Raphael (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Raphael, nicknamed Raph, is a superhero and one of the four main characters of the ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' comics and all related media. In most iterations, he's usually depicted as the second oldest/mid-middle-child of the turtle brothers, often at odds with his older brother, Leonardo.

He is usually depicted wearing a red eye mask; in this regard, he is the only turtle to retain this color since the original incarnation of the characters, as the remaining turtles received different colors at a later time. Raphael wields twin sai as his primary weapon. He is commonly portrayed in media as speaking with a Brooklyn accent. Raphael is known for his temperamental and cynical personality, being short-tempered, aggressive, sullen, maddened, sarcastic, and rebellious. The origin of Raphael's anger is not always fully explored, but in some incarnations appears to stem partly from the realization that they are the only creatures of their kind and ultimately alone, while also bothered by the injustice the helpless and innocent suffer.

Raphael has a frequent rivalry with his only older brother Leonardo because the latter is seen as the group's leader. He is the second eldest of the turtles and serves as the team's enforcer. These two concepts has been altered in one of the most recent versions of the franchise, with Raph being the oldest and opposing Leonardo due to his irresponsible attitude, not taking the role as leader seriously. Like all of the brothers, he is named after a Renaissance artist; in this case, he is named after the 16th-century Italian painter Raphael.TMNT Origin Story
, official site. Retrieved 2007-11-16. In 2011, Raphael placed 23rd on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes, a list that did not feature any of his brothers. He is the only Teenage Turtle brother whose name does not end in the letter "O", even though the artist he got his name from is "Raffaello".

Comic books

Mirage Comics

In the earliest black-and-white Mirage Comics, Raphael was the most violent turtle and had a tendency for going berserk either in battle or when his temper flared up. He has a somewhat cynical and sarcastic sense of humor. In later issues, it is shown that he is not particularly fond of the supernatural, stating so explicitly in ''Tales of Raphael: Bad Moon Rising''.

Raphael mellowed somewhat as the series went on, possibly a key moment for his character development was when he allowed Leonardo to go in alone to defeat The Shredder after nearly being killed by the Foot Elite. Since then, he has been less likely to challenge Leonardo's leadership, and on the whole is more friendly towards his family and allies.

Of his three brothers, Raphael is actually closest to Michelangelo, having stated this in the fourth issue of the Mirage ''TMNT'' comics. Raphael often shows a caring, more laid-back, side of himself when around his youngest brother, frequently indulging the young turtle emotionally when at home and ferociously protecting him from harm when in battle. Raphael openly admits that the mere thought of his youngest brother being grievously injured causes him to experience violent rage. In his self-titled one-shot miniseries, Raphael meets human vigilante Casey Jones, his foil, who is more violent and unstable than he was. Despite their brutal first meeting, the two have since formed a close bond.

In the Mirage comic book series' Volume 4, he is still the most violent turtle, but is more sociable. After having been bitten by a vampire-like creature, he experienced a further mutation, and became a large, dinosaur-like version of himself. He went into a state of berserk animal rage because of it, but with some guidance by an inner manifestation of Master Splinter, he regained his original mentality and later assisted Leonardo and Casey Jones in tracking down the vampires who attacked him. This is also somewhat similar to an earlier storyline during Volume 1, where Raphael was attacked by a leech-like creature who, when sucking his blood, also drained him of the mutagen in his body and reverted him to a small turtle. The leech itself mutated and vanished, prompting the remaining turtles to follow it. Finally, after tracking down the creature, Raphael manages to bite it and pierce its skin, thereby drinking its blood and mutating back.

This incarnation of Raphael appeared in the crossover special ''Turtles Forever'' voiced by Sean Schemmel.

Image Comics

In the Image series that treated the first two volumes of the Mirage Comics as canonical, Raphael was blasted in the face and disfigured. After that, he wore one of Casey Jones' hockey masks for much of the time, and eventually just an eye patch. Later, Raphael wore Shredder's armor in an attempt to psychologically dominate a number of the New York Mob, with whom the Foot Clan was engaged in a losing gang war. He donned a slightly variant version of the armor, and pretended to be the Shredder to get the advantage on his pursuers. He succeeded in defeating them and was then accepted into, and given control of, the New York faction of the Foot Clan for a brief time. In the independent published series of the Image Comics #24, Raphael had an eyepatch and red bandana for the whole issue and was even angrier than ever. He killed Cheng with whom he had been friends in issue #25, and as soon as Pimiko was killed by the gauntlet of Lady Shredder, Raph removed his bandana and eyepatch to reveal his left eye was no longer disfigured but was back to normal. He later said to Leonardo he had a thing for Pimiko, and like Donatello with Baxter's help in ridding him of cyborg parts, Raphael kept his crush on Pimiko a secret.

Archie Comics

The Archie comics