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Some TMNT stuff really isn't for little kids. |
In the IDW continuity, Clan Hamato refers to the family of Hamato Yoshi, Tang Shen, and their four children, and by virtue of reincarnation, also of Splinter and Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo who represent the reborn lives of Yoshi and his children respectively.
History[]
Clan Hamato was first mentioned in Vengeance, part 4. Oroku Karai declared that "Clan Hamato" would face off against "Clan Foot" in a traditional combat ritual known as the Gauntlet.
Splinter referred to himself and his sons as "Clan Hamato" in Vengeance, part 6 as he spoke to Oroku Saki. Clan Hamato prevailed in the Gauntlet and Splinter accepted becoming the new jōnin of the Foot Clan (of which Hamato Yoshi had originally been a member), and three of his four sons, sans Michelangelo, became Foot Clan chūnin, Clan Hamato effectively merged with the Foot Clan.
After Splinter's brutal execution of the unarmed Darius Dun in the Chasing Phantoms, part 4, the three sons cut ties with the Foot Clan and rejoined Michelangelo. Splinter gave his consent to their departure, dubbing his four sons once again as "Clan Hamato", both as an immediate family and as an officially-recognized ninja clan with Leonardo as its jōnin. By the Desperate Measures arc, Leonardo had come to embrace "Clan Hamato" as their family's official title, such as in Pantheon Family Reunion, part 2, though he and his brothers continued to function more as a family who happen to be ninja rather than as a formal ninja clan.
In the Invasion of the Triceratons arc, Splinter came to use the term "Clan Hamato" in a darker and more menacing fashion when the Turtles came to visit their father to explain their knowledge of the situation. Upon arrival at Foot Headquarters in Invasion of the Triceratons, part 3, the Turtles were forced to go through the strictures of conference protocol between separate clans, with Splinter and Leonardo as two clan jōnin meeting in private before the other brothers as members of one clan could speak openly to their father as members of another clan; these steps made the four sons feel especially unwelcome. With Splinter unwilling to entertain a peaceful solution to the conflict, he ordered his sons confined under guard both so that they could be protected and also so they could not interfere with the Foot's war efforts. In Invasion of the Triceratons, part 4, Raphael pointed out that Splinter was inconsistently trying to have it both ways by treating his sons with icy detachment as members of the separate Clan Hamato, while still yanking the chain of filial piety in demanding their obedience to him as their father.
Leonardo abandoned his role as Clan Hamato jōnin in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles issue 101 for six months after Splinter's death in City at War, part 8 to focus on being a gardener rather than a ninja. Jennika confronted Raphael about Clan Hamato's enervated state in TMNT issue 103 with the brothers either voluntarily separated or scarcely communicating with one another.
Jennika and the brothers reunited in TMNT issue 104 to discuss the months since Splinter's death and their future together. They agreed to dissolve Clan Hamato in favor of the Splinter Clan as a clean slate to establish an entirely new, heroic clan culture that wasn't exclusive to Hamato.