Krang before he turned into a brain?
 

Hey this thread might have been started before. Does anyone know what Krang looked like? I read many sources he was a war criminal on Earth and his body was removed and then he was reduced to a brain. I think that's how the story goes. I wondered what he looked like with his original body. Anyone know?

There's a Season 7 episode, "Invasion of the Krangezoids" that show what Krang's body looked like.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130709010145

That's one weird episode.

Or...you can go by the episode 4 Muskaturtles:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13...o/PDVD_079.jpg

Perhaps some of Krang's race evolve into those Krangezoids and others do not.

Did they ever name Krang's race in the OT? They sure weren't called "The Kraang" or "Utroms" that's for sure.

How weird is it that episode is the one that dared to try and delve into Krang's backstory?

They were called Ganglions. Shredder still called Krang that even though he was disembodied to being a brain.

No, that was an insult, not a species.

Okay, I'll bite - what was Krang? Besides a brain?

hmm
 

isn't there a black and white sketch of krang and his body? it was proposed as a toy. But yeah that's supposed to be his actual body if someone can dig the image up.

http://www.bogleech.com/tmnt/tmnt-krangbody.jpg

Dan Berger & Steve Murphy did it. It was designed for a toy by the Mirage guys but it was 3 years after the show had debuted & I'd guess nobody at Fred Wolf ever saw it. Not sure if it even made it's way to Playmates or if they rejected it.

I had this gut feeling that a sketch showing Krang's actual body. That is beyond amazing!

I wonder why Murphy never used that concept in the Archie series at least.

Actually if you watch the show it is never outright told that Krang had a real biological body, it's only implied. It is only ever mentioned that Krang's body was taken away so he needs Shredder to make him a new one, which he does, a robotic body. Which begs the question if Krang ever had a real biological body. Once he gets his android body he never mentions his body again. Heck in hindsight it makes more sense that the body Krang got taken away was a robotic body.

As already posted in the 4 muskaturtles we see other "brains" of the Krang species. Now
the episode of the Krangezoid is a similar situation to the pilot, it is implied that Krang's body looked like that but also never told that it is, it could very well be that the body Krang grew there was just a body and not his real biological body since it's left somewhat open to interpretation; I don't remember the episode very well but I think it also explained another thing that wasn't consistent in the episode. This theory explains inconsistancies.


I like this theory but I also like Krang's species being brain like beings like shown in the 4 muskaturtles episode since we could call that species the "utroms" of the OT even if never mentioned by name like that.

The true answer: they were making it up as they went along and you all are putting way more thought into it than TPTB ever did.

You mean like almost any fictional universe ever?

I think there is some grotesque fitting end to Krang being an exiled warlord, that not only was he banished from his home world but also stripped from his body, and not just taken out of a pilot suit. It fits a lot when he exclaim that a brain is all he have, since if he always been like that, then that exclamation seems a bit out of place.

The Krangezoids develoed on their own and became more advanced than Krang. So Krang probably had just bouble-walker and large robot-body while in Dimension X. When banished to Earth, Krang probably got his bouble-walker with inside the Technodrome (and those wheels for early season 1) before building the new robot-body.

Let's just pretend Krang was an utrom and those clones were just freaks.

Hmmm, shades of the blue babboon bodies from 2012?

"Where's its head?!"
"We lost it, it's under the sofa somewhere..."

Your comment reminded me of this clip. It gets good @ 1:09. 0r @ 1:45. Your preference.

Was Krang ever, strictly stated, declared as being just a brain at all? I see him more as a brain-like creature.

He is indeed stated to be a disembodied brain, they keep calling him a brain and it's established early on that he lost his body, although there are some episodes where it seems he's simply a brain-like creature. You could either chalk that up to the horrible writing of the show or you could go the apologist route and say he always looked like that, the body he lost was just another android.

Regardless, from the 4Kids series onwards he's been depicted as an Utrom. What his exact origin is in the Fred Wolf cartoon is unimportant going forward, because most likely he'll be depicted as Utrom for most (if not all) future projects.

FW is also a show that changes about Shredder's real name, seeing sometimes they correctly use Oroku as his last/family name and sometimes they use Saki as his last name. So things aren't consistent.

Yeah I know. The same type of technology can be treated as a new scientific breakthrough over and over again, Splinter feared that a sword that can't be used by evil hands would fall into evil hands, Bebop and Rocksteady seem to alternate between former humans and former animals, Atlantis changing appearance and don't get me started on the mask coloring!

Supposedly many of these contradictions came from a lack communication between the writers. Another cause may be Wise's infamous script recycling, recycling scripts that much is bound to cause some problems with the scripts themselves...

Bebop/Rocksteady never said they were former animals, just that the zoo in that episode was where "they were from" meaning the animals.

I saw a lot of these references more as a reference to his intellect (like he's the brain behind that).

'Man's empire had passed away, taken swiftly and without error by these creatures who were composed entirely of brain. Unhampered by the complex systems which make up man, they made and used different bodies according to their needs.'

The idea of an alien invader being nothing but an autonomous brain is one of the oldest traditions of the science fiction genre. The above quote is in fact lifted from the very first alien invasion story ever written; H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.
I like to think that the original 'toon simply played Krang as a tribute to that tradition.

Shredder: "What we gonna do tonight, brain?"
Krang: "The same thing we do every night, Shreddie... try to take over the world!"

Well they aren't just references, it is meant to be taken literally.

I liked that the the Utroms turning out to be good guys better than Krang just being evil like every other brain alien.

Awesome, and I think Pinky and the Brain actually got closer to taking over the world honestly.

I'm gonna guess he was Mr. Yuk. http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A..._DHqfPDuzjW0vY

It's never stated he had a real biological body, it's only ever implied. The fact that it's never outright told is enough to warrant the debate, all the dialog can work either way if you really analyze it. We don't know if it was meant to be taken literally, there are just as many references of shredder being a tin head, but is that one meant to be taken literally?

Fiction and shows are full of retcons and they are written as they go and the OT wasn't a show that got too much focus on continuity, the writers wrote each episode as they viewed the universe in their eyes but outside the show bible many things are open to interpretation. It's also a weak argument to say "the writers made mistakes" to explain away things that don't fit your point of view. That's why forums on the internet exist, to explain inconsistencies or have crazy theories and have fun. Most of the stuff fans deduce or things they argue were never thought of by the writers and yet they're considered canon, or fanon or whatever, hell many times the writers like the ideas so much they even incorporate them to the real universe canonizing it.

RELEVANT UPDATE:
NerdSync gets the Mirage No-Prize for putting BOTH Krang's Body episodes in context:

In my opinion, Krang started out as the brain creature shown in "Four Musketurtles" before growing a body over his lifespan just like the clones in "Invasion of the Krangzoids.", until he was stripped of it by subprime and banished to 2D Earth.

That would explain how General Traag recognized him even as a brain, since Krang took time to grow into the lizard body and wasn't always that way from the beginning, just like the clones. Even if Traag never saw him in his brain form before Krang grew the body, Krang's voice and face, which is identical to the face of the lizard creature, would've been enough for Traag to recognize him.

Also on a side note, I don't see Krang as a first cousin to Subprime, but as a cousin on a species level to all of the Kraang race as a whole, much like how humans and chimpanzees are cousins in the evolutionary tree model.

Does this topic even really matter anymore? In addition to the show itself not really being clear one wheter or not he was something else before, most modern material just makes him an Utrom.

Maybe Krang used mutagen for that. It doesn't say he ever got a lizard-body. Just look at the Shredder clones in other TMNT versions having four arms. Shredder himself never get that.

Can't fault fans for wanting to figure it out. ;)

Um, yeah. That's the Nick series. Not the original cartoon.

I consider both shows to be canon to each other. :)

I agree with this 100 % It would also keep Krang as a cousin species to the Kraang appearance wise, secretly using some of Kraang Primes mutagen behind his back, making himself a muscular lizard creature before using it to create himself an army of rock soldiers. This kind of power hungry behaviour on Krang's part would likely cause his cousins to banish him for betraying them, stripping him of his powerful and deadly body in the process to weaken and humiliate him.