Foot Clan

The Foot Clan is a fictional Ninjutsu clan in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe, and the Turtles' main antagonists. It is usually led by The Shredder.

The Foot Clan was originally inspired by the criminal ninja clan The Hand in the Daredevil comics. In addition to the obvious similarity in their names, both clans originate from Feudal Japan, practice Ninjutsu and black magic, and are now powerful global organized crime rings.

Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

In the universe of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Foot Clan was founded in feudal Japan by two men named Sato and Oshi. In Volume 1 Issue 47, the Turtles and Time Mistress Renet travelled to a time prior to the Foot's creation. There, Raphael met Sato and Oshi, and, not realising who they are, he taught them about Ninjutsu. After the Turtles returned to the present, Sato and Oshi decided to follow the ways of the ninja. Oshi declared: "We must never again mention the strange shelled creatures. In time, others will join us and we will become a force to be reckoned with. So just as every journey begins with a single step... we shall call ourselves The Foot."

The Foot Clan are the most feared clan of warriors and assassins in Japan. Both Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki were members, until one day, they fought over the love of Tang Shen and Yoshi killed Nagi. Dishonored, Yoshi was exiled to New York City, while Nagi's younger brother Oroku Saki was adopted by the Clan and was trained to become a fierce ninja. When he was ready, Saki was sent to New York to start the American branch of the Clan. Under his leadership, it took only a year for it to become a powerful and fearsome group.

But Saki also sought vengeance for his brother and, using the personae of The Shredder, he assassinated Yoshi. Over a decade later, the Ninja Turtles challenged Shredder to a rooftop duel to avenge Yoshi. Shredder sent his Foot Ninjas to fight the Turtles, but they were no match for the Turtles and were eventually defeated. Shredder then fought the Turtles himself, and although he was a more skilled ninja than them, he was killed when he fell off a building carrying a bomb.

After Shredder's death, the American Foot fell apart, and the Foot Soldiers began fighting against Shredder's elite. Karai, a Clan leader from Japan, came here to stop the clan war. She enlisted the Turtles' help in this, in exchange for promising that no Foot shall ever try to avenge the Shredder again. This truce is still in effect in Volume 4 of the comic.

In Volume 4 the Foot were given a security contract by the Utroms for their base because the Utroms have a no weapons policy and the Foot are skilled at hand to hand combat. At some point mysterious Aztec warriors started to attack the Foot all over the world. Karai informed Leonardo that the New York Branch of the Foot was all that was left.

The Foot Clan's logo is a drawing of a left foot. Issues 3 and 4 of the new Tales of the TMNT feature a Foot mystic with magical abilities, including the power to resurrect the dead.

The 1987 series and the TMNT Adventures

The 1987 series and the spin-off TMNT Adventures comics share the same continuity, and thus the same version of the Foot Clan. The Foot is an ancient Ninjutsu clan, founded in Japan in 1583. The Shredder, followed by the Turtles and Splinter, went back in time to try to influence the creation of the Foot Clan. In 1583, Shredder's ancestor Oroku Sancho led a small group of ninja, and Shredder offered to help him find a magical artifact that would give him the power to form a real Clan. Meanwhile, Splinter's ancestor Hamato Koji had been sent to find the same artifact, and did find it with the help of his descendant and the Turtles. The artifact released a dragon, which headed for a nearby city; Splinter and Koji went to stop it while the Turtles went to fight Shredder. Sancho's men captured the Turtles, and were about to execute them when Koji arrived, riding the dragon, which he had tamed. Seeing this, Sancho fled in fear, and Koji offered to lead Sancho's men and founded the Foot Clan, so named for the footprint of the dragon in which he stood as he made his speech. (However, according to "Blast from the Past", the Foot was founded by a noble warrior named Shibana-Sama.)

In 1960s Japan, both Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi were part of the Clan. Saki framed Yoshi for trying to kill a sensei of the Clan and had him exiled to New York City, thus clearing the way to take over the Foot Clan. He then proceeded to turn the Foot Clan into an army of criminals. Over the years, Saki, who became known as The Shredder, moved to the USA, allied himself with the alien warlord Krang, and replaced the human Foot Ninjas with robotic Foot Soldiers. However, these robots are no match for the Ninja Turtles, who destroy them at every encounter.

In the cartoon, The Shredder once considered making more intelligent Foot Soldiers, capable of learning and taking decisions by themselves. However, the idea was quickly abandoned when the first intelligent prototype, named Alpha 1, rebelled against The Shredder.

The Foot Clan's logo is a drawing of a left foot, and the Foot Soldiers wear purple and black uniforms featuring the logo on their foreheads. The Foot logo can also be seen on the Technodrome.

The Archie TMNT Adventure Comics features more advanced Foot Soldiers in addition to the basic model. In the comics, The Shredder also built a giant Foot Soldier, who fought against the Warrior Dragon in New York City. The robot was destroyed when it crashed into the Statue of Liberty.

The Foot robot concept allowed the Turtles to destroy the Foot soldiers without any moral thoughts, allowing Leonardo and Raphael to use their weapons more offensive. Meanwhile the series could keep it's younger audience and remain a "family show". It also made it easier for the video games.

Movies

In the first and movies, the Foot Clan is a group of ninja thieves and assassins founded by The Shredder in New York. Shredder takes kids off the streets, and trains them in Ninjutsu himself. His second-in-command is another Ninjutsu master called Tatsu.

The Foot Ninjas were no match for the Turtles individually, however their first major confrontation with the Turtles resulted in Raphael beaten nearly to death and the remaining Turtles forced to retreat, all confrontations after showed the Turtles being able to defeat the Foot easily. After Shredder's apparent death and massive arrests by the NYPD, the Clan was reduced to a fraction of its former size. Tatsu tried to take command, but relinquished his claim when The Shredder returned. The Clan then kidnapped professor Jordon Perry and forced him to make a mutagen so the Foot Clan could create two mutant warriors, Tokka and Rahzar, to fight the Turtles. Although these two mutants were a match for the Turtles in physical strength, the Turtles defeated them by de-mutating them back into harmless animals. Shredder himself died shortly after, while fighting the Turtles.

In the fourth film, the Foot is now under leadership of Karai, who has taken control after the Shredder's demise. They have grown in numbers and skill, and offer their services as mercenaries in the film. They are hired by Max Winters to track down and bring in the 13 monsters arriving in New York City.

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation

In the 1997-1998 series, the Foot Clan is a street gang, similar to the movies. After the Turtles defeated The Shredder, the Turtles told the kids that the Foot is a lie, and the Clan was disbanded.

The 2003 series

In the 2003 series, the Foot Clan is more similar to its original comic version. The Foot Clan are a group of warriors and assassins that Shredder created 700 years ago in Japan. The Shredder, who in this series is an Utrom, and Utroms have an extremely long lifespan, has led the Clan since its creation and has turned it into a fearsome and secret group present across the world. The Foot emblem is a red, trident-like footprint (hence the name of the clan), an inverted version of the "Three-Toed Sign of the Dragon," the symbol of the five warriors who had defeated the original demon known as the Shredder in 300 AD. Thanks to Shredder's knowledge of Utrom technology, the Clan has weapons and equipment centuries ahead of Human technology. They once created Foot Mechs in "Rogue in the House", which were based on Master Splinter, the President, the Prime Minister, and some others. They also created a TurtleBot, a robot that appeared in the second season. It can use katana, bo, nunchaku, and sai. The TurtleBot is seen in the 2003 video game.

The Foot Clan is divided into several branches. The most commonly-encountered, and seemingly most numerous, branch are the Foot Ninjas, the basic warriors of the Foot. They're generally depicted as easily beaten except in very large groups. When Karai started working in New York, they received extra training from her and became much harder for the Turtles to defeat. Next, the Foot Clan's technicians have cybernetic enhancements but are rarely ever seen in fights. The Foot Tech Ninjas are warriors with specialized stealth armor that allows them to become seemingly invisible. They also possess greatly enhanced physical speed and strength, but their invisibility is what always gives the Turtles and their allies trouble. The various video games introduced the Foot Gunners and the sumo-wrestling Mega Foots, although only the Foot Gunners then went on to appear in the TV series.

The powerful but seldom seen Foot Mystics are five magic-users, each one with powers corresponding to a different natural element: wind, earth, fire, water and metal. In the episode Bad Day, it is revealed that the Foot Mystics have Black Magic powers, when they launch an attack against the Turtles on an astral plane. It is also revealed that they obey and serve whoever holds a medallion called the Heart of Tengu. It is also said Shredder had more respect for their power than Karai, but she repeatedly tells them that as long as she had the medallion, they will obey her and no questions asked. This later leads them to trick Agent Bishop to destroy the Heart, in the episode Good Genes, Part Two, allowing them to become free. They then set out to restore the true Shredder. When freed the Mystics were shown to be far more powerful then previously shown. Despite their fanatical devotion to the demon Shredder, they were still abused by him for so much as saying anything he felt was out of line. They are eventually killed in Enter the Dragons Part 1, although in the Fast Forward episode "The Journal" a Foot Mystic appeared before Raphael and Casey Jones and teleported them to a deserted island in one of the pages of Casey and April's journal that the Turtles were reading despite Splinter and Cody's warnings not to read it.

The seemingly most-skilled of the clan warriors are the four Elite Foot Ninjas. These Foot Clan members serve as the Shredder's elite guard, as well as field commanders on highly important missions. Each carries a different weapon: a trident, a spear, an axe and a twin bladed sword (aside from their different weapons there's no way to tell them apart). They've all proven extremely deadly fighters, having easily defeated and nearly killed Leonardo when they first appeared.

The Clan itself is under the ultimate command of Shredder, and his second in command is his adopted daughter Karai and Hun. Prior to Karai's appearance, Hun served as Shredder's second and chief enforcer, but when Karai appeared she was quickly shown to be higher in Shredder's favor than Hun. After The Shredder was exiled to the ice asteroid belt of Mor Tal in the episode Exodus Part Two, Karai assumed command of the Clan, and the mantle of the Shredder.

Video games

Unlike the 1987 cartoon series on which they were based, the TMNT videogames introduced Foot Soldiers with uniforms of several different colours. These colours represent the type of weapons they are carrying. For example, the colour/weapon match-up in "" was:

* Purple – Unarmed
* Blue – A blade weapon, such as a katana, sai or battle axe
* Pink – A pair of tonfa or shuriken
* Orange – Daggers or a kusarigama
* White – Nunchaku
* Yellow - Some form of boomerang, or bombs
* Green - Bow and arrows

Currently released video games, based on the 2003 animated series, have Foot Soldiers which appear to be as in the new series.

External links

* [http://www.ninjaturtles.com/cartoon/guide/cart159.htm "The Legend of Koji" at the Official Ninja Turtles website, is the episode of the 1987 cartoon that features the founding of the Foot Clan]
* [http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/profil23.htm A Foot Soldier's profile on the Official Ninja Turtles website]