I'm in another mood for dissecting Stockman & making it y'all's problem & the topic I want to focus on today is revenge.
Yeah, I know I know. It's pretty much the thing a lot of you & other tmnt fans associate with 87 Baxterfly & ofc the latter just signing it off as a joke (as unfunny as it is tho) but I wanted to go into a more deeper dive with this whole thing. Especially because I've couldn't help but notice that this is actually a reoccurring theme with Baxter, & not even with his fly state. Infact it both predates & follows him into other iterations! & in every single one they all have the same outcome for him that results in things & life turning out the way they do for him which is exactly what I'm gonna focus into today.
We'll start from the chronological beginning, 1987 & again this behavior was around way before Baxter even mutated as shown in the episode "Curse of the evil eye" where Baxter was just about at his limit with Shredder's mistreatment of him
A threat he made quick promise of & ultimately betrayed Shredder by finding & stealing the eye of Sarnath for himself where he proceeded to say:
Not only taking his revenge against Shredder but seemingly the whole world too. While we don't know anything about his life before Shredder, it could be easy to assume by this line he probably had a rough upbringing, which wouldn't be too far off tbh. Keep in mind the first time we meet Baxter he's quite literally being tossed out of building for his invention, maybe that wasn't the first time something like that had happened to him. Maybe his genius was unrecognized & this was actually years of pent up frustration finally bursting out. Or maybe this was his way of lashing out at the world giving up on him so easily because of unjust institutionalization the same night. The turtles would later reveal themselves to the world & everyone knew they existed so why was he still locked up in the asylum? Why was he still being treated as a insane criminal? Is this payback for that? Whatever the reason is, he wants retribution regardless & the eye was going to help him do that. But unfortunately he made 2 fatal mistakes that day. His first mistake being his arrogance. The second Baxter was able to retrieve the eye of Sarnath, he immediately threw away the tracking device that helped him find it in the first place. And his 2nd being the fact that he didn't pay attention to Blodgett's failed attempt on his gold watch showing the eye had no affect on gold.
Had Baxter had a clear & more focused mindset, he would have made note of that 1 weakness being gold & either kept the tracker or just destroy it so he wouldn't have been found. Granted even if he did do the latter options he still would have drawn attention to himself because of the Taj mahal & monsters he made himself which ultimately attracted both the turtles & Shredder. Baxter's biggest downfall in this episode was both his pride & irrational thinking. Had he kept both in check things probably would have ended out differently for him but alas, the fuel that charged those emotions aka his revenge is what ultimately defeated him in the end & as we saw as the series progressed it wouldn't be the last time. Granted while 87 Baxter has more of an excuse for that, mainly his declining IQ & sanity thanks to sharing his brain with a literal housefly, his next counterpart wouldnt really have an excuse of his own aside from also suffering from extreme pride & violent tendencies.
Enter 2003, who like 87, wants his personal payback on his enemies & seemingly the whole world as a whole & like 87, this blinded him as well at every turn point.
2003 would also become ridden in revenge, because of his plans being ruined by the turtles & Hun & Shredder mutilating him because of it. But every time he would act on his quest for vengeance it would almost always go extremely wrong for him. In "Return to New York part 3" he had created a giant exosuit for himself to get back at the foot clan for dismembering him along with the turtles for semi being the cause of it, but like 87 his arrogance got the better of him & he unintentionally told both his enemies how to beat him. He'd make this same mistake again in the episode "What a croc" during a fight with the turtles he says:
Loud enough for Leatherhead to hear & attack him for it because Leatherhead was raised by the utroms who he lost because of the Shredder. Like with RTNY part 3, his arrogance & need for revenge ruined another plan for him. And it doesn't help that Baxter in this universe has a bad temper to begin with, which is actually another reason he's in this position to begin with. His anger & overall egotistical nature is what led to his foot coworkers not respecting him in the first place, it even got to the point where he was shocked anytime he spoke out of line, something he'd barely learn from as he even started deliberately disobeying orders to put him & his revenge first
As you would guess, the more this destructive behavior progressed, the more bad things got for him which he himself barely to nearly didn't learn from. Baxter betrayed the foot clan a total of 6 times in the series & only 2 times was he able to get away with it because of ACTUAL thinking & planning, & not letting his ego get in the way, those 2 times being his sabotage on the Amazonion blade bots & sabotaging Shredders starship when he started working with Agent Bishop. Showing that plans can work if he puts his personal feelings aside but of course this new development wouldn't last long.
And of course, he would pay the price for it yet again. I'm actually surprised 2003 isn't on the same spotlight as his 80s counterpart for having an obsession for revenge, especially because I'd argue his was much more destructive for him & he has no insanity plea to back him up for it. In fact, 2003 takes that arrogance & lack of thinking to a more elevated level. 03 makes sure to let people know he's not one to trifle but it just ends up biting him in the end instead of helping him, which cost him everything from his fortune, to his reputation & of course his body. And once again we would see this pattern repeat 11 years later with yet another Stockman.
The first thing we immediately learn about Baxter in the 2012 universe is that he's a victim of lifelong bullying. Starting from his childhood & even adulthood as he shares so himself
So a desire for revenge was inevitable for him honestly. Once he got ahold of that Tpod he wasted no time getting even with his old job & the turtles. And while he is prideful like his other counterparts, he isn't TOO big of a narcissist to sabotage himself. At least that's not what caused his downfalls anyway. On his final encounter with the turtles in his debut episode he's defeated by a surprise ambush involving an entire beehive being shoved in his face
Which shouldn't have even bothered him to begin with. See a good friend of mine @glittergutz-gutted actually pointed out that his mark 3 model of the pod HAD A SCREEN wear his head is & we can see that screen because it blocked the pizza Mikey threw at him earlier
Showing us that his head was clearly protected so how did a beehive manage to get inside & in contact with his face? The hive couldn't have broken it as there was no glass shards or even a sound of being being broke, plus beehives in general are extremely fragile so it wouldn't have been able to break it. My only option (aside from the obvious fact that the writers clearly fucked up like they ALWAYS do with this show) is that Baxter lowered the screen & made his head completely exposed & vulnerable. Which isn't farfetched because assuming the Panini comics are canon (which believe some of them are) this wouldn't be the last time he's done that.
Tho my question is why did he lower his screen during THIS encounter? My best guess would be that he didn't want to risk being temporarily blinded again, but even if that was the reason it's extremely poor planning on his part because his head and the interior of the suit are now completely vulnerable & he'll be MORE than just mildly inconvenienced by a messy screen. This is what I'd consider the result of him impulsively thinking because of his need for revenge. He was more focused on just destroying the turtles he overlooked a small yet very important detail about his own weapon causing him to ultimately be defeated in the end, something both his previous counterparts are both guilty of. A mistake he would make once again in the episode "Baxter's gambit" where he tries to kill both the turtles & Xever & Bradford at the same time by trapping them all in a giant maze filled with multiple different robots & weapons.
Once again he's so blinded by vengeance that he overlooks a small detail yet again, a possible flaw in his plan he should have predicted. Both enemies working together to survive & stop him. Baxter just assumes that the 2 parties would just kill each other & make his plan easier & never considered the idea of them making a temporary truce nor does he have a backup for it. Plus despite his monitors he never seems to pay attention to their conversations, such as the truce & the plan to stall him so they could track him down. By not taking note or paying attention to the context clues of the situation at hand on top of feeding into his pride, he makes the exact same mistake his 87 counterpart made 24 years prior in "Curse of the evil eye" & similar to his 03 variant he'd pay the ultimate price for this mistake, his humanity. Which oddly enough did the trick of keeping him in check. Unlike his previous counterparts 2012 never attempts to betray the foot clan again or seek revenge on any of his enemies, he remains completely compliant throughout the rest of the series, something no other Stockman did until this point. Perhaps he knew to quit while he was still ahead (something his 03 self didn't do), because he probably didn't want to go through something worse. He knew his odds were low at this point, everyone is stronger than him & they've already made him into an insect, why push his luck any further? A Stockman was humbled into stopping their revenge lust which is oddly enough not the first time this has happened.
We now go back in time a little bit the early 90s where Mirage Baxter finally made his return after 9 years in jail. Motivated by revenge specifically on April for causing him to be sent away in the first place he somehow escapes and steals the body of a killer robot he'd later use to hunt down & attack April with. Stockman had a personal vendetta against his former lab assistant for nearly a decade & made it his driving force, killing 24 people in the process. Like the other Stockmans before & after him he sabotaged himself by pushing this new body to it's physical limits & falling for a trap set by the remaining turtles nearly destroying the entire thing. A mixture of both arrogance & blind rage. As a result he'd spend his final days as Donatello's personal prisoner even then he still carried hatred for April & found a way to continue hurting her.
At this point we'd seen a pattern in Baxter's behavior across the multiverse. Life would deal him a bad hand, he would grow a vendetta, he'd act on it, he wouldn't think clearly & things would go very wrong not long after. It's as if it's really his true fate in the TMNT myhtos, a brilliant man brought down by his own personal downfall. Unknowingly sabotaging his own life because his pride & anger got the better of him. Something not even his Youngest counterpart Stockboy was spared from as we see his attempt at getting revenge on the turtles resulted in him being publicly humiliated & arrested despite his young age
Every character in fiction has a type of weakness that destroys them & in Baxter Stockman's case it just might be his need for vengeance as his problems escalate even further the second he pursues it. And I wholeheartedly believe this is canonically true because of 1 prime example. 1 version of Stockman that doesn't try to pursue revenge or let his emotions dictate his actions & that alone has spared him from having the same fate as his other incarnations. I'm of course talking about my personal favorite Baxter. IDW.
IDW is completely different from other Stockmans we've met & seen before & for a LOT of reasons but the MAIN reason I'm going to be focusing on is his ability to keep himself in line. While he does have enemies & he does get upset he knows when is & when isn't the time to act on those emotions. & His own father says exactly why here
He could not have been more right. As we've been through for the last couple cartoons & comics, Baxter's failures stem from his emotions. Primarily his anger which shakes his focus & leaves him overlooking mistakes or outright causing them himself which inevitably ruins things for him. IDW recognizes this & even attempted to once do the same thing to General Krang
IDW makes sure to not make that same mistake & stops to think his next moves through. As for the turtles while he did want to subdue them it never was personal or for revenge in fact he even stated himself:
This is all just business for him & more tasks to check off & move onto. & Because of this strategy he's gotten extremely far in his universe. He has a new company, he's seen as a hero by his city, he's the Mayor, he's currently running for President & while atm he is hospitalized, it wasn't (ENTIRELY) on himself. Infact it was the result of a DIFFERENT character wanting revenge on him a full 180 from what we've seen before. IDW can get mad but he knows when to control it. He's arrogant but he doesn't get comfortable & let things slip up. He can hate you or something you did, but he won't let it take up his mind & personalize it. & he definitely won't jeopardize his life & work to chase it. IDW was the very first Stockman to not chase after revenge, & show a clear cut perfect example of why that's a good thing. Because if he loses his focus he'll lose period & unfortunately a good chunk of his other counterparts had to find this out the hard way. Perhaps it's even a lesson to us the viewers about why it's best to have control on ourselves & our emotions & why sometimes being the bigger person can literally save you in the long run. Who knew Baxter Stockman was more deeper than we thought
