My ninja turtles channel had me thinking baxter stockman is basically a buisness tycoo why would the 87 toon diminished his character to being a bumbling goofy white washed henchmen to shredder a yakuza esque crime boss magic ninja in the comics he was a giga chad intellect wealthy blqck buisness man who used his technology and tech savy knowledge in A.I. V.R. and A.R. to commit white collar crime like any white weathlty greedy corrupt politician president business tech genius would commit because their professional crooks he wanted to clean up new york citys pest problem and got drunk with power taking the fast lane than being in competitive market against pest control companies using the traditional chemical and trap route. when he destoryed the rextab baxter building and threatened the city and was thwarted by April whistle blowing his pest control tech company operations in money laundering and robbing banks to make himself richer he didn't serve prison time the government sought after his talents and his mind and gave him a government job in developing cybernetics which he worked his way up the latter and transformed himself into a cyborg and got out of being locked away as a criminal.

    Tyron_Leung

    For the '87 cartoon, I think it just came down to what would be most appealing to children and sell the most toys. They wanted to sell Shredder toys in perpetuity, and so all of the other cool villains in TMNT were sidelined or changed in some way to be subservient to Shredder.

    A goofy Doc Brown character who mutates into a fly was likely deemed more appealing for the target child audience than just a human genius villain character.

    And I'm gonna be honest. As a kid, I thought the fly version of Stockman was the coolest thing ever. It wasn't until I got older that I appreciated the OG Stockman more.

    It's a shame that the '87 changed so much from the source material, but they're different enough that I don't even think of them as the same character in my head. It's like a different character just with Stockman's name.

    Stockman in the comics, IDW in particular, is more of a Lex Luther figure than anything. Very intelligent, plans three steps ahead with contingencies, extremely wealthy, politically connected and ruthless. He presents a threat to the Turtles that most versions of the Shredder never could.

    Aside from being a scientist, the ‘87 version of the character had almost nothing in common with the original as far as personality and appearance. I don’t know why they would even call him Baxter Stockman instead of making him an entirely new character except for his ties to the Mousers .

      Stu_Paddasso they also had a Dr. quease character in ni ja turtles next mutation who fit the bill of a mad scientist doc brown stereotype