TMNT: The Untold Destiny of the Foot Clan #5. Preview and discussion

[AlZarkovski]

Preview here: https://derbycomics.com/blogs/idw-preview-tmnt-the-untold-destiny-of-the-foot-clan-5

[CyberCubed]

Interesting this story ends right before the new #1 comes out.

[CyberCubed]

So I read it, it's basically a prelude to more stories to come since there's no real ending. Yoshi Chen gets away, and Karai and the others are back where they started. Zodi got captured and they never rescued her by the end either, lol. The last page basically says Karai and Casey return in Mutant Nation, so it's basically a mini-series leading into another.

Kind of ho-hum for a 5 issue mini-series as a whole about more Foot Clan backstory, it basically just felt like "here is a new rival gang for the Foot to fight and Karai has magic powers now, but the story continues." Also weird there isn't more of a clean slate with the new #1 coming, new readers are going to be confused who all these mutant characters are with Karai or why Casey is working for her.

[TheLabRat]

This once again prove "the Band of War" is pointless. Karai still sees the turtles as her enemies because they knows many of foot clan's magic secret. I'm a disappointed that I didn't see the "price" the Dragon said in the previous issue. Maybe Karai has dragon scales appearing on his body or is starting to suffer from mental issues.

[ToTheNines]

So this stunk?

If you would have told me 10 years ago that there was a Santolouco/Burnham miniseries out and I hadn’t bothered to even read a preview, I would have slapped you lol.

[ToTheNines]

Just finished this. I thought it was pretty damn good!

I loved all the callbacks to Secret History. It’s funny how they dragged their feet for so long immediately after #100, but from 2023-2024 they started really ramping up old plot lines that people actually care about.

My one major gripe with this is that I don’t really see a legitimate reason for Karai to turn down Chen’s offer. Maybe the point is she’s just that stubborn, but I think it would’ve made more sense to have him and the Dog star gang betray her in some way. As it was portrayed, he seemed pretty genuine when he offered to join forces.

But man… Santolouco! I forgot what an absolute MASTER the guy was. His character designs are always great to look at, but his action is totally insane. The highlights being the scene where Karai gets beaten down by the dog star soldier, and then Karai versus dark Leo in the dream sequence.

I don’t think I’m going to do it, but this miniseries did make me want to reread the Jason Aaron run all over again just for the Karai parts. I wish the ongoing would focus more on her battle with the dog star clan. It seems like they’ve dropped that plot point for now, which is unfortunate. Hopefully they get back to that soon.

So this stunk?

If you would have told me 10 years ago that there was a Santolouco/Burnham miniseries out and I hadn’t bothered to even read a preview, I would have slapped you lol.

Shut your mouth fool!

[neatoman]

You feeling alright there, Sméagol?

[TheLabRat]

I don’t think I’m going to do it, but this miniseries did make me want to reread the Jason Aaron run all over again just for the Karai parts. I wish the ongoing would focus more on her battle with the dog star clan. It seems like they’ve dropped that plot point for now, which is unfortunate. Hopefully they get back to that soon.


https://aiptcomics.com/2025/12/16/tmnt-tuesday-39-march-2026-covers-and-tmnt-14-previews/
Unfortunately, Shredder might take over Dog Star Clan. However, I think he won't kill Chen. He might make him his chunin, or let Chen continue leading the Dog Star Clan, but from that point on, Dog Star Clan became one of his subordinate forces. I hope that if this is about second City at War, then there might be Shredder vs Karai.

By the way, since the turtles seem to have forgotten the magic they once learned, which this just made Karai's motivation meaningless. Another thing is If she hadn't tried to send soldiers to attack the turtles, hadn't recruited Hale, perhaps her plan to open the gates of the underworld would have succeeded.

[ToTheNines]

Good points. Yeah, it’s pretty sloppy.

There’s this strange editorial disconnect between the ongoing and the supplemental stuff. All the side books are almost exclusively written and drawn by the IDW “old guard” and feels like it’s continuing the Waltz era of the book, with a little Sophie mixed in. Whereas the ongoing is just big swinging’ industry dicks haphazardly staying within the continuity while apparently having an embargo on stuff like Jennika, Alopex, Venus, etc. while also slowly shifting the status quo to a more “basic” TMNT (evil Shredder, crazy Casey, Splinter’s back).

[Dancefloran]

True....

I wanted to see where all that build up with Yoshi Chen was going, I thought he would be an antagonist, not Shredder's goon lol

[CyberCubed]

Good points. Yeah, it’s pretty sloppy.

There’s this strange editorial disconnect between the ongoing and the supplemental stuff. All the side books are almost exclusively written and drawn by the IDW “old guard” and feels like it’s continuing the Waltz era of the book, with a little Sophie mixed in. Whereas the ongoing is just big swinging’ industry dicks haphazardly staying within the continuity while apparently having an embargo on stuff like Jennika, Alopex, Venus, etc. while also slowly shifting the status quo to a more “basic” TMNT (evil Shredder, crazy Casey, Splinter’s back).

Well let's hope that....Chinese writer, can get things back on track. It's all riding on him now to connect all this stuff together. Also as far as we know he's not doing just a 12-issue run like Jason Aaron, he might be around till issue 50.