Baxter Stockman

Dr. Baxter Stockman, is a knowledgeable scientist and recurring adversary of the Turtles who has appeared in several versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows, video games, and comics. In each version, he is depicted as the creator of the Mousers, machines meant to seek out and destroy sewer rats (not mice, in spite of their name). Nevertheless, there are several differences among his various appearances..

Mirage Comics
Baxter Stockman is a knowledgeable African American scientist "off in his own world" that used his talents for his own selfish nefarious schemes rather than to help mankind. His latest invention, the Mousers, were small robots designed to find and kill rats, thus solving the city's rat problem. However, Baxter was really using the Mousers to rob banks and commit other crimes not because of the money (he could use his invention to make millions legally), but because "it was FUN!". When his assistant April O'Neil questioned Stockman, he led April to an underground factory where hundreds of Mousers were being made. Once his assistant April O'Neil discovered his plan, he sent the Mousers after her. April tried to escape through the elevator, but the scientist sent the elevator to sewer level. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saved her from the Mousers that Stockman had sent to kill April. Not knowing that she was saved by the TMNT, he continued his plans, holding the city ransom with the threat of destroying several city landmarks with his Mousers. With the help of April, the TMNT found Baxter, defeated him, and sent him to jail.

In Volume 2 of the series, Baxter would somehow escape prison and break into the DARPA facility to wreak havok. After taking out the guards, he would somehow implant his brain into the body of a huge killer robot making him a cyborg. As the robot, Baxter would bust out of DARPA, seek out and find April O'Neil and inject her with something which was, at the time, unrevealed. The TMNT, Casey and Nobody find and battle it out with the Baxterbot, which would result in Baxter escaping missing an arm and blacking out, and Raphael being captured by DARPA. Gaining consciousness, Baxter would discover his robot body was fixed and somehow regenerated an arm. The other three Turtles and Casey find the Baxterbot in the sewers, ready to electrocute them with live power lines. Leo would turn the tables and electrocute the Baxterbot instead. While the Turtles wondered how Baxter got the robot to work, they didn't know his brain was actually inside it. Or so it would seem. Assumed to be destroyed; only the glasses he had retrieved earlier remained.

In Volume 4 of the series, April would fall prey to nanobots inside her system, threatening her life. It was revealed that this was what Baxter injected her shoulder with all those years ago. It was also revealed that Donatello had part of the robot with Baxter's brain still alive and pinned up against a sewer wall hidden from his brothers for years. When Donatello would ask Baxter for a way to help April, the mad scientist would only laugh and say how she was doomed. In a rage, Donatello blew him up, including his mind, to avenge April. The Nanobots were destroyed but are suspected to have made her sterile

It is also worth mentioning that in the Mirage comics, unlike other media, Baxter Stockman was a stand-alone villain and had nothing to do with the Shredder or the Foot.

1987 Cartoon Series
Baxter Stockman was a Caucasian scientist who worked as a humble inventor. Stockman started out an honest life trying to sell his Mousers to the Ajax pest control agency. They did not like his suggestion, deeing that it would work a little too well to rid the city of rats, and thus, put the pest control agency out of business, Stockman was thrown into the street. Shredder had watched this via his cameras, he would find Stockman and offer him a job, creating a Master Control System for an army of Mousers. Shredder, not being able to wait, used a replication device at the Technodrome to assemble twelve Mousers. He then programmed the Mousers to find and destroy Splinter, the mutant rat who was the Turtles' master. The Mousers were destroyed by the TMNT, and they found Stockman's name on the devices. The Turtles and Splinter found Baxter with April O'Neil's help. While Stockman didn't know Shredder was using the Mousers to kill the Turtles and Splinter, Shredder still sent the Foot to eliminate him. The Turtles defeated the Foot and tied Stockman to a lamppost to interrogate him, and he told them his part of the story. He would be arrested and Donatello would use Stockman's van and the equipment he found in his apartment to create the TurtleVan and the Turtle Blimp.

Stockman was later committed to an insane asylum, due to his tales of a giant talking rat and talking ninja turtles and has since gone criminally insane. Shredder returned to bust him out and use him to help in his attempts to defeat the Turtles. Baxter, now a lot more evil-minded and insane than he had been before his incarceration, became his sidekick and lackey, helping him to get the "Three Fragments of the Eye of Sarnath", an alien artifact that would grant the owner virtually limitless power. Stockman eventually became fed up with Shredder's abuse and tried to use the Eye of Sarnath for himself once Shredder acquired the three segments of the powerful artifact. The Eye could create things out of thin air, or transmute objects, but it had no effect on gold. Shredder would take advantage of this to get the Eye back, even though he'd still end up getting defeated by the Turtles when Donatello's Sarnathometer destroyed the Eye via a massive explosion. Baxter would crawl back to Shredder's side, but the damage would be done as Shredder began conspiring to rid himself of the turncoat scientist. The final full episode with Baxter as a human would be Case of the Killer Pizzas where he helps Shredder unleash killer monsters from Dimension X to attack the city. Despite his treacherous nature, Stockman remained under Shredder's employ, until Shredder demanded Krang send Bebop and Rocksteady back to Earth (since they were trapped in Dimension X at the time). Since at the time the Technodrome's dimensional portal was weakened, Krang could only send them back if he got a "warm body" sent in return, so Shredder threw Stockman through the portal. Seeing no use for a human scientist, Krang had him thrown into a disintegrator unit. A fly happened to follow Stockman inside, and instead of disintegrating him, it would cross mutate him with the fly, turning him into a mutant fly.

As the fly, Stockman would now plot revenge against both the Turtles and the Shredder. While Shredder would sometimes trick Baxter into helping him, with the promise of turning him human again, Stockman would always be double crossed and twice as eager to attack Shredder the next time. Stockman's schemes would always get him trapped into either Dimension X or some other parallel dimension. During his attempts to destroy his enemies, he would befriend a sentient computer named Z, who would try to help out Stockman, since over time, he would start losing his scientific mind and begin acting more like a fly, being fascinated by bright lights, craving sugar, being unable to focus on complicated tasks, and not even being able to remember exactly who it was he wanted revenge on, or why. With the computer's help and guidance, he was able to return to Earth through a small rift in the fabric of space-time, and captured the Turtles in order to lure Shredder into combat. Unable to bear the thought of anyone other than him destroying the Turtles, Shredder answered Baxter's challenge, but in the battle that ensued, the computer was destroyed, leaving only a circuit board that housed its intelligence behind. Shredder fled back to Dimension X, but when Baxter attempted to pursue him, Krang shut the portal down before Baxter emerged, again stranding the fly in interdimensional space.

Baxter's next appearance, in season five's Landlord of the Flies, was a distinctly anomalous one. Without the computer at his side or any explanation for how he escaped his interdimensional banishment, Baxter was already back on Earth when the episode began, with a new ability: his continually devolving fly-like mentality had given him the ability to communicate with other flies, and he assembled the insects into an army in a plot to get revenge on Shredder. By this time, however, the Technodrome was stranded in the polar wastes of the arctic, and the frigid air proved distinctly inhospitable to Baxter and his fly family, stopping his scheme before it even got started. Krang was intrigued by his new ability, however, and struck a deal with Baxter, promising to transform him back into a human again if he helped them. Baxter proceeded to terrorize the city with his family army, but was one again shot off into another dimension at the episode's conclusion by Donatello's portable portal generator.

In his last encounter with the Turtles and Shredder, he tried to use Insect Essences to turn all of humanity into all kinds of mutant insects including the crew at Channel 6. The computer reminded him that he had forgotten about the Turtles, and he used his insect minions to capture them, but when questioned about what, exactly, they had ever actually done to him, Baxter admitted he couldn't even remember. Eventually, the Turtles were able to overpower Baxter, and forced him to lead them back to the Technodrome so that they could steal Shredder's retro-mutagen ray that Shredder was attempting to rebuild to thwart Baxter's plans and return the mutated humans to normal. In the chaos that ensued, the computer was destroyed, and once the retro-mutagen ray had been found, Baxter snatched it up and flew off through a dimensional portal, intending to use it to return himself to normal. While the Turtles gave chase, Shredder attempted to close the portal of the group before they could re-emerge, but the Turtles beat the clock, reclaiming the ray and making it back through in time, Baxter, however, was not so lucky, and was once again lost in limbo, never to appear again.

Besides the Mousers, Stockman was also the inventor of the Knucklehead, which Shredder utilized after he got rid of Stockman. Baxter Stockman also had a twin brother named Barney, also a mad scientist and with the same voice, who threw fits whenever the Turtles confused him with Baxter and hated Baxter and the fact that he turned into a fly. Barney Stockman appeared in the episode Raphael Knocks Em Dead. Baxter was voiced by Pat Fraley in the show.

Archie Comics
Following the stories from the 1987 cartoon, Baxter would again try to sell off his Mousers to a pest control agency, and be thrown into the street. Shredder would use his Mousers to try to get rid of the Turtles and Splinter. The Turtles would tie up Baxter and interrogate him and leave him there to be taken away by police. Later, he'd be in an insane asylum where Shredder would again use him for his evil plans. However the Archie Comics would make a radical retcon and u-turn of events during their take on the Eye of Sarnath arc. Here Shredder and Baxter managed to only find the first half of the crystal. hile Shredder and Baxter were running from the Turtles, Armaggon, a mutant shark from the future, appeared and grabbed Shredder, offering safety in exchange for help against the Turtles. We assume this only left poor Baxter alone to face the Turtles and the police. It's worth mentioning that in the first 3-issue arc based on the first 5 TMNT episodes, Baxter's hair was colored white for some reason, though he was again blonde in the regular series. He is never mutated into a fly, and after the first issues he is only seen in the short flackback in the Future Shark trilogy.

Coming Out of Their Shells
For the Live Stage show, Baxter Stockman was Shredders main henchman... to a certain extent. For the most part Baxter had been reduced to the typical science nerd, even spouting lines about getting back at all those football players who picked on him in high school.

2003 Cartoon Series
In the 2003 series, Baxter Stockman, voiced by Scott Williams. Similar to the Mirage comics, in the 2003 series Stockman was an African American scientist working on his Mousers with hidden motives. While he sold them off as a means to rid the city of the rat problem, he was really using them to rob banks while under the Utrom Shredder's employ.

When his assistant April O'Neil discovered his plans, he sent the Mousers after her. With the help of the TMNT, she escaped and returned to Stocktronics to defeat him. The Turtles and April finally corner Stockman, who calls his Mousers, and retreats. As the building went down, Baxter was taken by Hun to see Shredder. The price for his failure was his left eye which Hun removed with a drill.

Baxter would then use the information he got from studying an Utrom exosuit the Foot found to create the invisible Foot Tech Ninjas, in an attempt to defeat the Turtles. Stockman later captures Raphael, with the help of "Foot Tech Ninjas". Hun interrogates Raphael, but allows him to escape to allow Foot Tech Ninjas to follow Raphael back to the Turtles' lair.

The Turtles successfully fend of the cloaked ninjas. When that plan failed he was carried off by the Foot Tech Ninja, Baxter was injured to the point that he was in a wheelchair with a neck brace and missing his right hand, which is replaced with a robotic prosthesis. Stockman is in a severely debilitated state at this point, but he still works for the Utrom Shredder hoping to gain access to the Utrom exosuit.

When the Utrom Shredder had his vengeance against the Turtles (Shredder Strikes Back arc), he wanted proof positive that the Turtles had perished, he would send Baxter to get proof that the Turtles died but threatens Stockman with a "final punishment" if he doesn't come back with conclusive evidence. Stockman performs a survey of the antique store, but finds no human or mutant DNA.

Distraught at this finding, Baxter made his own proof and gave it to the Utrom Shredder in exchange for the Utrom exosuit to study. Convinced that the Turtles are dead, the Utrom Shredder gives Stockman access to the exosuit. Stockman's work for the Utrom Shredder was always about personal gain and his loyalty only went as far as his personal benefit.

Having been subjected to harsh punishment by the Shredder on more than one occasion, Stockman quickly develops an animosity for the Shredder and Hun. With newfound and unfettered access to the Utrom exosuit, Stockman plans to use the suit to create something that will give him more power. When the TMNT returned to New York and took revenge on the Utrom Shredder, he uses the surprise attack by the Turtles as an opportunity to launch his own plan of revenge against the Utrom Shredder.

Baxter would bust in, using a giant four-armed robot to try to get revenge on all 5 and Hun. Stockman attacks the Shredder's throne room and battles the Utrom Shredder, Hun and the Turtles. The Turtles and Shredder had to temproraily work together to defeat Baxter. Despite being a near indomitable foe, Stockman is defeated and seemingly explodes in the night sky.

Later, Baxter would be reduced to a head on a spider robot body that was voice activated by the Utrom Shredder. Stockman is controlled remotely by the Utrom Shredder with a robot eye implant that covers up his previous wound that shocks Baxter when he disobeys his orders or becomes arrogant. Using him to sneak inside the TCRI building, the secret hideaway of the Utroms, Utrom Shredder would have Baxter tamper with the virtual reality program the Utroms were using to explain their origins to the Turtles, so that if they died in VR, they'd die for real.

Stockman shuts down the security of the base, and leads the Utrom Shredder and his men to an underground path that allows them to enter the building unseen. Once the TMNT broke free, Donatello had Fugitoid an ally of the Turtles imitate Shredder's voice to release Baxter from his control. Now free, Baxter attacked the Utrom Shredder, whom he still holds a grudge against, and in part contributes to the Utrom Shredder's defeat and everyone would discover that he was actually an Utrom. After this incident, Stockman escapes and disappears.

With Shredder's defeat, Baxter would set his head in an Utrom Exosuit chest cavity, protected by a glass jar and first try to trick Leatherhead for his own evil schemes. Working independently, Stockman befriends Leatherhead and helps the crocodile build a transmat device in exchange for help with his robotic body, and the Turtlebot, a robot created to fight the Turtles. Stockman's Robot is completed but Stockman's ruse is revealed when Leatherhead finds out that Stockman used to work for the Shredder. Stockman's Turtlebot is destroyed, but he escapes. By this time, Stockman no longer has the financial backing and material support of the Foot.

Later with his head now on the shoulders of the Utrom exo-suitwork and the chest cavity covered up, he worked with the mob in an attempt to rid the city of the Foot and the Purple Dragons, and win the gang war. With the Shredder gone, a turf war developed, and Stockman creates robots to get rid of the Foot and the Purple Dragons. Stockman's robots are destroyed and he survives the turf war.

Hun would somehow find Baxter again and reduce him to just a brain connected to an eyeball and spinal column in a stasis tube, and once again put him under Shredder's command. Shredder did quote upon seeing Baxter's current appearance that he "should've quit while he was a head." The tank housing his brain allows him to speak, hear, and communicate with other foot techs, but it is also equipped a volume button, and electrical shocking device, which Hun and the Utrom Shredder use to torture the scientist.

This form of coercion was used to get Stockman to create a group of Foot Mechs (robotic soldiers). The Foot Mechs are eventually destroyed along with the Utrom Shredder's Freighter Headquarters. Baxter Stockman's tank rises from the water after Karai rescues Utrom Shredder before sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

He is eventually fished out the water and continues to work under the Shredder. Still a brain in a tank, Stockman has upgrades added to his tank, which include a modified self-propulsion system, a crude robotic arm, and a 360° hologram of his head. Despite an enmity shared between Stockman and the Shredder and the likelihood that Stockman will turn on him, Saki keeps him around because he considers him to be useful.

This attitude begins to change when, because of Baxter's failed attempts, a new scientist named Dr. Chaplin was introduced, Chaplin considers Stockman to be a role model and would build Baxter a new robot body that would project a hologram image of his head. While Chaplin admired Baxter's work and looked up to him, Baxter was always trying to get rid of him due to threats by Saki about making Chaplin a permanent replacement.

Stockman even goes as far as sabotaging Chaplin's inventions so that Chaplin's success won't negatively affect him. Not one for gratitude, Stockman continues to plot against Chaplin but his attempts backfire and only boost Chaplin's worth in Saki's eyes. Stockman's tries to sabotage Hun's mission to rescue Karai in Hun on the Run, but he soon becomes a contact within the Foot for Agent Bishop.

Eventually, Baxter would doublecross the Utrom Shredder one last time. A significant act of sabotage is seen when Stockman places a program that locks the controls of Saki's starship in "Exodus, Part 1." When the ship is finally destroyed, and believing his enemies to have perished, he now worked alongside Agent Bishop in exchange for a new body.

For the time being, Stockman upgraded his robotic body with four legs and four arms. Despite being an expert in robotics and engineering, Bishop changes Stockman's role and has him create clone aliens controlled by remote control in Aliens Among Us. The genetic material from these aliens inadvertently leads to a mutant outbreak. Stockman, who had been promised the tools he would need to create a new human body, is told that he can't work on his new body until the outbreak is neutralized. Stockman is then sent to New York in "Outbreak" to contain the threat.

Despite working with EPF forces to contain the outbreak, Stockman is unsuccessful. Although Stockman is told that he can't work on his body, he divides his time between creating a new body and the outbreak. Agent Bishop warns Stockman that he shouldn't go through with the process given the outbreak he caused. Stockman disregards Bishop's warnings goes through with a cerebral transfer into his new human body in "Insane in the Membrane."

Baxter finally made a new human body for himself, but in his impatience, his work was rushed. Once his consciousness had been transplanted, the new body seems fine at first, but decayed rapidly, and in his desperation to halt the process Stockman ended up losing his mind, which leads to Stockman having visions of his mother.

In his insanity, he decided that all of this had begun when April sent the Turtles after him, so he sought to destroy her. Stockman heads on a lone mission to seek revenge on Apri. In the end, Baxter's delusions of his mother made him save April instead, and he apparently fell to his death into the East River. Not being done with Baxter's work, however, Bishop found and revived his brain.

Agent Bishop has Stockman's body recovered and his brain placed in a new cyborg body. However, when Stockman is brought back to life, he is mortified that he wasn't left to rest in peace. Under Agent Bishop, Stockman is forced to work on a cure for the outbreak. Stockman never figures out the cure as Leatherhead discovers the cure in "Good Genes".

After the outbreak is neutralized, Stockman and Bishop inadvertently destroy the Heart of Tengu, an artifact that used to control the Foot Mystics. This act sets off a chain of events leading to the return of the original Shredder.

In an alternate future, where Ch'rell ruled Earth, Baxter's brain was attached to an aged, wheelchair-bound Hun. They worked with Donatello (who had been stranded in this dystopia by the Ultimate Ninja and Drako), the Turtles resident in that alternate reality, and April in an attempt to overthrow the Shredder. When they went to face him for the final showdown, Hun begged Ch'rell to take him back. Ch'rell, now using a giant-sized exosuit, stomped both Baxter and Hun flat.

The Lost Episodes
Stockman reappears in the fifth, "Lost" season of the series, still under Bishop's employ. During his first appearance of the season, in the episode "Membership Drive", he attempts to reprogram the reactivated Nano (found during a fortuitous E.P.F. salvage operation), with disastrous results (When Nano escaped, Bishop commented that he was beginning to understand why the Shredder kept removing Stockman's body parts). Later, in the two-part season finale, he forms part of the turtles' offensive against a resurrected demon Shredder. In these episodes. he has a tank like body. At the end of the final Lost Episode, his robot body was almost completely destroyed in the final battle and what was left of it was carried away by Bishop's soldiers with his holographic head saying resignedly "It seems the pain will never end."

Fast Forward
In the episode "Head of State." Baxter was still alive after 100 years, mixing his brain with alien DNA. He sent creatures called Organic Mousers (which he created to fight off aliens) after Bishop because he felt he was betrayed years ago when a failed experiment caused the Earth Protection Force laboratory to collapse. Bishop was actually trying to save Baxter when one of his alien captives saved him. However, he almost kills Bishop by renovating his head with the help of his brain transplanting device. During their new confrontation, the now reformed Bishop saved him when Stockman's hideout was destroyed yet again, when another explosion is triggered. Bishop subsequently hired Baxter to work for him, expressing interest in his Mousers and seeing that in the future making a clone body is commonplace, Baxter reforms and eventually becomes Secretary of Agriculture and Technology.

Back to the Sewer
In the episode Hacking Stockman, when the Turtles return to the past, they learn that Stockman had constructed himself a cyborg body with a face match his organic one (minus the glasses) and struck an alliance with Hun and the Purple Dragons to hack the Foot's data vaults to plunder high technologies so the Dragons can conduct raids against them. However, the Cyber Shredder (an engrammatic copy of the Utrom Shredder) tracked the hacking to its source and took over Stockman's body through cyberspace using metals around him to create a makeshift Shredder appearance. Stockman ejects his head which grows spider legs to avoid being used as cannon fodder. He allies with the Turtles (excluding Don) to help him stop the Shredder. He uses a circuit board to link with his body and contacts Don (who is in cyberspace) to disrupt the Shredder's control over his body by uploading a firewall.



Mayhem From Mutant Island webisodes
Stockman has created an army of mutated Dinosaurs and uses them to challenge the Turtles whom eventually defeat them all.

Appearances in Video Games
Baxter would appear in several video games as a enemy or boss character.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The arcade game
Baxter would appear in his human form, flying around a machine that would throw out Mousers. Since the arcade was based on the 1989 cartoon series, Baxter was caucasian. In the NES version of the game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 the Arcade Game, Baxter would return in a later level as his mutated fly form. He was used to replace the Bebop and Rocksteady team-up boss battle from the arcade. Baxter-fly would also appear in the cutscene they were in.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Missions
Baxter appears in his human form in his lab while you fight Usub Gerstalk.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
Baxter would appear in both the arcade and SNES versions as a mutated fly using a machine gun. After enough hits, he would lose the gun, but get a second gun that would throw out hands made out of energy. It's also worth mentioning that in the Arcade Game, one of the bosses, "Cement Man", was the same Glue Monster that Baxter created in the 1987 cartoon using the Eye of Sarnath.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Baxter would return in human form, using the same machine he had in the first TMNT arcade game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Shredder's Last Stand
Baxter appears as a regular enemy in this game in his fly form.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters- SNES
Baxter the fly would be seen rooting for you in Donatello's junkyard level, alongside Casey Jones.

TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan/TMNT II: Back from the Sewers
Baxter would also appear in these games in his mutant fly form.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 game
In addition to cutscenes, Baxter was a boss in Donatello's path of the 2003 game, appearing in his giant mecha suit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 game- GBA
He appears in cutscenes.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus- GBA
He appears as the penultimate boss bout, in both his utrom exo-suit and spider bot forms. He also appears in cutscenes in his spider bot form.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Arcade Attack
Baxter has been confirmed to appear as a boss character, using his Back to the Sewer design.

Action Figures
The first Baxter Stockman figure was released in 1989, based on his fly mutation form from the then-airing cartoon series. Another figure would not be released of Stockman until 2004, when a bizarre, multi-limbed robot with Stockman's head was released; this figure was not based on any previous incarnation of the doctor. A more cartoon accurate version, Baxter Robot, was released in 2006; this included the Spider Walker Stockman used in the Secret Origins episodes of the 2003 series, and the robot body Dr. Chaplin created for him first used in New Blood. Normal and cyborg heads were included to be placed on either body. 2008 saw the release of a Mini-Mutant version of Baxter, which came packaged with Extreme Sports Donatello. This version of Baxter had a robot body that featured wheels instead of feet.

Trivia

 * Ironically enough Baxter's original toy came with a Fly Swatter like Melee weapon (called a Anti-Turtle Swatter). Which he would use in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 the Arcade Game.
 * Stockman's name was inspired by a particular type of paper upon which some comics were being printed around the time the first few issues of the Turtles were published. It was prized for its bright whiteness and quality feel... and its name was "Baxter Stock".