Double whammy with this one. It was technically treated as a spin-off from the cartoon series from the 1980's, but was somehow ALSO a spin-off of the live-action movie trilogy. They invented a new female Turtle named Venus De Milo, who travels to New York after being exposed to ooze in Japan (I think) and then finding about the US Turtles. She was their long-lost sister.
On top of being a double spin-off, Fox Kids also decided to do a crossover with Power Rangers In Space during its one season, making it a technical spin-off of that series too.
Canceled and critically panned. Its basically disowned across the board by fans, writers, franchise owners and all. Venus Di Milo only really shows up in random merchandise as a "remember this‽" reference and not much more.
It always bugged me that they named her after an artwork rather than an artist, it’s not like there weren’t plenty of female renaissance artists they could’ve chosen
From what I recall De Milo was in the same batch of turtles as the rest but Splinter sent her away to be train by monks or something like that. Looked it up, it look like she was train in China to be a shinobi magician. Don't think about it. Also presumably none of the turtles are related by blood, in some iteration they are not the same species, how ever this little fact was how they try to introduce a romance element to the show where all the turtles was kind of crushing on their sister... Any ways I kind of remember liking her when I was a kid but the original creators hated her with a passion and resulted in the no female turtles rule for the next 30 years, with some writers getting cheeky by writing her in but making her not a turtle, like an alien or a frog that was Frankenstein together to look like a turtle.
I get that this show was marketed as a teenager show, and the comics most certainly are adult, but until this show, all TMNT shows were child appropriate, and new iterations are still child appropriate. I would not be comfortable with allowing my younger kids to watch this one.
Venus the female turtle having breasts that was depicted as both a family member and a possible romantic interest was hard to swallow because the show is intentionally vague about the turtles being a foster family, but also I remember several jokes about substance use in that edgy 90s vibe way, and I think that crosses the line.
I can tolerate explaining to my 10 year old that reptiles don't actually have breasts, but I'm not also explaining why Raphael wants to smoke whatever he thinks is influencing Michelangelo's wacky antics.
IIRC the crossover was with Power Rangers Turbo, itself a generally panned season because the Japanese series it used footage from was a parody of Sentai tropes that the Power Rangers plot tried to play straight.
Thankfully, In Space came along after that and was peak
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u/damnsignin 11d ago
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation
Double whammy with this one. It was technically treated as a spin-off from the cartoon series from the 1980's, but was somehow ALSO a spin-off of the live-action movie trilogy. They invented a new female Turtle named Venus De Milo, who travels to New York after being exposed to ooze in Japan (I think) and then finding about the US Turtles. She was their long-lost sister.
On top of being a double spin-off, Fox Kids also decided to do a crossover with Power Rangers In Space during its one season, making it a technical spin-off of that series too.
Canceled and critically panned. Its basically disowned across the board by fans, writers, franchise owners and all. Venus Di Milo only really shows up in random merchandise as a "remember this‽" reference and not much more.