The Utroms are small, brainlike aliens whose technology is deeply connected to the Ninja Turtles’ origin. The original Mirage comics introduce their mystery through the early TCRI storyline, with the aliens themselves revealed in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4.
Our video covers the Utroms in Mirage’s comics. Keep reading below for their other major incarnations.
In the Mirage continuity, a group of Utroms has been stranded on Earth for around twenty years. They conceal their activities behind a company called TCRI, short for Techno Cosmic Research Institute.
To move among humans unnoticed, they build human-shaped robotic bodies and operate them from a compartment in the abdomen.
The original Utroms are generally peaceful and devoted to science. Their curiosity takes them across space to explore and establish settlements on other worlds.
Their reluctance to fight also leaves them vulnerable. Faced with more aggressive species, including the Triceratons, they abandon territory instead of committing to war.
Stranded on Earth, they work on a way home. Their solution is a device capable of transporting them across interstellar distances.
An accident while equipment is being moved into the city sends a canister of mutagen into the sewers. That lost container transforms Splinter and the four young turtles, tying the Utroms to the heroes long before they meet.
After contacting their homeworld, the stranded Utroms receive instructions to remain on Earth and continue observing humanity.
Years later, they discover Splinter badly injured after an attack by Baxter Stockman’s Mousers.
Suspecting that he is connected to their missing mutagen, they take him to their TCRI headquarters for treatment.
The Turtles search for their missing father. During an encounter with the Foot Clan, they notice the TCRI building and recognize the initials from the canister that transformed them. They investigate without realizing that Splinter is already inside.
Their first encounter with the aliens goes wrong and sends the brothers across the galaxy. There, they meet the Fugitoid and help save him.
After their adventure with the Fugitoid and the Triceratons, the Turtles return to Earth. Reunited with Splinter, they help the Utroms prepare to leave.
Activating the transport equipment attracts the authorities, including the police and National Guard. The Utroms evacuate and work to remove evidence of their presence.
They return in later Mirage stories, establishing an open presence and relations with humanity and other alien cultures. A possible future connects their interest in Earth to efforts to help humanity survive climate change and other planetary disasters.
The 1987 cartoon uses a different approach. Krang resembles a Mirage Utrom, but the classic series gives him his own alien background; it does not establish that every member of an Utrom species is a giant reptile. Later continuities make the relationship between Krang and the Utroms much more explicit.
The live-action films almost took the franchise back toward the Utrom side of its comic-book origins. The important distinction is between ideas considered during development and what actually appears in The Secret of the Ooze.
One proposed direction would have brought the Turtles into contact with TCRI during their conflict with the Foot, echoing the original comics.
That approach explored the aliens and their transportation technology, with the possibility of expanding the story toward the Triceratons. These concepts should not be mistaken for scenes from the finished movie.
Development ideas also connected the research company, robotic technology, and the search for resources needed to return home. They illustrate how much more directly a sequel could have adapted the early Mirage science-fiction storyline.
The released film instead centers on TGRI and Professor Jordon Perry. No Utrom is revealed on screen, and Perry is not identified in the finished movie as either an alien or Baxter Stockman.
Shredder returns, while Tokka and Rahzar fill the movie’s mutant-enforcer roles. The finished story takes its own path rather than introducing the Utroms, Triceratons, Bebop, and Rocksteady together.
In the 2003 cartoon, a Utrom ship carrying the criminal Ch’rell crashes in feudal Japan. Ch’rell escapes, and the surviving Utroms are stranded.
They take advantage of their long lifespans and wait for human technology to advance far enough to help them get home.
As in Mirage’s comics, they develop robotic exoskeletons that let them blend into human society.
They also gain human allies, the Guardians, who protect them from Ch’rell. Hamato Yoshi, Splinter’s late master, belongs to that group and dies rather than expose their hiding place.
TCRI is again linked to the mutagen responsible for Splinter and the Turtles.
A brief exchange during the Utroms’ departure reveals that one of them is named Krang, a joke for viewers who know the older cartoon. The Utroms later return to bring Ch’rell to justice, ultimately sentencing him to exile on the frozen asteroid Mor Gal Tal.
IDW’s comics place the Utrom homeworld, Utrominon, in Dimension X.
This version has a much more militaristic history. Krang’s father, Quanin, is a warlord and the last ruler of the old Utrom regime.
Their reliance on a powerful mutagenic resource contributes to environmental devastation and the near destruction of their civilization. The mutagen becomes another link between the Utroms and the Turtles’ creation.
Survivors reach Earth, where Krang uses the Technodrome to terraform Burnow Island. After his fall, Ma’riell takes a leading role among the surviving Utroms. Alliances with the Turtles, Triceratons, and Neutrinos complicate their future, and Ch’rell is revived during a later attack on the island.
Nickelodeon’s 2012 series introduces the Kraang, a group descended from Utroms who have fallen under one ruler’s control. The show also uses its crossover with the classic cartoon to play with the connection to the original Krang.
A Utrom scientist discovers mutagen associated with the Kraathatrogon worms. After using it on himself, he gains enormous size and psychic power, then enslaves much of his species.
Calling himself Kraang Prime, he imposes a hive mind and names his followers after himself. The independent Utroms form a resistance against his expansion through Dimension X and beyond.
The Utrom Council uses chess-piece names, including Bishop, Pawn, Rook, and Queen. Knight, a former ally, defects and becomes Kraang Subprime.
The Kraang repeatedly try to conquer and transform Earth. The Turtles stand in their way more than once.
Finally, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem introduces Cynthia Utrom. Her surname and the brainlike visual suggestion in her clothing invite speculation, but those clues alone do not establish that she is Krang. The movie presents a new continuity with its own mysteries.