Thirty Days of Turtles: Stone Soldiers, Traag and Granitor

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: Stone Soldiers!

We continue this week's look at things related to Krang with the Stone Soldiers. The Stone Soldiers are part of Krang's army in Dimension X, which he created by using mutagen on rocks. They first appeared in the episode "Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X" (December 1987), represented by General Traag and Granitor, but others appear over the course of the series.

Stone Soldiers made their comics debut in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #2 (September 1988), but since that's based on the tv show, it doesn't count. What does count is their appearance in IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 (February 2012), again represented by Granitor and Traag, although here it's spelled Tragg. They have much the same origin as in the show, except that they're created by Baxter Stockman instead of Krang.

Surprisingly, the Stone Soldiers DON'T appear in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, which you can go see today!