He was better than his teachers, and had the
potential to become a criminal mastermind. But the burning flame of revenge consumed
all his potential and led him to his death. Today I will be talking about the
original Shredder, from Mirage comics. The Shredder was created for
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” #1, in 1984, by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The idea for the character came up
when they were creating the issue, and Kevin saw a rectangular cheese
grater with a handle at the bottom. He slid his arm into it, and then they thought, “could you imagine a character with
weapons on his arms? He would be lethal”, and they came up with the name of “The Shredder”. Cheese grates not included. His origin story started with his brother, Oroku Nagi, who was a shadow warrior
and assassin for the foot clan. He and Hamato Yoshi competed fiercely
in all things, especially for the love of a young woman named Tang Shen. Both tried to win her heart, but from
the start, she loved only Hamato Yoshi. Nagi was insanely jealous, so one fateful night, he went to Tang Shen’s home
and demanded that she love him. Shen refused, and in a jealous
rage, Nagi began to beat her up. At that moment, Yoshi, who was coming to visit her, entered
the room and saw Nagi poised to strike. Nagi was determined that if he
couldn’t have Shen, no one would. Yoshi’s world vanished in a red haze
and when it cleared, Nagi was no more. This had consequences, killing
another member of the clan was the same as dishonoring oneself,
so he was faced with two choices. One was to take his own life and
hope for honor in the next life. The other one was to flee with Shen
to America and start a new life. He took a few belongings, including his pet, and went to New York
to start a small martial arts school. But in Japan, Nagi’s family
was mourning his death. This affected his younger brother the most,
Oroku Saki, who vowed vengeance on Yoshi. The foot saw this and took hold of Saki’s anger
and used it to bend him to their own purposes. Saki began intensive training in the ninja’s
art, and soon surpassed his teachers. But as he grew older, his hatred
of Yoshi grew deep and bitter. By the time he proved himself to the clan, he was
18, and the most cunning assassin and able leader. The clan sent him to New York
to head that branch of the foot. Saki moved to America and within a year, he had built the New York Foot
into a force to be reckoned with. Under Saki’s leadership,
the foot was soon involved in many criminal activities:
Drug smuggling, arms running.... and their specialty, assassination. Saki, now called “the Shredder”,
was successful, but not satisfied. In his heart burned hatred for
Hamato Yoshi and his wife, Tang Shen. One night, Saki tracked Shen down, and killed her. By the time Yoshi arrived home, he found the Shredder waiting for him, and the
body of his now deceased wife, on the floor. Shredder told him he was Oroku
Saki before taking his life. And that should have been the
end of this revenge cycle, but there was one witness and
survivor from that incident. Yoshi’s pet, Splinter, who eventually
got mutated with four turtles, and spent the next 15 years training them as his
students, to one day, avenge his master Yoshi. Feeling old and fearing he
was at the end of his life, Splinter sent his students, who were now ready for
the task, to challenge the shredder, and kill him. Raphael sent a message to the Shredder
and challenged him to regain the honor that he lost when he killed Yoshi,
by fighting against four disciples. Shredder felt a little paranoid,
but accepted the challenge, showing up with at least
11 foot ninja at the scene. And then the fight started. The turtles took care of all of them, and then
attacked Shredder one by one, with slight success. They soon realized that the best strategy
was to fight him from a distance. As the fight reached its climax,
Shredder got overconfident, and ended up being impaled by Leonardo. Slowly dying, Shredder asked the
turtles to finish what they started. But Leonardo gave him one last chance to
redeem himself, by committing seppuku. Shredder didn’t take this lightly, and decided that, if he had to take his own life,
then he was going to take all of them with him. His new plan was to use a thermite grenade,
to blow up the whole rooftop and them with it. But Donatello quickly threw his bo
at him, knocking him off balance and making him fall of the building, before the explosion tore him apart,
and that was the end of the Shredder. Or so it seemed. The foot clan continued attacking the turtles,
giving away the fact that they were still active. But one day, Leonardo was chased
by multiple waves of ninja, until he was attacked by the
Shredder, who now seemed to be alive. They threw him through April’s window,
where the rest of his family was, and the gang had to fight their way
out, as the building was burning. They received the help of Casey Jones, who was Raphael’s friend and was possibly
spying on them in previous issues, and together they managed to
escape alive, leaving the city. With the Turtles gone, the Foot clan
was able to regain control of the city. A year later, the turtles decided
it was time to return to New York and found the location of the Foot headquarters. They made their way into it, by fighting waves of ninja, including three
creatures that looked like the Shredder. Leonardo found out that the Shredder
was just a colony of mystical worms, that took his consciousness
after eating his flesh. It was a mix of science, with worms
that were created by the foot mystics. You can learn more about that
story in this other video. Leonardo ended up decapitating this worm
Shredder and they then burned his remains. But his head, made of worms, fell into
the water and was eaten by a Shark. A foot mystic, Mashima, used his
spells to access the mystical worms, and he was able to communicate
with them, after eating one. He also saw the location of the Turtles, as one
of the worms was still stuck to Leonardo’s sword. One day the turtles were surprised by
an anthropomorphic shark in the sewers, it was the shredder, with features
from an octopus and a shark. The turtles were caught by the tentacles of
the Shredder, which did something to them. They were defeated, feeling weird. The Shredder took Splinter and left,
leaving the confused turtles behind. All of a sudden, Leo was a very passive leader, Donatello wasn’t very bright, Raphael
was a coward and Michelangelo was... a mix of the better attributes of his brothers. After seeing how reversed his brothers were,
Mikey started investigating the mystic arts, and found a way to reverse their situation,
by contacting Pai-Doth-Noor, an Egyptian baboon deity, who agreed to reverse the spell and
send them to their master, for a future favor. The turtles accepted and
he returned them to normal. Back on Earth, they found what Mashima’s plan was, to use Splinter’s body as the
new vessel for the Shredder. But as the turtles fought to free
Splinter, the worms started gaining self-awareness, and no longer
felt like Oroku Saki anymore. The creature drowned itself into the
sea, taking the foot mystic with it. But in the depths, it seemed like the worms
were still alive, as an aquatic life form. Years later, a faction of the foot
clan captured Shadow, Casey’s daughter. With the Turtles being on a spiritual pilgrimage,
Splinter promised Casey to help him get her back. Splinter knew this was all a trap to get them, but they went to where the traces led them
anyway, and finally confronted the clan. The big bad was the aquatic creature, who was now in control of the Shark
Shredder, no longer being Oroku Saki. He wanted revenge against the turtles. But Mashima, who’s consciousness was inside the
creature, saw no honor in this revenge plot, especially after kidnapping Shadow. Splinter and Mashima used their
minds to attack the creature on a psychic level, and gave
Casey time to rescue Shadow. With Shadow safe, the monster
was still under psychic attack, but it wasn’t enough to finish
it, they needed a physical attack. Casey Jones then beat the creature up, freeing the spirit of Mashima,
who was also forgiven by Splinter. This was the end of the worms, and it seemed then,
that it was also the end of the revenge cycle. But there was still a loose end. Back in Japan, a foot clan
sorcerer by the name of Mamoru, stole money from the organization, and this made
them expel him and threaten his entire family. Mamoru, who had a wife and a toddler,
knew that he was living on borrowed time, so he approached the Oroku family. He knew that, despite there being a
truce between the turtles and the clan, they were still seeking for
retribution against the four kappas. So he approached them and made a deal with
them, he would take care of the Turtles, in exchange of protection from the Foot clan. He was a little bit smarter than other opponents, he was only going to use sorcery, to
use ice akki to fight the turtles. But this didn’t work as planned and he ended
up being fulminated by a giant ball of fire. Once again, the revenge cycle
that created the turtles, was still leaving tragedy
to all the people involved. While this is all that exists
about the original Shredder, there were other appearances of
this version of the character, in projects like “Turtle Forever” or “Batman/TMNT
III”. But they were barely canonical. And speaking of canon, there was also a fan-made
continuation of this story, made by Andrew Modeen. But that one was definitely non-canon. If you want to see more changes
that Modeen did for the Shredder, you can also check out this other video that
covered his conclusion to the Image run. In the end, it is worth noticing that
unlike other versions of the character, this Oroku Saki was first a victim of a cycle
of violence, which made his death more tragical. Every iteration of this cycle, gave the
protagonists the option of stopping it, so in a way, in the Mirage
comics, there were no good guys. Just better guys. What do you think of this Shredder? Leave your comments down below, press the
like button if you enjoyed this video, and don’t forget to subscribe
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