
Ask Chris #322: A Tail Of Two Splinters
Q: Which is the better version of Master Splinter: Hamato Yoshi's pet, or a mutated/reincarnated Hamato Yoshi himself? — @RandallJSanders
A: Okay, first things first: The history and minutiae of the Ninja Turtles are weird. By its very nature as a franchise that started out as a goofball parody drawn on a kitchen table over pizzas, and then became the breakout hit of the '80s black-and-white boom that then became Literally The Most Popular Thing In The World, and then became a tenured franchise that's spawned multiple iterations over the past 30 years, things get really complex, really quick when you start trying to figure out how it all works.
And for Splinter, that's even more true than it is for the Turtles themselves. As their mentor figure, the one who's responsible for handing down all the ninja knowledge that makes up a full quarter of their identities, his complications spring from an entirely different set of problems --- and that's before you start figuring out how a bunch of turtles wound up with a rat as their dad.