April O'Neil (Mirage)

April O'Neil started out as an assistant for Baxter Stockman. When she discovered that Baxter was using his Mousers to burrow into bank vaults and steal from them, she attempted to flee Baxter's workshop and found herself in the sewers running for her life, with several Mousers in pursuit. Three of the Turtles happened to come across her and save her and brought back to their lair, where she would meet Splinter and find out about their origin. With her new friends, she returned to Baxter's hideout and defeated him. As the series went on, she became a closer friend to the Turtles and their link to the outside world. She also decided to reopen her father's antique store 'Second Time Around'. During the Shredder's sudden return (What Goes Around... Comes Around!/Silent Partner/Return to New York story arcs) April, the Turtles and their new friend Casey Jones had to escape to Casey's farm house in Northampton, Massachusetts where she later had dreams about the Foot Clan's attack. During these events she would know Casey better and in time take a liking to him. April would live with her sister Robyn for a while during the events of City at War and find out their father died. Looking for a new place to live, she just happened to find the apartment Casey was living in. Eventually she'd marry Casey and they'd raise his adopted daughter Shadow Jones.

In TMNT Volume 2 of the series, April would be attacked by Baxter Stockman, now a brain inside a killer robot (apparently, Baxter having escaped capture, had placed his brain in the body of a robot and sought them out in order to get revenge on April). She would be injected with something, and though the Turtles defeated Baxter, it was never revealed what exactly April was injected with.

This would be somewhat revealed in TMNT Volume 4, as April and Casey wondered why they couldn't have children and discovered deadly nanobots within her system, threatening her life. With help of the Utroms, the Turtles made TMNT-style Nanobots that saved April's life before Baxter's nanobots could reach her brainstem. Time would pass and April still couldn't have children. This put an emotional strain on April, and she became a female version of Nobody until she was discovered by Casey Jones. It was with the help of Renet taking her back in time that revealed that April was really a living drawing, brought to life with the help of Kirby's crystal, drawn by her father, who at the time really wanted a daughter. This was before their own biological daughter Robyn would be born. Unlike Kirby's drawings drawn with pencil that would vanish after a while, April's father used a pen, so it might explain why April lived past thirty without vanishing so far. Questions such as if she was real or not, whether she could live or die, or when she would eventually vanish were too much for her to handle. April bid farewell to Shadow and Casey and went to be alone with her thoughts in Alaska.

Fan reaction was mixed, as many believed her normality served as a good contrast to the fantastic nature of the Turtles. No other incarnation of April has shared this origin to date.

Unlike some of the other versions of her character, the Mirage Comics version of April has dark brown/black hair (though early color reprints of Volume 1 depicted her hair color as red/light brown). Most future incarnations of April that came afterwards are redheads.