Mind Blown.

[pannoni1]

That's what gives 4kids its edge the most- the thought that after an episode there is a decisive victory for the bad guys, something that never happened in any incarnation (don't count early parts of multi-parters). We need a Tragedy from time to time (just like how the great playrights have a nice mix of comedies, tragedies, and histories). In the real world, there is always a tragedy in some form happening (murder, assault, kidnapping), so watching stuff like the OT can lead you to believe "in case of an emergency, help is always on the way and everything will be fine." It just becomes so predictable that it takes away the edge. Since Mirage first came out at the cusp of the Bronze age and the beginning of the Dark/Copper/Iron Age in comics, it really gives justice to that era with some of these episodes. The OT is really just a cartoon version as if TMNT was a Silver Age comic.