I've mentioned in the past how much I love 200X MOTU and I have influenced my displays to have a sort of 200X inspired style in MOTUC. In addition to that, I've incorporated original characters into my display to create "MY UNIVERSE".
With Thundercats I'm unable to do so due to the limited roster and that Super7's following Vintage continuity only. And with the figures being $45 each, customizing Might be a bit hard... or so he says after he repainted a Shredder in a toon palette. (And also regretting not getting a third one for a Mirage redeco) which brings me to my next point: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... What is "MY UNIVERSE"? No really, I'm asking myself that... As a kid "my universe" was Toon inspired but with weird child added stuff. Mikey had an unhealthy crush on April... looking at it from an adult perspective my Mikey was a mega creep. Irma was a lot like a young Blanche Deveraux... she dated Casey, Panda Khan, Splinter, all the turtles except Donatello who was terrified of her, the neutrinos, Shredder, Rocksteady, Bebop, Rat King,Vernon, Burne, Pizza Face, she even kissed Muckman...
For some reason Vernon was gay and had a crush on Casey. BTW it wasn't the pink shirt, but his cowardly behavior, that made him effeminate in my child self's eyes. It might have been rooted in Latin American homophobic culture, but I didn't "make him gay" for laughs. He simply had a crush on the sexy crop top wearing Mullet sporting Goalie vigilante. Casey on the other hand was married to Justice. He has no time for love until crime is non-existent. He never said no, but he never said yes.
Leonardo was pretty much Brainy Smurf. He fought in the Gulf War and killed Saddam Hussein. Then President Ted DiBiase gave Leonardo his own tank. Raphael was an alcoholic asshole. Pretty much Wolverine but green. One time Donatello crashed the blimp on Super Shredder to try and stop him... the plan was called operation
Hindenburg for obvious reasons. I had read about it recently.
It's weird how dark my childhood universe was.
When I got the NECA TMNT, Some Elements of the Toon inspired continuity, with my cynical twist persisted.
-Leonardo was still a Brainy Smurf wet blanket type. "Master Splinter said ____" was literally his catchphrase.
-Donatello *does machines* was well, you guessed it. He was trying to weird science his way into a Perfect Girlfriend. (Venus was a failed attempt.)
-Raphael was still an alcoholic asshole who also smoked and cusses like Samuel L. Jackson.
-Michelangelo was the party dude... who was dating Miley Cyrus. (I made a Miley out of a broken SOTA Sakura Kasugano) Thanks to Miley, he was able to party like a 1980s Wall Street trader. Then Miley began to plot against the Turtles after Selena Gomez took advantage of a drugged Mikey. Sadly, I lost Selena. She was made out of a Marvel Legends X-23. Miley became the new Shredder.
April was Alyson Hannigan playing April because the real April died and the TMNT needed a replacement. She was being paid by Miley-Shredder.
But this is a new line and this is a new continuity...
I need to start anew and see what elements I can bring to this new "My Universe"...
Leonardo will be Splinter's Cyclops. Won't be as annoying as Brainy Smurf, but he will be a wet blanket and still have dick measuring contests with Raph... of the Metaphorical kind. He's wound up a bit too tight with the responsibilities handed to him. He tends to beat himself up way too much for any failure, no matter how small. The reason he's obsessed with training is to smash his fears and insecurities. He's serious 99.78% of the time. But when he chuckles to himself, shit just got real. He's not holding back in order to be the star pupil. He's not throwing corny leader lines like "Turtles fight with honor!" He's a soldier and he must eliminate the enemy and leave no squad member behind. Even Raph knows his role and fully gets with the program when Leo is DEADLY SERIOUS.
Donatello will *do machines* because he's terrified of talking/interacting with women beyond his huge collection of illegally downloaded eroge. I should buy a phicen 1:12 fenale figure or two for him. He's a bit socially awkward when he's not focused on a task. When he focuses on a task he turns DEAD SERIOUS think, MacGyver when he's planning an escape from a death trap. His behavior is cold and emotionless in this "mode" and is willing to sacrifice friends and allies to complete the objective. His least amount of violence stance is ignored when he's DEAD SERIOUS.
When he's not on the Hyper Aware DEAD SERIOUS mode, he more or less behaves like a stereotypical nerd. He often hangs out with Michelangelo, because Mikey is not as judgemental as their other brothers. Also, Mikey has artistic talents that Donnie could benefit from.
Raphael will still be the grumpy alcoholic asshole. Hos anger stems from Splinter chosing Leonardo over him as squad Leader. He's trying to prove himself as the better ninja. He works twice as hard as Leonardo to improve. He also tries to get Donnie and Mikey to disobey Leonardo on non-serious stuff. While normally, Raph is known for his "Wolverine-like" berserker rages, Raph's "SERIOUS MODE" makes him more brutal... almost sadistic. No rage, no growls to intimidate the opponent. Just a blank, seemingly emotionless green face with calculated moves to inflict maximum pain with minimal effort. As the inflicted pain grows, so does his grin.
Mikey will be the party dude... Laid back, slacker type dude. He'd rather be off watching TV, playing videogames, writing erotic fanfics of him and the cast of Victorious. Also, his erotic art is very popular on various internet sites. When Splinter mandates practice, he does the bare minimum just to hang with his brothers. Splinter believes that if Mikey were to focus, he'd be as good as Leo. Like Donnie, when Mikey GETS SERIOUS, he becomes extremely focused. With his extensive studies on human anatomy for his art, Mikey can deliver maximum damage. Unlike Raphael, who enjoys the mayhem, Mikey is terrified of his "dark mode".
The idea of the "dual modes" is to have them struggle with the indoctrination they received from Splinter during their childhood vs the softer style used by Splinter now...
This brings us to Splinter... is he Yoshi, or the rat? Personally, I want to take the Swamp Thing approach. Have Hamato Yoshi have the Mirage Origin up until Saki kills him and burns up the house. Yoshi barely survived. Unable to take Tang Sheng's body, he flees to the sewers in an attempt to reach a hospital without being seen by the Foot Ninja watching to ensure his death. His pet rat, Splinter somehow tagged along. Due to his wounds and traveling through an unsanitary environment, Yoshi suffers from sepsis. During this time, where Yoshi was delirious, 4 turtles dropped from a storn drain above, with them a canister shattered and doused Yoshi, the Turtles, and Splinter with a strange Ooze. Yoshi fainted and when he woke up, the world looked so much bigger...
Somehow Hamato Yoshi had fused with Splinter the rat. Taking the rags from a nearby corpse, the Hamato/Splinter creature took the turtles who had doubled in size.
Much to Hamato/Splinter's surprise, the Turtles had developed human-like sentience.
A sinister idea sparked within Hamato/Splinter when he discovered that he and the turtles were stronger than normal humans... his own squad of terrapin shinobi to avenge him and assassinate the Grandmaster of the Foot Clan, Oroku Saki.
A few years pass and driven by Tang Shen's ghostly apparition, Hamato/Splinter returns to the spot where he found the Turtles. He realizes that Hamato Yoshi wasn't mutated into a rat, but that Hamato Yoshi's "mind" somehow imprinted itself into the rat. This realization broke Hamato/Splinter and brought forth a change in Hamato Yoshi. No longer driven by vengeance, he decides to reinvent Clan Hamato into a clan of Protectors instead of Assassins. This drastic change in teaching methods is the reasoning behind the "split modes" on the turtles.
Of course, Splinter omits, the dark sensei era from his retellings of their origins, or how Hamato Yoshi is dead and what remains is a phantom possessing a mutant rat. Sometimes he says he's Yoshi mutated. Sometimes he's the avenging pet. Sometimes it's a whole different story for Misdirection is part of the ninja way.
Now while strict, Splinter cares for his students, whom he considers his children.
As they have grown, Splinter has tried to be more "Mister Miyagi" and less "John Kreese". For Leonardo, he tries to get him to stop being so wound up about everything. While he does have more responsibilities as the eldest and as squad leader, he needs to be more like water. It can break through stone or go around it. It can adapt to any shape as needed.
For Donatello, he tries to teach him the KISS approach, hence he literally has a stick as a weapon. The most rudimentary tool to the most technologically advanced student. He often takes Donatello on Zero-Electronics trips in order to hone Donatello's mind to find simpler solutions to his problems. Also to have him more in tune with Nature and understand the power of emotions.
For Raphael, he tries to teach him how to temper his anger and to be more compassionate.
For Michelangelo, he tries to teach him focus while using Mikey's love for the arts. Also, practicing katas is a non-violent way to hone his skills.
The idea is to have a Splinter who is growing as much as his students.
April is toon based because it's easier to use that origin than the lab assistant when the toy is all about her being the banana reporter.
Shredder and the Foot are a smidge harder.
Saki and the Foot have been trying to gain foothold in the US after their attempt at Hamato Yoshi's life. Using local gangs, Saki created a protection racket scheme that allowed the Foot Clan to enter New York.
Until he tried his scam on the wrong person, one of Krang's "puppets". Now working for Krang, who has hidden knowledge of The Foot's history, Saki has become another unwilling puppet of the disgraced Utrom Warlord/Dictator. Unlike Krang's other puppets who are mechanical automatons in a human disguise, Shredder is the first Human who is aware of Krang's true nature.
Shredder intends to help Krang until the latter is able to power up the Katame no Akuma of Foot Clan legends. (Also known as the Technodrome) He's aware of the Foot Clan Legends regarding Maou Kurange.
Krang is a disgraced Utrom Warlord who was banished to an interdimensional nexus, thought to be uninhabited known as Dimension X, for various crimes against the Utroms. On Dimension X, Krang was able to find enough resources to build a makeshift mobile stronghold for conquest: The Technodrome. Teaching advanced warfare to the Stone Warriors and becoming their leader. With the Stone Warriors and his robotic Army, Krang was able to rise as the Supreme leader of Dimension X. He then began peering into other dimensions in order to find better weaponry and warriors in order to return home and become the supreme leader of the Utroms. As he was looking into our dimension a small cell of Neutrino Rebels activated a bomb intending to blow up the Technodrome. Instead, the bomb caused a glitch in the portal and sent the Technodrome to Feudal Japan.
In Feudal Japan, Krang attempted to ally himself with the invading forces of Temujin. The Mongol invasion's usage of the Katame no Akuma was thwarted by the Founding members of the Foot Clan. Before the Technodrome sank on the Sea of Japan, the founding Foot Ninja stole some extremely rare metals and portable equipment out of Krang's assembly line. With this, they made an imposing armor: The Fugu no Yoroi a spiked armor reminiscent of the Puffer Fish due to the impressive amount of blades on it. The blades could slice through existing weaponry from the era. The armor was passed down from Foot Grandmaster to Grandmaster. Eventually, most of the armor was lost to time (actually, Krang was able to recover his materials) and only Shredder's Kuro kabuto remains. Known as Mao Kurange, the disgraced Utrom Warlord began to manipulate Human history in order to get humanity at a sufficient level of technological advances that he could gain resources to power up the Technodrome. The Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki allowed Krang to move the Technodrome from Japan to America via portal jumps. The Technodrome lacks the power to jump back to Dimension X without the Kuro Kabuto.
In America, Krang, via his few remaining Robot puppets forms TCRI, a shell company meant to advance Humanity by researching the Cosmos... think of a Private owned NASA competitor. In reality, it's a facility to create a rudimentary version of Krang's Transmat in order to return to Dimension X.
Bebop and Rocksteady would be Purple Dragons chosen as "sacrifice" by Arnold "The Hun" Jones in order to be released from Shredder's command.
Arnold Casey Jones is the estranged son Hun and is appalled at the fact that his father is the leader of the gang that killed his wife and left him a widower raising a 12 year old girl with the help of his mother. His obsession with vigilantism is to beat the shit out of his dad for robbing Shadow of her mother, and she's a girl in New York City. He wants to make the streets safer for his kid.
Casey is 27 in my continuity and Gabrielle was 28. Casey married her when Shadow was 5. By the time Casey meets the turtles, Gabe has been dead for 2 years.
Well, that's more ot less what I have going on. I might add to it if more "key players" show up.
I'm still trying to figure out how to play with White Baxter. I'm waiting to see if Black Baxter makes it to the line before figuring out how to play with the Stockmen...
If Black Baxter makes it, white Baxter would be renamed to Baxter Brundle Stackmann, who is accidentally kidnapped by Rocksteady and Bebop. He was able to reverse engineer Stockman's Mousers, which allowed him to buy some time, but when Shredder figures out the ruse, he mutates Stackmann into Fly Baxter.
Guys like Mutagen Man and Muckman would have no real changes to their origins, since random Krang experiment can fill in those spots nicely.
Also, we must remember that I'm not a professional writer and these are just some random ideas from an asshole with a Blog.
