Comic Book / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter is a crossover comic between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the IDW comic) and Street Fighter, consisting of a five-issue miniseries, written by Paul Allor with art by Ariel Medel. The comic miniseries ran from June to November of 2023.

A new martial arts tournament is being held in Atlantic City, attracting fighters from all across the world to test their might. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have excitedly decided to take part in the tournament and find themselves facing off against the legendary Street fighters. The two sides intend to prove themselves against each other and a fierce rivalry is born as they face off. However, a new threat to both the Turtles and Street Fighters seems to be on the horizon, as a mysterious enemy is kidnapping the participants of the tournament and both sides will need to team up to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter contains examples off:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: Raphael absorbs all of the accumulated Psycho Power from the Psycho Bombs, granting him a Psycho-Powered super form which allows him to defeat both M. Bison and Shredder in a single blow.
• Action Girl: Chun-Li for the Street Fighters, and Jennika for the Ninja Turtles.
• Adaptational Jerkass: At this point in the IDW comics, Shredder had mellowed out and become a good guy as well as mentor to the heroes. Here he's still evil and kind of a dick, even if A Lighter Shade of Black to M. Bison.
• Alternate Continuity: The comic is set after the "Armageddon Game" storyline of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW) comic, but is considered non-canon due to a several discrepancies, such as Shredder still being evil.
• Ascended Meme: When Raphael is presumed dead, Ken's first response is "Bummer". This is likely a nod to the infamous "Cowabummer" meme which surrounds another one of the Turtles' comic crossovers.
• Badass Boast: Shredder gets one out while he is beating Bison's troopers.
  Shredder: You thought that would stop me? I have brought empires to their knees. Killed renowned warriors. Have you any idea who you're dealing with?
• Bad Boss: M. Bison shows little to no respect to Baxter Stockman, disregarding his ideas constantly, yelling at him, and even slapping him for questining his judgement. He also chose not to tell him of his true plans to bomb Manhattan.
• Badass in Distress: Raphael and Chun-Li spend the entirety of issue #3 as Bison and Stockman's captives, and fighting their way to escape.
• Batman Gambit: Stockman tricks Ken into destroying the Psycho Bomb's controls by mentioning that they have limited time and this is the easiest way to destroy the bomb, but he doesn't wish his work to be destroyed. Later, the heroes try to convince Shredder to help them by mentioning that they should work together to stop Bison, knowing that Shredder won't cooperate and instead rush off to get revenge on Bison, therefore keeping them both distracted.
• Big Bad: M. Bison is the mastermind behind the plot kidnap fighters and siphon their Psycho Power to create Psycho Bombs to Take Over the World.
• Big Eater: Michelangelo is introduced taking a mountain of food from the snack stand outside of the area. This ends up biting him when he goes up against Chun-Li in the tournament, who is upset at him for taking all the nachos.
• Book Ends: The series starts with a fight between Raphael and Guile, and ends with their rematch.
• The Cameo: Pigeon Pete and Rufus make a brief appearance as two of the tournament fighters Shadaloo kidnapped to use as Living Batteries.
• Cardboard Prison: Invoked by Baxter Stockman after he is arrested, asserting that no prison can hold him. In response, Chun-Li tells him that he'll be sent to an offshore Interpol detention facility.
• Casino Episode: Downplayed. The tournament takes place in a casino in Atlantic City, however, the casino itself rarely appears and is not relevant to the plot.
• Cool Versus Awesome: Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighters. And in the final issue, Shredder vs. M. Bison.
• Combat Parkour: Michelangelo is more agile and acrobatic than any of the other Turtles during his fighting. However, this is subverted during his fight with Chun-Li, an opponent who also quite agile and far more direct with her attacks.
  Chun-Li: Let this be a lesson: evasion works fine in the real world, but when you're forced to fight someone, eventually you have to actually—fight.
• Continuity Nod: Jennika's previous life as a member of the Foot Clan is mentioned during her fight with Shredder.
• Covers Always Lie: Different variant covers show off various characters from the TMNT and Street Fighter universes, including April O'Neil, Casey Jones, Spilnter, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, Cammy White, Zangief, Vega, Akuma, and Dan Habiki, who have no appearance in the story whatsoever.
  • A lesser example occurs with the cover of issue #2. Leonardo is seen facing off with Ryu while wielding a sword, despite none of the Turtles ever using any weapons during the tournament.
• Crossover Power Acquisition: Shredder and Raphael are revealed to possess significant Psycho Power thanks to their innate anger and hatred. During the final issue, Raphael channels all of the accumulated Psycho Power from the Psycho Bomb, briefly attaining similar abilities to Bison.
• Crossover Villain-in-Chief: M. Bison takes the role of main villain, with Baxter Stockman as his lackey/partner.
• The Dragon: Dr. Baxter Stockman acts as this towards M. Bison, though he insists that they are equal partners. Bison, of course, thinks otherwise.
• The Dreaded: Stockman is greatly annoyed that Bison got the Turtles involved in their plans despite his warnings. He immediately decides that it's time to abandon ship once he learns that Shredder is free and tearing through Bison's soldiers.
• Diabolical Mastermind: M. Bison is a powerful criminal figure with an international crime organization, the Shadaloo syndicate, with international reach and a desire to Take Over the World.
• Enemy Mine: The Turtles attempt to convince Shredder to join them by pointing out that they share an enemy in Bison, only for Shredder to turn his backs on them to fight Bison alone. Luckily, this is exactly what they wanted.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Baxter Stockman turns on M. Bison upon learning that he intends to destroy New York with his newly designed Psycho Bomb weapon, as destroying his home city is way too far even for an evil Mad Scientist like Stockman.
• Evil Is Hammy: M. Bison, naturally.
  Donatello: But...20 million people...just as a demonstration? That's—that's...
  M. Bison: —PSYCHO! HAHAHAHA!
• Evil vs. Evil: Bison kidnaps Shredder in order to harness his inner Psycho Power for the Psycho Bomb. Once Shredder escapes imprisonment (and warms himself up on the heroes) he engages Bison in a grueling brawl; and is still seen fighting with him well after his plans have been stopped.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Applies to the two hero groups as a whole, but especially Raphael and Guile, who start the series hating each other's guts, but gradually grow to respect one another.
• Fixing the Game: Bison has the tournament's referee in his pocket, and uses him to disqualify Raphael from his fight from Guile so that he can kidnap him.
• The Ghost: Both Balrog and April O'Neil are mentioned in phone conversations, but never appear on-screen.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Raphael, as per usual. It's so prominent that characters like Chun-Li and Bison, who have only known him for a few days, are able to notice it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Raphael chooses to absorb all the Psycho Power from the Psycho Bomb in order to disable it before it can be launched at New York, knowing full well that so much negative energy could kill him.
• It's a Long Story: Subverted. Leonardo claims this about Jennika's relationship with Shredder, only for her to summarize it more succinctly.
  Ryu: Traitor?
  Leonardo: Long story. Very, very long—
  Jennika: He's my old boss. The end.
  Leonardo: I would have told it with a little more nuance, but—
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Anyone not familiar with the IDW Turtles up to this point might be confused why the Turtles would willingly put themselves out in the open and why everyone acts like giant mutant Turtles are a normal thing. Downplayed slightly in that the series takes place in an Alternate Continuity not connected to the main IDW series.
• Let's You and Him Fight: In true crossover fashion, the Turtles and Street Fighters briefly mistake each other for villains and come to blows over it.
• Living Battery: M. Bison and Baxter Stockman's new Psycho Bomb weapon is powered by Psycho Energy which is found in skilled martial artists. To power the Psycho Bomb, they kidnap both Chun-Li and Raphael to harvest their powers for the weapon.
• Luminescent Blush: Chun-Li gives one when Michelangelo remarks that he likes her "intense vibe".
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Baxter Stockman.
• Make an Example of Them: M. Bison's true plan. Instead of merely testing the Psycho Bomb on a small area of desert as Stockman believed, his intention is to decimate New York and kill the entire population to prove his willingness to use them.
• Mistaken Death Confirmation: Raphael is believed dead by the heroes after dispelling all the accumulated Psycho Power from his body; with Jennika taking his lack of pulse as confirmation. Only a few moments later, he recovers, telling Jennika that she should learn how to find a pulse.
• Murderous Thighs: Chun-Li, unsurprisingly, who manages to put Michelangelo into a choke hold using her legs.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ken is tricked by Stockman into destroying the Psycho Bomb's controls, thus preventing its from being disabled. To a lesser extent, the Turtles and Street Fighters are unable to drain off the Psycho Bomb's energy as they already freed everyone Bison was using to power it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: M. Bison's arrogance undoes his Psycho Bomb plan at almost every step of the way. Despite repeated warnings from Stockman, he cannot resist getting the Turtles involved in his plans thanks to his fascination with Raphael's Psycho Power. When the Turtles and Street Fighters are distracted fighting one another, he sends an entire army of his troops out to capture Raphael and Chun-Li, not only revealing his presence but ending up giving the group several leads to his lair. And to top it off, he kidnapped the Shredder to help fuel his Psycho Bomb, leading to him breaking free and distracting him long enough for the Turtles to interfere with his plans.
• Noodle Incident: Sometime before the start of the series, Bison sent his henchmen to kidnap Shredder so he could harness his Psycho Power. It is unknown how they accomplished this, apart from it being difficult and costing a lot of men.
• Not Just a Tournament: The Halo Soda-sponsored tournament is in fact just a ruse designed by Bison and Stockman to lure in powerful fighters so that they can kidnap them and drain their Psycho Power.
  Ken: Oh, for crying out loud. It's Shadaloo! Every time we think we've found a nice, well-organized international fighting tournament. It's all Shadaloo!
• Oh, Crap!: Stockman freaks once he hears Shredder's voice and realizes that Bison kidnapped him to fuel the Psycho Bomb.
• One-Man Army: Shredder demolishes every single Shadaloo mook sent to contain him, before effortlessly defeating Ryu, Leonardo and Jennika, and finally matching blows with Bison himself.
• Properly Paranoid: Stockman's one stipulation in his partnership with Bison is that they avoid getting the Turtles involved since they will inevitably undo their scheme. Sure enough...
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Stockman lets out multiple "nopes" after Shredder frees himself and begins beating Bison's guards.
• The Rival: Guile and Raphael become this to each other over the course of the story, repeatedly butting heads after their first match in the tournament.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Bison decides it's time to leave his lair once things start to get too chaotic.
  M. Bison: What? No, Balrog, I'm not hiding on the roof. There's just...a lot of chaos down below. People running, screaming. Trying to "save the day". And I can't be bothered.
• Ship Tease: Between Michelangelo and Chun-Li.
• Significant Anagram: Bison's latest front, the Halo Soda Corporation, is an anagram for "Shadalo", which quickly becomes apparent to the heroes. Played for Laughs at the end of the story when Michelangelo tries to come up with a significant anagram for himself.
• Take Over the World: M. Bison and Stockman's ultimate goal through the Psycho Bombs.
• Talk to the Fist: Chun-Li dispatches one of the Shadaloo soldiers this way just as he's commenting how she's made it easy for them to find her.
• Unknown Rematch Conclusion: The series ends showing Raphael and Guile engaging in their long-overdue rematch.
• Villain Ball: Card-Carrying Villain M. Bison cannot resist any opportunity to show off his power or grab onto new sources of it; unleashing hordes of Shadaloo soldiers upon the heroes, capturing Raphael and Shredder in spite of Stockman repeatedly warning him against it, and directing the Psycho Bomb towards New York City just as proof of how ruthless he is willing to be with them.
• Villain Respect: Though he wishes to use him as a battery for his Psycho Bomb, Bison remains fascinated with Raphael's fighting skills and natural Psycho Power.
• Villain Team-Up: Baxter Stockman joins forces with M. Bison and Shadaloo.
• We Can Rule Together: Bison attempts to lure Raphael to The Dark Side upon witnessing his Psycho Powered form.
• With My Hands Tied: Chun-Li and Raphael are both handcuffed by Bison and Stockman, and still manage to effectively fight the two villains and their henchmen.
• Zerg Rush: Bison's troops successfully employ this twice on the heroes, managing to overpower them long enough to capture Raphael and Chun-Li and later overwhelm Raphael completely. Unfortunately for them, these tactics don't work so well against the Shredder.