The turtle thing is a given, but the difference between the turtles/splinter and Old Hob is Hob lacks the memory of another life he only remember his life before he was mutated, the others all remember their past lives.

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S'truth. I don't think the turtles, Splinter and Shredder being reincarnations should be taken as meaning any other characters will be reincarnations. They seem to be special cases. Making Old Hob or other mutants reincarnations as well would cheapen the origin and the family's unique relationship with Shredder.

I do think there's something to him taking in Slash as a "stray" after his own status as one, though. Good catch. It's pretty obvious Hob cares about Slash--check out his concern for Slash, especially with not wanting to test Splinter's blood on him even though it's the easy and obvious route to getting his mutant army started, in #35.

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Along the same line, if Old Hob were a reincarnation of some sort, are we then going to expect Slash to be? And Alopex? Are Bebop and Rocksteady?

I think the turtles and Yoshi are a special case, reincarnated for a chance to stop Saki as a form of karma. Kitsune is a genuine mystical creature (y'know...a kitsune) and Shredder is in fact a normal human with nothing special about him other than the events that allied him with beyond-mortal beings which have now made him special in his own right.

The rest of the mutants are, really, just victims of the war Shredder is waging, unfortunate creatures caught up in the events and, now mutated, going about dealing with it in their own ways.

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Oroku Saki is Takeshi Tatsuo reincarnated.

It's possible that in this version of the Turtles' universe, everyone is reincarnated, similar to Buddhist beliefs. The Turtles and Splinter are unique though because they are aware of their previous lives (due to the influence of the mutagen/psychotropic serum).

Even if all the other characters are reincarnations, I don't think it would necessarily have much significance on the overall story

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It's also worth noting that Takeshi Tatsuo being reincarnated as the son of the man who killed him was no coincidence, though I can't remember if that was deliberately done by Kitsune or Takeshi himself or something else. It may turn out the ooze has mystical properties of sorts, if it could keep Saki's soul from leaving his body when he died and make him immortal, perhaps it played a role in bringing back the souls of Yoshi and his sons.

Side note: Soul traveling in the IDW universe has actually been spoken about before. During the Krang War arc, the Fugitoid stated that when bodies are broken down to particles and teleported across space, the soul somehow finds its host body even in another part of the galaxy. And of course the Fugitoid himself is a case of a person's soul being trapped in another body.

But yeah, I don't think we can assume all mutants, or even non-sentient animal mutants are reincarnations. My guess is that Tang Shen, the Rat King, or even Kitsune might have played a role in it as well, with varying, perhaps hard to understand motives.

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Hasn't been confirmed thus far, but you could read SHotFC as hinting that Kitsune had something to do with Takeshi's reincarnation as Saki. As soon as Takeshi dies Kitsune goes to Krang talking about her plans, then later on she's there to lead Saki by the nose like she knew all along that he was Takeshi reborn. She was either directly responsible for his reincarnation or at the very least had insight/input on the process.

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No clue how I totally forgot about Saki being reincarnated as well.

And that's true, I had noted in another thread that technically you could say that everyone is reincarnated, but I meant in terms of it being an important factor to the story. I don't think it's going to be something where all of them are reincarnated as some part of a bigger "cosmic plan" sort of thing.

I think most of them are just (bad) luck of the draw that pulled them into the events.

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Finally read this issue, and oh my glob, where has this book been all series? This take on the Rat King is by far my favorite of the IDW reimaginings. Love the look, love his attitude, love that he is an unprecedented two degrees removed from the Shredder or Krang, and that the connection is through Kitsune. I love that his inclusion feels essential, for once--it feels like the writers had something to say about him, rather than just including him because he's familiar. While there's still a bunch of the usual IDW series annoyances--scenes that don't involve the Rat King are limp and lifeless, for example--this is a major step up.

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I'm with you on this, but, rather than feeling relived the Rat King is any number of degrees removed (I don't think he truly is; Kitsune is a pretty direct connection to the series' main events), it feels like we're finally building toward a reason for the IDW universe being as myopic as it is, and that can be a perfectly fine payoff.

I think, like you and many others here, part of the appeal of the Turtles' narrative has always been happenstance and making the best of things, and that's an element that has been largely missing from IDW up to this point.

Now by hinting at Kitsune and the Rat King operating on a higher level, we have the possibility that all these events may yet come down to a rash decision somewhere along the line. We know Kitsune's doing her own thing, likely operating several levels above the Shredder, who seems to trust her implicitly. We know she was working with Krang before even meeting Shredder's first incarnation, for reasons yet undisclosed.

It's very possible now that the seeds of everything, from Shredder's plans, to the Turtles' reincarnation, to Krang's current efforts -- that all of it stems from whatever motivations were driving Kitsune and Krang at the beginning. This could very possibly be the reason behind the Turtles' entire lives, and it's likely going to come back to bite both of them in the ass.

It's been a slow and frustrating build to that point, but should that prove true, I think it's a perfectly acceptable substitute to the normal micro-level randomness of the Turtles' universe. If here we end up with a macro-level randomness instead (the unrelated motives of Kitsune and Krang spiraling into the events for the rest of the series), and if the writers choose to explore that in full, I think there's still plenty of emotional and thematic weight to be found there.

tl;dr, I agree and am excited for this series again for the first time in a while. I've even gone back and reread early chunks, and it really does hold up better with recent revelations. This might be a series that reads better the less serialized the experience is.

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And remember that Kitsune saved a dying Takeshi Tatsuo's life in Feudal Japan. Shredder is carrying Tatsuo's soul from the curse she placed on Oroku Magi's child for killing him.

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Oh, ****! I totally forget about that one. I always suspected Kitsune having something to do with Turtles reincernation, so maybe she foresaw the lab accident (since she also foresaw 'a city of light' aka. New York City), and did another 'curse' for Yoshi and his sons souls? Like to have a safeguard against Shredder in the future, when Saki done with taking over the world, and the time comes for her to replace him?

Another notable stuff about Kitsune in the Shredder micro when Saki ask him about his dreams... And the one in TiT#2 when Shredder ask her about the 'demons'. I'm pretty sure she is aware of all of those things, just lies/avoids answers.

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Does the Annual come right after this? Anyways, this was a good issue. Rat King was a bit confusing in terms of his origin, but I liked it.

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