poor psycho.

This isn't the case in the orginal mirage comics. After reading some of the first few orginal comics on line, Baxter Stockman is shown to be completely evil and murderous and is a full blown cold villan who tried to take over the city and kill April in a grusome way with his mousers just for discovering what he was doing. And later on in comics he mutilates himself by placing his brain in (I think) is a robot of his own accord. Unlike in the 2k3 series where his mutilations happen by being a victim of Shredder's punishments, or being turned into a mutant against his will like in the old toon. Mirage Baxter is calculating and is motivated by his gains rather than revenge for wrongs done to him like in the cartoon mediums. He's definatly not the tragic character he is made out to be out side the comics. And I was wondering which one do you prefere Stockman to be? A tragic villian or a coldly deleberately evil one?

The new cartoon is over (just about) and there is a new movie on it's way in 2011 that hints that Baxter Stockman might be apart of. If a new cartoon series or in the new movie happened to have him would you want him to be as evil and calculating as mirage counter-part or do you think works best as character out side the comics as a tragic villianous character?