10 Comic Book Supervillains Who Created Their Own Worst Enemy
6. The Shredder And Master Splinter
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have undergone plenty of changes over the decades - some in an attempt to make the group more family friendly, and others purely for the sake of giving the formula a bit of a shake-up.
One thing that has not changed since the original Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird comic, though, is the rivalry between the Turtles, their Master Splinter, and the Shredder. In nearly every incarnation, Oroku Saki is responsible for invoking the ire of Splinter and his four reptilian sons, and you can't say he doesn't deserve it.
In the original incarnation, the Shredder killed Splinter's master, Hamato Yoshi, who was teaching the young rat the ways of ninjitsu. When Splinter eventually encounters the four turtles doused in goo in a Manhattan sewer, he mutates along with them and becomes their sensei, teaching them everything his master taught him, so that one day they could overcome and defeat the Shredder.
Other continuities vary, with the current IDW series depicting Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo as reincarnated versions of Yoshi and his sons - who were murdered by Saki in Feudal Japan - but Shredder is always to blame for igniting the feud in the first place, as well as for laying the foundations of his own downfall.