Thirty Days of Turtles: Krang

Recently I decided that if I want to keep having new content on this blog, I'm going to have to branch out beyond Marvel and DC. They'll always bring in new content, and I'm sure I'll continue to find old ones I've missed, but it's time to move toward more unfamiliar territory. With that in mind, and because they have a new movie out, I thought I'd kick this new era off with Thirty Days of Turtles!

That's right: From June 3 to July 2, there'll be a post each day highlighting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles canon immigrants. Now, because TMNT canon is a little confusing, it can be hard to tell what counts as a canon immigrant and what doesn't. So for the purposes of this blog, a TMNT canon immigrant is anything (a) from the movies, cartoons, video games, toy lines, or tie-in comic series that later appeared in (b) TMNT volumes 1, 2, or 4 [because they're by the original creators] or TMNT volume 5 [because the original creators are involved, it's the new official continuity, and its goal is to use as much of the diverse TMNT lore as possible].

With that in mind, let's look at today's entry: Krang!

Krang is based on an alien race from the comics called the Utroms; the 2003 animated series, which heavily featured the Utroms, even had a member in one episode named Krang. Krang, however, is a being from Dimension X, same as the Neutrinos. (The 2012 animated series split the difference: it had an alien race from Dimension X called The Kraang.)

As with Bebop and Rocksteady, Krang is seen as an intrinsic part of the franchise at this point. The two are actually very tied together; they both first appeared in the same episode of the animated series (“Enter the Shredder”, December 1987), and if an adaptation includes one of them, they'll probably include the other.

Krang's comics appearances are also similar to Bebop and Rocksteady's. His first-ever comics appearance was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1 (August 1988), which doesn't count because it was a tie-in to the show. His first in-continuity appearance was Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #58 (March 2009), which only sort of counts because it was as part of a multiverse.

It wasn't until IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 (August 2011) that he fully appeared in-continuity, this time as General Krang, working with Baxter Stockman to use mutagen to create soldiers. Of course, even then, we just got his name and saw a fist:

He wouldn't fully appear until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 (February 2012):

Again, I don't know why a character so many people think of as essential to the brand took so long to make it to the comics. But people DO consider him essential, which is one of the reasons he was included in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, in theatres now!