WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1 by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau, Isaac Escora, Ben Bishop, Samuel Plata, Luis Antonio Delgado and Shawn Lee, on sale now.
The picture of the future presented to readers in the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is not a pretty one. In fact, it's among the worst that the franchise has ever seen. On an isolated Manhattan Island, among the toxic waters and neon lit streets, remorseless Foot Clan ninja roam the streets. From his ivory tower, Oroku Hiroto, leader of the Foot Clan and descendant of the Shredder, watches the buzzing metropolis through an array of monitors. Yet, this bleakness is nothing compared to the deadly enemy lurking in the shadows.
Slicing and slashing his way into Hiroto's tower, the Last Ronin (now known to be Michelangelo) tears through countless numbers of Foot Clan ninja, all cybernetically enhanced and entirely focused on bringing him down. Hiroto watches from above as his sentries repeatedly fail to match Mikey's skill and battle prowess, becoming more and more enraged by his soldiers' incompetence. As Mikey nears his target, Hiroto decides that he has had enough, and unleashes a giant Mouser to dispatch his assailant along with a swarm of smaller, flying Mousers sporting laser cannons.
While Michelangelo is more than able to take down the smaller ones, the big Mouser barreling towards him has picked up too much momentum, and the two go crashing through the window behind them onto the city streets below. As Michelangelo spits blood onto the ground and wheezes out a few more empty threats, Hiroto is overcome with pride and joy, boasting about his miraculous defeat of the mutant invader who never stood a chance against his might. Hiroto doesn't want to bask in this glory alone, though, so he turns to the suspension chamber behind him, and shares the moment with the resting body of his mother, Karai.
Karai's past changes slightly depending on the specific iteration of her character, but she is always a thorn in the Turtles' side. In the ongoing series by IDW, she is a descendant of Oroku Saki, the Shredder, and was the one who revived him from his centuries long slumber in the present day. After doing so, she trained new ninja and rebuilt the Foot clan to what it once was. This required wresting leadership of the group from her father and disposing the bureaucrats who had infested the clan. She has been second in command of the Foot for almost as long as the Shredder has been back, even ascending to being the leader of the clan herself for some time while Shredder was believed to be dead. As ruthless as she is brilliant, Karai has been known to form intricate plots that take extended periods of time to put together, and yet she still isn't above stabbing someone herself or ordering the executions of even children if she believes there is any threat to her rule or her clan.
One of the Turtles' deadliest enemies, who has more blood on her hands than could flood the streets of Manhattan, as well as a religious fervor and zealotry towards the Foot, Karai is without a doubt one of the worst villains that the TMNT have ever come across. That she is still alive in the future, even if it's in stasis, is not only curious, but genuinely concerning. Whatever condition is keeping her in that chamber will surely be revealed sooner than later, but should she awaken, it will be with a torrent of blades and a downpour of seething hatred towards the Last Ronin. With her previous disdain for Baxter Stockman and his machinations, she might just be a problem for Oroku Hiroto as well if she comes to and finds herself disappointed in her son's tactics.