Baxter Stockman - TMNT Animated Series: 2003

TMNT Animated Series: 2003

In the 2003 series, Baxter Stockman, voiced by Scott Williams, is portrayed as he was in the original Mirage comic series, except that he now has connections to the Shredder. Throughout the first season, he is subjected to various punishments by the Shredder involving the mutilation and removal of parts of his body. Later in the series, Stockman returns in various forms as his numerous bodies are continuously replaced.

In A Better Mousetrap and Attack of the Mousers, Stockman uses his Mousers to rob banks while telling the city the Mousers are to help get rid of the city's rat problem. He also works as an officer of science for the Shredder. The Turtles and April (his assistant at the time) discover this and seek Stockman out at his headquarters, the Stocktronics building. The Turtles and April finally corner Stockman, who calls his Mousers, and retreats. Hun catches the fleeing Dr. Stockman, and turns him over to the Shredder who punishes him accordingly by ordering Hun to remove his eye.

Stockman later captures Raphael, with the help of "Foot Tech Ninjas" (ninjas with the ability to become invisible); he had made the special Foot Tech garb out of an old exoskeleton found by members of the Foot Clan. Hun interrogates Raphael, but allows him to escape to allow the Foot Tech Ninja to follow Raphael back to the Turtles' lair. The Turtles successfully fend of the cloaked ninjas and Stockman is again punished for his failure by the Shredder. Carried off by the Foot Tech Ninja, Hun punishes him. Stockman's left arm is removed and replaced with a robotic prosthesis and his back broken (noted by a neck brace and required usage of a motor-driven wheelchair).

Stockman is in a severely debilitated state at this point, but he still works for the Shredder hoping to gain access to an artifact (an Utrom exosuit) picked up by the Foot in Darkness on the Edge of Town. Following a surprise attack in The Shredder Strikes Back, the Shredder wants proof positive that the Turtles have perished. Stockman volunteers to perform a DNA analysis proving the Turtles' demise in exchange for access to the Utrom exosuit. The Shredder agrees, but threatens Stockman with a "final punishment" if he doesn't come back with conclusive evidence. Stockman performs a survey of the antique store, but finds no human or mutant DNA. Distraught at this finding, Stockman manufactures his own evidence and presents it to the Shredder. Convinced that the Turtles are dead, the Shredder gives Stockman access to the exosuit.

Stockman's work for the Shredder was always about personal gain and his loyalty only went as far as his personal benefit. Having been subjected to punishment by the Shredder on more than one occasion, Stockman quickly develops an animosity for the Shredder and Hun. With newfound and unfettered access to the Utrom exosuit, Stockman plans to use the suit to create something that will give him more power. This plan comes to fruition in Return to New York when Stockman implants his body into a large four-armed exosuit. He uses the surprise attack by the Turtles as an opportunity to launch his plan of revenge against the Shredder. Stockman attacks the Shredder's throne room and battles the Shredder, Hun and the Turtles. Stockman is seemingly defeated twice, but returns until Donatello uses the gun that was chopped off his arm. Despite being a near indomitable foe, Stockman is defeated and seemingly explodes in the night sky.

Stockman resurfaces in Secret Origins, but with only his head left intact within a robotic spider. Unlike his previous appearances, Stockman is controlled remotely by the Shredder with a robot eye implant that covers up his previous wound that shocks Baxter when he disobeys his orders or becomes arrogant. Under the Shredder's control Baxter infiltrates the TCRI building, the secret hideaway of the Utroms. He shuts down the security of the base, sabotages the oracle pods and leads the Shredder and his men to an underground path that allows them to enter the building unseen. Stockman regains control when he is freed by the Fugitoid, an ally of the Turtles, when he alters his voice to override the Shredder's commands. Now free, Stockman attacks the Shredder, whom he still holds a grudge against, and in part contributes to the Shredder's defeat. After this incident, Stockman escapes and disappears.

He is not seen again until the Turtles encounter the mutant crocodile, Leatherhead, in What a Croc! His head is now in the chest cavity of an Utrom exo-suit, protected by a glass jar. Working independently, Stockman befriends Leatherhead and helps the crocodile build a transmat device in exchange for help with his robotic body, and Turtlebot, a robot created to fight the Turtles. Stockmans Robot is completed but Stockman's ruse is revealed when Leatherhead finds out that Stockman used to work for the Shredder. Stockman's Turtlebot is destroyed, but he escapes.

By this time, Stockman no longer has the financial backing and material support of the Foot, thus he contracts out his technical expertise to the Mob in City at War. His head is now on the shoulders of an Utrom exo-suit. And the chest cavity is covered up. With the Shredder gone, a turf war develops and Stockman creates robots to get rid of the Foot and the Purple Dragons. Stockman's robots are destroyed and he survives the turf war. Stockman again disappears, but returns again, but without a body, or head. As a gift to the Shredder, who returns in Rogue in the House, Hun has Stockman's brain placed inside a tank. At this point, Stockman is just a brain connected to an eyeball and spinal column. The tank housing his brain allows him to speak, hear, and communicate with other foot techs, but it is also equipped a volume button, and electrical shocking device, which Hun and the Shredder use to torture the scientist. This form of coercion was used to get Stockman to create a group of Foot Mechs, robotic soldiers. The Foot Mechs are eventually destroyed along with the Shredder's Freighter Headquarters, and with it, Baxter Stockman sinks to the bottom of the ocean. He is eventually fished out the water and continues to work under the Shredder. Still a brain in a tank, Stockman has upgrades added to his tank, which include a modified self-propulsion system, a crude robotic arm, and a 360° hologram of his head.

Despite an enmity shared between Stockman and the Shredder and the likelihood that Stockman will turn on him, Saki keeps him around because he considers him to be useful. This attitude begins to change when Saki hires Dr. Chaplin in New Blood. Chaplin admires Stockman and looks up to him; however, due to threats by Saki about making Chaplin a permanent replacement, Stockman keeps a wary distance from Chaplin. Stockman even goes as far as sabotaging Chaplin's inventions so that Chaplin's success won't negatively affect him. Nonetheless, Chaplin considers Stockman to be a role model and eventually creates a humanoid exosuit with a holographic head for Stockman in Mission of Gravity. Not one for gratitude, Stockman continues to plot against Chaplin but his attempts backfire and only boost Chaplin's worth in Saki's eyes.

Stockman's tries to sabotage Huns mission to rescue Karai in Hun on the Run, but he soon becomes a contact within the Foot for Agent Bishop. A significant act of sabotage is seen when Stockman places a program that locks the controls of Saki's starship in Exodus. When the ship is finally destroyed, and believing his enemies to have perished, Stockman joins with Agent Bishop in hopes of creating a new body.

For the time being, Stockman upgrades his robotic body with four legs and four arms. Despite being an expert in robotics and engineering, Bishop changes Stockman's role and has him create clone aliens controlled by remote control in Aliens Among Us. The genetic material from these aliens inadvertently leads to a mutant outbreak. Stockman, who had been promised the tools he would need to create a new human body, is told that he can't work on his new body until the outbreak is neutralized. Stockman is then sent to New York in Outbreak to contain the threat.

Despite working with EPF forces to contain the outbreak, Stockman is unsuccessful. Although Stockman is told that he can't work on his body, he divides his time between creating a new body and the outbreak. Agent Bishop warns Stockman that he shouldn't go through with the process given the outbreak he caused; Stockman disregards Bishop's warnings goes through with a cerebral transfer into his new human body in Insane in the Membrane.

The new body seems fine at first, but Stockman becomes delusional as his body begins to rapidly decompose. The deterioration of his body, but more so his mind, leads to Stockman having visions of his mother and eventually leads him to assert that April O'Neil is the cause of everything that went wrong in his life. Stockman heads on a lone mission to seek revenge on April, but due to his continued delusions, Stockman is defeated and drowns in the East River.

Agent Bishop has Stockman's body recovered and his brain placed in a new cyborg body. However, when Stockman is brought back to life, he is mortified that he wasn't left to rest in peace. Under Agent Bishop, Stockman is forced to work on a cure for the outbreak. Stockman never figures out the cure, as Leatherhead discovers the cure in "Good Genes". After the outbreak is neutralized, Stockman and Bishop inadvertently destroy the Heart of Tengu, an artifact that used to control the Foot Mystics. This act sets off a chain of events leading to the return of the original Shredder.

Stockman reappears in the fifth, "Lost" season of the series, still under Bishop's employ. During his first appearance of the season, in the episode "Membership Drive", he attempts to reprogram the reactivated Nano (found during a fortuitous E.P.F. salvage operation), with disastrous results (When Nano escaped, Bishop commented that he was beginning to understand why the Shredder kept removing Stockman's body parts). Later, in the two-part season finale, he forms part of the turtles' offensive against a resurrected demon Shredder. In these episodes he has a tank like body.

In "Head of State", an episode taking place in 2105, it is revealed that Stockman, while still under Bishop's employment in the Earth Protection Force, created the organic Mousers to fight off aliens. When he accidentally triggered a bio-chemical reaction which destroyed the lab, Stockman was left behind by Bishop when he became trapped under rubble and one of his alien captives saved him. Stockman, in a form of an alien brain, returns later to exact revenge with the help of his organic Mousers. Still incapable of building himself a new body, wished to take Bishop's (now President Bishop) body as his own. He almost kills Bishop by renovating his head with the help of his brain transplanting device; but convinced by Leonardo that the world Bishop helped create was one where even he could live a normal life, he abandons his plan. When another explosion is triggered, Bishop redeems his previous actions by saving Stockman personally. After this event, Stockman is told be Bishop the Department of Agriculture, has expressed interest in his Mousers, and he will eventually get a new body. Stockman asks President Bishop if there is a vice president.

In the present-day episode "Hacking Stockman", he appears to be working for Hun in a new cyborg body, only to be hacked by the Cyber-Shredder, who controlled his body through cyberspace, until Donatello attacked Cyber-Shredder, and Stockman uploaded a firewall. Stockman also appears in a notable role in the series of shorts that were edited together as "Mayhem from Mutant Island".