TMNT: Venus

Second part of my "all turtles" collage. I don't really like Venus all that much, but it's not really an "all turtle" collage if it doesn't have ALL the turtles in it, now is it? Anyways, I tried my best.

So .... Venus. She's the fifth turtle in the short-lived live action "Next Mutation" show. That show was loosely based off the movies and in it there was a fifth turtle in the jar who was washed away to China Town. There she was found by Chung I, a shinobi with weird mystical powers. She was raised in China. She's actually named Mei Pieh Chi, which in Chinese means "beautiful turtle of energy". The turtles named her "Venus de Milo" as a nickname. She has weird mystical shinobi powers.

So, that sounds like it has some potential, right? I mean, she's the long-lost sister of the ninja turtles. So why doesn't it all really work? I mean, other than the fact the "Next Mutation" wasn't too great.

1) She's a corperate device to get girls interested in the Turtles and everyone knows it.
2) Leonardo, Michealangelo, Rapheal, and Donatello are all named after Renaissance painters. Venus was named after an ancient Greek statue (the first female nude sculpture in history, BTW [or at leats the oldest we have]). Now, there *were* female Renaissance painters ...... but Venus isn't named after any of them!
3) Don's purple. Mike's orange. Raph's red. Leo's blue. Venus is ..... a lighter shade of blue. It seems Saban didn't clue in on the color thing (which is odd since they do Power Rnagers).
4) Venus doesn't have a ninja weapon. instead she throws these weird ..... glass mystic energy ..... things. And while that's ..... nice, she really needs a weapon to fit in.
5) She just kicks no ass at all. Her main shtich is getting our english phrases wrong because english is not her first language. And while that's cute for the first episode, it wears thin after the third. Venus is far too delicate without being deadly. To be fair, on the Next Mutation, NOBODY kicked any ass. They were guys in turtle suits without a movie-sized budget to make it look cool (and with really lame sound effects). But Venus really suffered because of it because it took away the one area which could have redeemed her. "Delicate but deadly" became just plain old "delicate".

But, the more I analyse what's wrong with Venus the more I think it might be really interesting to fix her. While she's a fifth wheel on the turtle team she might work well as a renegade. A turtle who works outside the main team because she doesn't really fit in. Or even better - as a viallin! Maybe one day I'll be modivated enought o write a fan fic or something. And fan fic's the best chance Venus has because nobody plans to bring her back among the creators (if they even can).

Edit: So all this drawing of Venus made me wonder about the animority towards her from the TMNT guys. So I wrote ninjaturtles.com and flat out asked 'em what was up with it! This was their responce:

Howdy Gauntlet,

> So I'm just wondering - what's up with that? Did Saban force Venus
> on you guys

Fox forced Venus. The network executives felt the show needed a new
angle to generate (or regenerate) interest in the TMNT. Peter and
Kevin did not agree (Peter more vehemently than Kevin), but it was a
case where they either had to agree to add Venus to the line-up or
see the series dropped before it began.

Thanks for writing!

Cheers!
Dan Berger
Mirage Studios' Official Web Dude

So there you have it. I can't say I really blame Laid for hating Venus so much. The TMNT are his guys and NOBODY likes people forcing a change in their creation. Especially a change like this. And from what I understand Fox are really horrible to work with when it comes to this sort of thing (read about the live action Tick sometime). They make changes where changes ought not to be made despite creator protest. So, while I feel for Venus fans and while I also think Venus has some potential in her character for more ..... I can totally see myself doing the same thing if someone forced a "long lost brother" on my Kids Stuff Club characters.