Character Spotlight: Gyoji

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can occasionally be tricky in terms of canon immigrants because there are TWO official continuities: there's the original Mirage Comics continuity that ran off and on between 1984 and 2009, and there's the IDW continuity that ran from 2011 to present. For the most part, it's not a big deal: while Mirage was mainly interested in doing its own thing, IDW seems to want to pull in as many details as possible from every other continuity to create a single unified Ninja Turtles story. Therefore, whenever TMNT canon immigrants appear on this blog, it's safe to assume they're appearing in the IDW version. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned this one happened in the Mirage continuity.

I've covered the Battle Nexus before, but a brief recap: the Battle Nexus is a cross-dimensional tournament that first appeared in the 2003 animated series but then was introduced into both the Mirage and IDW continuities.

But we're not here to talk about the Battle Nexus (yet), we're here to talk about Gyoji. Gyoji is a masked being who first appeared in the 2003 series episode, "The Ultimate Ninja" (February 2004), to referee a fight between Leonardo and the titular "Ultimate Ninja", aka Ue-sama. There is an air of mystery around Gyoji and why he appeared, especially once its revealed Ue-sama is from another dimension and from the same species as Gyoji's master, a species that claims to have taught humans ninjutsu. Splinter seems to know more about all this than he lets on.

Of course, this is all a set up for the four-part season finale, "The Big Brawl" (May - October 2004), which introduces us to the Battle Nexus. It's then we learn that Gyoji is the Battle Nexus's referee. 

When the Battle Nexus started appearing in TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gyoji came with it, although now his name is spelled "Gyogi". He first appeared in issue 29 (February 2008).