Savanti Romero (comics)

Savanti Romero is a recurring villain in the Mirage comics continuity.

Former apprentice of the time lord, Lord Simultaneous, and husband of Savanti Juliet, he was once charged with the duties of maintaining the flow of time. Too ambitious and arrogant, he once tried to turn the tables on his master by "editing out" Simultaneous out. For his actions he was sentenced to death by the Council of the 79th Level, a sentence which was commuted to a lifetime banishment to 1406 A.D. As an added punishment, Lord Simultaneous changed his form into that of a demonic-like being (Transdimensional TMNT).

There he met the Turtles, Cerebus, and Renet, as he attempted to attain the Sceptre of the Sands of Time that had enabled the group to travel to that era. He nearly succeeded until Lord Simultaneous appeared and banished Savanti even further into the past to prehistoric times (TMNT Vol. 1, #8).

Savanti used his sorcery to send a message to the Turtles in the present, challenging them to another fight. Worrying that Savanti would corrupt the timestream, the Turtles and Renet used the Sceptre to transport to prehistoric times, where they fought Savanti again. After Savanti’s own magic was turned against him, he fell both charred and frozen into a nearby lake. After retrieving the Sceptre, the Turtles returned to their own time (Tales of the TMNT #7).

The Turtles were forced to confront Savanti Romero a third time when Gosei Hattori, a samurai-descendant and friend of theirs, came to them upon the feeling that history had changed. It would later be revealed that he had been cryogenically frozen in the lake he fell into previously, thawing and awakening millions of years later in fourteenth century Japan. With Renet’s help, the Turtles transported to 1373 Japan and found Savanti Romero to have taken control of a faction of Japanese warriors as well as a dinosaur-like samurai called Chote. He had remained suspended in rock for thousands of years until he had broken free in Feudal Japan. The Turtles and Renet managed to subdue Savanti, and once again they banished him to prehistoric times (TMNT Vol. 1, #46 & 47).

Savanti Romero would also appear in Tales Vol 2 #32, "The Eye of Aga-Moo-Tou", and the Tales Treasury Collection back-up story "Spinal Tapped".

Trivia

 * Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gives his full name as Savanti Alfonso Juanito Geriero Santiago Romero. Although this is not indicated anywhere in any other official materials, many consider it canon for the Mirage continuity, if not overall.