I will now discuss one of the most controversial subjects in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe: bringing back Venus de Milo, the unpopular fifth female Ninja Turtle.
I am fully aware that the majority of the fandom hates her, but I am among the few who believe that Venus can be redeemed. Besides, while the Next Mutation show wasn't very good, its writers clearly had no clue. For starters, they thought shinobi was some kind of magician rather than a synonym for ninja.
I will do my best to give a counter argument for everything about Venus that has ever been complained about.
1. Her cyan bandanna- People think her bandanna color is unoriginal just because it is a shade of blue like Leonardo's. In all fairness, there weren't many vibrant colors to choose from and using pink would support that awful stereotype that girls like the color pink. I hardly know any women who like pink!
2. Her role as a love interest- Pretty much the only thing I agree was wrong with her. I can only ever see Vee as a sister or an ally to the other Turtles. If she is made a love interest in the next incarnation to use her, heads will roll.
3. Her replacement of April- I can't really say anything about this, but there were rumors that April would be a regular character in the cancelled second season of Next Mutation. To be fair, I would like Venus and April to coexist. Just because I heard of Venus first doesn't mean I don't like April.
4. Her unoriginal origin story- Making her mutate with the other turtles was a dumb idea, especially because it defeated the purpose of making her a love interest.
5. Her magic powers and Mary Sue-ness- She was just handled very badly. Her magic Shinobi powers were the solution to nearly every problem and she was rarely in any real danger. Of course, you can really blame the incompetent writers for this problem. Heck, if I was hired to write Next Mutation, I would have done a better job. Of course, I would have been way too young to work.
6. Lastly, her non-mammalian mammaries- Lots of people despise Venus's breasts because it is unrealistic for a mutated reptile to have such organs. I know it would be illogical for reptilian creatures to have breasts, but it is kind of pointless to question logic in a franchise about four turtles mutated into humanoid forms and trained by a rat in martial arts so they can fight a ninja master who wears bladed armor and occasionally fight aliens that look like Triceratops. Also, science fiction works do tend to give non-mammalian females breasts so we can better understand the males' attractions for them.
I am among the few fans who believes that Venus can be redeemed. She can be saved. But as long as the majority agrees that she is a horrible character and doubts that she can ever be reworked into a better character, I know that my dream of her returning to the franchise will never become a reality.
Then again, there were other things fans disliked that they never got their wish about. Some people hate Irma, but she is returning on the new show. And many fans think Leonardo is boring, but we need him because we can't ever have just three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the leader of the team is always an important character. In addition, lots of April and Donatello shippers don't want Casey Jones to appear, but their complaints aren't doing diddly-squat.
And because her number one hater, TMNT co-creator Peter Laird, no longer has a say in what is done with the Turtles, we may just yet see Venus make a comeback, whether we like it or not.