It is well known that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are skilled in ninjutsu and weapons combat to the point where they can go toe-to-toe with mass-murdering ninjas, interdimensional dictators, and even literal gods, but what many fans may not know is that the Ninja Turtles also possess a secret power–one that redefines the entire franchise.
When the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were introduced, they were simply a team of mutated turtles who were trained by a ninjutsu master, Splinter, for the sole purpose of assassinating one target: the Shredder. This grim storyline played into the original aesthetic of TMNT, that being a punky, black and white indie comic that seemed to just be a jumble of things that Eastman and Laird thought were cool at the time–and readers agreed. Now, TMNT is much more than a one-shot indie book, but a complex storyline with deep lore and interwoven plot lines that intersect to perfection–and that includes a more mystical element associated with the Turtles themselves, one that has evidently been there from the very beginning.
The TMNT Have a Spiritual Power that Changes People
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Armageddon Game - The Alliance #4 by Sophie Campell (with backup story and art by Erik Burnham and Roi Mercado), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ hideout has been infiltrated by a team of Utrom assassins (who looked like they were auditioning for TMNT’s own Five Nights at Freddy’s) and Donatello is forced to use a mystical technique known as Kuji-kiri to defeat them. By doing this, Donatello accidentally rips a hole through time and space, gets sucked through a wormhole, and thrown into the future. Meanwhile, Venus and Bludgeon are sitting alone together, when suddenly, Venus gets a strange feeling. Venus says that she can feel Donatello pulling her towards him, which is accurate as she and Bludgeon wind up getting caught in Donatello’s time-portal and are blasted off to the future along with him–but, as Bludgeon points out, this feeling goes much deeper than that.
Before unwillingly traveling to the future, Venus and Bludgeon discuss how Donatello and the rest of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have an ability to draw people into their orbit and change them, usually through redemption–and they’re not wrong. This TMNT saga has been exploring the Ninja Turtles’ spiritual power, not just the Kuji-kiri techniques, but their inherent mysticism that subtly presented itself long before the Turtles ever exhibited magical abilities, which is coincidentally how they are able to channel these new magic powers to begin with. Throughout the series, the Turtles have transformed enemies into allies time and time again–from Bludgeon and Slash to even their archenemy himself, the Shredder.
Currently, Shredder is the leader of the TMNT after he felt an overwhelming sense of remorse for his generations-long conflict with Master Splinter and the Turtles (which included their past lives as well). This is no doubt due to Shredder’s exposure to the Ninja Turtles as he is quite literally pulled back into their orbit from death (twice) and eventually finds redemption within their ranks. While this apparent superpower has never been outwardly presented beyond Bludgeon’s comment to Venus, it quickly becomes obvious as it perfectly explains how the Turtles have gained so many of their closest allies, especially the ones who used to be villains–a secret power exhibited by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that effectively redefines the entire franchise.