Eastman refers to Shredder as "Karai's father" in Ult. collection 5
 

How did nobody catch this? I haven't seen anyone post it yet, so I'm going to say it now. Anyone who has Ultimate Collection #5 quickly go to page 107 and look at the Eastman annotations on the bottom left. This is the issue where Karai is dressed in Shredder's armor. This is what Eastman says:

"April and Robyn at the Second time around shop wrapping up this part of her life - and being spotted by Mike, while Don convinced him to keep quiet, which then ties wonderfully to Karai entering as Shredder, dressed as her father to confuse the Elite..."

Wow. I know Eastman has been out of the Turtle loop for a while, and probably confused with both IDW and Nick's Karai, but he actually claimed Oroku Saki was Karai's father in the Ultimate Collection. This will probably make new readers to the Mirage material think Karai and Shredder are related too.

Quite shocking nobody caught this, can anyone here scan the page so everyone can see it? It's kinda amusing, especially since Shredder's actual daughter "Pimiko" later shows up in Image Volume 3.

I have this book, but haven't read through it.

In truth, both Kevin's and Peter's memory about certain aspects of TMNT history is fuzzy and has become inaccurate.

While it's an easy mistake to get mixed up about, it's a pretty big slip given the general public thought Karai had always been Shredder's daughter & now one of the creators has even said it.

Ideally it's also something an editor should have caught.

(Hint, hint - I'm available IDW. :) )

Yeah, its not really a problem for us, I'm talking about the general public who never read a TMNT comic before reading the Mirage material for the first time. They'll probably all think Karai is Shredder's daughter in the comics now too.

Can't wait for Image to be collected and they see Pimiko who nobody knows about outside of hardcore TMNT fans.

Well it is hard to keep all of those continuities straight sometimes...he's her father in what? 3 continuities?

Yes & no. When you actually break it down, technically, she's still never been his daughter. In 2k3 Shredder was an utrom dressed as a man who took her in, in the Nick toon he stole her from Yoshi as a child, and in IDW he's actually her great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather or something. Pretty funny actually.

It's rather obvious he calls her his adoptive daughter in 4kids even when he was talking to NYC in his Saki disguise.

Also I don't know if Eastman ever watched the 4kids series, so he probably doesn't know about that one.

I certainly don't expect creators to maintain the same level of memory for a twenty-five year-old franchise as their fans do. It's totally fair that Eastman might get mixed upon that. He also, at least per his comments in this volume, doesn't appear to have been part of the main writing team (Laird and Lawson) who actually scripted "City at War."

However, I do find it disheartening for the future of her character that the "Shredder's relative" aspect is now so ingrained as the default that it's what even one of the creators falls back on.

Totally. It's really just the daughter/underling dynamic that I don't really appreciate. At this point I'd settle for her to start being introduced as his distant aunt or something.

If it hasn't been formally mentioned and said in the Mirage comics then Karai isn't the Shredder's daughter that's the way I see it. But some of you may be correct to say that people's memory can be deceiving to themselves as well now that it has become the norm in assumption or recollection especially from Eastman and Laird. When you read Peter's old "Blasts from the Past" posts or his blog bits he's always in the can't recall the details memory. I usually have a good memory myself but I do find myself finding my recollections changing though time too. I didn't know Karai was Shredders daughter or somewhat is until I watched Turtles Forever as I hadn't really watched the 2K3 toon series. Still trying to catch up on the IDW comic so I'm out of the loop about that interpretation as well. It sure makes things interesting though had the Mirage series gone further on in some way.

Only so many people know that obscure tidbit. This TMNT mega fan knew her as a tournament fighter character who took over the Foot from The Shredder after he was killed of in TMNT#21 before getting to know her better in the 2003 cartoon. Only six weeks ago did I even learn she was Shredder's age in the Mirage comics. The fact she comes in becuase Shredder is gone and a replacement character for the arch nemesis means if she is to continue she had to find a way to be around at the same time as Shredder and working her in as Shredder's relative thus loyal #2 worsk perfect so she can be used further and we don't have to get ride of the definitive foe to see her. If we had to get ride of Shredder in order for Karai to appear then I would rather not see her. She has been a compelling chracter so using her as Shredder's relative has proved to be a great move and glad to see that what I always thought was a fact is pretty much set in stone from here on.

The whole idea of her even being connected to Shredder probably stemmed from the fact that she wears Shredder's armor in City at War to confuse the Foot Elite.

I'm willing to bet if Karai never wore Shredder's armor in Mirage, then she wouldn't have been connected to Shredder so heavily from the 4kids series onward.

That's debateable. I forget what the Palladium/Mirage stuff said but it was something like 36 in #1. Karai, some 2-3 years later, was old enough that she had a 16-18 year-old daughter (who got gunned down in "City at War")... so they could be about the same age, but it's hard to say. But definitely not Saki's daughter. Might have been an early idea that Kevin bounced off of Peter that they collectively dismissed... and it's hard to say exactly how much Kevin was involved in "City at War" directly, creatively.

I did get the impression from some phone calls with Kevin a couple years ago that he isn't too keen on "City at War" at large.

She's gotta be way older than Saki. Might closer in age to Nagi.

That is very interesting (and it's news to me). What were his allusions?

Didn't Eastman claim that 2k12 is the best incarnation of TMNT ever?

Maybe that 2k12 train of thought/idea is what he really thought of tmnt as a whole now. :)
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Anyway it doesn't fuss me much. Wouldn't adoptive children call their parent: father or mother even? It's not that unusual.

Sure, but Karai is not related or adopted by Saki in the Mirage comics, she's likely to be older then Saki.

Saki is never ever Karai's father or something similar in the original mirage comics. It's a huge misstep in the synopsis of the book in question.

While I understand part of the proclivity to make Karai Shredder's underling is that it allows for retaining Shredder as the primary villain while introducing Karai early, it still rubs me the wrong way. You don't need Shredder to be dead to keep Karai as the head of the Foot. In Mirage, for example, the entire New York faction had essentially become a rogue element under his leadership. There is zero reason that dynamic couldn't be maintained in another version with both Shredder and Karai active at the same time. There is zero reason she couldn't be in charge even if that weren't the case. One of the most recognizable incarnations of Shredder of all time, while still the primary antagonist, played hierarchical second-fiddle to Krang.

Frankly, though, TMNT has always been more interesting to me post-Shredder than when he's still around.

Craziness. Although he's always been the goofy action guy. I can see why the headier "City at War," as much as it returned some focus to ninja-style violence, might not be his favorite part of the series.

Still, he seemed to really dig the addition of the old man recovering in the hospital, something Laird stated he "kind of wished we'd removed" in this book. That was a bit of a shocker. But creators don't always have the best handle on their own work, especially when forced to look back on it, and that's that.

Eastman loves City at War, you can tell by reading his annotations throughout the book. He just said that Jim Lawson and Laird had more to do with the story than he did, and you can see that by him complimenting them on handling the arc in this collection.

I'm surprised none of them mentioned how quickly Casey fell in love with April so soon after Gabrielle died. I mean he just married Gabrielle and thought he was going to start a family with her. She dies at childbirth, he spreads her ash's, and only a few weeks/month later he meets April and they kiss on their first day seeing each other again.

It's something I never realized as a kid that struck me re-reading this now

Yeah, it's been mentioned several times that Kevin and Peter didn't agree on much. It's very possible that it was what Kevin wanted but since Peter more heavily oversaw the arc it's what he wanted and what they went with.

I have to be honest, my first memory of Karai is the tmnt cgi film and I assumed she was a character made up for that movie and was meant to be shredhead's daughter. I bought mirage comics in the 80s and early 90s but don't remember Karai. I'm not sure she even appeared in the books I owned...its been decades since I read them.

Rick

She only appeared in the final ... six? or so issues of the original Mirage volume, then didn't have another official appearance in the comics until Laird relaunched the series in 2002.

Why would you think she was made up for the 4th movie when she had a huge role in the 4kids series airing directly before it and at the same time, regardless of Mirage?

Maybe he didn't WATCH the 4Kids cartoon.

Even if he didn't watch it, I'm sure he was aware of it if he saw a TMNT movie in 2007.

I did not watch the 4kids show (and I hope like heck they rerelease them on dvd soon). I collected mirage books early on and watched random episodes of the original toon. I saw all the movies but to my knowledge she was only in the tmnt cgi movie..which was why I assumed she was created for that movie.

@CyberCubed... I was aware of the 4kids toon but didnt see it from the beginning. Foolishly I waited for complete seasons to be released on dvd.... and we all know how that went! They really need to re-release these asap!

Rick

Exactly.... stop assuming everyone knows everything about TMNT all the time. I can imagine Cybercubed laughing at some kids for watching TMNT for the first time ever and calling Leo 'Michealaneglo'. He'd be saying 'TMNT is all over NICK and the toys are everywhere, you OBVIOUSLY heard about it, how can you NOT know the names of the characters and tell them apart?'

I do like the fact that Karai is Spinter's (as Yoshi) daughter that Shredder raised as his own. It's so... evil and twisted. I was happy Nick was going this route.
But I have noticed her origin bounce around. I'm confused in the IDW book, because it seems she is of blood relation to Shredder here but I think my mind wants her to be of Yoshi's blood.

While I agree it seems like a fitting story for Yoshi and Saki, I would've liked that they created a whole new character for it since Karai has an interesting storyline and background of her own. But it also seems like we'll all just have to get used to Karai as someone's daughter at this point.

Especially since the movie is apparently doing the same thing too with Karai being somehow related to Shredder.

Although given Shredder is a white man named Eric Sachs in that movie, they're probably going with the adopted daughter role again.

It weakens her as a character -- particularly a female character -- to have to chain her to Shredder in such a manner. Let her be her own thing, as was intended.

I noticed this too, and I must say I thought it was rather annoying. But then, I was more annoyed that Mike was portrayed as such an incompetent character in City at War. Interesting that Kevin wasn't involved much with City at War... I would have thought the gang wars were more his thing. They certainly didn't seem to be Laird's thing--the story was so freaking violent! I'm not used to Laird going down that road.

What? When?

How so? It seems to me that it gave the character a clear direction, motive, and conflict, in a way things like the tacked-on "she's a mother" revelation never did. Without those, Karai could be High Queen of the Northern Moon, and she still wouldn't be a strong character.

Granted, turning her into the Shredder's daughter was by no means the only way that this could have been done, and I await the version that can make her both the Shredder's superior and a kick-ass character, but the suggestion that that aspect of her original incarnation is the only thing to made her a worthwhile character is, I feel, problematic, and sets a gendered double standard for female characters to meet.

ETA: Which isn't to say that taking the only female character in a position of power and "demoting" her isn't problematic; however, I'd argue that the crux of the problem lies in the fact that there's only one female character in a position of power in the first place. Had that not been the case, then Karai's evolution would have been her own, rather than something representative of the various creators' views (conscious or unconscious) on gender.

I wouldn't say 4kids Karai had a clear direction, at all in the whole show. She was extremely flaky at best.

I disagree. Karai wanted two things: to obey her father and keep her oath to the turtles (in that order) to whatever degree possible. The Shredder's plan to leave Earth--leaving the Foot Clan under her command and herself free to do as she wanted--advanced both aims. When the turtles put a stop to her plan--even though, to her eyes, it benefits them and has no downside that she cares about--she turns against them, until a greater threat forces them to work together. When the Shredder returns, she attempts to restore him to power, only to turn on him when he realizes he aims to destroy everything. The only thing that really doesn't fit is her presence at the wedding, and she's by no means the only guilty party in that regard.

At least, that's the way I see her. I'll admit that execution of the story allows for various valid interpretations. Are her two wishes to some degree contradictory? Sure, which makes her no different from anyone needing to make a decision in their life ever. What's more, it does a lot to give her character something she very much needed in order to be relevant after "City at War": conflict. Mirage Karai is wholly disposable character after her original story, and arguably, an obstacle to be hand-waved away so that stories can actually take place (see: the Image run, Tristan Huw Jones' stories). Even her role in Volume 4 is a relatively minor one, with her actual effect on any given plot minimal. Why? Because she spends large swaths of the volume with no ambition other than keeping the Foot Clan running as normally as possible.

Turning Karai into Shredder's daughter, on the other hand, places her front and center in the story, as the turtles' opposite number, and arguably the show's central antagonist. TMNT--particularly in its cartoon incarnations--is a story about family, which means that in order for the villains to carry thematic weight, they have to be able to also say something about that theme. The original Shredder, created as he was on a whim, could not do that, which one of the reasons why the story doesn't need him, and his quick disposal is why Pimiko doesn't really work (besides all the other reasons she doesn't work). Mirage Karai could have had something to say, if her daughter were treated as anything more than a footnote. Both cartoon Karais, on the other hand, are vital to their respective series.

I can agree with that. Besides, if Kevin says that Karai is shredder's daughter, who am I to argue? :D

Yes, let's throw all logic out the window and say a 35-ish man can have a, if not adult, then a young adult granddaughter.

He was emotional and arguably always had those feeling about April. She is the one that wanted him to grow up. To me Gabrielle (as messed up as this is gonna sound) was only there to help Casey grow up. Without his experience with Gabrielle he would never have been able to be ina real relationship with April.
As fro Eastman thinking Karai was Saki's daughter, meh. It happens. I also find it kind of odd/ funny that the only other incarnations that showed Karai as Shred's equal or Superior were The videogames and the 2007 movie, which was terrible.