
Greetings fellow users. I hope the new year is off to a good start for you so far wherever you may live (my sincere regards/prayers though if you happen to live in LA or any war-torn place). Lately, I’ve been watching a show that I used to watch a little back in the day, but as of late, due to my changing tastes, my interest in it has been renewed and I’ve finally gotten around to watching it in a more dedicated manner. Therefore, I have now ended up seeing most of it, and after doing so, I’ve come across a few antagonistic characters that I’m pretty sure can qualify for this alignment (not including a few others from it that have already been approved of course). Admittedly, I’m not absolutely sure about any of them for multiple reasons; one, I still haven’t seen the last two seasons, only the first five (though from what I understand, the last two seasons are noticeably lighter and involve less serious threats, so I have reason to doubt much happens in them to affect the heinous standard of the series); two, I’m still not very experienced at proposing characters here specifically, seeing as how I’ve only nominated two up until now; and three, this is another one of those shows with a ridiculously high heinous standard, so it can be especially hard to determine what’s “sufficiently heinous” in it since it’s more subjective than ever. However, I’m confident enough about some of these characters fitting the criteria that they at least seem worth bringing to the table to see what others think, so here I am. For now, I’m just going to plan on this one nomination, but depending on how it goes, there are a couple of other characters from it I might bring up later.
What’s the work?[]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 is one of several notable animated tv series adaptations of the comic book series of the same name from the 80s that was created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird which revolved around the famous quartet of anthropomorphic turtles and an anthropomorphic rat named Splinter who acts as both their mentor and adoptive father. It lasted a whopping 155 episodes spread out over 7 seasons and aired over the course of about six years, then received a movie that acted as a sequel, series finale and crossover event with the tv series from the 80s called Turtles Forever.
Ironically, despite being co-produced by the company 4Kids Entertainment, a company that was mostly infamous for excessive censoring and “Americanization” of any anime series they licensed and dubbed, the series was noticeably darker, more serious and all-around much closer in tone to the original Mirage comics compared to the more comedic, almost sitcom-like version of the show from the 80s. It featured much more devoted, ongoing storylines as opposed to silly episodic shenanigans and Saturday morning cartoon-esque plots, most of which were direct adaptations of the comic book arcs in early seasons, and surprisingly, featured much less censorship than pretty much any of the anime the company licensed, to the extent it sometimes featured enough of the kind of violence, mature subject matter and even horror tropes that would make one question if it was even aimed at children in the first place. Naturally, the upside to this type of storytelling and the deeper characterization that came with it were that it became a pretty popular adaptation with older audiences even to this day.
Anyway, the series generally revolves around the titular quartet of turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, who came into being as a result of coming into contact with radioactive ooze that caused them to grow in size and intelligence, living out of sight of the human population in the sewers of New York under the tutelage and protection of an anthropomorphic rat named Splinter, who took them in when they were children and trained them in the martial arts. Over the course of the series, they face various threats to them, New York and even the world as a whole, all while trying to keep their existence a secret from most of the world; at first, they mostly just face local crime organizations and gangs like the Foot Clan, who are led by the notorious Shredder, and the Purple Dragons, but eventually, this escalates to aliens and ancient evils that have been awakened after being dormant for centuries and the like.
Who is he and what does he do?[]
The Sliver is the main antagonist of the episode Reality Check. He’s an evil alternate reality counterpart of the turtles’ master Splinter who is encountered by Michelangelo when Ultimate Draco, who is a fusion of the Ultimate Ninja and Draco, two of the Turtles’ enemies whose plans they previously foiled at the Battle Nexus tournament, shows up to their lair with the Time Scepter in hand and vengeance on them in mind. Therefore, they use the scepter to open up various portals to different dimensions and deposit the Turtles and Splinter in them as a means of forcefully separating them. In Mikey’s case, he ends up in a world where the Turtles aren’t ninjas, but superheroes, or rather, Super Turtles, complete with unique superpowers. However, he quickly finds out that in this reality, their archnemesis is none other than their old master Splinter, who in sharp contrast with the wise, benevolent and noble Splinter from his dimension that the Turtles (and we, the viewers) know and love, turned to evil a long time ago and became a megalomaniacal supervillain under the moniker the Sliver.
Though it’s implied he’s clashed with the Super Turtles multiple times before, at the time Michelangelo arrives there, he just so happens to have finished working on his “end game”, a doomsday weapon called the Penultimate Nullificator, which he plans to use to erase all life on Earth. When the Super Turtles, along with Michelangelo, are informed of his plot by April O’Neill (who’s the mayor of the city they live in, which is called Megatropolis in that reality) and infiltrate his tower to confront him, he reveals that he’s modified it so that it will destroy all life outside of the tower, but that everything inside of the tower will be safe so that in the aftermath, he and his sons can rebuild the world in their image. Predictably, the Super Turtles adamantly refuse to go along with it, so in response, he traps them in a cage made of Utromidium, which they can’t break out of due to it being a material that weakens their superpowers. However, following a plan suggested by Michelangelo, the Super Turtles have Blobboid, Michelangelo’s shape-shifting superhero counterpart, pose as Michelangelo and convince the Sliver to let him out by claiming that in his reality, he and his brothers are loyal to their master and that he wants to help him with their plan. This pleases the Sliver, but of course, when he lets his guard down, Blobboid snatches his cane with the button that activates the cage on it and uses it to free his brothers and Michelangelo.
All of them collectively try to attack the Sliver, but having taught the Super Turtles all they learned, he is a master of their respective techniques and easily beats each of them down. He even attempts to either badly injure or possibly even kill Griddex when he’s already down, claiming he has “one final lesson to teach him” before being interrupted by Graviturtle. After putting them out of commission, he mocks Michelangelo for not having any powers, and therefore, no hope, only to be taken off guard by his more indirect, ninja techniques. Using this lack of familiarity with his style to his advantage, he manages to land some blows on him before taking his cane without him realizing it until it’s too late and uses it to trap him in his own Utromidium cage. He then claims that they’ve still lost since the Nullificator is close to going off and cleansing the world, but Michelangelo quickly comes up with the idea that they can modify it to only destroy everything within the tower instead of everything outside of it. Shellectro then successfully reprograms it electronically, after which Michelangelo is teleported to safety while the Super Turtles escape by flying out of the tower, leaving the Sliver to cry out one last “Noooo!!!” before he and his tower are erased by his own weapon.
What Makes Him Close to Pure Evil?[]
Due to the very high heinous standard of the show, the Sliver won’t be mistaken for the single most heinous character in it by any stretch. Both from what I’ve seen and what I know of, I’m pretty sure that distinction still goes to Ch’rell since among many other things, he caused millions of deaths across the universe before even coming to Earth as a result of various wars he started for his own profit, having multiple minions executed for failure (and in Baxter Stockman’s case, horrifically mutilated until there’s almost nothing left of him), having multiple New York citizens kidnapped, experimented on and turned into monsters against their will, trying to steal Beijing’s antigravity generator, which was implemented by the Triceratons during their invasion to force the whole nation into the sky, which would have caused it to fall back to Earth in a manner that would have caused millions of deaths, and even trying to destroy the whole multilverse by the time of the movie in a desperate attempt to destroy all Ninja Turtles. And those are only major examples; I’m not even touching on a number of the more personal bad things he does and his centuries-long conflict with the other Utroms, which also involved some nasty business.
He’s not the only one who’s a threat on a global scale either; the original Tengu Shredder, the Brotherhood, the Y’Lyntians and Savanti Romero all posed threats to the wellbeing of everyone on the planet in some capacity too. However, considering the Sliver is only an independent antagonist of an alternate reality who appears in one episode, I think it’s pretty notable he’s even comparable to many of these characters since they’re either god-like in power, such as the original Shredder, are entire alien races with advanced technology, which is the case with both the Brotherhood and the Y’Lyntians, with the former even able to travel to multiple planets to appease their collective monstrous appetites, and even Savanti, who’s easily the most fair comparison among those bigger threats, had access to the Time Scepter. The Sliver has pretty minimal screentime even compared to him though, so while he may not have time to do much beyond his attempt to erase almost all life on Earth with his doomsday weapon, I’m pretty sure that’s enough on its own to stand out as sufficiently heinous since it’s among the most large-scale acts of attempted mass murder in the whole series. If anything, I think it puts him roughly on par with Savanti since while he did other bad things prior to trying to modify the Turtles’ timeline from the past so that not just the Turtles, but all of humanity (and presumably many other species) would never exist, like trying to steal the Time Scepter and have control over time in the first place, that’s by far his worst action, and this is pretty much on par with that in terms of scale since it would have involved erasing all living things on the planet aside from him and his sons. And again, if you want to split hairs, Savanti appeared in three episodes and did this with a very powerful, already existing item that gave him control over time, while Sliver managed to attempt something similarly awful in just one episode with a doomsday weapon of his own creation. In short, if Savanti is considered sufficiently heinous, I think he is too despite the high standard.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
While I think he’s sufficiently heinous enough to stand out among the worst in the show for the reasons I gave, he does have one somewhat positive trait that I think prevents him from being 100% evil, and that’s that, even though it’s obviously not nearly as healthy or as unconditional as the original Splinter’s love for his adopted sons, he still seems to genuinely care about his own sons, the Super Turtles, in some capacity. Sure, he wants to turn them to evil and is willing to attack them if they defy him, possibly even fatally in Griddex’s case at one point (though his wording, stating he has “one final lesson to teach him”, makes it pretty ambiguous and hard to state for sure). However, it’s still clear that he’d prefer if they willingly join him so that it isn’t necessary. Yes, sometimes villains will make offers to the heroes to join them in their conquest or other goals, and it isn’t always mitigating since sometimes, they clearly just value them for their potential usefulness or want to have power over them, but in this case, the Super Turtles are by far the biggest threat to him not succeeding, meaning he has an especially strong reason to get rid of them too. Despite that, he’s intent on keeping them safe in his tower and even phrases his goal as wanting them to rebuild the world in their image, which makes it sound like he wanted them to do it together as a family, not just force them to serve him and his goals. He even seemed genuinely pleased when Blobboid was posing as Mikey and saying he’d like to join him, with no indication he was going to backstab him or treat him like a mere underling. So yeah, even if it’s a twisted kind of affection, it still seems genuinely merciful and altruistic compared to how he’s treating all other life, and I do think it holds up as a minor redeeming quality.
On a side note, his page on the Villains Wiki initially had the Tragic and Possessed/Brainwashed categories on it, but whoever added those must have been misremembering it, as there is no indication whatsoever his reason for falling to evil was forceful, sympathetic or otherwise out of his hands, nor that he’s being possessed or controlled by someone or something else. Either that or maybe those traits genuinely apply to his counterpart from the comic books and they were thinking of that version when they added them, though I have no idea if that’s true. I just know they certainly don't apply to this version of the character.
Final Thoughts[]
In short, even with TMNT 2003’s heinous standard as high as it is, I think he qualifies for trying to use the Penultimate Nullificator to wipe out all life on his planet aside from himself and his sons, especially considering he’s only an independent one-shot antagonist from an alternate reality, but he’s mitigated slightly by still showing some genuine care for his adopted sons. As always, though, it’s up to you guys, and I’m totally open to other takes since I’m all too aware of how subjective this is, especially in cases like this where the character in question is in a work where other characters do and attempt similarly heinous crimes on a similarly massive scale. Just keep it civil and clean regardless of your opinion and we’re good. Thanks for taking the time to read this!