Talk:Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady/@comment-34811886-20180513020306/@comment-995426-20190316055954

If you liked the 1987 series turtles, then lampooning them was a blot. But if you thought the 1987 series was awful, then lampooning it was a bonus. Likewise, paying so much reverence to the 1987 series contributes to the 2012 series being considered either better or worse, in proportion to how much reverence is paid. In this area, to please some fans almost necessarily means turning away other fans.

This is also why I think Archie and IDW's approaches are so much better overall, by acknowledging varied mythology and yet doing their own thing without such unsubtle 1987 fan pandering. The Archie continuity was even directly forked from the very early 1987 series, but broke all further continuity with it from issue 5 onward, focused on writing and development without making toy sales a top priority, tried harder to appeal to older readers, and gradually meaningfully matured as its audience naturally aged.

But the one thing that made the 1987 series particularly so damaging to the TMNT mythology was not just the way it damaged the franchise's reputation (especially in regards to the comics) when it was still on the air, but the way it infantilized the expectations of its audience in a way that persisted well into adulthood, and made it so much harder for its audience as adults to better appreciate a more mature style of TMNT narrative. Instead, it created so many childhood nostalgia chasers who would complain bitterly if new material wasn't perceived as properly respecting their childhood memories. This hit the Mirage itself particularly hard, as they couldn't continue to create their original material without a steady stream of hate mail about how it wasn't anything like a cartoon which Mirage didn't create and largely couldn't stand anyway.

The 2003 series needs to be understood not just as a new animated continuity, but as an attempt to undo at least some of the long-term damage associated with the 1987 series. Like the Archie comic, the 2003 series at least acknowledged bits and pieces of 1987 series influence on the over mythology (such as the color-coded bandannas), but was never going to be in the business of trying to please 1987 series fans. On the contrary, it was in the 2003 series production's interests to raise a newer generation of TMNT fans with no permanent attachments to the 1987 series whatsoever. As such, Turtles Forever's disdain for the 1987 series turtles should not be seen as shocking or disappointing, but an entirely logical consequence.

But the long-term infantilization of 1987 series fan interest is reflected not just in how immature the 2012 series' 1987-related fanservice is, but also the fact that those most likely to appreciate the 1987 series references were people in their 30s or 40s rather than the children who were the primary target audience of the 2012 series. To fans who don't like the 1987 series, those same scenes could actually be rather nauseating to sit through.