When it comes to the 2012 incarnation of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, one of the biggest
discussion points is its portrayal of various relationships within the show - specifically its
familial and romantic relationships. Whether you think these relationships were portrayed well or
not, it can’t be denied that they fall on a pretty wide spectrum. So which of these relationships
come out as the strongest and which ones are more questionable and could use some work?
I’m Brad with WickedBinge, and this is TMNT 2012 Relationships: Healthy to Toxic.
Now, with how big the cast of
TMNT 2012 is, we obviously won’t be able to hit every single relationship on the show. We
will, however, try to hit as many of them as possible. With that said, let’s get started!
As always, we’re going to be starting with the least-toxic
relationships of them all. These relationships are the Healthy.
For our Gold Medal of Healthiness, we’re giving it to reptile besties - Mikey and Leatherhead. When
the Turtles first came across this scaly titan, Mikey was the only one to see him as more than
just an out of control beast. When Leatherhead came to, it was Mikey who showed him patience,
kindness and a few helpings of pizza soup. Even when the rest of his brothers lacked
trust in Leatherhead, Mikey still believed in him. This loyalty between the two was
shown again in season two, when they protected each other in Dimension X. They’ve never had a
bad interaction with each other and almost always greet each other with a hug. Really,
there’s so much genuine love and friendship between these two that we really couldn’t
think of any relationship more deserving of this top spot.
Getting our Silver Medal of Healthiness are the gal pals, Karai and Shinigami. Although Shini
wasn’t introduced until Season 4, it was quickly made evident just how close she was to her senpai,
Karai. The two share a strong bond, working together excellently and always being there
for each other both in and outside of battle. They still listen to each other,
even when having different opinions - like Shini wanting to spend the money that she,
Karai and Leo stole from the Shredder instead of just torching it - and their protectiveness of
each other is made very clear whenever one of them is hurt. Despite Karai technically being
Shini’s superior in the Foot Clan, given that she is its new head, there never feels like there
is a power dynamic between them, allowing these two ladies to rank high on our list.
Moving onto the Bronze Medal of Healthiness, we have Raph and Mona Lisa. Now, fans may
be a bit surprised to see these two so high up, given that Mona briefly betrayed Raph not too
long after meeting him. However, this really was just a moment of weakness on Mona’s part,
only brought on because she wanted to protect her people - and it’s safe to say that she was able
to make up for it by the end of that episode. Beyond that, these two are pretty cute as well
as incredibly sweet. They admire each other’s strength and are always willing to fight for
one another. Not even going long distance can do much to negatively affect their relationship,
and each time they do meet up, their love is stronger than ever! Even if we had to dock
this pairing a couple points for Mona’s betrayal, we can’t say that there’s any real hidden malice
or red flags to be found with these two, easily making them the healthiest romance in TMNT 2012.
Reaching the first of our brotherly relationships, it’s the show’s so-called ‘B-Team’, Donnie and
Mikey. Having less friction between them than Raph and Leo often have,
these two manage to have a pretty healthy relationship despite their occasional bickering.
Even when they get on each other’s nerves, they overall tend to stick together and can even work
together pretty well. Donnie is also usually the most patient with Mikey, being less likely
to smack him around or insult him. However, he still does these things occasionally,
which isn’t great. Mikey, meanwhile, can sometimes disregard Donnie’s personal boundaries by messing
around in his brother’s lab, which we also don’t approve of. But even with these flaws,
they still manage to have the strongest bond out of the four turtle brothers.
Next up is the chaotic brawler duo, Raph and Casey Jones. Needless to say,
these two didn’t exactly start off on the right foot, with their first meeting coming
about while both of their tempers were high. Naturally, this led to a fairly brutal fight.
Once they got to know each other, however, the two began to bond over their love of fighting - and
ever since then, they’ve been the best of friends. Their relationship isn’t without
its flaws, however. On Raph’s side of things, he can sometimes underestimate or dismiss Casey
due to him not being a ninja like everyone else on their team. Really though, Raph just doesn’t
want to see his buddy get hurt or do something stupid without having back-up. Overall,
it’s pretty easy to see why exactly these two manage to get along so well.
Following them, we have Leo and Mikey. With Leo being the oldest turtle and Mikey being
the youngest, it’s fairly easy for Leo to fall into an almost parental role when it
comes to his orange brother. This is seen in the way Leo is seen patching up Mikey
when he gets hurt or in how protective he can be. While they may not hang out all the
time due to their clashing personalities and mindsets, Leo still has a soft spot for his
youngest brother that is shown time and time again throughout the series. Mikey, in turn,
also cares a lot about his oldest bro. This was best seen in just how concerned he got when he
thought that Leo had been crying the episode “New Girl in Town”. It really is a shame that we
didn’t see these two bond more - but hey, that’s what “Rise of the TMNT” is for, we suppose. What
brings this relationship down a bit, however, is how Leo can still sometimes be dismissive of Mikey
due to how he sees his youngest brother - like we see in the very first episode. Thankfully,
this does improve somewhat, so we can’t take too many points away from this relationship.
Going back to the best friend relationships, next up is Raph and Spike AKA Slash. Starting off as
owner and pet, Spike served as Raph’s confidant. Raph, in turn, was incredibly protective of him as
well as affectionate. Unfortunately, when Spike was mutated into Slash, all the venting about
his brothers ended up biting Raph in the shell when Slash decided that his buddy was better off
without the other turtles. When Raph confronted him about this, Slash showed that he was willing
to beat up Raph as well if he refused to get out of his way. But even after the two fought,
Raph still showed concern for Slash and worried about him when he learned that Slash had formed
a partnership with the Newtralizer, showing that he still considered Slash to be a friend despite
the betrayal. This love for his former pet paid off in the end, and the two were able to remain
friends and allies as Slash took the time to improve himself and make up for his mistakes,
eventually becoming the leader of the Mighty Mutanimals. In a way, they’re sort of like
Mikey and Leatherhead - just with a bit more violence at the start of their relationship.
Finishing off the Healthy, we have Bebop and Rocksteady. Back when these two were humans,
they were - at best - willing allies with a bit of not-so-great history. After their mutation,
however, they ended up forming more of a partnership and even a friendship after a
while. Although they would still be snarky towards each other, they worked together well and even
started living together at one point. Where their friendship truly got a chance to shine, however,
was in the three-part series finale with the 1987 turtles, where their great teamwork was
essentially what both nearly doomed AND ultimately saved the world. We even saw Rocksteady offer
Bebop a hug when the latter was feeling unsure of the 87!Shredder’s plan. D’awww. They may have been
villains for most of this incarnation’s run, but they were still one of the show’s best bromances.
Next, we’re going to list some of the relationships that fall
more in the in-between area, where we don’t think they’re completely
bad but still feel like they could use some work. Welcome to the Grey Area.
Starting this section off, we have April and Casey Jones. The first half of the
Casey-April-Donnie love triangle, and it definitely feels like the healthiest,
even if there are still plenty of flaws. With Casey being unwilling to hide his
crush on the redhead in yellow, it was easy for him to get on April’s nerves, especially when
all she wanted to do was focus on his tutoring. Thankfully, as the two spent more time together,
they formed a genuine bond. Casey proved to be a decent listener as well as protective,
helping April fight off whatever enemies came after her without hesitation. April, in turn,
grew to care about Casey and was happy to hang out with him outside of tutoring and missions. Really,
it’s only the occasional unwanted flirting and gawking on Casey’s part that brings
these two into the Grey area, otherwise they could’ve very easily been higher.
Next up are the team’s Brains and Brawn - Donnie and Raph. Given that they are sort of each other’s
opposite, the friction between them isn’t too surprising - whether that’s Raph getting annoyed
at Donnie’s scientific explanations or Donnie getting aggravated at Raph’s brashness. Still,
on Raph’s side of things, he can actually be a pretty decent big brother for Donnie when he wants
to be. This mostly comes out when he’s trying to be Donnie’s wingman whenever Don tries to impress
April. He’s also been shown to compliment some of Donnie’s inventions. Donnie, however, doesn’t
always share this courtesy. In many instances, when Donnie is given a free pass to do so, he can
actually be pretty harsh, insulting and actually kind of mean to Raph. We can’t really forget
the moment in the first act of the season 4 episode, “Mutant Gangland”,
and that was hardly the first time Don crossed a bit of a line when it came to his red brother.
We’ve finally come to one of the most famous TMNT relationships - Leo and Raph. Simply put, these
two take brotherly rivalry to a whole new level at times. They argue at least several times a season,
with both of them being extremely sensitive about who’s right and who’s wrong. Their rivalry in the
dojo doesn’t really help matters, and a lack of proper communication often means that these two
have a lot of misunderstandings. But for all the fighting and arguing, there is a hidden softness
between these two brothers that is occasionally shown. Whenever Leo is struggling, Raph is there
to help pick his blue brother back up - whether it’s using a quote from “Space Heroes” to inspire
Leo, or helping him regain his strength after Leo wakes up from his coma. Leo, meanwhile,
never lets any bitterness or anger he has towards Raph get in the way of protecting him or working
with him. Even when the two were at each other’s throats while on the planet Xaava-Dal, Leo broke
through the planet’s influence and told Raph that he loved him, ending their fight before it could
lead to any major injuries. While there is a lot that can be improved on with these two, it's the
moments of genuine brotherly love that earn this relationship a couple of extra points.
Sticking with the familial relationships, we have Splinter and his sons next. Families can be
tricky, and for as much as we know Splinter loves his sons, his sternness with them can sometimes
be off-putting, given that he can sometimes act more like a sensei than a father - especially
when it comes to handing out punishments. Still, Splinter will step up and fight for his family
when necessary, even at the risk of his own life. As for the boys, they do love their father and
respect him greatly, only occasionally disobeying him. Still, what brings this relationship down so
low is the blatant favoritism that Splinter can sometimes show. While he’ll give all of his sons
advice, he really only spends one-on-one time with Leo, teaching his special techniques like
the Healing Hands and putting a huge amount of pressure on him to be a good leader - and,
after his death, a good sensei. When it comes to the other turtles, we don’t really see him have
much of a bond with them outside of that initial student-teacher relationship. He didn’t even say
goodbye to his other kids after he died, and in Splinter’s last appearance, we only see him have
an emotional moment with Leo and Karai, only hugging the latter. He doesn’t even comment on
Mikey saving the day in that episode, nor does he give Mikey or any of his other sons a hug before
heading back to the Spirit Realm. Overall, while we can’t call Splinter a bad father,
he does sometimes come off as a distant and occasionally emotionally neglectful one.
Getting back to the turtle brothers, next is Raph and Mikey. Let’s just get this out of the
way right now - there’s a difference between brotherly rough-housing or teasing and being
a bully, and Raph sometimes crosses that line due to his anger. Of all the brothers, Raph can be the
most harsh towards Mikey, with there even being times where he insults the orange turtle for no
reason whatsoever. Buuuut to be fair, Mikey isn’t entirely innocent. While yes, there are plenty
of times where Raph’s behavior is unwarranted, there are also plenty of times where Mikey will
actively tease or goad Raph into a reaction, very much acting like the little brother he is - and
we can’t exactly say that we approve of Mikey’s actions either. But, despite all the bickering and
harshness that can sometimes be found with these two, they also love each other without question.
Raph is incredibly protective of Mikey and has comforted him at times, like when Mikey was
betrayed by Bradford. Mikey, in turn, comforted Raph in the season 2 finale after Splinter was
defeated by Shredder, calming his brother’s rage almost instantly with a hug - resulting in easily
one of the most heartwarming moments within the show. Much like Leo and Raph, we feel that Raph
and Mikey do have plenty of room for improvement, even if there’s plenty of love there as well.
Finishing up the relationships between the four brothers specifically, we have Leo and
Donnie. Yeahhhh, unfortunately these two end up having quite a few notable
clashes throughout the series. We first see them arguing over strategies in the season 2 finale,
showing how differing their mindsets can be. Their next clash comes when Leo tells
Donnie that he’s not working hard enough on the retromutagen - which Donnie, naturally,
sees as both unfair and infuriating. Finally, when Donnie wants to take revenge on Don Vizioso for
nearly killing him, Leo doesn’t really take the time to talk about Donnie’s feelings with him and
instead tries to just use his older brother authority to force Donnie out of his revenge
mindset - which just leads to Donnie getting angrier. What really hurts the ranking for this
relationship in particular is that outside of their fights, Leo and Don don’t really hang out
or have very many positive interactions like we see with some of the other brother-relationships
that we’ve listed. For these reasons, we had to place them on the lower half of our list.
Speaking of Donnie, next up we have him and April. Certainly one of the more…
awkward relationships in the 2012 show. The moment that Donnie first saw April,
he fell for her HARD and made this fact pretty clear. While the two of them were
able to develop a genuine friendship, we still had to cringe at some of Donnie’s more possessive
moments. From spying on her and Casey to calling her things like “my April” and “my
sweet chinchilla” - that last one is just… especially weird. But to Donnie’s credit,
he does try to let his crush on April go when he starts to think that she’s not interested… only
for April to make things much more complicated by kissing him ON THE LIPS when he tells her this.
Now, some fans have argued that - similar to Aang and Katara from “Avatar: The Last Airbender” -
April might have liked Donnie back but just didn’t want to pursue an actual relationship
because they were in the middle of a war with the Kraang and the Shredder. And hey, that’s
totally understandable. We just feel that April could have done a better job communicating this
by using her words instead of simply confusing Donnie even more with a kiss. Overall, while they
may be good friends, any potential romance between these two has been shown to be incredibly messy.
Finishing up the love triangle, we have Donnie and Casey Jones. It’s a tale as old as time:
two guys after the same girl. This combined with a sort of Jock VS Nerd rivalry led to a TON of
fighting between these two, complete with insults and constant one-ups. It’s this rough start to
their relationship that puts them so low on our list. Thankfully, things do take a more positive
turn as the series goes on. We see Donnie start to respect Casey being loyal and good in a fight,
while Casey in turn is willing to acknowledge Donnie's intelligence and tech-savvy-ness. They
even rebuild a car together while at the Farm House and protect each other against the Speed
Demon. If anything, seeing this brief moment of bonding makes it all the more aggravating
when they stop hanging out. But hey, at least they eventually stopped fighting over April.
Ending off the Grey Relationships is Leo and Karai. Even if we ignore the
somewhat-gross fact that these two qualify as half-siblings,
making the more flirty moments between them all the more squicky, these two have still had their
ups and downs. Because they both have their own moral code and don’t like to be told what to do,
they often debated and clashed despite the care they might have had for each other. Karai may
have helped save Leo and the other turtles from time to time, but she wasn’t afraid to
be manipulative or to briefly betray them for her own needs. Leo, meanwhile, just kept coming back,
always trusting that Karai would make the right choice in the end even when everything else about
her said otherwise. We can respect Leo’s loyalty to Karai and his belief in her having a good heart
deep down, but given that this loyalty sometimes led him into making some pretty dumb calls,
it’s hard to see it as completely positive. Still, there’s juuuust enough good here to allow these
two to stay out of the Toxic Tier. We’re just hoping that they manage to keep it platonic.
We’ve finally arrived at the relationships that have a long
way to go if they want to be healthy, as well as the ones that maybe never should
have been formed in the first place. These are the Toxic Relationships.
Just outside the Toxic Podium, we have Bradford and Baxter Stockman. We wanted to isolate this
relationship in particular because, out of all the henchmen that Shredder has,
Bradford AKA Rahzar seems to have the most contempt towards Stockman,
getting a kick out of threatening and insulting him despite Stockman not really doing much to
warrant this. We may not have much sympathy for Stockman, but even he doesn’t deserve all that.
For our Bronze Medal of Toxicity, we have Shredder and Tigerclaw. While these two may have the
closest relationship when it comes to Shredder and his henchmen, almost being a dark mirror of
Karai and Shinigami in a way since Tigerclaw is Shredder’s second-in-command, all the loyalty
and respect on Tigerclaw’s side doesn’t amount to much. Although Shredder is willing to compliment
Tigerclaw on his effectiveness as a bounty hunter, he refuses to listen to the big cat when Tigerclaw
asks him to stop corrupting himself with mutagen, despite Tigerclaw clearly being concerned for his
master’s health and well-being. Additionally, we see Tigerclaw put the entire world at risk
just so he can try and bring his master back to life using the power of Kavaxas. On the one hand,
that level of loyalty is admirable in a way, but it also comes off
as incredibly unhealthy. Soooo, yeah maybe Tigerclaw is better off without Shredder.
Easily getting the Silver Medal of Toxicity are the brothers-turned-bitter enemies, Splinter
and Shredder. Even after growing up as brothers, it was ultimately jealousy
that made any bond they might have had totally beyond repair. Once he learned of his origins,
Oroku Saki no longer had any respect for Yoshi, going so far as to try and kill his brother just
so he could have both the Hamato dojo and Tang Shen. What’s more, Saki would continuously blame
Yoshi for everything wrong in his life, never taking the blame for anything - not
even things that were blatantly his fault, like Shen’s death or Karai’s mutation. In response,
Yoshi would try time and time again to break through Saki’s madness, even being willing to work
with him during the Triceriton’s invasion - which is ultimately what killed Splinter the first time.
Not even the fate of the world was enough to quell Shredder’s desires for revenge - and considering
all the damage that Shredder managed to do after this point, we feel that Splinter is partially at
fault for not just taking him out once and for all while he had the chance. Still, it’s safe
to say that there isn’t really much brotherly love left between these two. But the only thing
more toxic than a brotherly rivalry is a love built on nothing but lies and manipulation.
Earning the Gold Medal of Toxicity is the father-daughter relationship between Shredder
and Karai. Although the love he did have for his so-called ‘daughter’ was genuine at times,
Shredder’s love was never genuine enough for him to put his mission of revenge aside for her and
really only saw Karai as part of that revenge. When Karai started learning the truth about her
actual father, Shredder refused to let her go, resorting to holding her captive and
even brainwashing her before finally doing what he could to erase any feelings of love
he had left for her, making it easier for him to kill Karai - because apparently if he
couldn’t have her loyalty, then no one could. It’s arguably a more tragic relationship than
Shredder and Splinter’s, given that Karai did seem to love her fake father as a child,
showing that even if their relationship was built on lies, there had still been
some happy moments between them. But none of those implied moments could hold a candle to
what the relationship ultimately became, turning into the most Toxic Relationship of TMNT 2012.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked!