#tmnt mere appendix

[felyas-stuff]

guess who finally started reading more issues of something other than idw anyway yeah I’ve been reading a lot of Mirage TMNT lately and my opinion on Mirage!Honeycutt shifted from "eh whatever, kinda boring" to "what a sassy little guy with a huge identity crisis. i like him"

Also, some explanations for my headcanon design (spoilers ahead, obviously):

I think him wearing clothes would make sense not only because wearing clothes is a very human thing to do (I know wether or not he’s Zayton in Mirage is debatable but still) - but also because in Mirage’s TMNT universe SAL got mass-produced without Honeycutt’s consent. Someone stealing your invention is already bad enough, but when this invention is your BODY now…yeah, you gotta at least do everything you can to differentiate yourself from other robots 😳

After his eye got damaged in Mere Appendix it got replaced with a different eye from the same unit and…Well, if we count OG SAL as a prototype - they usually vary in one way or another from the "final product" so yeah, I’m giving him heterochromia

[unscapedgoat]

"Is this me in here? Or am I just a memory that thinks it's a man?"

No shattered glass:

[toasterthievery]

I READ MERE APPENDIX AND I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT

The real gravity of Professor Honeycutt's situation doesn't get explored too often since everyone has bigger things to worry about when they're bring chased by Triceratons, and the identity crisis that goes down in this issue is just heartbreaking and really a sight to behold since he tends to get so little focus. It says a lot about him as a character in the best way possible.

Something that I really like is that time has passed since the accident that cost him his humanity in the first place, but that it's something that still affects him deeply. It's something he's come to terms with on a surface level so that he can continue to function day to day, but it weighs on him heavily.

You can feel his horror the moment when he realizes he never installed the component that would allow for a real transfer. He states later in this issue that he's been asking himself for years whether he's really Honeycutt or not, but speculation and evidence are two different things and his worst fear looks to be coming true.

And the idea that Fugitoid does not equal Honeycutt is pervasive. It comes up again and again, making it impossible for him to ignore. Even small things, like his voice recognition software not recognizing him, keeps him at arm's length from the "real" Professor Honeycutt. It's so uncomfortable, like a constant ache, to not be recognizable as the person you are in any capacity.

To wonder if your existence is even a scientific possibility.

And I know he's dealing with the damage he sustained at the beginning of the issue, but it obviously goes deeper than that and everything is being exacerbated by it since he's been experiencing hallucinations and memory loss. It makes it kind of all come at him at once in a way that's impossible to deal with and brings all that pain fresh into his mind.

It makes him feel less human than ever, which is a hard pill to swallow. This side by side panel (that hurts me immensely) is just a great illustration of the identity problems that he's dealing with.

He's reaching his limit and there's nothing that can really be done to fix his situation. It's a really cool thing to see Honeycutt's thoughts and feelings that haven't been filtered through the viewpoint of the turtles, and to see how acutely he feels the shockwave of everything that's happened to him. Where does the line lie between man and machine? How can he say with certainty that he's a real person when he's so familiar with the technology that caused the accident?

The part right after this has my FAVORITE set of panels in this entire thing.

It's very ironic that in having this crisis, he's proving he's more than just an unthinking object, but that's hard to see when everything is coming crashing down. I genuinely can't express enough how much I love that that he's reached this low where he can't think of himself as real, and because of that, it's fine if he simply takes himself apart until it's not a problem anymore. And in a way, it's easier for him to see himself that way because machines can be fixed; they don't deal with the messy, nonlinear recovery that real people have to face.

THIS IS BRILLIANT and I'm in love with the ship of Theseus dilemma that's at play here.

Even though Honeycutt comes out of it all right...there is still no easy solution for him, and the rock and hard place he finds himself wedged between won't give so easily. His struggles are fascinating and compelling, and getting to see them so up close and personal was a serious treat. Actually one of my favorite comics I've ever read. I'm never going to be normal again.

[thecomicsnexus]

Mere Appendix

TALES OF THE TMNT #54 JANUARY 2009 BY ANDREW BONIA, BOB LEFEVRE, MOSTAFA MOUSSA, L. JAMAL WALTON, STEVE LAVIGNE AND MICHAEL DOONEY

After an accident in the middle of a fight, Professor Honeycutt is injured and he quickly discovers he may not be Professor Honeycutt after all.

SCORE: 9

I am under the impression that this story shouldn’t have been paired with these artists. On one side, we have a very philosophical story about what makes us our own entities, and on the other side we have a more chaotic version of Dan Berger’s style.

At times, it was hard to figure out what I was looking at. And I feel that takes away from the issue.

Apart from that, it is always nice to have a Profesor Honeycutt story where he is clearly defined, sometimes I feel like he knows stuff he is not telling and we should know, but not in this issue.

Spoilers after the break...

The big dilemma here is pretty much what you defined as a mind-transfer. IN other words, Prof. Honeycutt thought he had a cut/paste when he may have just had a copy/paste, which would mean that Prof. Honeycutt is dead and he is just an android with all the memories of his master. Now, wouldn’t that make you the same person? if you have all the experiences and memories? It’s up to your interpretation. Technically, you are the same person... but not the same entity. That person died. This is a conversation humanity will need to have at some point if we are really planning on transferring all our knowledge into backups. Well, Hickman kind of already touched in this subject on his new X-Men books.

[felyas-stuff]

i personally call them "honeybros" but this also works

[unscapedgoat]

I get that 😭 I literally don't read a lot of Mirage stuff but I'm p sure I read every time Honeycutt makes an appearance because I Am Very Normal

A question:

I've read some mirage, but I'm not THAT familiar with it tbh. I read the ultimate collection which I know skipped a lot of stuff.

Anyway, so I have read the original mirage tmnt space arc (and fugitoid #1) but was wondering if professor honeycutt ever appeared again? If so, where?