Fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Jennika. What is known about the character?
jennika, also known as Jenny or Jenn for short, appeared in the franchise more than two years ago. She was once a human and a member of the Foot Clan, but one day (in issue 95 of the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, released in 2019), she needed an emergency blood transfusion. Leo was the only one who matched as a donor. After the transfusion, Jennika mutated and turned into an anthropomorphic turtle. She joined the team and has since become an integral part of it.
History of Jennika
It is known that Jenny had a difficult childhood. Her alcoholic father kicked her out of the house, after which she wandered the streets, where she met a guy who soon involved her in a life of crime. Ultimately, this acquaintance led Jennika to prison as an accomplice in the murder. There she had a hard time and she was often beaten, in other words, once, a girl from the Foot clan stood up for our heroine and after that she became Jenny's best friend. The girl began to teach Jennika various ninja techniques and soon a mass escape of prisoners was made from prison. The girls almost made it out, but suddenly Jennika's friend was killed by one of the escaped prisoners. Once free, Jenny soon joins the Foot Clan, quickly moves up the ranks and becomes one of the Assassins.
After that, she uses all her newfound skills to track down and eliminate the killer of her best friend in prison. After Shredder's death, Jennika distrusted the new leader of the Foot, Splinter, and believed that "that rat" was unfit to lead. She was convinced that Splinter was only weakening the clan with his unwillingness to kill, and viewed his merciful actions as a sign of cowardice and weakness. The girl's distrust of Splinter soon led Jennika to ally with the gang of Street Ghosts and Darius Dan. Later, the Wraiths attack the Foot Clan's headquarters and take advantage of the moment to attempt to kill Splinter, but she is quickly defeated by him. Despite the attempt on his life, Splinter forgave Jennika and soon she realized the fallacy of her actions.
Soon, impressed by Jennika's faithful service, Splinter instructs her to guard the tomb with Shredder, which she did successfully until Kitsune attacked her along with Alopex. Despite the large number of enemies, Jennika manages to save the life of her sensei Splinter during the battle. Jenny later justified her lethality when, on her sensei's orders, she killed Darius Dan. During the Triceratons' invasion of Earth, Jennika was upgraded to the status chunin. She didn't share Splinter's plans to kill the leader of the Triceratons. Zoma and even arranged for the Turtles to escape from Foot headquarters to stop this madness. Jenny was not punished by Splinter for this and he later sent her to help Casey Jones. Later, a romantic relationship began to develop between Jennika and Casey.
During the events of War in the City, Karai's attempt to regain leadership of the Foot Clan ended in failure, and she soon approached Jennika for a truce. Karai wanted to turn Jenny against Splinter, but was rebuffed. Right after that, Karai suddenly stabs Jennika with her sword. In a desperate attempt to save Jenny's life, the turtles take her to the inventor's laboratory. Harold Lilly. There, Harold and his colleagues decide to use an experimental mutagen to heal the girl, but due to the battle against the Earth Defense Forces, the container with the mutagen is broken. Donatello forces Leonardo to give a transfusion of his blood in order to save the girl's life. The transfusion was successful, but Jennika soon turned into a mutant turtle.
Further information will be added at a later date.
Strengths, abilities and personal qualities:
- Our heroine is a very experienced fighter and is a master of ninjitsu techniques.
- Jennika's weapon of choice is the tekko claw, but she is also proficient with other weapons from the ninja arsenal.
Interesting Facts:
- Jennika is the sixth mutant turtle in IDW comics, if you do not take into account all sorts of parallel worlds and dreams. Before her, there were actually the Mutant Ninja Turtles and Slash themselves.
- Jennika is not the first turtle girl to appear in the franchise. Before her, April O'Neil briefly turned into a turtle in TMNT Adventures Special # 11 of the publisher Archie, and also the turtle was Venus De Milo from t/s "New Mutation".
- Jennika Turtle was designed by Sophie Campbell. The mutant Jennika herself is very reminiscent of a character from fan comics, Sophie, nicknamed Artemisia.