Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20151111163045/@comment-995426-20160310003330

Yeah, Peter and Kevin did shoot themselves in the foot pretty early, I'll grant you that.

Anyway, I had a very different background when it came to comics. I was introduced to comics by my older brother, who by and large only read adult comics&mdash;Dark Horse, etc. Adult comics were deeper and made me think harder (which I liked), and latched on to them early. And when it came to TMNT (which he also introduced to me), the comics, RPGs and some of the more solid video games were some of the few versions that appealed to me. As a teenager, I may not have understood 100% of their depth and significance yet, but they filled my imagination more fully than a mind-numbing cartoon. I have a 138 IQ, and that's one of the lower IQs in a family of mathematicians, software engineers, musicians, humanities doctorates and social activists&mdash;I was never going to be satisfied with that cartoon.

I understand everyone has their own (often different) reasons for liking what they like and not liking what they don't like, and I'm sure I've only just begun to scratch the surface of the complexity of my interest in TMNT, but that is at least a little bit of mine. So you're right&mdash;I did like it as a child, but I was an unusual child.

And I'm also aware enough to realize we've strayed far off topic. XD But I guess Splinter has a lot to do with why I've liked TMNT&mdash;he has a deep wisdom and social intelligence to him, and his character naturally lends himself to being a stable rock that helps glue other characters together. April too&mdash;in the original, she wasn't a journalist or a high school student, but a software engineer, and the best versions of her character combine her grasp of science and technology with her well-developed benevolent human side. 2K12 Splinter already showed subtle signs of character decay (like in The Creeping Doom), and 2K12 April has been turning into a God Mode Sue, and the writers have been wasting both characters' potential. Leatherhead is another intelligent character with an interesting depth to him&mdash;good versions of his character, if not always scientists or eggheads, are still very good-natured friends, with 2K12's non-scientist version being one of the best developed as a troubled but sensitive and ultimately compassionate character&mdash;his potential has also been mostly wasted. Good versions of Baxter Stockman are invariably evil sociopaths, but they too have a complexity to them that makes them deeply interesting characters, even if in a cold and disturbing way&mdash;2K12 Baxter is more of a joke character who never had much potential, but that was all right as long as the show had other well-developed characters. The different versions of Raphael can be very different from each other, but the good versions are emotionally complicated with a powerful dark streak that isn't always easy to reel in&mdash;2K12 Raph was probably my favorite of all the Raphaels, but his character potential has been absolutely wasted since season 3, and his treatment in season 4 became downright unholy as they tried to graft more of his 1987 counterpart's story onto him. I could go on and on and on, but my point is, the literary mind needs nourishment, and the 1987 series had virtually no characters, plots or storylines even remotely this deep or interesting, and I consider it the intellectual and emotional equivalent of eating nothing but cheap junkfood.