Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28655620-20161117184919/@comment-28655620-20200201023557

A Simple Man Making His Way wrote: So uh... Not sure if anyone is still reading this discussion thread but meh screw it. Here's my two cents:

Many have mentioned Venus de Milo's name as an overall negative aspect of her that makes her a flawed character to her core. Be it the fact that she's named after Venus, the goddess love, beauty, desire, sex, and fertility; and the fact that she's named after a statue, meaning that she's an object or "objectified" if you will.

These are definitely valid points to make in terms of why this character was created and what her original function was: a sex object for the boys to drool and fight over. What I think people are looking over are a lot of the opportunities presented here for a truly great character.

The name of the game is subversion, irony, and symbolism. What I would do to reinterpret Venus is have her backstory be that she's a monstrous turtle artificially created by some person or organization (be it the Foot or Baxter Stockman or whatnot) to be a weapon to fight against the turtles to defeat them once and for all and all that villainy jazz. In other words, she was made as a tool or "object" for destruction. Then maybe have the turtles free her prior to or after being mind controlled or enslaved and whatnot.

What you're left with is a character who is decently intelligent and well spoken but is big, monstrous, and scary looking (aka the exact opposite of everything the goddess Venus is) who was originally built as a biological weapon. Her ambitions should range from wanting to fit in and be a sister to the turtles despite her very different appearance (and maybe even symbolizes her wanting to be accepted by the fanbase at large) to wanting to move past her original intention of being a weapon of destruction.

If anyone wants to fill in some of the blanks to my idea (personality aspects, design ideas, weapons, abilities, voice actress, etc) then hey be my guest.

And if anyone wants to point out that a character like what I just described already exists, then also be my guest. I'm a rather casual fan who grew up on the 2003 show, watched a decent amount of the 2012 one, and watched the original trilogy of live action movies alongside the 2007 animated one. With a franchise as big as TMNT, I wouldn't be surprised if my idea has already been implemented somewhat in at least 1 iteration.

For anyone that actually bothered reading all of this what-if stuff I just typed out, thanks. I rarely ever directly participate in these kind of discusion threads beyond just reading and skimming through them.

I came to the wiki today out of curiosity to see if Venus had ever been readapted into a new cartoon or comic or whatnot and I was surprised to see that she remained forever trapped in Next Mutation. Which I hope changes one day. I'm a firm believer in the idea that there's no such thing as bad ideas. Just bad executions.

I agree. Thats why I said that she needs to be redeveloped and rewritten, so she can be more approachable to fans of TMNT and give her a better reputation.