{"id":1880442,"date":"2026-04-13T17:15:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1880442"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:15:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:15:32","slug":"rise-of-the-tmnt-couldve-introduced-even-more-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1880442","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rise of the TMNT\u2019 Could\u2019ve Introduced Even More Turtles"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/rise-of-the-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1200×675.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Before\u00a0Mutant Mayhem<\/em> delivered a colorful, playfully stylized riff on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen, we\u2019d already had a recent contender doing something similar on TV:\u00a0Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em>, which delivered a zany, cartoony take on the TMNT that radically overhauled their world. That overhaul wasn\u2019t always to diehard\u00a0TMNT<\/em> fans\u2019 tastes, which is why Rise<\/em> came to an end after a couple of years and had its story wrapped up in a more warmly received Netflix movie a few years after that. But a new look back celebrating the series has revealed that if the show had gone on, Leo, Donny, Raph, and Mikey would\u2019ve had a few more siblings to deal with.<\/p>\n

According to the upcoming\u00a0Art of the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em> by Colin Stein, being published by IDW this week (via Polygon), series creators Andy Suriano and Ant Ward revealed that future plans for the show, before it was curtailed for the movie sendoff, would\u2019ve seen the show go back to the Turtles\u2019 mutated origins and reveal that two other turtles were also part of the experiments that created them.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s version of the\u00a0TMNT<\/em> origin, their mutation comes about at the hands of a supernatural villain named Baron Draxum, who splices the turtles with the DNA of Hamato Yoshi (in this continuity a washed-out kung fu movie star with the alias \u201cLou Jitsu,\u201d who of course still transforms into Master Splinter) and mutagenic ooze to transform them into the first members of Draxum\u2019s mutate army. But when fans briefly got to see flashbacks to that origin late in the first season of Rise<\/em>, the device containing Yoshi and the young turtles actually had\u00a0six<\/em> turtle vessels on it, not just four.<\/p>\n

A new interview with Suriano in the book confirms, as fans had long theorized, that those pods contained two long-missing extra turtles, who would\u2019ve become part of the story if\u00a0Rise<\/em> hadn\u2019t been cut short. The first, according to Suriano, would\u2019ve been a \u201cno-nonsense eldest brother\u201d meant to upend the sibling dynamic between\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s version of Raphael and Leo, who had the typically inversed roles of Raph being the\u00a0Rise<\/em> team leader and Leo more of a cocky, comic support second-in-command.<\/p>\n

The second, according to Suriano, would\u2019ve answered another mystery that fans already briefly glimpsed: one of\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s other villains, the spider-demon Big Mama, had a suspiciously turtle-esque masked guard, who would\u2019ve been revealed as the turtles\u2019 separated sister. \u201cThe payoff of Big Mama\u2019s assistant would reveal that she would indeed be another turtle sibling, and we would get to see what being raised by a spider mama would do to a teenaged mutant vs. the warmth of Splinter,\u201d Suriano added.<\/p>\n

This sisterly reveal\u00a0did<\/em> actually make it into official material eventually: during a\u00a0Rise of the TMNT<\/em> short story in IDW\u2019s 40th anniversary anthology back in 2024, a panel briefly saw a time-strewn Leonardo witness his brothers (and a future self) encountering the unmasked sister. Creatives associated with the show have since confirmed that the sister would\u2019ve been a riff on Venus de Milo (who\u2019s gone on to appear in IDW\u2019s own main TMNT<\/em> continuity herself, alongside the other female member of the team, Jennika) but wouldn\u2019t have been named as such, instead opting for another artistic influence\u2014the name Frida, after Frida Kahlo, has since been embraced by fans.<\/p>\n

But beyond that, it wasn\u2019t meant to be. Rise<\/em>\u2018s story largely got wrapped up in the 2022 Netflix movie that sent the series off instead, seeing Leonardo step into his more traditional leadership role in the process and the team transform into less goofy siblings, beginning to look more like the classic heroes fans knew and loved\u2014with extra turtle family members left unfound. Maybe now that it\u2019s all out in the open thanks to the new artbook, maybe we can get a Rise<\/em> comic book that introduces them into its continuity properly.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

\n

Before\u00a0Mutant Mayhem<\/em> delivered a colorful, playfully stylized riff on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen, we\u2019d already had a recent contender doing something similar on TV:\u00a0Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em>, which delivered a zany, cartoony take on the TMNT that radically overhauled their world. That overhaul wasn\u2019t always to diehard\u00a0TMNT<\/em> fans\u2019 tastes, which is why Rise<\/em> came to an end after a couple of years and had its story wrapped up in a more warmly received Netflix movie a few years after that. But a new look back celebrating the series has revealed that if the show had gone on, Leo, Donny, Raph, and Mikey would\u2019ve had a few more siblings to deal with.<\/p>\n

According to the upcoming\u00a0Art of the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em> by Colin Stein, being published by IDW this week (via Polygon), series creators Andy Suriano and Ant Ward revealed that future plans for the show, before it was curtailed for the movie sendoff, would\u2019ve seen the show go back to the Turtles\u2019 mutated origins and reveal that two other turtles were also part of the experiments that created them.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s version of the\u00a0TMNT<\/em> origin, their mutation comes about at the hands of a supernatural villain named Baron Draxum, who splices the turtles with the DNA of Hamato Yoshi (in this continuity a washed-out kung fu movie star with the alias \u201cLou Jitsu,\u201d who of course still transforms into Master Splinter) and mutagenic ooze to transform them into the first members of Draxum\u2019s mutate army. But when fans briefly got to see flashbacks to that origin late in the first season of Rise<\/em>, the device containing Yoshi and the young turtles actually had\u00a0six<\/em> turtle vessels on it, not just four.<\/p>\n

A new interview with Suriano in the book confirms, as fans had long theorized, that those pods contained two long-missing extra turtles, who would\u2019ve become part of the story if\u00a0Rise<\/em> hadn\u2019t been cut short. The first, according to Suriano, would\u2019ve been a \u201cno-nonsense eldest brother\u201d meant to upend the sibling dynamic between\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s version of Raphael and Leo, who had the typically inversed roles of Raph being the\u00a0Rise<\/em> team leader and Leo more of a cocky, comic support second-in-command.<\/p>\n

The second, according to Suriano, would\u2019ve answered another mystery that fans already briefly glimpsed: one of\u00a0Rise<\/em>\u2018s other villains, the spider-demon Big Mama, had a suspiciously turtle-esque masked guard, who would\u2019ve been revealed as the turtles\u2019 separated sister. \u201cThe payoff of Big Mama\u2019s assistant would reveal that she would indeed be another turtle sibling, and we would get to see what being raised by a spider mama would do to a teenaged mutant vs. the warmth of Splinter,\u201d Suriano added.<\/p>\n

This sisterly reveal\u00a0did<\/em> actually make it into official material eventually: during a\u00a0Rise of the TMNT<\/em> short story in IDW\u2019s 40th anniversary anthology back in 2024, a panel briefly saw a time-strewn Leonardo witness his brothers (and a future self) encountering the unmasked sister. Creatives associated with the show have since confirmed that the sister would\u2019ve been a riff on Venus de Milo (who\u2019s gone on to appear in IDW\u2019s own main TMNT<\/em> continuity herself, alongside the other female member of the team, Jennika) but wouldn\u2019t have been named as such, instead opting for another artistic influence\u2014the name Frida, after Frida Kahlo, has since been embraced by fans.<\/p>\n

But beyond that, it wasn\u2019t meant to be. Rise<\/em>\u2018s story largely got wrapped up in the 2022 Netflix movie that sent the series off instead, seeing Leonardo step into his more traditional leadership role in the process and the team transform into less goofy siblings, beginning to look more like the classic heroes fans knew and loved\u2014with extra turtle family members left unfound. Maybe now that it\u2019s all out in the open thanks to the new artbook, maybe we can get a Rise<\/em> comic book that introduces them into its continuity properly.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/04\/rise-of-the-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1200×675.jpg”] Before\u00a0Mutant Mayhem delivered a colorful, playfully stylized riff on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen, we\u2019d already had a recent contender doing something similar on TV:\u00a0Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which delivered a zany, cartoony take on the TMNT that radically overhauled their world. That overhaul wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,53],"class_list":["post-1880442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-gizmodo-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1880442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1880442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1880442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1880442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}