TMNT: Mutant Mayhem's Biggest Villain Was Hiding in Plain Sight

Warning! This piece contains spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem has arrived and it's filled with radical mutant action, deep-cut characters, and kick-ass animated action. The gorgeously rendered new take on the chilled-out heroes created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird does a great job at synthesizing all the best parts of decades of Turtles lore and legend, including teasing a classic TMNT villain who will likely be headed to our screens in the already announced sequel and two tie-in tv series. And no, we're not talking about that sick Shredder mid-credits scene!

Mutant Mayhem brings a new, truly teenage iteration of the Turtles to life, and viewers follow them as they face down against Superfly (Ice Cube) and his mutant band of animals including quirky '90s TMNT characters like Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd), Genghis Frog (Hannibal Buress), and Man-Ray A.K.A. Rey Fillet (Post Malone).

And though it may appear that the giant-sized fly and his crew are the movie's antagonists, there's a nefarious puppet master working behind the scenes in the guise of Maya Rudolph's Cynthia Utrom. We see just how powerful she is when the evil scientist brings to life Splinter's (Jackie Chan) biggest fear: capturing Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey) and Raphael (Brandy Noon) and attempting to milk them. But while that gag coming to fruition may seem like her biggest impact, if we look at the comics — and toys and cartoons — that Mutant Mayhem is based on, Cynthia promises that something much bigger, scarier, and pinker is coming to New York City.

Throughout the film Cynthia Utrom runs a company known as TCRI. Her surname and the corporation she represents will immediately make TMNT fans think of one thing: the pulsing, fleshy, brain-shaped villain known as Krang! What's the connection? Well, it all begins with the 1984 self-published Mirage Comics that sparked the TMNT craze. It was there that readers were first introduced to the Utroms, an alien race of creatures who look like human brains with strange tentacle legs. They lived among humans without being noticed thanks to the humanoid robots which carried them around.

And in case you think that Cynthia's surname might just be a nod to the comic book’s past, the organization that the Utroms created in order to live and survive on Earth was known as the Techno-Cosmic Research Institute, a.k.a. TCRI! How does that connect to the classic cartoon villain known as Krang? Well, we need to get into the fun global-franchise-creating history of the Turtles to answer that particular query.

Three years after the first TMNT comic debuted, Eastman and Laird licensed their creations to the toy company Playmates. That was the deal that made the Turtles a global phenomenon with a beloved animated series — that would run for almost 10 years — which was made to promote the toyline.

It was here that Krang was created by David Wise, who took inspiration from the aesthetic and lore of the Utroms and streamlined it into the singular alien who would become one of the TMNT's most famous villains. In 1988 Krang would join TMNT comics lore in the Archie Comics series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, but wouldn't join the ranks of the Utroms until the 2012 IDW series, bringing his journey full circle as one of the most powerful members of the aliens who inspired his Playmates' creation.

So all of that is to say that now Krang is canonically an Utrom. And the Utroms are clearly major players in Mutant Mayhem, so he'll likely be arriving soon.

Mutant Mayhem ends with the Turtles settling into everyday life as the heroes of New York, living alongside their newfound family of mutants and human friends like April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri). While Cynthia has called in the Shredder for backup in that mid-credits scene, she's hardly powerless... because it's almost certain that Cynthia Utrom — a character who didn't exist prior to Mutant Mayhem — is actually Krang in his human suit! Aside from all the connections we've already mentioned, there are aesthetic clues too. If we look back at Krang's classic yellow and silver robot body from the '80s cartoon, it's clear that Cynthia's business suit is modeled on that design. She even shares glasses which are similar to his old robot form! So Krang is seemingly already here.

But what do the Utroms want with the Ooze that made the Turtles the anthropomorphic ninjutsu heroes that they are? In the comics the Utroms were actually the ones who created the Ooze, whereas in Mutant Mayhem it was made by Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito). Or at least we're led to believe it was. There's a chance that he was working with Cynthia Utrom or at her behest to create the Ooze for the Utroms' purposes. It's likely that if the Utroms want the Ooze, it's so they can mutate themselves into full-size aliens rather than just alien-brain-like creatures.

While we'll have to wait and see how the Utroms and Krang come into play, this is a great example of how brilliantly Mutant Mayhem melds the different eras of Turtles to create a love letter to the heroes in a half-shell and the stories that have shaped them.

Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.