Multidimensional Monster: The Shredder Essay (Spoilers)

One of the great challenges Lloyd Goldfine, Peter Laird, and the staff at 4Kids faced in developing their take on the Ninja Turtles was in turning the Shredder into a proper Big Bad. They had to take a character who, until then, had either had a limited shelf-life (the Mirage comics), was played as an utterly unserious, ineffectual villain (the original cartoon) or had been set aside in favor of other villains (the Archie comics) and turn him into somebody who could appear regularly while being consistently menacing.  And for the most part, they succeeded: one part Cobra Commander and two parts Geese Howard, 4Kids’ Shredder managed to create a character who worked as the big bad the series needed, and became the most threatening version of the character yet.

Rumble in the Jungle: “The Shredder Strikes Back” Part Two

“Like the phoenix, I have risen from the ashes.  And into my fire, you shall fall.“–The Shredder

Written by: Erik Luke
Original Air Date: June 14, 2003
Recap Narrator: Splinter

Leo’s Magic Sword

(Spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season 3 ahead)

Going through the Comics Should Be Good blog today, I ran into a recent article by Brian Cronin highlighting a particular artistic quirk in Frank Miller’s 80′ Daredevil comics: whenever assassin Elektra stabbed someone with her sai, the weapon would pierce the person’s body, and stretch, but not break, hir shirt.  Like so:

It’s been explained that the reason for this seeming implausibility is due to the fact that Miller had to comply with the company’s standards for acceptable violence, which stated that while people could be stabbed, no exit wounds could be visible.  Nevertheless, it’s a damn good visual, one that became a trademark for the character during that time.

Upon reading, the post, my mind, like it does, flashed back to the Ninja Turtles–specifically, the episode “The Darkness Within”, where we get a similar visual.

Grisly.  It’s rather unclear from a single picture, but that’s supposed to be Leo’s sword stabbing the hell out of Splinter, as a part of a series of nightmare sequences created by a nightmare creature, who let’s face it, is meant to be Cthulhu with its serial number filed off.  In any case, while one would not be wrong in assuming that the reason why Splinter’s kimono is sword-proof is due to standards and practices reasons, I wonder if it was also meant as a homage to Frank Miller and Daredevil.  It wouldn’t be the first time TMNT has done that.

This One’s for the Fan-Artists and ‘shippers: “The Mirror”

Note: This might be a tad optimistic of me, but since I’m working under the assumption that there are at least a few readers who haven’t actually seen Gargoyles, I’d much appreciate it if commenters would keep that big honking spoiler under your hats.  You know the one.  Thank you!

“You serve the human,  now you can serve me.” –Demona

Written by: Lydia C. Marano

Original Air Date: September 11, 1995

Introduces: Puck

Timeline placement: September 27-September 28, 1995

MoNY Timeline (2010-2105)

With little progress made on the next chapter of “April Forever”, and nothing else prepared, it’s time for part four of the Monsters of New York timeline.

This here is mostly set-up for the status quo in TMNT’s Fast Forward season–basically, a bunch of birth dates for Original Characters, and some rather vague details on the circumstances behind Darius Dun and Cody Jones’ backgrounds, because yes, I do have a story with him in mind.

As for the lack of Gargoyles stuff, chalk it up to the fact that there’s very little  canon-in-training with a definitive dates.  Since I’m not planning on playing with anything Gargoyles related during this era anyway (unless I decide to) that suits me just fine.  The only notable exceptions are a nod to a Gargoyles fic I particularly like.

Parts one, two, and three.

MoNY Timeline (1997-2009)

This is the third part of the overall timeline for the relevant events in the shared Gargoyles/TMNT-verse. The first can be seen here, the second here.

People who’ve been following this section will notice a gap in the time-line–specifically, between 1994 and 1997, or the time-span in which the Gargoyles series takes place.  Why the omission?  Because I have nothing to add to that time period, which would mean that by including it here, I’d be copying other people’s work (particularly, that of the awesome people at Gargwiki) wholesale without adding anything of value.  Plus, all that text would be a bitch to format.  So if you have to know what happened in that period of time, you can just check their timeline: 1994, 1995, 1996.

Also, note that, unlike Greg or the wiki, this timeline does not cover every event in TMNT–I’m just not dedicated enough to assign a date to every single event.  This is mostly just a guideline in order to have an idea of when each important event occurred; however, this should not be taken to mean that these events aren’t canon.  Also, as with the other installments, the list is subject to later additions, which will be announced in their own blog posts and then added here.

ETA: Small alteration: I added an item down over at “March 2009″.

Illuminati P.O.I. Profile: John Bishop

Name: John Bishop
Known Aliases: The Unkillable
Birth Date: Unknown; estimated to be sometime in the year 1776
Nationality: United States of America
Occupation: Director of Earth Protection Force
Affiliations: E.P.F.; Department of Defense
Special Abilities:Superhuman longevity; healing factor.

John Bishop first became known to The Society in 1815 when he, then a Major of the United States Army and a veteran of the war of 1812 (Crossref: Battle of New Orleans), wrote a letter to the then-Secretary of War (William Harry Crawford, although the position belonged to James Monroe when Bishop wrote the letter) detailing his experiences as an alien abductee (Crossref: Alien Life On Earth). The letter was intercepted by Crawford’s secretary, Society Member James Roivas (34), who brought it to The Society’s attention.

After concluding that allowing the leadership of the still-young Union to become aware of alien life was not in The Society’s best interest, the upper echelons outlined a plan to neutralize Bishop, which was then carried out.  Sending out an agent to gain his confidence, The Society led Bishop to believe that the U.S. Government had taken his letter seriously and had declared him insane, committing him to one of The Society’s asylums (Crossref: Hotel Cabal), where he was held and interrogated for three years until his escape and subsequent disappearance.

The supernaturally long-lived Bishop resurfaced during the Civil War, where he became decorated for his performances in both battles of Bull Run and was promoted to the rank of Colonel*. According to several accounts, he would shrug off wounds which most people would find fatal, a feat which earned him the title of “The Unkillable”.

After the war, Bishop continued serving in the U.S. Army, and would continue there until July 1876, when he and the men under his command brought down an alien spacecraft on the fields of Southern Virginia. Now possessing the evidence he needed, he successfully made his case before President Grant, who authorized the creation of the Earth Protection Force, a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces dedicated to the prevention and cessation of further alien invasions.

Since its creation, Bishop has served as the Earth Protection Force’s sole director, a job he carries out with ruthless efficiency and considerable zeal.  Under his tenure, the agency has obtained several important successes, such as the 1947 takedown of an alien ship over Roswell, New Mexico (Crossref: Roswell Incident), and in 2004, he single-handedly negotiated a secret treaty with an intergalactic Federation (Crossref: Gen. Blanque), which proved instrumental in the defeat of the Triceratons the following year (Crossref: 2005 Triceraton Invasion).  With time, the organization has become ever more secretive and independent; while it still theoretically answers to the President, reports from our men inside (Crossref: Naveen Shah), suggests that most of the organization’s work, as well as decisions such as the hiring of Dr. Baxter Stockman is done outside the chain of command.  This behavior reached its zenith in 2006, when Bishop, Shah suggests, engineered the abduction of the P.O.T.U.S. (Crossref: Joseph Bond; October 12 , 2006 Alien Invasion) in order to stage a rescue and thus assure further funding for the E.P.F.

Captivity and experimentation by aliens: Despite intense interrogation, the specifics of Bishop’s time under alien captivity are not known, beyond the fact that he was throughoutly experimented upon, and that he was eventually released some indeterminate time after his abduction.  Whatever the details of the alien experiments performed upon him, it is clear that the results have granted a number of extra-normal abilities.  Not only has Bishop apparently ceased to age, he possesses a healing factor that allows him to recover from most injuries.  Attempts to study and replicate these abilities has so far proven unsuccessful.

Conclusions:Bishop is calculating, secretive, and strong-willed. His obsession with protecting Earth could prove troublesome for The Society should he ever come to believe that its interests clash with his, and should he ever become aware of our existence, his actions could prove problematic. While this would normally make him a prime candidate for induction into The Society, as established in our bylaws (Crossref: “To Succeed”, DocID# 333), it is this profiler’s opinion that doing so would run the same risks as inducting Oroku Saki would; allowing him access into the fold and our resources, even on a limited basis, would make him more, not less, dangerous.  This profiler would also suggest that there is little benefit to be gained from making Bishop aware of our existence, as his principles would make him even open to negotiation than Saki was.

This is not to say, however, that Bishop cannot be controlled.  Although  rarely used, the P.O.T.U.S. still theoretically wields considerable over the Earth Protection Force’s makeup and organization, and while Bishop has proven that he will rock the boat, it is also clear that he would rather not do so if possible.  Done subtly, having Bond appoint someone more aware and sympathetic to our interests to the E.P.F. in a supervisory capacity would allow The Society to have a bigger say in the way the E.P.F. is run, without riling Bishop enough to cause him to go rogue.

—-
* It’s worth noting that Bishop did not retain his previous rank of Major, and had in fact re-begun his military career from scratch shortly before the Civil War began.

—-

Last updated: July 25, 2007

Rogue Galleries (pt. 1): TMNT

Author’s note: In the unlikely chance that you haven’t seen TMNT, note that this essay contains several important spoilers.

—-

It’s become sort of a lost art (at least in comic books, where long-running franchises have found it increasingly hard to create new characters with lasting power*), but a good rogues gallery has always been an essential part of the super-hero story**.   Batman and Spider-Man would not be where they are today were it not for recurring antagonists like The Joker, Green Goblin, Two-Face, Rocket Racer, etc… Thus, one of the things I can appreciate about both Gargoyles and TMNT is their success in creating an excellent collection of people for their heroes to fight.

Granted, TMNT already had an established rogues gallery to draw from; the Shredder, Baxter Stockman, the Rat King, etc. may not have had much lasting power in the original comic books, but time and subsquent adaptations turned them from two- or three-shot characters  to Characters You Must Include If You’re Adapting The Turtles, so Lloyd Goldfine and Co. had a definitive starting point.  Still, as  their decision to not include equally recognizable characters like Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang indicated, they were going to go their own way.

And they did.  Take away the villains taken from the comic books, and you’re still left with a very respectable list of characters.  Some of them may not have worked (The Garbageman was an early dud), and a lot of them were clearly not meant to be anything more than villains of the week (which is fine, since usually, that’s exactly how they were usually used), but they were, far an large, fun villains who served their purpose and managed to make the series stronger.  Combined with the villains from the comic books, they form a formidable group that runs the gamut of villainy: unrepentant bastards, manipulative family members, hunters, conspiracy theorists, gangsters, aliens, species supremasists, Texans…there’s a lot of variety, and most of them work.

And then there’s The Foot.

In the original cartoon, The Foot (or rather, the crew of the Technodrome) was a disfunctional sitcom family; funny, but not the biggest of threats, and arguably not a group deserving to be the main antagonists for seven seasons.  In the original comic books, without a strong central character to unite them, they’re mostly just there, to be used however the writer likes: hardly Big Bad material.

However, with the Shredder rewritten to be a total badass, the Foot likewise became a much stronger organization.  You have a solid group of characters connected to it–Saki, Hun, Baxter, Karai, Chaplin…and Khan–each with their own viewpoints, capabilities, and goals, which helped make the stories featuring them shine.

However, the Shredder’s strenghts eventually turned out to be one of the show’s biggest liabilities.  While the writers clearly had no intention of disposing him off after a couple of storylines like in the comics, they also knew that he had a definite expiration date: after three seasons, they attempted to give him a swan song, writing him off during the season finale.  Usually, this tends to leave a hard-to-fill void in the character dynamics, but with secondary villains like Hun, Karai, Baxter and Bishop to take the spotlight in his stead; and plenty of minor villains to draw from as necessary, the show actually did very well without its primary villain; the Oroku Saki-less fourth season is arguably the series’ best.

However, it eventually became clear that a Shredder-less series was not going to be an option, and that no, having Karai take up the mantle wasn’t going to cut it.  Creative insecurities?  Economic concerns?  Without information, impossible to tell.  Eventually, however, wheels were set in motion that would bring back the Shredder twice, even if his story had already been told.  To the writers’ credit, their first attempt at bringing back the character turned out something rather different; instead of bringing Oroku Saki back, they created another, drastically different one.  The end product may not have worked as effectively as the original, but in the end, they managed to create a character that could stand on its own while still using the character’s trappings; if they had to bring the Shredder back, their approach wasn’t a bad one–unlike their second attempt.  The third incarnation of the Shredder, like most things in the show’s seventh season, had no bite; he had a cool character design, but the writer’s minds–perhaps due to the astoundingly short amount of time they had to complete the season–were clearly not in it.

Fortunately, the original Shredder eventually got a chance to go out with a bang.  In Turtles Forever, which put a cap on not only the series but the entire franchise as a whole, they bought the character back to prove just why he’s the Big Bad.  And in the end, Lloyd Goldfine got a chance to do what he’d been itching to do for four seasons: kill the character off.

On the other hand, Gargoyles, as an original property, had no Shredder to use, and had to create its own awesome villains from scratch.  But since there’s only a couple more hours left on the Friday, I’ll leave that for some other time.

—-
* Thanks in no small part to Geoff Johns whose names I will not mention, who are intent to bring the DCU back to 1984, progress be damned.
**And yes, I know that I’ve previously said that neither series is a super-hero work.  Sue me.

MoNY Timeline (994-1993)

This is the second part of the overall timeline for the relevant events in the shared Gargoyles/TMNT-verse. The first can be seen here.  As before,  most of the relevant Gargoyles segments are taken from Gargwiki’s own semi-official timeline.

La noche que volvimos a ser gente: “Darkness on the Edge of Town”

“The Sword of Tengu. Still just as potent after all these years.”—The Master

Written by: Marty Isenberg
Original air date: March 15, 2003
Teaser Narrator: Donatello
Introduces: The Sword of Tengu; mysterious exoskeleton

Synopsis:

Teaser: As he swims back to the surface of the East River and makes his way to terra firma, Don comments on how he’d be fascinated by the concussive canon currently being used by his enemies, if staying alive and surviving an attack by ninjas weren’t a priority.

As the turtles do their contractually obligated EXTREME! sporting (Don has a bike, Leo a scooter, and Raph in-line skates, while Mikey uses a skateboard) an annoy the heck out of Splinter in the process, a sudden blackout interrupts their derring-do.

After confirming that the power failure is not confined to the lair, the turtles are allowed to investigate the surface.  There, they realize that the blackout is total; nothing, not even emergency lights, are working.  Since they’re extra teenager-y this episode, they view this as an excellent opportunity to do their EXTREME! sporting outside for once.  Before they can have too much fun, however, they find a strange bit of weirdness–a trio of the same ninja they’d faced once before breaking into a museum.  Itching for some payback after their last defeat, the turtles follow them inside, and watch as, with the help of a gauntlet they’d brought with them, they remove an ancient sword from its case.  The turtles make their entrance, boasting that there’s no way they’re escaping the sword, particularly since they’re outnumbered–which then causes a dozen more ninja to appear at the scene.

Fortunately, for whatever reason, the turtles fare considerably better against this group of ninja than they did the last time they’d fought–Mikey even manages to get a trophy: the emblem from a downed ninja’s costume.   They do so well that they eventually begin using their sports gear in the fight, which works well enough at first, but ends up with all the turtles crashing against each other, allowing the ninja a chance to escape.  The turtles try to pursue, but the ninja carrying the sword suddenly manages to use it to emit a wave of concussive energy with knock the turtles flat on their shells.  Mike comments that he can see a teamwork training session in their future.

The turtles take their asses back to the lair, where they tell Splinter what happened and show him the ninjas’ logo.  It clearly has some meaning to Splinter, but aside from mentioning that it’s “trouble”, he refuses to say anything on the subject, and forbids his sons from involving themselves further with the ninjas.  The lights have returned by this point, so Donny goes to his computer to do some investigatin’.

At the Mysterious Ominous Tower of Evil Deeds and Punished Mooks, the “master”–whose name has yet to be revealed–removes the top half of his outfit (although its worth noting that his sarashi still covers his stomach) for a sparring session with four of his ninja.  Given that they are lowly mooks to his Big Bad, they go down easily.  The big mook that had brought him Baxter Stockman three issues ago–now identified as “Hun”–enters the room carrying the stolen sword, which is itself identified as “The Sword of Tengu”.  The master takes the sword–which he manages to hold without the use of the protective gauntlet his ninja had previously used–and notes that the sword remains as powerful as ever, and that it still responds to other items sharing its “unique origin” (to illustrate, he brings the sword close to a suit of samurai-style armor, which causes the sword to glow), which will allow him to track down similar objects.  He returns the sword to Hun, and instructs him to take it to the Tech team in preparation for phase two.

Back at the lair, Donny finds that there’s been another blackout–this time over by the South Street Seaport.  Ignoring Leo’s token objection (Raph argues that they’re not disobeying Splinter, since he’d only prohibited going after the ninjas but had said nothing about investigating the blackouts) the four brothers head out, as Splinter watches silently.

At the seaport, Don, with the help of  night-vision goggles and a hang glider  (both which he built himself) scans the bay for signs of wrongdoing.  Eventually he finds what he’s looking for: two technicians are using a concussive canon–powered by the Sword of Tengu–to scour the bottom of the river in search of something. unfortunately, Don gets too close to the canon and loses control, crashing into the river.

The three remaining turtles attempt to rendezvous with Donny, but when they arrive at Pier 16, where the canon is located, they’re ambushed by a group of ninja.  As they fight off their foes in a scene reminiscent of Disney’s Peter Pan (for some reason, most of the fight takes place aboard a wooden sailing ship, which leads to the usual cut sails and rope-swinging), the techs find what they’re looking for–a piece of wrecked metal with a vaguely humanoid shape–and call in “air support” to retrieve it. The turtles, who by now have reunited up with Donatello and dispatched the ninja, watch as a helicopter arrives and picks up the item.

Their mission succesful, the techs shut off the machine to leave, but are ambushed by the turtles.  Although armed with handheld lasers, these guys are no fighters, and quickly go down.  However, a stray laser hits the canon, shorting out it circuits and causing it to reactivate and go haywire.  The techs’ helicopter returns for another pass, allowing the two men on the ground to make their escape.

With the activated canon now aiming at–and thoroughly wrecking–the port, the turtles turn to Don to deactivate the device.  As Leo, Raph, and Mike try to turn the canon back towards the river, things get worse as a police helicopter approaches the scene.   Worse still, Don’s technomagic actually causes the canon it rotate even more rapidly–at least, until Leo finds a crowbar and sticks it in its axle.  Donny tries to remove the sword, but gets shocked; Leo, spotting the gauntlet that the Ninja had used in the initial heist, passes it to Don, who find that it indeed does the trick.  The turtle then manage to make the escape, unseen, just before the canon’s vibrations destroys the platform it lies on, causing it to fall into the water, where it explodes.

Back at the lair, Splinter inspects the sword, declaring that while its design is unmistakably 11th-century Japanese, its made from a metal completely unknown to him.  He asserts that, given its many mysteries, it’s best if they keep the sword for safekeeping.

At the Mysterious Ominous Tower of Pissed-Off Employers, the two techs make their report to their displeased master–despite a successful mission (which apparently proves to The Master that his enemies actually reside within the city), losing the Sword of Tengu was not an option.  The techs try to explain that there were extenuating circumstances–namely, a quartet of four “strange creatures”.  The Master, holding a photo of the image captured by the mouser back in “Attack of the Mousers“, asks them if the creatures were the same as the ones in the picture, which they confirm.  The two are dismissed, but don’t manage to make it out the door before being accosted by Hun.  The Master muses that, with two operations now disrupted by the turtles, “these freakish thorns in [his] side must be removed…permanently!”

—-

This isn’t a terribly good episode, which is a shame; it’s an important one, giving the first few hints of the Shredder’s origins twenty-eight episodes before it’s officially revealed.  However, it’s done subtly enough that, unless you’re a fan of the original comic books, the clues aren’t immediately apparent without heavy doses of hindsight.  Heck, I didn’t even notice the little utrom on the sword until “Return to New York”.

This is also when we first see that Splinter keeps things from his sons, a particular character detail that will continue popping up throughout the first five seasons, and is taken from the original comic book, where he only tells the turtles about their origin as a lead-in to his order that they kill the Shredder.  While the comic book features little reason why that particular tale had to be a secret, here we can conclude that it’s his way of protecting the turtles; the events surrounding his prior involvement with the Foot are a painful burden he carries, and one he does not wish to pass on to his sons.  Still, this, like his reluctance to let them out into the surface, is misguided; the turtles have been raised well, and are fully ready–and more importantly, willing–to help him carry his burden, as he’ll eventually learn. I’ll explore this bit in more detail when the recap for “The Shredder Strikes” comes up.

One of the consequences of having Playmates being the third major source of funding for the show is that said show will have to include lots of things designed solely to become an action figure or else sell an already existing one.  Sometimes, as with the Battle Shell, it works naturally enough; with the sports gear…not so much–it’s one of the biggest stumbles during this first, exploratory season.  Even with the turtle’s historical connection surfing/skating culture (see Turtles in Time‘s “Sewer Surfing”), it doesn’t really work here.  Fortunately, the sports gear doesn’t really show up again until the seventh season.

This episode features one of the best examples ever of Hollywood Darkness ever.  The post-blackout city is supposed to be pitch-black, allowing the turtles to walk outside without being seen, and yet the colors are exactly the same as they usually are.  On that note, the “blackout” plot device, seems, in the end to be pointless.  First, it seems implausible–unless the Foot were carrying an EMP devices which disabled everything, I just can’t visualize New York going completely dark–surely some buildings would have emergency back-up.  And even if they did, I’m not sure what I think of ninjas who need a blackout in order to steal a sword–particularly since the device isn’t used at all in future episodes (although to be fair, this is the only time we see the Foot involved in a straight-up theft).

Random thoughts:

• Five episodes after their first appearance, the Foot Ninja return.   While their shift from “formidable enemies in their own right” to “time-wasters” was inevitable, I wish it had been handled more smoothly.  They’ll get even more pathetic in future episodes.
• The show occasionally has some very cringeworthy lines, and this episode features one of the worst.  “Lets turtlelize them!”?  Ugh.  Along with the sports gear, it makes this episode feel as if it’s trying to emulate the old one, except with none of the charm.
• This is the second time Don comments that he’s fascinated by the technology he sees while going out (the first being during his similar teaser dialogue in “Nano“.
• It’s implied in this episode (and confirmed later) that the Sword of Tengu initially belonged to the Shredder.  How, then, did it come to end up in the museum?  My personal favorite theory is that he pulled a Xanatos and donated it there, but that really doesn’t fit the character.
• The post title, by the way (which literally translates to “the night we became people again”), is from  a short story of the same name by José Luis González, about a New York City blackout that brings a group of  Puerto Rican immigrants together as a community.   It’s worth reading if you know Spanish.