Mona Lisa is a former female college student turned mutant amphibian/reptilian.
Etymology[]
Like Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa is named after a work of art. In this case, one created by da Vinci, who is Leonardo's namesake.
Biography[]
She was a college student who majored in physics. One day, while on a fishing trip with some friends, a pirate named Captain Filch attacked their boat. Though her friends were able to escape, Filch kidnapped Mona Lisa and tried to convince her to help him with his experiments on his submarine, so he could take over the world. Mona Lisa played along, and one night, she tried to destroy his nuclear reactor and was mutated in the process. After this, she vowed to stop Filch.
When she sees Raph on MacDonald Crump's yacht during a costume party, she rushes up to him and tells him to pretend to be her date. She uses his ticket to get into the party, then kisses his cheek and heads off.
Raph finds Mona later in the bridge, where he sees her tying up the crew. He tries to stop her, but she kicks a giant steering wheel off the ceiling and captures him with it. She tells him that she needs to change course, or they'll all be "trading one-liners with Davy Jones' locker". Raph breaks free, but Captain Filch captures the yacht, sending his mutant anemones to advance on the party-goers.
Raphael accuses her of sending the yacht into Filch's trap, but she protests that she was doing the opposite. They untie the crew, but rush off to escape the approaching anemones, leaving the crew members to be captured by them and tied up again. Raph and Mona end up cornered by anemones, and jump into the water to escape them. Raph compliments her swimming abilities, and decides to reveal to her that he is not in a costume and is indeed one of the Ninja Turtles.
Mona and Raph re-board the yacht and hide in a lifeboat to make their next plan. Raph gets April and Vernon to hide with them, and Mona reveals that she is also not in a costume, but is, too, a mutant, and tells them her origin story.
Raph tries to call his brothers for backup, but his Turtlecom had become waterlogged, and then they were suddenly found by one of the anemones. Raph knocked it overboard, and suggested that the group go on the move before it comes back. They each choose to split up to perform a task - April goes to the radio room to try to contact the turtles, Mona heads to shut off Filch's force field, Raph creates a diversion, and Vernon stays put and hides in the lifeboat.
Mona boards Filch's submarine, where she encounters some anemones just as she spots the force field generator. She leaps into the rafters and clings to a pipe, baiting an anemone to throw a chair at her. She dodges the chair and it comes back down, smashing the generator. The force field goes down just as the other Turtles arrive on the Turtle Blimp.
While the Turtles tussle with Filch and his mutants, Mona returns to the sub and sabotages it to blow it up. She escapes into the water before it goes off and outswims its detonation, while the Turtles pull the yacht safe of the blast with the Turtle Blimp.
After the Turtles return home, Raph tells his brothers that he misses Mona, but then she and April suddenly appear with pizza.
Based on her interaction with Raphael and the episode's title, she was supposed to be his love interest. However, like Lotus Blossom (who had one more episode), we never see or hear about her after her appearance.
Description[]
After her transformation, Mona Lisa developed green scales, webbed fingers, a long tail, and highly developed legs for attacking, jumping great heights, and enhanced mobility underwater. She physically resembles a salamander, only with breasts and brown hair (distinctively mammalian traits). Her yellow torso resembles a leotard, and continues onto the underside of her tail. She also sports a brown belt and a pink ribbon around her neck.
Before her mutation, she was a Caucasian female, presumably in her late teens/early 20s with brown hair held back in a ponytail by a pink hair tie and had black eyes. She wore a pink dress with matching heels and gold bangles and necklaces. She was also seen wearing a lifejacket before her kidnapping.
The backing card for the Mona Lisa action figure identifies her as "The lovely lizard lady." Mona Lisa was slightly re-designed for the action figure; in the TV episode she had shoulder-length brown hair and two-toed feet, but her action figure version has neck-length black hair and three-toed feet.
Out of universe information[]
Appearance[]
Mona Lisa's appearance in a Japanese TMNT encyclopedia.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 TV series)
- Mutant Turtles Kanzen Daizukan
- Mutant Turtles Quiz Ōhyakka
Origins[]
In the letters pages in volume 4, issue 18 of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Peter Laird reveals that Mona Lisa was originally intended to be a girl turtle.
"The character of Mona Lisa was created for the old show by someone working for Fred Wolf. What many people do not know was that she was originally supposed to be a female mutant turtle, but Kevin and I put our foot down (this was back when we both agreed that a female turtle was a lame, stupid, creatively bankrupt idea) and they changed her to some kind of lizard." --PL
This would also explain why no animal was present for her mutation, as well as confirm her reptilian origins, including why she still had "turtle feet."
It was also implied that Mona Lisa would have returned some time after the 8th season but the story scrapped in favor of the Lord Dregg and Carter story arc instead.