The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a plethora of incredibly diverse and powerful villains–from ancient ninja warriors to interdimensional dictators–but one group stands above the rest, as they are the oldest of the Turtles’ enemies–though that’s not the focus of their significance today. These villains-in-question are simply the catalyst for the rise of a much more dangerous threat.
While many fans might assume the oldest villain in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles canon is the Shredder, given how he was the first bad guy the Ninja Turtles faced in their very first issue, they would be wrong. The oldest TMNT villains actually predate the Turtles, and those villains are none other than the Triceratons. The Triceratons first debuted in the microseries Fugitoid as the main antagonists opposite the titular protagonist. Once TMNT was launched, however, the Fugitoid universe was absorbed into that of TMNT, and the Triceratons became a part of the official canon. While the Triceratons are old, they certainly aren’t any less of a threat, especially in the ongoing continuity of IDW Publishing.
TMNT’s Victory Over the Triceratons Led to a Mutanimal Uprising
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #80 by Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz, and Brahm Revel, the Ninja Turtles are caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place when the Triceratons invade Planet Earth and go to war with humanity. To be fair, humanity did draw first blood, but that was after giant dinosaur mutants unexpectedly fell from the sky–which is decidedly alarming. While the Ninja Turtles were conflicted, as they had worked with the Triceratons in the past, they knew their best bet was to stand firm against the violence and bloodshed from both sides of the war, and simply eliminate the threat of the Triceratons in the most peaceful way they could. Using the technology of Baxter Stockman, the TMNT teleported every single Triceraton from where they stood on the battlefield to a secure location on Earth where they could build a society far away from humanity’s established civilization.
When the Ninja Turtles zapped the Triceratons to their new home, the highly-advanced weapons the dino-mutants were carrying at the time dropped to the ground, and they were quickly found by none other than Old Hob. Old Hob is the oldest villain in this incarnation of TMNT canon, and he remains a thorn in the side of the Turtles throughout the series, as he is a cat who was infected with the mutagen ooze and transformed into an anthropomorphic mutanimal. As a mutanimal, Old Hob wants to assert himself and others like him (including the Ninja Turtles) at the top of the food chain over humanity. This guy is basically like if X-Men’s Magneto was a cat (speaking strictly of ideologies) which means he’s also just as dangerous. Old Hob believes in the effectiveness of ultra violence, and with these futuristic TMNT weapons, he has everything he needs to form a mutanimal uprising.
The TMNT issues that follow show Old Hob with a new sense of confidence because of these weapons, which empowers him to create hordes of mutanimals and use them to fight his war for mutanimal superiority. This conflict results in the formation of Mutant Town, which means the existence of mutants becomes common knowledge for the general public–which, in turn, puts the Ninja Turtles’ lives in danger. The Turtles hid the truth of their existence for a reason, and because of Old Hob, the secret was out, and they all got fresh targets on their backs. Not only that, but the human-mutanimal conflict that was sparked by the Triceraton’s weapons could have ended a lot worse than it did, as Old Hob’s ruthlessness knew no bounds when he believed he was so close to victory–and all of that chaos and needless loss of life was because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ victory over their oldest foes.