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April O'Neil is an important character in all of the direct movie adaptations, as well as Leonardo's fourth movie prequel comic as well as having her own prequel comic.

History[]

An ace reporter at Channel 6 Eyewitness News and claimed by her boss Charles Pennington as one of his best, April investigated in reports of a ninja street gang called the Foot Clan committing crimes throughout New York City. One night on her way through the Channel 6 parking lot, she witnesses some thugs stealing from a company van. They advance on her to attack and perhaps commit other heinous acts, when she is rescued by four mysterious strangers. During the battle, one of them drops a sai, which she takes with her.

The next night, Charles visits her at home to express his worry about her and tell her that he's having security escort her to her car from this point forward. During this discussion, Charles' delinquent son Danny steals from April's purse.

The next morning, April presses an agitated Police Chief Sterns about the crime wave. Unfortunately, this broadcast is caught by the Foot Clan's boss, The Shredder. After being told off by Sterns, April makes her way to the subway, and while waiting for the train, is accosted by some Foot Ninja. Fortunately, the owner of the sai from earlier, a giant mutant turtle named Raphael, comes across her and saves her. However, she is knocked out when Raph accidentally throws a ninja at her.

Raphael carries her to the sewer lair where he resides with his brothers and Master Splinter. When she wakes up, she is understandably frightened at what she sees and screams. To calm her down, Splinter begins telling her the origin of the creatures she sees before her.

The Turtles escort her back home, and she treats them to some pizza. The Turtles head back home only to find their lair ransacked and Splinter missing. They return to April's to stay the night.

The next morning, the Penningtons return to her apartment so that Charles can tell April to stay off the Foot case (unbeknownst to her, at the behest of Chief Sterns). The Turtles hide out of sight but Raph is momentarily glimpsed by Danny.

April refuses Charles' orders and continues reporting on the Foot Clan and trying to take Sterns to task for not taking the investigation seriously. Later, when he's up on the roof to April's building, Raph is attacked by the Foot and dropped through the skylight. The Turtles and Casey Jones, a vigilante Raph had met earlier, fight the Foot, but during the battle, a Foot Ninja hits a power line and starts a fire. As they are fleeing and Casey is the last one remaining in the apartment, he overhears April's answering machine message of Charles firing her. The Turtles, April, and Casey pile into a van and head for her family farm to recuperate.

April writes about their time at the farm. Donatello and Casey bond over maintenance projects and flinging insults, Leonardo watches over the unconscious Raphael, and Michaelangelo spends all of his time training alone in the barn. Casey also informs April of her answering machine message.

Raphael finally recovers, and the Turtles receive a psychic message from Splinter. The Turtles train while April and Casey start to form an unlikely relationship, and finally, Leonardo declares that it's time to return to New York. They return to the lair, only to find Danny squatting there. They let him stay for the night, but Casey decides to sleep in the truck. He wakes up to find Danny leaving and trails him back to where Splinter is being held. April and the Turtles wake up to find Danny missing.

Danny and Casey rescue Splinter, while the Turtles fight Shredder. Splinter arrives and delivers the coup de grace. Charles wants April to report on the Foot case again, despite having firing her, and she tells him she only will if she gets more money and a corner office. He accepts, and Danny returns the cash he stole from her.

Weeks later, Danny and April visit Mega Comics to pitch a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic to Jim Prindle. He tells them their idea for a comic is "too farfetched". Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Much later, April has moved into a new apartment and returns home to find that the Turtles, who have been staying with her, have left the place a mess once again, with "the rat" being ironically the cleanest one. The Turtles return home from saving a pizza delivery boy named Keno from a gang of thugs, with pizza. April asks if they have had any luck finding somewhere new to live. Raph suggests going back to their old lair, but Leonardo says that 500 members of the Foot know where that is. Raph protests that with Shredder gone, they don't need to worry about it, but Splinter appears and chastises him.

April later reports on the disposal of some toxic chemicals by the Techno-Global Research Industries ("T.G.R.I.") and speaks to their spokesman, Jordan Perry. After her report, her cameraman Freddy skulks around and finds some giant dandelions. Freddy takes the flower to his master... The Shredder, who has unfortunately not been killed.

Having seen her report, Splinter decides to show April and the Turtles the canister of ooze that mutated them, which has T.G.R.I.'s logo on it.

The next day, Keno gets suspicious and "delivers" pizza to April's apartment, finding the Turtles there. Splinter tells Keno their origin. Keno says he'd like to try infiltrating the Foot, but only Raph finds this to be a good idea. While the Turtles go off to find a new place to live, Raph loses his cool and leaves to go accompany Keno. Meanwhile, April goes to visit the other Turtles and Splinter in their new lair. Raph gets captured and Keno goes to tell the Turtles, with April returning just as he's at her building's door trying to get someone's attention.

A couple of days later, after Shredder had sicked his mutants Rahzar and Tokka on the city, April confronts Sterns about what happened their before, and he, as usual, blows her off. On her way back to the truck, she is nabbed by a Foot Ninja, and approached by another, who happens to be Freddy. He tells her to deliver a message to the Turtles - that if they don't go to a construction site that night, he will unleash Rahzar and Tokka in Central Park.

After Shredder and the rest of the Foot are finally put down for good, April reports on their defeat and broadcasts Perry's thank-you note to the Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie II: The Secret of the Ooze.

About a year later, April shows up to visit the Turtles with some gifts for her friends. In specific, she has a "weird antique Japanese egg timer for Splinter. In Japan in 1593, a daimyō's son, Kenshin, picks up this same object (actually a Time Scepter), and April and Kenshin swaps places in space and time. The Daimyō's guard, convinced that she is a witch who has done something to Kenshin, takes her to see the Daimyō himself, Norinaga. Norinaga's English| business partner, Walker, taunts April and tells he and the Daimyō discusses her fate.

Eager to get April back to her own time, the Turtles use the scepter and swap with some of Norinaga's royal guard. They find April in the Daimyō's jails, and they escape. After the Turtles and the rebels against Norinaga defeat the Daimyō and Walker, they use the Scepter to return to 1993. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

In the following years, April rebuilt the pawn shop and ran it, although unfortunately without much involvement from Casey, who she had begun living with. One day, a business tycoon by the name of Maximilian Winters came to her shop, and impressed with her knowledge of artifacts, gave her a series of jobs to track down some for him. On a trip to Costa Rica, she heard rumors of a "Ghost of the Jungle", and knowing that Leonardo was on a global quest, surmised that he was actually this "ghost". After she falls down a cliff while looking for him, he catches her and the two have a visit. Leo expresses all of the doubts he had been going through that led him to his sojourn, but April convinces him to return home.

As she continues her newest job, her guide, Sebastian, takes her to her quarry - a large granite statue of the general of the ancient warlord Yaotl, Aguila. However, it turns out that Sebastian is actually the member of a cult dedicated to Yaotl, and prepares to sacrifice her. Sebstian's ritual is interrupted by members of the Costa Rica army and a government agent, who tells April that they had been looking for the cultists for a long time. As the army packs up the statue for what is claimed to be protection, April overhears the agent (in English, no less) saying that they are offering the statue to the highest bidder. April steals the truck the statue had been placed on, and heads to the airfield, where her pilot, Gabriela, is waiting. The government agent catches up with her and holds up April and Gabriela at gunpoint, but is shot in the head. The cultists had also caught up to them, and a gunfire interrupts between the army and the cultists. As they take off with the statue in their plane, Gabriela says that the airfield workers told her that the agent had actually been fired some time ago, but still managed to convince some army men to help him secure the statue with the promise of money upon selling it. This leads April to wonder just what was so important about this statue. Bungle in the Jungle, Five to One

April takes the statue to Winters, and after she leaves, he revives the statue and three others - they are not statues, but instead, the actual petrified generals of Yaotl - who Winters secretly is. He tasks the generals, and his security detail in the Foot Clan, to track down Thirteen Monsters that had escaped the portal that cursed Yaotl with immortality and turned the generals to stone, in order to undo the curse. The generals, however, would rather stay immortal as stone beings than lose their immortality, and capture Leonardo in the stead of the final monster, dooming the ritual. The remaining Turtles, Splinter, Casey, and April storm Winters' compound and rescue Leo. After battling Winters, he reveals that the reason he's actually going through all this, and Casey, April, Karai, and a Foot Ninja go to retrieve the final monster while the Turtles fight the generals. They return with the beast and send it through the portal, ending the curse and killing the generals and Yaotl. TMNT: Official Movie Adaptation

See also[]

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