How would you bring in the 5th female turtle.
 

Some people don't like Venus. Some don't like Jennika. Sometime it's the character, sometimes it's just a case of "Don't fix what isn't broken."

How would you bring in a fifth female turtle?

Honestly borrowing slightly from the paramount films, I would have the fifth female turtle be the owner of the the turtles before they were mutated. Could be a miwa-esque character that's the daughter of Yoshi or something.

If I was so inclined, I'd honestly follow the NT:TNM route. Another turtle in the bowl, whisked away somehow. But everything after that would be different. That keeps the "she's our sister" thing as irrefutable.

But in the grand scheme of something, say Mirage, that would be some stuff that gets revealed at like... issue #200. Of the core series, if there was one. Like, she's been living a whole other life with whole other mentors and other experiences. Which, yeah, is like Venus, but those would be very different mentors and very different experiences.

I would not make a female turtle "the 5th turtle".

Rather, have her be like Slash who is a recurring character but not a part of the four turtles themselves.

Alternatively, I think that mutating one of the main female characters into a turtle for a temporary period might not be such a bad idea.

Like that's what I thought (for a second) that Karai would become in the Nickelodeon series when she was mutated.

I wouldn't. I think Slash is enough.

I really don't like either Jennika or Venus, and I find the idea of adding another turtle to the group as lazy and contrived. If had to add another mutant to the group, I'd probably just stick to Alopex or Leatherhead.

My view as I have mentioned before is the same as a few others here, it's a 'dont fix what isn't broken' for me, I like something in all of them (though we all still have our favourites) and don't feel that there MUST to be a change.
That being said, experiemtning in a version is not the same as a permanent change to the established 4, nor would an aditional turtle like Slash who isnt one the group but a recurring character be.
If it were happening, as the 4 are already established I would prefer the new them introduced rather than just there from the start like it always was the case.

Still an idea I had a while back... An older (adult) one mutated by their foes to be an enemy of the Turtles, so a spin-off of Slash if you will, but she's smart and comes to realize that the situation she's in is bad news and manages to get herself out of there. Ends up allied with the Turtles, but relocates somewhere outside of town. Still comes to give them a hand on occasion though when they need it. (That way she can be around sometimes, but not so much that she hogs the spotlight from them.) Might attempt to play the big sister role on occasion when need be, but her background didn't really give her much of a foundation on being good at "family" stuff.

No magic. Maybe skip the mask thing. No real reason for it and gives her something to tease the boys about, good naturedly, of course. Probably would also make her at least a little bigger than them as she's an adult and possibly a different species.

edit: Though I also think it would be fun to make a female turtle like that...but don't humanizer her as much. Make her more similar to Leatherhead with more of the animal still left in her both physically and mentally. Give the boys something to keep them on their toes that she's still got a bit of a primal side left left in her that they lack. Might also give them something to reflect on about their own inner humanity and who they are as people.



At the very least Jennika did the older, more independent part.

Maybe introduce a mutant turtle that happens to be female into the Foot Clan. This won't be Karai as Karai would still be her own character, but the female turtle could have been given as a pet for Karai.

This mutant turtle wouldn't be related to the turtles in any way since I found the "long lost sister" angle with Venus stupid. It's more like Karai notices the Turtles are mutants early on and then gets her hands on some mutagen to mutate her pet turtle so she could be trained into a fierce warrior who could infiltrate and take out the turtles in their lair.

Now that is a terrific idea of a foot clan female mutant turtle who can one of Shredder's soldiers of mutants.

If it were Mirage, maybe the Mer-people adopted her and raised her as one of them.

Good idea there too.

I've never had any problem with there being a fifth female turtle. I just don't want her to be a part of the main cast. I would prefer she be featured sparingly, as a guest character.

Female Turtle is just an all around bad idea. It's Yoko Ono, period.

I had originally mentioned her being on the enemy team to start in my original response (before editing), though I do like that there are 2 issues, one is that it's kind of an obvious thing to do, though that still wouldn't put me off. The 2nd issue is if she is going to be starting out in the foot and then eventually be a 'good guy', I like Karai doing that, or at least to the level of in 2k3 being able to true/work with them when needed. The likelihood of them making 2 foot members bad but good.. depends to what extent Karai can cooperate I guess … doesn't need to be the same kind of alliance.

Honest truth, I'd love to put a gun to my head and say, "I'd never, ever create a 5th, female Turtle." Because that seems right. But I don't know that I'd be able to keep that vow. Not if things were carried over a vast amount of time.

It just struck me that the title of this thread is somewhat awkwardly worded. "5th female turtle" implies there are four previous female turtles.

One of the things I like about the Turtles is that they're an anomaly in a seemingly ordinary world. It's interesting to see them becoming friends and allies with humans to navigate this lonely world and find their belonging. That scene from the 1990 movie where Raph is overlooking the city from the rooftop of April's apartment symbolizes that perfectly. Having an abundance of ooze to go around and create more mutants diminishes that element of the story.



However, if we're going to have more Turtles, there could be a one-off story where the Turtles go to another planet or dimension with humanoid turtles just like them, kind of like "Planet of the Turtleoids." I think that would be pretty cool.

Though on that alien angle, I still kind of want PD's alien turtle concepts to be used as villains. Evil aliens that the cutie Earth Turtles save their planet from. Maybe at first almost feeling some connection with these other beings, having lived feeling a little alien thslemves, but by the end of it end of feeling far more connected to their own world and the rest of the people here.

And if we gave the aliens divided genders then throw some presumably female ones in there of course. One as a primary alien villain would be cool.

With a turtle being in the Foot Clan, particularly if she is female. It falls into the trap of having one of the main turtles such as Raph or Leo getting feelings for her and wanting to save her from her life.

It is possible for the Turtles to understand that she would be a plague upon there family since the skills of a Kunoichi does involve seduction and deceit. So even if they save her from her life, they can't trust her because the moment they have their guard down she could end up stabbing them in the back.

Take that moment in the 2012 series, when Splinter informs his sons that Karai is his missing daughter Miwa.

Leo already knows as he was the one who suggested Splinter should tell the others.

Mikey is aww that they have a sister now.

Both Raph and Donnie are skeptical, not because they don't believe the fact she is Miwa. But more along the lines of "Okay she is Splinter's daughter, but she has been raised and trained by the Shredder so for that reason alone we can't trust her."

Then later when Karai convinces April and Leo that she has begun to accept that the Shredder may have been lying to her. Leo's like "Great, let's get you to the lair."

And we see Donnie noticeably wince as if saying "Leo, I don't have a good feeling about that." But then he voices how he knows Raph would react to it.

It's only later when Karai reveals to everyone that she is leading Tiger Claw to their location that Donnie gets an expression that just screams "I should have suspected this would happen"

There kind of was. Venus, April (in the Archies), the fake Lurch female Turtle in Vol. 3, and now Jennika. If there was another new female Turtle it would be the 5th. :)