Foot Clan

In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the Foot Clan was founded in Feudal Japan by two men named Sato and Oshi. In issue #47, the Turtles and Renet traveled to a time prior to the Foot's creation, with Raphael inadvertently teaching Sato and Oshi about Ninjutsu without knowing their identities.

The Foot Clan are the most feared clan of warriors and assassins in Japan. Both Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Nagi were members until Nagi attacked Yoshi's love Tang Shen and Yoshi killed Nagi. Dishonored, Yoshi and Shen fled to New York City, while Nagi's younger brother Oroku Saki was adopted by the clan and trained to become a ninja. When he was ready, Saki was sent to America to head the New York branch of the Clan. Karai, a clan leader from Japan, enlists the Turtles to stop the clan war and enact a peace treaty.

The 1987 series and the spin-off TMNT Adventures comics share a similar continuity, and thus the same version of the Foot Clan. The Foot is an ancient ninjutsu clan, founded in Japan in 1583. Shredder, followed by the Turtles and Splinter, went back and forth in time to try to kill the creator of the Foot Clan. In 1583, Shredder's ancestor Oroku Sancho led a small group of samurai, and Shredder offered to help him find magical artifacts that would give him power and wealth beyond his wildest dreams. Meanwhile, Splinter's ancestor Hamato Koji had been sent to find the same artifacts and did find them with the help of his descendant and the Turtles. One of the artifacts released a dragon, which headed for nearby villages; Splinter and Koji went to stop it while the Turtles went to fight Shredder. Sancho's men captured the Turtles and were about to execute them when Koji arrived, riding the dragon, which he had tamed. Seeing this, Sancho fled in fear, and Koji offered to lead Sancho's men and teach them the ninjutsu art of Shibana-Sama, founding the Foot Clan, so named for the footprint of the dragon in which he stood as he made his speech.^[2]

In 1960s Japan, both Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi were part of the Clan. Saki framed Yoshi for trying to murder a visiting sensei and had him exiled to New York City, thus clearing the way to take over the Foot Clan. He then proceeded to turn the Foot Clan into an army of criminals. Over the years, Saki, who became known as Shredder, moved to the US, allied with the alien warlord Krang, and replaced the human Foot Ninja with robotic Foot Soldiers.

The Foot Clan's logo is a drawing of a right foot, and the Foot Soldiers wear purple and black uniforms featuring the logo on their foreheads. The Foot logo can also be seen on the Technodrome.

In the IDW Publishing adaption, the Foot Clan existed since the time of feudal Japan and was founded by ronin Takeshi Tatsuo who had been betrayed by his master. The sorceress Kitsune helped Tatsuo recover from the severe wounds he had suffered in the assassination attempt. The name of the clan was created by the bloody footprint of Tatsuo, whose leg was completely healed by Kitsune.

When Tatsuo was betrayed by his clan are learning that he made a pact with a magician, his mind was born again in the son of his murderer Oroku Saki, the uprooting of the reawakening of his old memories powered over the communities and with Kitsune's counsel the Foot was revived in modern times.

In more recent times, the clan under the leadership of Oroku Saki (who was now operating as Shredder) tried to expand its supremacy in New York City. Its Foot Ninja were therefore often sent to amass any science that could help the Foot and also to find new test subjects. In this way, it led to the creation of the mutant arctic fox Alopex.

In this endeavor, the Foot Clan also came into contact with the extradimensional warlord Krang, who also wanted to create a mutant army to meet his objectives. An attack by the Foot Clan in the laboratory of Krang's ally Baxter Stockman led by a combination of circumstances to the creation of the Turtles and their father Splinter (who in a previous life had himself belonged to the Foot Clan).

Besides Shredder, Kitsune, and a substantial number of Foot Ninjas, other members of the Foot Clan include Karai (who was a descendant of Oroku Saki and the daughter of Oroku Yori), Masato, Dr. Miller, Alopex (a mutated Arctic Fox), Rocksteady, Bebop, Koya (Shredder's pet brown falcon who was later mutated), and Bludgeon (a mutant hammerhead shark).

In the 1997-1998 Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation series, the Foot Clan is a street gang, similar to the films. After Venus defeated Shredder, Leonardo told the kids that the Foot is a lie, and the clan was disbanded.

In the 2003 series, the Foot Clan is more similar to its original comic version. The Foot Clan are a group of warriors and assassins founded by Shredder one thousand years prior in Japan. Shredder, who in this series is a long-lived Utrom named Ch'rell, has led the Clan since its creation and has turned it into a fearsome and secret group present across the world. The Foot emblem is a red, trident-like dragon's footprint (hence the name of the clan), an inverted version of the "Three-Toed Sign of the Dragon", the symbol of the five warriors who had defeated the demonic Shredder in 300 AD. Thanks to Shredder's knowledge of Utrom technology, the Clan has weapons and equipment centuries ahead of human technology.

In the 2012 series, the Foot Clan's origins are expanded on in the second season of the series. The clan was founded in Japan by a master martial artist named Koga Takuza, who used the swords of his fallen foes to forge a helmet stronger than steel, dubbing it the Kuro Kabuto. The Kabuto helmet is a symbol of the leader of the Foot Clan, passed down to the various rulers in the Foot's history. The Foot Clan would end up in a lengthy war against the Hamato Clan, which reached a boiling point when Oroku Saki was raised alongside Hamato Yoshi. Though the two were raised as brothers, Saki discovered his true heritage as being an orphaned Foot Clan member, and when his love Tang Shen wed Yoshi, he inadvertently killed Shen leaving Yoshi to supposedly die while saving his infant daughter Hamato Miwa. In this series, the Foot Clan is a global ninjutsu clan and crime syndicate answering only to Shredder, though others run the various factions of the Foot Clan across the globe.

The basic Foot Soldiers are silent ninjas with black robes and red bug-like eyes who are equipped with various weapons such as swords, shurikens, spears, nunchucks and tonfas. Eventually after an alliance with the Kraang, these warriors are replaced by robotic duplicates called "Foot-Bots", who have more advanced combat and have the ability to learn and predict the Turtles' moves, they also have the ability to grow extra limbs and can morph their hands into deadly weapons like curved blades, buzzsaws, maces and drills. Another variation of these machines are the Elite Foot-Bots, who are based on Chrome Dome and are built with plasma weapons. After Shredder had fled New York, Karai wants to regain the Foot Clan's honor with the help of her friend Shinigami and recruit more students, who all wear robes resembling the Hamato Clan.

In Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Foot Clan were initially peaceful and lived in feudal Japan, but came under attack and were nearly wiped out, their leader Oroku Saki sought help from an Oni who provided him with a mystic armor that allowed him to defeat their attackers, but the armor corrupted Saki and turned him to Shredder who led the Foot down to an evil path. Its known members in the present are the Foot Lieutenant and the Foot Brute. They can make origami ninjas out of paper and have the power of teleportation through hidden gateways. They seek to revive their master and are collecting the pieces of his armor in the shape of ancient artifacts.

The Foot Clan appear in the film Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which is based on the IDW crossover). Sato and Oshi are mentioned as founders of the Foot Clan. The Foot Clan collaborated with the League of Assassins in a plot that involved using a stolen Wayne Enterprises cloud seeder to spread a compound containing a mixture of mutagen and Joker venom on Gotham City.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Missions uses Foot Soldiers from the Mirage Comics though they dress in black like in the films.
• Video games, based on the 2003 animated series, have Foot Soldiers which appear as they do in the new series.
• The fighting games TMNT: Mutant Melee and TMNT: Smash Up have Foot Ninja as playable characters.^[3]
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, the Foot Clan is steadily rebuilt by Shredder after their alleged destruction in Turtles in Time.

• Shredder - The leader of the Foot Clan and the arch-villain of the Ninja Turtles in most versions his real name is Oroku Saki a villainous ninjitsu master and often have a personal connection to Hamato Yoshi and Splinter in the Turtles origins and their most recurring foe in the franchise.
• Karai - A female high-ranking member of the Foot; someone on equal level of authority with Shredder. In later versions, she would become his right-hand and often his relative who usually has a rivalry with Leonardo.
• Bebop and Rocksteady - A mutant warthog and rhinoceros who usually serve Shredder.
• Tokka and Rahzar - A mutant alligator snapping turtle and wolf who are usually employed to Shredder in most versions.
• Baxter Stockman - A mad scientist who sometimes works for Shredder in some versions.
• Tatsu - Shredder's right-hand man in the live action movies.
• Purple Dragons - A street gang led by Hun who are affiliated with the Foot in a few versions.
  • Hun - The leader of the Purple Dragons who sometimes works for Shredder in some versions and is the arch-enemy of Casey Jones.
• Hamato Yoshi - A former member of the Foot Clan in most versions.
• Shredder Clones - Clones of Shredder whose origins vary in different media appearances.
  • Claw Shredder - A clone of Shredder with crustacean-like claws.
  • Mini Shredder - A miniature clone of Shredder.
  • Shiva Shredder - A large four-armed clone of Shredder.
• Foot Ninja - The Foot Ninja serves as the basic soldiers for the Foot.
• Foot Elite - The elite Foot Ninjas trained by Shredder.
• Foot Mystics - The Foot Mystics first appeared in the 2003 series. A different version appeared in the comics.
• Foot Bots - Foot Bots are robotic soldiers for the Foot.

Peter Vogl, referring to the movie from 1990, found the teenage members of the Foot Clan a remarkably dark representation of the youths of New York, who are so depraved and without moral compass that they prefer to follow a Japanese gangster boss rather than the generation of their parents. He found that this culture-pessimistic vision seems implausible only at first glance, considering actual cases of youths from Western countries following the Islamic State. He also pointed out that the root of the challenge depicted in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not domestic, but Shredder and his assistants come from abroad. Vogl concludes that, even if not intended by the creators, the movie employs fears of city crime, of the young generation, and of foreignness.^[4]