Character Spotlight: Antonio Puzorelli

Continuity's a funny thing. Sometimes things are canon at one point and later ruled not canon (and vice-versa!). This can happen for all sorts of reasons. For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles volume 3, it happened because the creators weren't involved.

See, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for Mirage, their independent comics company. TMNT quickly became a media powerhouse so Eastman and Laird were pulled away from the comic fairly early on (issue 11 was the last one they both worked on until issue 50). Presumably as part of that, Mirage started a second volume of the series, written by Jim Lawson, that ran for two years. In 1996, Image Comics published volume 3 and made it part of the Image Universe, but when Peter Laird and Jim Lawson partnered to make a new volume in 2001, they decided to ignore the events of volume 3, since it didn't have any input from Laird or Eastman. Therefore, this blog treats volume 3 as an adaptation like any other.

And that brings us to our point. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vol. 3 #7 (December 1996) introduced a gangster named Antoine "Big Tony" Puzorelli. He is the grandfather of Shadow, Casey Jones's adopted daughter, and he hired the Foot to find her and return her.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #25 (August 2013), we meet Antonio Puzorelli, a Mafia don who tried to broker peace during a turf war between the Foot and the Savate. He did not appear again until #93 (April 2019), which is when his last name was used for the first time and his connection to Big Tony made clear.