#03 turtles

The Turtles: Keeping the stakes high

Like 87, and unlike Mirage, Shredder remains a threat to the whole world and therefore fighting him remains unquestionably a good thing. In 87 revenge is never touched on, in 03 it seems to be a side issue for the turtles and Splinter. When they first defeat Shredder, and it seems as if they’ve killed him, Splinter says they have avenged Yoshi and considers that a good thing, but it’s not something he’s sought to do before because raising the turtles was more important.

Revenge never becomes the main reason they’re fighting Shredder at any point because there are always several better ones. It’s never Shredder’s reason for fighting them, either, he wants them gone because they’re a threat to his plans. The character who is the most vengeful is Karai and it’s treated as, first, a sign that she’s more genuinely dedicated to the ninja code than Shredder and, second, as mainly a problem because the person she’s trying to avenge isn’t worthy of it. Nor is her vengeance a problem the turtles have invited by taking revenge themselves - they were not the ones to ultimately exile Shredder and they were fighting him to protect others.

Hamato Yoshi’s backstory does have an episode dedicated to the feud and to revenge, although due to Shredder’s nature having changed the feud is now with a young man, Yukio Mashimi, who was like a brother to Yoshi rather than with either Shredder or Shredder’s brother. Ninja clans are also not really a thing, Yoshi and Mashimi are raised directly by the Ancient One alongside Tang Shen but with no wider clan. Later they join the Guardians who are opposed by the Foot, but this is utrom business and firmly good vs evil.

After Mashimi joins the Foot and kills Tang Shen the Ancient One advises Yoshi against revenge, telling him, “Vengeance is like a splinter, it gets under your skin and can poison your life.” However, it doesn’t really seem to do so. Yoshi names Splinter after this concept, to remind himself of what he has done after killing Mashimi, but his vengeance does not seem to actually cause him suffering. For a moment it looks as if it might do so - for the sake of killing Mashimi he has placed himself alone in the Foot’s headquarters where they can easily take him prisoner and use him against the utroms - but instead he escapes immediately. Later, when Yoshi is killed by Shredder, it has nothing to do with a cycle of revenge (Shredder didn’t care about Mashimi at all) but is about dying in the line of duty as a Guardian.

Vengeance as a concept is brought in as part of the storylines inherited from Mirage, but the 03 writers have very little to say about it, and ultimately seem neutral to approving of it.

Casey Jones: Toxic masculinity as endearing character flaw

Casey Jones is the other character for whom vengeance is an important part of his character in 03, and it’s ultimately written into his backstory to make him more sympathetic. He’s not just looking for people to feel righteous about beating up, he has a legitimate beef with the Purple Dragons specifically. In the same way we see that Casey learning to fight as a kid only stuck when his friends were being bullied, not when he was, making his violent tendencies a good thing and something he developed out of loyalty. Rather than giving Casey Jones an arc where he changes, 03 gives him sympathetic reasons for being the way he is and then lets him stay that way.

There is some cycle of revenge stuff when Casey’s overly violent pursuit of the Purple Dragons leads to them coming after him en masse, but the turtles come to his rescue and while the lesson is supposedly about balance and restraint it seems more like he needs back-up instead of doing this alone. Especially since the 03 turtles are vigilantes in a way the Mirage turtles aren’t and therefore what they’re doing isn’t so very different from what Casey is doing - and when we see them going after the Purple Dragons with Casey in the episode where Angel is introduced they seem to have picked up his glee and unwillingness to let anyone run after defeat more than he’s picked up their restraint.

Angel, Casey’s fourteen-year-old friend who joins the Purple Dragons, seems like she would be an opportunity for him to realise the people he’s been going after so violently are often just kids who made a mistake. A gentler and more kid-show appropriate way than Mirage Casey’s realisation only after killing someone. Instead, she’s just a single person Casey has reason to care about. No other Purple Dragons in the episode are shown to be as young as her, even though logically she can’t be the only kid they’ve lured in if that’s something they do. Her calling them her “family” seems like a call back to the 90s movie, making the Purple Dragons similar to that version of the Foot, but those were all kids and Casey did stop chasing them after learning that (even if it was partly because he killed their leader shortly afterwards).

Although Casey might not stop going after the Purple Dragons after this, Angel does stop him from killing Hun out of vengeance (“This one’s for my Dad,” Casey says, as he prepares to strike) and he appreciates her doing so. Killing is treated as a firm line in 03, not one that’s never crossed, but one which is crossed only with careful thought. The turtles only ever try to kill Shredder and Bishop, who can certainly be seen to have crossed every line there is.

Casey’s other forms of toxic masculinity, like sexism and macho posturing, are usually treated very lightly by 03. They’re something that annoys April, but she’s shown as having to meet him in the middle rather than him needing to change. To some extent it’s treated as a class issue, the professional class April needs to accept that women are seen differently by the lower class Casey, something highlighted by getting Casey’s mother involved and having her treat April in a sexist way in order to test her.

In the end 03 treats Casey Jones as fine the way he is. His violence and sexism can be annoying, and occasionally cause trouble for his friends, but it’s okay because he’s got a good heart.

Nobody: Cops who really care don’t let the law stop them

Nobody is one of the times 03 really falls back on the most common tropes. He is the One Good Cop in a corrupt department and as such he has to step outside the law to uphold the law, justifying his cowboy cop behaviour. His willingness to do so is proof of how much protecting innocents means to him, as shown by his “they say Nobody cares” tagline.

It strikes me as a much less accurate depiction of cowboy cops than Mirage’s take, where the cops who stay inside the law are still very happy to support ones going outside it and this is part of the corruption rather than an attempt to fight it. Like cops who turn their body cams off nowadays to plant evidence or inflict violence, there’s something very real about the way Nobody functions in Mirage despite the superhero costume. Whereas Nobody in 03 follows the tropes of the cop movies that Mirage Casey is mocked for his addiction to.

H.A.T.E and Bishop: Protecting America from aliens and causing problems

I’m lumping these two together, partly for their similar intentions - they’re both obsessed with aliens in this version - and partly because both of them have a relationship to the C.R.A.P storyline in Mirage in a way. H.A.T.E get the C.R.A.P storyline with a few tweaks to make it about aliens and not “commies” and to make the nuclear bomb actually aimed at what they believe to be an alien base without regard for collateral damage rather than an attempt to start a nuclear war. Bishop is the one whose obsession with preventing something turns into a willingness to cause it - in this case a (fake) alien invasion which causes real damage.

Despite not having watched it I’m going to include a plot point from Fast Forward here, because it is an interesting commentary on violence. Bishop’s desire to defeat aliens never accomplishes anything much, and his fake alien invasion, creation of the Rat King, and pursuit of the turtles only causes more problems for the people he intends to protect. However, in the future he lets go of this violence and hatred seeing that he’ll do more good by promoting peace and genuinely does help protect humanity by finding a place for it in the universe co-existing with aliens.

The Triceratons: The problem with a violent warrior code is when the guy at the top isn’t a true believer