Big Mama

In *Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*, **Big Mama** is a major organized crime figure in the Yōkai world. She is a recurring adversary of the Mad Dogs, and their father Splinter's old flame.

## Physical Appearance

### True form

In her true Yōkai form, Big Mama is a huge individual, She has four black spider legs to walk and two sets of arms with pale orange nails on each hand; two small teal arms with two claws and two large black arms with four claws.

Big Mama also has a large dark purple body, seafoam green hair (with lighter shades as highlights), six red eyes, jagged teeth and a long teal face. She also wears a large magenta jabot to support a gold trimmed red jewel, which is a cloaking brooch that allows her to transform into a human form.

### Human disguise

Big Mama's human form is that of a petite, curvaceous woman with dark pink skin, silver hair, black eyes with thick eyelashes and purple eye-shadow, and red lips. Her hair is styled in a updo with part of her side bangs covering some of her face.

Big Mama wears a pair of specks with crystal blue lens and long dark purple tailcoat with seafoam green fur trim (to resemble her hair in her true form). Underneath the coat, she has a magenta dress with frilly sleeves and her jabot to support her amulet, and purple high-heeled boots that got up to her thighs.

## Personality

Big Mama is, upon first impression, extremely friendly, cheerful and polite, even towards her enemies. She is also prone to sprinkling her dialogue with whimsical nonce words. She is very excitable, as evidenced by her obvious delight in her plans to add mutants to her Battle Nexus, whether as fighters or as rodeo clowns. With her natural charm, undiminished even in frightful spider form, she can often convince people into doing things for her by making them think they are also helping themselves, such as when she talked the Mad Dogs into bringing her the oozesquitoes.

But despite her cheerful persona, Big Mama is a deceitful and conniving person whose only enduring loyalty is to herself. She does form lasting personal attachments to people, but she always subordinates them to her own desires.

## Powers and abilities

* **Yōkai spider physiology:** Big Mama has demonstrated enhanced durability, mobility, speed, dexterity, and strength during battle.
	+ **Web shot:** Big Mama is capable of shooting webs from her mouth.

## History

Big Mama is a jorōgumo who runs the Battle Nexus, using her human disguise to pose as the proprietor of New York City's Grand Nexus Hotel which serves as a front for the Battle Nexus. (Bug Busters)

There was once famous human martial arts actor named Hamato Yoshi, best known by his stage name Lou Jitsu. At the height of his acting career, Big Mama introduced herself to him, posing as an ordinary truck driver tasked with hauling around Lou's filming trailer. They fell in love and for some time lived as a couple, until one day Lou formally asked Big Mama to marry him. It was only then that she dropped her human diguise and revealed her true Yōkai nature. Big Mama also immediately kidnapped Lou Jitsu, forcibly disappearing him from the human world and forcing him to become her best fighter in the Battle Nexus down in the Hidden City; their relationship was over. Many Unhappy Returns Some years later, another Yōkai of the Hidden City, Baron Draxum, covertly helped Lou Jitsu permanently escape Big Mama's service in exchange for agreeing to be Draxum's laboratory subject. This short-lived agreement disintegrated when Lou learnt that Draxum intended to incorporate Lou's DNA into the mutations of four baby turtles from the surface world to be added to what Draxum hoped would be a personal army of warriors; Lou objected to this exploitation. Draxum went ahead and mutated the turtles anyway, but Lou stole the turtles, in the process accidentally mutating himself into a half-human half-rat, and fled the Hidden City with them. Goyles, Goyles, Goyles. Draxum earned Big Mama's enmity for poaching her most prized Battle Nexus champion, and Big Mama and Lou Jitsu would not see each other again for years.

Lou Jitsu, putting away his old life and going by Splinter, had gone into hiding from both the human and Yōkai worlds, and started a new life as the single father of four mutant sons, who themselves would later come to be called the Mad Dogs. One day when the Mad Dogs were teenagers, and without Splinter's knowledge, they and human friend April O'Neil would have their own first introductions to Baron Draxum and the Hidden City when they rescued Mayhem, an agent of the Council of Heads who had been surveilling Draxum's activities. Having provoked their own enmity with Draxum, the Mad Dogs decided to try to capture all of his oozesquitoes which had been let loose in the surface world to randomly mutate humans which Draxum hoped to then recruit into a private army.

By chance, this would bring the Mad Dogs to New York City's Grand Nexus Hotel on a day when its hotel lobby was swarming with these ooze-filled insects. The lobby's human bellhop was accidentally mutated into a half-human half-bull and ran out the hotel's lobby entrance with the oozesquitoes giving chase; the Mad Dogs had failed to capture any. Big Mama promptly introduced herself to the Mad Dogs as the hotel's owner, also revealing that she and much of her staff were Yōkai, beings of the same nature as the Mad Dogs. The Mad Dogs were unfamiliar with the term "yōkai," only understanding that they were all "mutants;" Big Mama found that term odd and claimed to have no knowledge of Baron Draxum or his mutation-related activities. She gave the Mad Dogs a tour of the secret Yōkai section of her hotel, gave them a brief crash course on Yōkai society and her Battle Nexus business, and then offered to help the Mad Dogs capture the oozesquitoes, which they ultimately succeeded in doing. But once the insects were in her possession, Big Mama betrayed the Mad Dogs, intending to detain them and force them into service in the Battle Nexus as rodeo clowns. The Mad Dogs resisted and avoided forcible transport to the Battle Nexus. Additionally, Draxum made his own separate raid on the Grand Nexus Hotel and took back his oozesquitoes to be rereleased outside, also making it clear that Draxum and Big Mama did, in fact, already know each other. The Mad Dogs clashed with both Big Mama and Draxum and escaped in the chaos. They had earned Big Mama's enmity. (Bug Busters)

The Mad Dogs would later track down the bellhop, whose name was Stanley, and show him kindness in regret that they had played a role in his accidental mutation; they would nickname him "Bullhop," and he would live for a while with Splinter and the Mad Dogs in their lair as he relearnt how to balance and control his new human body. In the course of this improvised physical therapy, it was discovered that Bullhop actually had superb natural aptitude for learning how to dance. Later, the Mad Dogs were planning a mission to reinfiltrate the Grand Nexus Hotel to steal back some of their technology which Big Mama had confiscated from them when she had earlier betrayed them; the Mad Dogs also hoped to somehow collect some of Big Mama's web shot goo, as it had proven crucial to their earlier successful efforts in capturing oozesquitoes. The Mad Dogs refused to let Bullhop help them, and had even asked him to leave their lair, as the extended houseguest had started to wear out his welcome and annoy the Mad Dogs with his habits. But Bullhop instead stole a hotel staff uniform that was intended as a disguise for Raphael and infiltrated the hotel's Yōkai section alone, posing as a food server at a party Big Mama was hosting. The Mad Dogs' other hotel uniforms had been destroyed when Bullhop had tried to put them on, so they followed him to the hotel, watching covertly from inside an air duct. Bullhop looked familiar to Big Mama, as she had known Stanley as her employee and had briefly seen his bull form through the hotel's security cameras when he ran out the lobby entrance; Bullhop feigned never having worked at the hotel, claiming instead to be an outside employee brought in from his native Canada to help with the event. Big Mama was smitten by Bullhop's genuinely attractive mutant appearance, and asked him to dance with her. Bullhop agreed, not wanting to blow his cover, and it quickly became apparent that his talent for dancing extended beyond *Pants Pants Revolution,* giving a professional-quality ballroom dancing performance that swept Big Mama off her feet and dazzled the attendees with its brilliance. But Bullhop was still on a mission, and tried to use the dance to approach and grab the keys to Big Mama's vault out of the owl bellhop's pocket. When he succeeded, and the Mad Dogs accidentally fell out the air ducts and made their presence known, Bullhop dropped his pretenses (and Big Mama from his arms) and proclaimed that he had found the keys. In an ensuing clash, the Mad Dogs successfully took back their gear from Big Mama's vault, and Bullhop provoked Big Mama into attacking him by claiming she was a bad dancer. Big Mama shot her web goo at Bullhop, but he instead used eight empty water pitchers to collect the goo as it flew. He immediately began his escape, but tripped and shattered seven of the pitchers, leaving one of his shoes behind and escaping with only one of the pitchers. After the Mad Dogs and Bullhop were gone (and in a nod to the *Cinderella* story), Big Mama took Bullhop's abandoned shoe, still genuinely charmed by the man she had danced with. (Bullhop)

## Relationships

* **Baron Draxum:** Not much is known about her relationship with Baron Draxum, but they do not seem to be on good terms with each other. Evidence of this includes Big Mama stealing his oozesquitoes and attempting to use them for her own purposes. However, she allows Draxum to ship the Kuroi Yōroi on her train despite their past disagreements.

* **Raphael**: Raph easily accepted Big Mama's help claiming she was nice despite her true form and chastises Leo. His attitude changes once she tricks them and openly admitted that Leo was right.

* **Donatello**: Donnie was quick to accept Big Mama's help when she played off his intellectual ego only to deceive him and his brothers later after catching the Oozequitoes.

* **Leonardo**: Out of all the Turtles, Leo was the first to suspect Big Mama's motives when she offered her assistance in catching the Oozesquitoes. This is proven when she deceives his brothers and sends Gus on Leo after he ditched the others. He also proves that Big Mama knew Baron Draxum.

* **Michelangelo**: Michelangelo tags along with Raphael and Donatello to accept Big Mama's help and hand her the Oozesquitos. But after they are deceived by Big Mama, his attitude towards her changes.

* **Lou Jitsu/Splinter**: Little interaction is shown. They battled against each other in the demolition derby with Splinter, Donnie, and Mikey defeating her and reign victorious. It is later revealed they were once romantically involved. Splinter in the past, did not know her true nature and once proposed to her. When he did, she forced him to fight in the Battle Nexus.The two do still carry some feelings towards one another, but also see each other as enemies now.

* **Bullhop**: Stanley used to work for her before his mutation. When he assisted the Turtles in trying to get the keys to the vault, Though she apparently forgot his transformation and did not recognize him when he crashed a party. Big Mama was intrigued by him (refers to him as "Cutey-Noodle) and requested a dance. She found herself easily charmed by his dance skills until she discovers his alliance with the Turtles. He manages to trick Big Mama into handing over her web goo before escaping. It is possible she may still have some feelings for Bullhop when she clutches the shoe he left behind.

* **Shredder**: Shredder was imprisoned by Big Mama before being turned into Shadow Fiend as Big Mama's new champion because she wanted new champion after Leo and Lou Jitsu/Spinter left from Battle Nexus. Shredder was completely under Big Mama's influence due to her mystic ring but was lost and obtained by Foot Recruit.

## Trivia

* Big Mama's design is based on the *Jorōgumo* (Japanese: 絡新婦, "woman-spider").
* She is the most powerful mob boss in the Hidden City.
* Big Mama is quite a skillful dancer as shown in "Bullhop" and "Many Unhappy Returns".
	+ Based on her interactions with Bullhop and Splinter, as well as her love for it, she likely has a thing for dancers.
* A running gag with Big Mama is that she tends to pepper her speech with gibberish.
* As of the Season 2 premiere "Many Unhappy Returns", Big Mama now has possession of the Kuroi Yōroi armor.
* As seen in "Turtle-dega Nights: The Ballad of Rat Man" and "Insane in the Mama Train", Big Mama also operates a demolition derby (only on Fridays) and a train station.
	+ She also operates an auction house as seen in "The Hidden City Job".