WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #125, available soon from IDW.
Throughout its run, IDW Publishing’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has never been afraid to challenge the status quo that many long-time fans of the franchise have grown accustomed to. Although the series has always stayed true to the core defining elements of the TMNT, it’s also reimagined them in new and interesting ways, putting a unique spin on familiar characters and storylines while also introducing entirely new ones that have quickly become fan-favorites.
In keeping with this tradition, previews for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #127 (by Sophie Campbell, Pablo Tunica, Ronda Pattison, Shawn Lee) have revealed that the franchise’s first female turtle, Venus de Milo, will return almost twenty-four years after her initial debut in the infamous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation television series. Although the character has proven to be one of the most controversial in the entire franchise among fans and the Turtle’s creators, the IDW series could give the much-maligned turtle a fresh start.
Venus de Milo, or Venus for short, was first introduced in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, which aired on Fox Kids on September 12th, 1997. Named after the famous statue of the same name, the series established Venus as the long-lost fifth ninja turtle, who’d been separated from Master Splinter and the other turtles shortly after they were all exposed to the mutagen that transformed them into humanoid mutants. Left alone, Venus wandered the dangerous streets of Chinatown until she was found and taken in by a shinobi mystic named Chung I, who raised her as his daughter and trained her in the mystical arts. Before passing away, Chung I told Venus the truth about her origins and encouraged her to find the rest of her family, with Venus finding the other turtles in time to help them defeat the Shredder and restore the stolen spirit of Splinter to his comatose body.
Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a female ninja turtle, Venus quickly became one of the most unpopular characters in the entire franchise. The main reason why Venus ended up becoming such a hated character for so many fans was the major changes her introduction made to the turtles’ dynamic as both a family and as a team. Early in its run, The Next Mutation established that the four original turtles weren’t biologically related to one another, a deliberate choice made by the show’s writers to introduce romantic tension between Venus and the other turtles. Not only was this revelation a major deviation from previous TMNT media, but it also created a complicated love pentagon that didn’t resonate with the target audience. Combined with a clumsy and naive demeanor that failed to endear Venus to fans, it seemed like the character was destined to flop.
Following the unceremonious cancellation of The Next Mutation in 1998, Venus was essentially retconned out of the franchise, with any references to her being completely removed from official material like websites and toy lines. The animosity that many fans felt towards Venus was also shared by members of the creative team behind the TMNT franchise, including Peter Laird, the writer of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic. Gary Carlson, the writer of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles volume that ran in Image Comics, even admitted during an interview that one of the few rules he had to agree to before he was allowed to write the series was that he wasn’t allowed to include a female ninja turtle.
However, the unofficial “no girl turtle” rule would eventually be broken over twenty years after Venus’s debut with the IDW series’ introduction of Jennika, a member of the Foot Clan who became the fifth ninja turtle following a life-saving blood transfusion from Leonardo. Jennika quickly became a popular character with TMNT fans, becoming a fully-fledged member of the Hamato clan and eventually gaining a spin-off series that follows her attempts to protect the citizens of Mutant-Town from the tyrannical Mutanimals and other threats. With Jennika’s popularity proving that a female ninja turtle can work, now may be the perfect time for Venus to make her return.
Based on the promotional images released for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #127, many of Venus’s trademark elements appear to be intact, including her ability to use wield powerful orbs of mystical energy and a notably “patchwork” look that may be an allusion to the infamously low quality of The Next Mutants costume design. Although these elements made her the subject of ridicule twenty years ago, the IDW series has breathed new life into many of the TMNT’s more bizarre characters in the past, and the series could easily do the same for Venus. The Hamato Clan has already taken in many new members throughout the series, and Venus could be a fun new addition to the family.
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