Is there going to be a twist with Mona Lisa?
 

At face value, the way Mona Lisa has been introduced seems deceptively boring. As of right now it just seems she'll be Jenny's buddy and little else. However, I doubt that (much like the mutant town) will remain as is, it just wouldn't be very exciting unless you want slice of life stories.

What I'm thinking personally is that she'll either end up using her education in some way to advance the plot or turn out to be a spy/traitor in the vein of Tara Markov. There's honestly not much to go by yet, not enough to suspect something like she's secretly a Salamandrian instead of a mutant, but there is enough to suspect what her basic role will be. Like for example, right now it's possible to suspect she intentionally tried to lure Raph into trap in exchange for food and regrets it because she got the wrong turtle. Not to say that's the most probable outcome, if there's a twist it might take years, just that it's a possibilty that would give her precense a little more conflict.

I'd love that, but it's still too early to tell. Hopefully there's more to her than what we saw. The fact that she seems more of a fighter than she let on might be telling, or it might be nothing. If Mona is only what was introduced to us in #101, then she's a bit of a Mary Sue, honestly.

This is all I expect from the character, personally. A nice nod to the cartoon, and if she sticks around, I'll probably find her annoying. But we shall see. :tgrin:

I doubt it. Your putting too much thought into it. I think this Mona Lisa is close to the original series. And it should stay that way. Also #101 did some world building. So we'll learn more about Mutant Town as the issues go on. She mentions about a Mutant Band. And there are many other possibilities they can do in the comics.

No, Mona Lisa is introduced as she is. A female friend who admires Raph and will befriend Jennika. Considering she's a college student and looks fairly young, I doubt there's any hidden aspects of her character.

More important is she going to be a major character or just kinda disappear after this arc?

If there are no hidden aspects, then there wouldn't be much point in keeping her around, would there?

The twist is that she's gay, and will become a love interest for one of the existing female characters. I'm hoping it's Jennika, cause I really don't want it to be Alopex. I'm pretty sure that's going to be her primary purpose. Sophie has explicitly stated that she wants to add gay characters, so I'm fairly certain Mona is mainly just a tool to 'out' a more important character.

Well in the IDW TMNT Universe. Raph has feelings for Alopex. So we don't how he'll react to meeting Mona Lisa. One thing we do know is that she's a fan. But only because he's going around Mutant Town being like a Superhero. So I see her as being more of a Fangirl. But you never know. All in all. I think she will be mostly active in the Homeless Shelter helping Alopex. She did say that she thought Alopex was cute. But not in a way where she finds her attractive. She is after all a cute Fox in my opinion. So I have to agree with that.

The funny thing is Tara was 15 when she was hired to be a mole in the second Titans group for Deathstroke. Not to mention being seduced, doing drugs, reckless disregard that makes her worse than Deathstroke.

More to the topic, I think you are overthinking it,Neatoman. Sure, there have been plotpoints that we could not foresee such as Krang's fate or Jenny mutating. Here I see her as a character who could turn the tide against Hob in the last issue of this arc as the Turtles reunite. A supporting character with occasional focus though Campbell's eight issues following, but not the next major character focus. We don't know much about her, but she is not a mole.

I kinda see her having to try and disarm a 2nd larger muagen bomb with Donatello giving instructions over the phone. whats funny is if she would have said her parents were from road island instead of Maryland I would have said 'my god its meg griffin!"

Not every character has a higher purpose.

Mona Lisa was just another one of the last few notable mutant ally characters in TMNT lore that hadn't been in IDW yet. They've been systematically going through the old character list and slowly having everyone debut in IDW at some point or another. There's really not that many old mutant characters to use now unless they delve into the more obscure toy or Archie comics characters, and we have a number of them already.

Technically not a twist, since that's pretty much how she comes across from the get-go.

Blasphemy! :o

Every character ought to have an impact on either the plot or other characters, they're either helping things along or causing problems. This is the core of story telling, conflict and resolution. If the character just hangs out and doesn't really do anything then they're pointless.

To be fair, we don't know yet what Mona Lisa's impact will be, for all we know she could save the universe from Ch'rell or get murdered in two issues to motivate Jenny. But (ideally) she will play some role in the narrative or development of other characters, even if it does end up being small.

You can't just have characters show for the sake of showing up, or because the writer has nostalgia for some toy. This why the Nick cartoon frustrated me so much, they just kept making episodes that either introduced characters that barely mattered or caused character development to go in circles, making for a story that just isn't even remotely good. The Nick cartoon is good for fan service, fight scenes and some OK humor but it's not that satisfying as a whole because it fails at writing character and plot development, the building blocks of good stories.

Has any IDW character EVER just disappeared? The series be cluttered, yo.

I recall Dreadmon appearing in one issue of the TMNT Universe Comic. and we haven't heard from him since. They should bring him into the main IDW TMNT comics.

I did forgot about him, fair point.

From what I remember there were a number of one-off characters:

- Wyrm only ever appeared in one Universe issue

- Wingnut/Screwloose after their initial cameo only appeared in 1 issue

- Antrax, Crying Hound, the Archie Stump characters, were only in 1 issue

- Dreadmon, as mentioned above


Probably a few others I'm forgetting too.

Then in that case (all good points), let me rephrase:

Has there ever been a character introduced in the ongoing who only appeared once? (And not, as you guys have correctly pointed out, in Universe or a mini-series.)

Besides one-off gangsters killed off, no. But that was under Tom Waltz writing, Sophie might do something different. Like, I don't think that Porcupine mutant and platypus guy are going to continue past maybe 2-3 issues....

Don't forget about Woody! Remember that guy? Good times. I especially like how he... uh... he...

hmm...