Warning: Spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem below!

Summary

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hints at a connection between the new villain Cynthia Utrom and the alien Krang, setting up a potential future appearance by Krang in the franchise.
  • Cynthia Utrom's role as the head of TCRI, the lab responsible for the creation of the Turtles and the ooze, suggests a connection between Krang's alien race and Earth.
  • While Shredder is poised to be the antagonist in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2, the film may be setting up Krang as the Turtles' ultimate enemy in future installments, using Cynthia's character as a way to introduce him.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem sets up a connection between one of its main villains, Cynthia Utrom, and the alien Krang, who is a long-standing enemy of the titular foursome throughout the franchise. As the latest big-screen iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem is another reboot of the material. The movie re-tells the origin story of Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo as heroes fighting crime in New York City while seeking to find acceptance among humans. The Turtles find their first real human friend in a teenage April O'Neil, even as their mentor and father figure Splinter insists they keep their distance from people.

Mutant Mayhem's new versions of the Ninja Turtles also find them facing an unexpected enemy known as Superfly, who leads an army of fellow mutants in his quest to conquer the world. Both the Turtles and Superfly also have a common enemy in the mysterious villainess Cynthia Utrom, but there is more to her than meets the eye. As it turns out, Cynthia has a hidden connection to one of the biggest villains in the Ninja Turtles franchise.

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Cythnia Utrom Is A Member Of Krang's Alien Race

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem Cynthia Utrom poster

Cynthia's surname of Utrom in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a hint to her connection to Krang, with Utrom being the term of the alien race found in the franchise. The Utrom aliens are notable in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lore as being behind the creation of the ooze that leads to the Turtles' mutation into anthropomorphic reptiles. Additionally, the Utroms is also the alien race that the Turtles' long-standing enemy Krang originates from.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem sets up a key connection between Cynthia and Krang by having her surname tease her as a fellow Utrom. With Cynthia being an original villain created for Mutant Mayhem, this could be the movie's means of setting up Krang for a future appearance in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Indeed, Cynthia's background in the movie indicates she might be the perfect character to open the door for Krang's entry.

TCRI's Connection To Utrom & Krang In TMNT History

Ninja Turtles 2 Movie Krang Comic image

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Cynthia is the head of the Techno Cosmic Research Institute, which is a nefarious science lab in New York City. TCRI is also the place of origin of the ooze that mutates the Turtles into their namesakes. Moreover, with the ooze being created by the Utrom race, TCRI is a kind of intersection between Krang's alien race and Earth with the effects the ooze has on the Turtles and others.

Early on in Mutant Mayhem, Cynthia sends her henchmen in pursuit of another famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villain, Baxter Stockman, whose own experiments with the ooze lead to the creation of Superfly. With Cynthia being an Utrom alien, it is possible that she was covertly acting on the off-screen orders of Krang in order to eliminate anyone else from using the ooze for their own purposes. With the creation of Splinter, the Turtles, and Superfly, that presumed mission clearly failed, which begs the question: will Krang enter the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise in the near future?

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Will Krang Appear In TMNT: Mutant Mayhem 2?

TMNT villain Krang

As he's essentially a tentacled brain with a face, there was always a challenge to bringing Krang to life in live-action, though he finally made an appearance in 2016's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Meanwhile, he has long been a frequent villain in the Ninja Turtles' various animated movies and shows, and with Mutant Mayhem beginning a new computer-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, it's possible he could join this series relatively soon. At the same time, Mutant Mayhem's mid-credits scene suggests another of the Turtles' famous villains will be their next big screen enemy: Shredder.

With Shredder well known as the leader of the Foot Clan, it seems likely that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2 is setting Shredder and his ninja army up as its antagonists. But that does not mean that Krang will not appear. The new franchise might be keeping Krang as a background villain, intending for him to be the Turtles' greatest enemy when the time comes for him to make his debut. That could also explain why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem introduces Cynthia as an Utrom in order to lay the groundwork for Krang's eventual arrival.