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When it comes to the villains for their new line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards, Magic: The Gathering isn’t just playing the hits. Sure, there are plenty of cards featuring the Turtles’ main villain, Shredder. We also get recurring baddies like Krang, Karai, and Baxter Stockman, along with Bebop and Rocksteady. But publisher Wizards of the Coast didn’t stop there. Magic has fished deep into the rogues’ gallery of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hooked some truly obscure choices.
Magic’s TMNT set portrays a unique version of the Turtles, but draws inspiration and characters from 40 years’ worth of cartoons, comics, movies, and games. For Magic players who might be wondering who’s on the card they just pulled out of a pack, here’s a look at all the obscure villains that appear in the upcoming set, sorted by the era the character originally appeared in.
1984 Mirage Comics
Savanti Romero
Savanti Romero is the angry, time-traveling goat creature who first appeared in the original comic books by TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. He’s basically the main villain of the Turtles every time they end up on some time-traveling adventure.
1987 Cartoon Series/Classic Toy Line
Groundchuck & Dirtbag, Pizza Face, Lord Dregg, Tempestra
From the original cartoon series, Magic grabbed a lesser-known duo of mutants known as Groundchuck (a bull) and Dirtbag (a mole). They were only featured in one episode, but they had some very memorable toys in the original Playmates toyline.
Pizza Face, a grotesque human pizza-maker, also appeared in that toyline (but never on the show). To their credit, Wizards’s design team seems to have combined several versions of Pizza Face into one, with the original cartoon being the most prominent. Pizza Face also seems to be made of pizza here, much like he is in the 2012 cartoon. Magic even gives him a second head! According to recently-deceased toy sculptor David Arshawsky, the original toy was supposed to look like this, but that second head was cut (off) before the figure was produced as it was deemed too disgusting for kids.
Lord Dregg is another character that originated in the 1987 cartoon. This bug-like alien became the main villain after they retired the Shredder in season 8. If you don’t remember this guy, it’s okay, because he was terrible on that show. That said, the 2012 cartoon series reworked him into a better character, which is what his appearance here is based on.
Also from the original cartoon was Tempestra, a video game witch who came to life and fought Leonardo. For Magic, she’s been given more love than anyone would ever expect. That has a lot to do with her being a favorite of the set’s narrative design lead, Crystal Frasier. “The Commander decks don’t really have narratives on their own, but at least within the narrative team, the idea we were thinking as we worked on this whole thing is the Turtles go off to have a nice fun night at the local arcade after hours, and a lightning storm brings Tempestra to life,” Frasier said in a set preview attended by Polygon. “She’s a minor villain from the 1980s that I personally adore. One of the first things I demanded when I started leading this set is that we have to put Tempestra in it somewhere.” The idea ultimately became that Tempestra has created video game doppelgangers of a bunch of the Turtles’ allies and opponents. “This is the Turtles trying to contain that threat,” she said of the Commander deck.
1988 Archie Comics
Armaggon, Monsterex, Manmoth
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures was a comic book series that ran from 1988 until 1995 and began as a direct adaptation of the cartoon show. It eventually became its own thing with unique own stories and characters. One of the more memorable villains that originated in that comic was Armaggon, a shark mutant from the future who has since been adapted into several other incarnations, like the 2012 cartoon and the TMNT IDW comics.
Then there’s Monsterex, a combination of the classic monsters Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and Gill-man. He was created by Krang when he accidentally zapped a TV with his mutagen ray (which, even by the loose standards of the TMNT universe, is pretty silly). Manmoth is what happens when a caveman gets hit with some mutagen, though he was reimagined as a more godlike entity in the IDW comics, which is the version Magic is going with.
2003 Cartoon Series
Agent Bishop
Agent Bishop is basically the Agent Smith of the TMNT world. He first appeared in the 2003 animated series as a mutant-hating government agent who has played a similar role in most incarnations since. He’s one of the few villains outside of Shredder, Karai, Krang and Baxter Stockman who have been given big, sweeping stories.
2011 IDW Comics
Old Hob, Kitsune, Madame Null, Koya
In the long-running IDW comics series, which began in 2011 and remains ongoing, nearly every TMNT villain from the past was updated and upgraded. There are also plenty of original characters in there, too. The very best of their original creations is Old Hob, a morally ambiguous mutant cat who stole Raphael when he was a baby and eventually goes on to lead a team of mutants known as the Mutanimals.
Kitsune is another IDW original. She’s a powerful witch who is in love with Shredder and has kept him alive for hundreds of years.
Madame Null is an evil demon businesswoman whose corporation, the Null Group, is an interdimensional conglomerate. A similar character, Mr. Null, appeared in the Archie comics but was adapted into a female character for IDW.
Koya is a mutant Falcon that began as Shredder’s pet falcon. She is usually paired with Bludgeon, a mutant shark who, as of yet, does not have a card (perhaps because there are already two sharks in the deck with Armaggon and a half shark clone of Shredder).
2012 Cartoon Series
Snakeweed, Humongous Fungus, Squirrelanoids, Dream Beavers
The 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon was the first TV series made by Nickelodeon after Paramount bought the rights to TMNT in 2009. Similar to the IDW series, it reimagined many villains and created some new ones. Snakeweed, a guy who was mutated with a plant, was one of the first original villains featured on the show.
Humongous Fungus is a giant mutant mushroom that causes the TMNT to hallucinate in a really trippy episode of the 2012 toon. The Squirrelanoids are Xenomorph-like mutant squirrels that mostly terrorize Michelangelo.
Finally, there are the Dream Beavers. These little guys were based on earlier characters named the “Terror Bears” in a 1985 TMNT role-playing game, but became beavers in the 2012 series. They invade the dreams of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and force them to imagine horrifying things, kind of like Freddy Krueger, though nothing quite as terrifying as Magic’s two-headed take on Pizza Face.
