Superfly’s plan of compelled, unnatural choice is not simply extremely much like the objective of Magneto in 2000’s “X-Males,” however paying homage to “X-Males” comics on the whole, revealing TMNT’s normal subtextual debt to Marvel’s personal mutants. Sarcastically, the turtles are massive Marvel Cinematic Universe followers (the MCU having not fairly but launched mutants into their movies), and it is partially due to their innate sense of empathy and justice that they resolve to try to cease Superfly regardless of empathizing along with his and their fellow mutants’ needs.
Sadly, the turtles not solely fail of their try to cease the opposite mutants, however additionally they find yourself getting captured by Cynthia Utrom and her TCRI squad. One of many movie’s nice operating gags is Splinter being adamant that people will need to seize the turtles and milk them, a declare that the turtles recurrently roll their eyes at. To their dismay, it seems Splinter was extra proper than he knew, as Utrom hooks the turtles as much as a milking machine (actually, that is what it is referred to as) to be able to get hold of their mutagen-riddled blood for the needs of producing a mutant military.
Happily, Grasp Splinter will get tipped off by April as to the turtles’ plight, and the ninja rat saves his sons from any additional malicious milking. It is right here that a number of the revisions “Mutant Mayhem” makes to the Turtles’ legacy fall into place. Identical to Eastman and Laird blended standard comics of their day right into a heady stew, “Mutant Mayhem” director Jeff Rowe permits the movie’s copious popular culture references to be a narrative level along with setting character and tone, going as far as to combine live-action supply footage with the movie’s animation. Right here, Splinter is not a former human martial arts grasp, however a former rat who discovered to carry out and train martial arts by means of kung-fu motion motion pictures. Thus, Splinter, the turtles, and the opposite mutants display a deep adoration of human tradition, making it simpler for them to just accept that people, regardless of their potential prejudices, aren’t essentially the enemy.