Xever Montes (2012 TV series)

Xever Montes was one of 's top henchmen, alongside. Once mutated into Fishface, he became even more of a force to be reckoned with. Xever is also a crime boss of the Brazilian mob in New York City, who call him Mr. X.

Appearance
His human appearance was tall, skinny and wore a blue jeans, a white shirt and blue vest. He was of African descent and sported a small afro.

His appearance as Fishface is a large unidentified red carp-like fish with yellow eyes and thin stick-like arms, with webs between his fingers. He has a large dorsal fin with a chunk missing from the front. His stomach area is white. With a mouth full of sharp teeth, especially two large ones sticking out of it. He was modified a pair of silver high powered legs, as well as an orange breathing rig.

Overview
Xever Montes was a Brazilian street urchin. He was a master thief, that is, until he was sent to prison (after trying to steal a briefcase, possibly filled with money). There he made his own weapons, and it was also where Shredder found him. He then became one of his top henchmen in the Foot Clan.

He debuted in the episode New Friend, Old Enemy. There, he is paired up with to find and kill, as Xever knows his way around the criminal underworlds of each city. After Bradford set the trap for Mikey, he and Bradford easily captured him. After Leo, Donnie, and Raph saved Mikey, Xever and Bradford followed them into the sewer. He proved to be more than a match for Donatello and Michelangelo, but was outmatched by Leonardo and Raphael when the Turtles switched foes. The Turtles then flushed Chris and Xever out of the sewers.

In Never Say Xever, Shredder puts Xever in charge of getting rid of the Turtles. Xever uses his connections with the to do this. After the Turtles save Mr. Murakami from the Dragons, they follow one of them, Fong to their hideout in the fortune cookie factory. Just as Fong tells Xever and Bradford about the Turtles, they make their entrance and a fight breaks out. While Bradford handles Donnie and Mikey, Xever fights with Leo who he is easily able to beat, until Raph intervenes. When the Foot Ninjas arrive, the Turtles retreat, much to both Xever's and Raphael's frustration. Xever punishes Fong, before realizing that they can hold an ally hostage to make the Turtles stay. He holds Mr. Murakami over a tall building and waits for his foes. When the Turtles open a trash can and show a captured Bradford to him,threatening to throw him off the building, he does not release Murakami, stating that Bradford's not his friend and that he wanted him to fall over. As he is cutting the rope holding Mr. Murakami up, Leonardo pulls him up, as Xever orders the Foot ninjas to fight. The Turtles are able to defeat them while dodging Xever's kunai. When Bradford frees himself with one of the Kunai, he asks Xever how he was so sure that Leo was bluffing, which Xever responded with "I wasn't". He is then able to defeat Raphael by hitting him while he was distracted by Foot Soldiers, which worked after a couple of hits. He uses the same tactic for Leonardo, except it worked with only one blow. When showing off his skills to Bradford and about to fillet the Turtles, Fong gives Leonardo his sword back who slashes a water tower and the bad guys are washed away by said water tower, giving the Turtles enough time to escape.

In The Gauntlet, he is shown along with Bradford being punished by Shredder, as he stated that he should have left him in the prison that he found him in. After that, he goes out to hunt the Turtles along with his partner. On the way, he sees and touches a weird-looking fish in a Chinatown Stand. He finds the brothers while Donatello is trying to shut down the Kraang's mutagen bomb. He is able to make short work of Leonardo and Michelangelo, before helping Bradford defeat Raphael. After Bradford is defeated and the bomb is disarmed, Donatello helps Raphael battle Xever. Xever is initially able to beat them, but after dodging several attacks, he finds himself cornered with Bradford. Xever refuses to surrender, and Bradford tried to bring them down by stabbing the mutagen bomb, which instead made a straight blast that focused all of the mutagen on those two washing them off the building. Xever mutated into a fish because the weird looking fish was the last thing he touched, and because of it, he can no longer breathe in the air, and was suffocating, needing the Shredder's help.

In the following episode Panic in the Sewers, Xever made a brief cameo in Shredder's pool, showing how he survived.

In the next episode, Mousers Attack!, he is still confined to the pool and complains about it. Bradford mocks him and taps on the glass covering the water, giving Xever a painful headache. Bradford talks about how Shredder may get hungry for sushi, enraging him, and telling Bradford to come into the water so he can kill him. However, Xever backs down when Shredder tells him he is useless to him this way.

In The Alien Agenda, has successfully built a water-breathing rig for Xever, but an attempt at building him a set of mechanical legs turns out clumsy and worthless. Once Stockman saw the kraang robot, he realizes that this is what he needs.

In The Pulverizer, Xever orders his Purple Dragons to steal Kraang tech, which Stockman reverse-engineers to make Xever's robotic legs fully functional. When Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael realize that Baxter Stockman would be the one using the tech, they confront him and try to stop "whatever he's doing", only for Xever with his newly equipped robotic legs to jump in front of them. The turtles laugh at him, with Mikey nicknaming him Fishface (stating it was either that or Robo-Carp), however they soon take him seriously when he defeats Michelangelo with a single kick. Raphael knew to avoid the legs, and after lots of evenly matched fighting, Raphael pins his feet to the wall. Xever then bites him, injecting venom, making Raphael unable to fight. He defeats Leonardo, before Donatello drives in with the Shellraiser. Xever hisses at the enhanced Subway car, but the Shellraiser defeats him with a shot from its garbage cannon.

In Baxter's Gambit, he is seen trying to steal Kraang technology, but because The Foot and the turtles were after the same tech, they end up fighting each other. After battling Raphael for a little while, Dogpound is defeated, and the two retreat. Raphael chases his rival, only to be drawn in to Baxter's trap, where Baxter turns on his teammates as well. After battling Raphael again, Raph saves Fishface from a laser saw, for reasons Raph didn't know. After realizing they've been going in circles, Baxter splits the gang up, with it just being Raph and Fishface on one side. He tries to suck them into a giant turbine, only for Fishface to save Raph (as his robotic legs were able to hold on), and they escaped the fan. While they were walking together, Raph asks him why is he working for Shredder. He opens up to him, and tells him that at a young age he learned that you must steal if you want something. But one day, his luck ran out, and he was sent to prison, but Shredder let him out, claiming that his skills were very useful. Fishface tells Raph that he is not in debt, but simply likes a job where he can crack some skulls, which Raph relates to. Fishface hears Dogpound's voice, and breaks down a wall to reunite with him and the other 3 turtles. They then battle Baxter's "Monster of Doom", which is an enhanced Stockman-pod. After Mikey and Dogpound get Baxter's UFO over the Monster of Doom, Fishface uses his robotic legs to catapult Raph in the air, where he destroys the UFO, which crashes on the Monster of Doom. Too tired to fight after that, both Fishface and Dogpound agree to save the fight for another day, but as they walk off, Fishface throws one Stockman's weapons at Leonardo. Fortunately, Raphael sensed it and caught the ball with his sai. Fishface walks off with an evil smirk, with Raph glaring behind him.

In Pulverizer Returns!, he helped the Shredder with his plans to create a Mutant Army.

In Showdown, Part 1 he and Dogpound Guarded a hologram of  as a trap for Splinter. He asked Dogpound how good this "Ninja Master" they were about to fight was. He was defeated easily and then he fled into the water tank.

In Mikey Gets Shellacne, he and Dogpound both take orders from Karai and kidnap Baxter Stockman to turn the two back into humans. However, Fishface witnessed Dogpound transforming into a skeleton-looking werewolf after he fell into Baxter's tank of mutagen, and Mikey dubs him "Rahzar". Then, Fishface, Rahzar, and Baxter all get electrocuted when Rahzar accidentally hits the electric system and the sprinklers go off.

In The Manhattan Project, he seems to be a little scared when showed up (presumably because a tiger's diet includes fish), and offered him some refreshments. When he faced Raph again, he reveals his new weapon is a larger butterfly knife called a switch saber.

In The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto, he teamed up with Stockman-Fly to get Shredder's helmet (the Kuro Kabuto), stating that Shredder's face looks uglier that Stockman in his current state.

In Vengeance is Mine, he is seen giving Karai food. Later, he and Rahzar were distracted by Michelangelo's shadow puppet skills. Then he, Tiger Claw and some Foot-Bots chased the Turtles and Karai, but Fishface was unable to catch up after Donatello poured pizza grease on the street to make his motorcycle slip

Throughout The Invasion, Part 1 and Part 2, he's seen alongside Shredder, Tiger Claw, and Rahzar in a non-speaking role during Leonardo's fight against the Foot-Bots. After Leo is pushed into the icy water by a Foot-Bot and is heavily tired, Fishface is ordered along with the other two henchmen to take him down before being easily defeated.

In Vision Quest, he appears near the end of the episode as Raphael's spiritual opponent where's he defeated.

In Casey Jones VS. the Underworld, Xever accompanies Shredder and Tiger Claw in their meeting with Don Vizioso. In a discussion between Shredder and Don Vizioso, it is mentioned that Shredder controls the South American gangs through Xever.

In Meet Mondo Gecko, Jason's employer "Mr. X" is revealed to be Xever Montes, who took Jason in after he mutated into a gecko and his parents kicked him out. He's also shown to be operating mutant races that are very popular with the New York City underworld and mutant communities.

Personality
As one of the Turtles' more clever and cut-throat enemies, Fishface is quite hot-tempered, cruel and treacherous. Although a criminal to the core, he swears utmost loyalty to the Shredder, as the ninja rescued him from jail and gave him a purpose and protection. He shares some similarities to Raphael, given their love of battle, but is proven more bloodthirsty than him. In his role as 'Mr. X' he's shown to be a very cunning and manipulative crime boss in his own right who preys on social outcasts as a method of recruitment.

Powers and Abilities
As a human, he was very skilled in capoeira, a brazilian leg-based martial art, and knife fighting (And he most likely learned some some Ninjitsu from The Shredder as well). He was an expert with Butterfly knives before he was mutated. He was highly skilled and was easily able to fight off at least two of the Turtles on his own. However, his mutation gave him the ability to breathe underwater (of course), but has also left him with some small weaknesses. He is not as agile and is unable to breathe air or move on land without the help of his breathing mechanism and his mechanical legs, though the Martial Arts that he had learned still do have a surprising influence on him and, thus, he can use the robotic legs with quite lethal skill, and he can still wield small blades - and even some swords - pretty well (without them slipping right through his fingers). Xever also gained a venomous bite which causes hallucinations, nausea, and delusions, and the ability to command regular Snakehead fish to attack his foes.

Weapons
Before his mutation Xever used a butterfly knife as his weapon.

His mechanical legs were invented by  and improved with Kraang tech. They are incredibly strong, fast and agile, allowing Fishface to deliver devastating kick attacks (even stronger than his already incredibly strong human legs) and jump great distances. The robotic legs can also cling to surfaces (as seen in Baxter's Gambit) and spin like a propeller (as seen in The Pulverizer).

He also wields a balisword with extreme precision in The Manhattan Project, Part 1.

Allies

 * Chris Bradford / Dogpound / Rahzar - Even though Shredder put them together as a pair, Fishface and Dogpound don't cooperate well. They frequently berate each other and quarrel amongst themselves, and their different fighting styles and attitudes have been shown to clash. However, they are driven by the common goal set by Shredder to defeat the turtles, so they are able to put their squabbles aside and fight together whenever the situation calls.
 *  - He and Xever interact very little, but since Shredder released him from jail, Xever is probably thankful for The Shredder's action and for his own freedom.
 * Tiger Claw - Xever shows clear signs of fear towards Tiger Claw, either due to an instance in the past, or because of their respective mutations (as a tigers diet can include fish), as he uncharacteristically shows hospitality to Tiger Claw.

Enemies

 *  - Xever has had little interaction with Donatello.
 * Jason / Mondo Gecko - Mr. X took Jason in as one of his errand boys after Jason's parents kicked him out for mutating. He used Jason to lure Michelangelo and Casey Jones into a trap, but Jason quickly realized thereafter that the turtles weren't the enemy&mdash;Mr. X was.
 *  - Xever has had little interaction with Leonardo. Though in the episode Baxter's Gambit, Xever and Leonardo are deciding who should go first through the doorway in Baxter's Maze of Doom.
 *  - Xever has had little interaction with Michelangelo. Though in the episode The Pulverizer (episode), he seems very annoyed with Mikey's nickname for his new mutated self.
 *  - It seems that the both of them share several similarities, such as what they do because they both like a job where they get to "crack skulls every day". The two also have a rivalry, and duel whenever they meet. Raphael is also the only turtle who has near equal skills to Fishface. In Baxter's Gambit, the two of them were split away from the other turtles and Dogpound. Raphael saves Fishface from a laser saw, and Fishface saves him from a deadly fan. The two show great teamwork and destroy Baxter's UFO. He even tells Raphael why he's in the Foot Clan.
 *  - At first, Baxter was their ally, but when Fishface and Dogpound harassed him, he betrayed them and took revenge by trapping them (along with the turtles) in his "Maze of Doom", in the episode Baxter's Gambit. After that, Xever and Baxter became enemies.
 *  - At first, Baxter was their ally, but when Fishface and Dogpound harassed him, he betrayed them and took revenge by trapping them (along with the turtles) in his "Maze of Doom", in the episode Baxter's Gambit. After that, Xever and Baxter became enemies.

Quotes

 * "Pretty weapon for a tough guy. In prison, we made our own weapons." - New Friend, Old Enemy
 * "HEY, STAY AND FIGHT, YOU COLD-BLOODED COWARDS!" - Never Say Xever
 * (To Fong) "IDIOTA! You led them straight to our hideout!" - Never Say Xever
 * (About Bradford) "He's not my friend!" - Never Say Xever
 * (About the turtles wanting to throw Bradford off a building) "Go ahead. It'll save me the trouble." - Never say Xever
 * "See Bradford? That is how you catch Turtles. And next, I'll show you how to fillet them." - Never say Xever
 * "Ah yes. What would we have done without your brave leadership, from inside the trash can?!" - Never say Xever
 * "Oh, sorry for the inconvenience! When would you prefer to breathe your last breath?" - The Gauntlet
 * (Gasping for water, after being mutated) "Help....me!!!" - The Gauntlet
 * "If I wasn't stuck in here, I would've caught Splinter by now." - Mousers Attack!
 * "Fix these, or I will bite your head off!" - The Alien Agenda
 * "Let them come. Who has two robotic legs, and loves to stomp turtles?" (Points to himself) "THIS GUY!" - The Pulverizer
 * (To Raphael) "Actually, I believe I was turning you into Turtle Soup." - Baxter's Gambit
 * (Looks up at Baxter) "You fool! What are you doing? Have you gone mad?" - Baxter's Gambit
 * (To Raphael) "You think I'd let Baxter do away with you? That is a pleasure I am reserving for myself." - Baxter's Gambit
 * (To Raphael) "We are of a kind, you and I." - Baxter's Gambit
 * "Don't get too comfortable, Karai." - Mikey Gets Shellacne
 * "I want to live as a man. Love as a man. Not as a fish, do you hear?"- Mikey Gets Shellacne

Trivia

 * Xever's human form is reminiscent of actor and martial artist, and it is noticeable that both Kelly and 's apparent template, , have starred in two famous Bruce Lee movies (Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon, respectively).
 * Although Xever is not officially named "Fishface" until The Pulverizer, he is listed by that name in some of the previous episode credits.
 * Known symptoms of Fishface's venom: Delusions, fever, and nausea.
 * Fishface tells Raph the reason behind his association with the Shredder in Baxter's Gambit.
 * In The Manhattan Project, Part 2, Fishface uses his new giant Balisong for the first time, which is similar to the one that comes with his action figure.
 * The name Xever is a variant of the Basque/Iberian name . In the show, his name is pronounced /ˈzɛv.əɹ/ (ZEV-er), rhyming with "never."
 * Xever's last name, Montes, is first revealed in Meet Mondo Gecko. Whereas his partner Chris Bradford was primarily known by his last name, Xever Montes was primarily known by his first name.

Gallery

 * Fishface/Gallery
 * Fishface/Animations