Publication date: August 21, 2013
Written by: Erik Burnham
Art by: Cory Smith
Colors by: Ian Herring
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Summary:
At the Foot Clan’s training dojo in Westchester, Karai
seeks the elderly instructor Toshiro for council. Having been demoted from her position as the
Foot’s second in command, she is unsure of her own future and is concerned
about where her grandfather, the Shredder, is taking the Clan. Toshiro suggests that to find her path for
the future, Karai should look to the past.
The Past. Under
the guidance of her father, Oroku Yori, the Foot Clan has become a more modern
criminal organization, more concerned with intimidation through lawyers than
the old ways. Even as a little girl,
Karai is disgusted by her father’s complacency (and his habit of being bossed
around by his lackey, Nakamura). One
day, while looking through her father’s vast library, she discovers “The Secret
of the Foot”, an ancient text describing the Clan’s history and secret ninjutsu
arts. Karai spends the rest of her
formative years studying the book in private while maintaining the façade of
the perfect daughter for her parents.
One night, Karai has a dream. She is approached by the spirit of Oroku Saki
(who instructs her to address him as grandfather). Karai believes him to just be a part of her
dream and nothing more, but Saki slashes her across the hand and the pain
proves that he is a true spirit. Saki
entices her to embrace the old ways of the Foot Clan by overthrowing her father
and using the instructions in “The Secret of the Foot” to restore him to
life. Karai agrees to bring Saki back,
but only after she has restored the honor of the Foot Clan on her own. Karai awakens from her dream and finds scars
from Saki’s attack on her hand, proving that she didn’t imagine the whole
thing.
Karai spends the next few years gathering thugs and
lackeys to train in the ninja arts. She
begins secretly hitting all of her father’s operations, crippling his incarnation
of the Foot. She then kills Nakamura as
payback for his years of disrespect.
Eventually, the stress of trying to run his failed criminal empire gets
the best of Yori and he dies. Karai then
swoops in and takes command of the Foot, reshaping it back into the ninja clan
it once was.
The present. Karai’s
council with Toshiro is interrupted by Dark Leo. Leo is unimpressed with Toshiro’s
productivity, as the Shredder requires more bodies to throw at his
enemies. Karai defends Toshiro, but her
disrespectful tone offends Leo, who reminds her of her place: Beneath him. He brow beats Karai, who uses all her
restraint not to attack him. Seeing her
resentment, Leo offers her the opportunity to fight him and prove that she’s
better. Karai eagerly accepts his offer
and the two do battle. As they fight,
Karai senses something different about Leo; that he’s holding back his killer
instinct. He has many opportunities to
kill her, but passes them all. She sees
this weakness and, thinking ahead, elects to throw the fight. Karai accepts her place beneath Leo and the
Turtle walks out, believing he has made his point. Karai tells Toshiro that she now sees what
she must do to take control of her future.
Two days later, at the Shorai Research and Development
facility, Karai gathers a gang of thugs who are eager to gain power. She tells them that in order to gain that
power, they must prove their worth. One
thug (with purple sunglasses and a Mohawk) asks what they have to do to pass
her test. She strikes him and says that
the power will belong to the last one standing.
Turtle Tips:
*This issue takes place between TMNT Villains Micro-Series #4: Alopex and TMNT (IDW) #25.
*Karai was shown (in a flashback) resurrecting Oroku Saki
with the “Secret of the Foot” in Secret History of the Foot Clan #4.
*The two thugs seen amongst Karai’s congregation at the
end (Bebop and Rocksteady) last appeared in TMNT Villains Micro-Series #4: Alopex.
*This issue was originally published with 2 variant
covers: Regular Cover by Tyler Walpole, Cover RI by Smith.
Review:
Karai, Karai, Karai.
Now there’s a character who has undergone quite an evolution since her
debut back in 1992.
When Mirage introduced her, she was an equal to the
Shredder in terms of rank and his replacement as leader of the Foot. She shared no connection with Oroku Saki
beyond that and was a fairly sympathetic character; not really a villain (she
fought alongside the Turtles more than she fought against them). The 4Kids cartoon introduced her most notable
claim to fame, sort of fusing her with Pimiko of the Image TMNT series, turning
her into the Shredder’s (adopted) daughter.
This aspect of her character would stick and become so well known, most
folks incorrectly cite it as part of her Mirage history. Her sympathetic qualities would remain and
she’d undergo quite an arc across the 4Kids cartoon. Likewise, the recent Nickelodeon cartoon has
been doing wonders with her parentage and friend/foe relationship, but
considering how recent the season one finale was to the writing of this review,
I won’t elaborate at the risk of spoiling a great twist. I will say that the Nickelodeon Karai is
quickly becoming my favorite incarnation of the character, stupid hairdo and
all.
Then there’s IDW Karai.
While the familial relationship to Oroku Saki remains, any traces of her
sympathetic attitude toward the Turtles have been absent. Even the “granddaughter” aspect has been
superficial at best, as she’s shown nothing but resentment toward Saki rather
than devotion (he had nothing to do with raising her, in this version). So with her two most familiar qualities
removed by IDW’s writers, this incarnation of Karai is also only superficial:
Karai by name, but lacking any of her fundamentals.
And yet, as I pointed out in the beginning of this
refresher course, Karai has always been a rather malleable character, prone to
being transformed at the whims of the authors.
Still, without any fundamental Karai-isms to latch onto, this version of
the character has rung rather hollow these past couple years. Just a lot of arm-folding and pouting every
time Shredder tells her to button her lip.
Burnham endeavors to flesh IDW’s vision of Karai out with
this long overdue origin story which ties into his Secret History of the Foot
Clan miniseries rather well. We learn
about Karai’s childhood, how Oroku Saki manipulated her into bringing him back
from the dead and how she wrested control of the Foot Clan from her incompetent
father. It’s a very informative story
and, character-wise, you can appreciate Karai’s perpetual frustration and
resentment throughout past issues just a little bit more. Shredder encouraged her to bring him back by feeding
on her love of the past, but then proceeded to demote and demean her for not
looking to the future. In the end, she
learns a valuable lesson about balancing tradition with ambition (and also that
Dark Leo’s a prick) and important story arcs are moved forward.
And yet, Karai doesn’t feel like a richer character for
any of it. At best, she’s just another
Starscream; a bitter second-in-command determined to seize leadership at any
cost. Her motivations (vengeance against
Shredder for manipulating her) feel especially redundant on the heels of the
Alopex microseries, which ended on almost precisely the same note. If anything, all these micros and the main
series seem to be accomplishing is diminishing the Shredder’s position as a
competent villain. I mean, just look at
how he’s setting himself up! He’s put
all his faith in a brainwashed nemesis to lead him to glory, whilst
simultaneously alienating his two trusted henchwomen to the point where they
BOTH want to kill him.
Fred Wolf Shredder would be embarrassed.
Getting back to Karai, even though she’s a character who
is always evolving, I think it’s important to maintain past elements into each
incarnation. Discarding her devotion to
the Shredder and sympathy for the Turtles insures we won’t be sitting through another
retelling of Karai’s crisis of conscience, but it also eliminates the only
qualities to her character that were ever any interesting. Take it all away and we’re left with just
another scheming female ninja second-in-command out to overthrow the Shredder…
and dammit, we’ve already got one of those!
On the subject of the art, Cory Smith turns in some
lovely pages. I may not be kind in my
appraisal of IDW Karai’s character, but her design is my favorite and Smith has
given one of her best renderings so far.
At times I felt her features were a little too sharp for the youthfulness
the script was trying to get across (she looks a bit older than I think she was
meant to be), but beyond that I’ve few complaints. The action layouts were well done during the
fight with Dark Leo, though I think the centerpiece to this issue was the page
in which Karai assassinates Nakamura with her bow and arrow. Herring’s colors complement Smith’s lines
nicely. I particularly liked the softer
pallet of the 3-page dream sequence. It
looked fuzzy and washed out, but only subtly so. It’s nice when a colorist doesn’t overdo it.
Karai’s microseries left me feeling rather empty. As an epilogue to The Secret History of the
Foot Clan, it was certainly enlightening; straightening out the timeline of the
Foot Clan’s resurgence and filling in any leftover narrative blanks. But regarding the intended purpose, to give
Karai some extra character, I felt it did just the opposite, robbing her of the
elements which have made her stand out these past ten years.
Grade: C- (as in, “Could the graffiti on page 5, ‘Mutanimals
Live’, be a sign of things to come? Now
THAT’S got me interested”.)
