Tokka and Rahzar

Tokka and Rahzar are two fictional mutant villains in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics and all related media.^[1] They first appeared in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Rahzar was played by Mark Ginther and Tokka was played by Kurt Bryant. They were both voice-acted by Frank Welker.

The design of Tokka in the movie was inspired by the drawings of comic book artist and writer Stephen R. Bissette.

Film

When The Shredder found out that the substance that mutated the Turtles had been created by TGRI (Techno-Global Research Industries), he sent his Foot Soldiers to steal the ooze and kidnap head TGRI scientist, Professor Jordan Perry. Shredder instructs Perry to use the ooze to mutate an Alligator Snapping Turtle and a Gray Wolf (kidnapped from the Bronx Zoo) which resulted in the creation of Tokka and Rahzar. However, Jordan had secretly altered the mutagen, and as a result, the two mutants had the intelligence of human infants. Saki ordered the monsters to face him in battle, to teach them who their master was, except the infantile mutants misinterpreted the word "master", thinking it meant "mamma", and hugged him instead. Angered, Shredder ordered them to be destroyed, but Perry had sympathy for them and showed Saki their total obedience to him and that, as they were "playing" in the junkyard, partially lifting a skid steer, they had great strength. This prompted Shredder to keep them alive.

Despite their low intelligence, the two mutants' incredible physical strength made them more than a match for the Turtles. On their first encounter at Shredder and Tatsu's junkyard base, the Turtles were ill-prepared and barely managed to escape when trying to save their brother Raphael from capture and rescue Dr. Perry. During the escape they trapped Tokka in a manhole from the waist down. Michaelangelo teased Tokka and tickled the bottom of the snapper's clawed feet. Later that night, Shredder let them loose in the city, telling to 'go play', which they did by tipping over cars, knocking down telephone poles, and trashing buildings. After doing a report on the devastation the next day, April O'Neil was confronted by the Foot with a message for the Turtles: If they didn't meet the Foot at a construction site near the docks that night, Shredder would set Tokka and Rahzar out again into Central Park. As many people would get hurt, the Turtles and Splinter agreed that there was no other choice but to face Shredder, regardless of their disadvantage against Tokka and Rahzar's immense strength. How, the professor had a plan; with the help of Donatello and Keno and using the contamination is the ooze that mutated Tokka and Rahzar as a basis, Dr. Perry prepared an anti-mutagen to de-mutate them, which had to be ingested.

During their second encounter at the construction site, amidst a distraction, Leonardo and Michaelangelo trick Tokka and Rahzar into eating the antidote (they froze the concoction into ice cubes and then hid them in a box of donuts, which they then offered to the two mutants as the "ritual of the traditional pre-fight donut"). Rahzar and Tokka devoured some of the donuts with continued coaxing from the Turtles. Surprisingly, Rahzar, regardless of his infant-like mentality, figured that something was wrong with the situation, and crushed one of the donuts in his claw, discovering the anti-mutagen cube hidden inside. Enraged at what they assumed was an attempt to poison them, Tokka and Rahzar attacked the Turtles with Rahzar grabbing Michaelangelo by the hands and spinning him around before smashing him through a wall and into the Dockshore Club, interrupting a crowded dance concert by Vanilla Ice.

As the final showdown commenced at the club, Leo and Raph were fending off Rahzar and Tokka's snapping attacks. Dr. Perry informed Donatello that their repeated burping was slowing down what little anti-mutagen they had ingested and that carbon dioxide was needed to speed up the demutation. The Turtles knocked their foes off their feet and flat on their backs with a couple of barrels they found somewhere in the concert, and then the turtles shoved fire extinguishers into the creatures' mouths, which administered the needed carbon dioxide to reverse the mutation. Finally, the antidote took effect and the two mutants returned to their normal animal forms. What happened to them after this is unknown, though it is most likely that they could've been sent back to the Bronx Zoo.

1987 cartoon series

Tokka and Rahzar only appeared once in the seventh season of the 1987 cartoon series. In 1993, they were featured in the season 7 episode "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter". They were out-of-control mutants created when the Shredder exposed zoo animals to mutagen years earlier (whether this refers to when he created Bebop and Rocksteady or Groundchuck and Dirtbag, is not made clear).

Not long after their first battle with the Turtles at the Crystal Palace Mall, they were captured by Dirk Savage. The animated versions were more intelligent and more eloquent, particularly Rahzar. Rahzar states to Tokka, "...You are my only friend."

Tokka has a very uncontrolled appetite which leads him into Dirk Savage's trap which consists of a buffet. The Snapper gets captured by the Mutant Hunter after he devours the smorgasbord. Even though Rahzar made a big deal of his friend being captured, and he was shown attacking Dirk later on, it was never shown if he ever got reunited with Tokka, even after the bad guys were defeated.

Their look in the cartoon was very much like that of their action figures, made two years prior to their cartoon appearance.

In this episode, their names were spelled Toka and Razar.

Toka was voiced by Rob Paulsen while Razar was voiced by Townsend Coleman.

Comics

Tokka and Razhar appeared in two non-canon stories in the Turtle Soup limited series. Tokka was April O'Neil's pet snapping turtle who bit Raphael and became Tokka due to Raphael's mutagen blood. Razhar was a mutated dog created by Krang.

In the current TMNT comic series, published by IDW, Slash bears resemblance to Tokka.

Turtles Forever

During the course of Turtles Forever, Ch'rell the Utrom Shredder uses mutagen obtained from the universe of the 1987 animated series to mutate his human troops, with two of these mutated soldiers taking on forms identical to Tokka and Rahzar. However, they are later dispatched by the 2003 incarnations of Donatello and Raphael with the aid of the 1987 Party Wagon.^[2]

2012 series

In the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, voiced by Clancy Brown, Rahzar was originally a celebrity martial artist named Chris Bradford. But Bradford is revealed to have been secretly trained by Shredder, who gave his student a twisted version of the events of Tang Shen's where Hamato Yoshi was the one who betrayed their friendship. Bradford grew to respect Yoshi, acknowledging he was as powerful as his master, but believed he would never go through with killing his enemy. During the first season, when Shredder arrived to New York City, Bradford is tasked to hunt down Yoshi through the turtles. He tricks Michelangelo into a faux friendship to get to them. Bradford reveals his deception when he has captured the turtle, sparking a bitter hatred from him. After this plot failed to kill the Turtles and a repeated failure, the Shredder became enraged at his lieutenant's incompetence. This drove Bradford to kill the turtles even if it meant his own death when he confronts the Turtles near a Kraang mutagen bomb with fellow Foot member Xever Montes. Though bomb was defused, Bradford was exposed to the mutagen alongside Xever. Having been previously bitten by Shredder's pet akita, Bradford became a large dog mutant with increased strength that Michelangelo dubbed as Dogpound. Despite his attempts to redeem himself, expressing disdain for his mutant status and lack of agility, Dogpound finds himself on the bad end of several vicious beatings from his master before replaced by Karai as Shredder's second in command.

When given the takes to retrieve Baxter Stockman after he escaped the Foot's custody, Dogpound believing the scientist can turn him human again. But during an ensuing fight with the turtles, Dogpound is knocked into a mutagen vat and is painfully turned into skeletal zombie-like werewolf mutant. Renamed "Rahzar" by Michelangelo, he takes some pride in his new form despite Shredder's initial comment that he looked terrible. When Tigerclaw is named the new second in command, Rahzar forms a sincere friendship with him while revealed to be third-in-command of the Foot whenever Shredder or Tigerclaw are absent. In the third season finale, "Annihilation: Earth!", Rahzar joined in the alliance between the turtles and Foot Clan in an effort to save the world. Rahzar battled several Triceratons before watching in shock as Shredder killed Splinter in an act that doomed Earth to destroyed by the black hole generator. But in the fourth season episode, "Earth's Last Stand", the Turtles create a new timeline when they save the Earth from the Triceratons, negating Rahzar's death in the process.

In season four of the series, Tokka is introduced as a monstrous alien guardian of the final piece of the Black Hole Generator on the planet Magdomar. ^[3] This version of Tokka, bearing a resemblance to Gamera with similar abilities, is asexual but is referred as female as she is the parent of Chompy Picasso, an alien turtle that Raphael becomes attached to. Lord Dregg is able to steal the Black Hole Generator piece from Tokka, who attempts to recover before being seemingly destroyed by the explosion of a dwarf star triggered by the Triceratons, though Chompy survives and remains with the Turtles.

Games

Although the old TMNT videogames are based on the 1987 cartoon version of the franchise, and the first game listed here came out in 1991, two years before Tokka and Rahzar appeared on that show, the two mutants are nonetheless part of three of the games.

They are in both versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time once again voiced by Frank Welker. In the original arcade version, they are the bosses of the pirate ship level, while in the Super NES version, they have been moved to the new Technodrome level. They are paired together as a double-boss. They can team up in their attacks in the SNES version; one of their moves involves Tokka withdrawing into his shell and Rahzar hopping on top and riding around the screen chaotically like a skateboard. Their low intelligence from the movie is also included in the game: they will often accidentally hit each other instead of the player, and will take damage for it. In the Super NES version, Tokka is also able to use an ice breath attack, while Rahzar uses a fire breath attack. Just like in the movie, when the player defeats them in the game, they de-mutate to normal animals. It is possible to attack Rahzar after he has de-mutated. He makes a 'Yelp' sound. Also, in the game, their names have the spelling of the movie, not the later spelling of the TV show. The Super NES version borrows a quote from the movie which Tokka and Rahzar said, right before the fight: "Master say have fun." "FUN!" In the movie, they say this when they're tearing up a backstreet to lure the Turtles into a confrontation.

They also made an appearance in the NES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. Here the player fights them individually in separate instances. Rahzar appears in the Technodrome level immediately before Shredder, and uses an ice breath attack. Tokka appears as the boss of the rooftop level and carries a shield for blocking jump kicks. Rahzar's name is spelled "Rahzer" in the game's ending sequence.

They also return in the modern remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They again are featured as a double-boss in the pirate ship level.

References

External links

• Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter at the Official Ninja Turtles website.