Creation Story
Krang is the brain in the belly, a warlord from Dimension X reduced to a pink, disembodied mass that rides around in a robot torso. He is one of the most recognizable TMNT villains, and he is purely a creation of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, with no counterpart in the original Mirage comics. The show needed a scheming partner to play against the more physical Shredder, and Krang, banished from his own dimension and stripped of his body, became that partner. Pat Fraley voiced him.
His arrangement with the Shredder is the engine of most of the cartoon’s plots. Krang supplies the alien technology, including the rolling fortress called the Technodrome, and the Shredder builds Krang a humanoid android body to move around in. Neither trusts the other, which is the joke.
Animated Debut: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)
Krang’s first appearance anywhere is the 1987 series, in the opening five-part story that launched the show in December 1987. He is established from the start as the Shredder’s off-world ally, directing operations from the Technodrome beneath New York. Because the cartoon is his origin, there is no earlier comic appearance to cite; Krang begins on television.
First Comic Appearance: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1
Krang first appeared in comics in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #1 (August 1988), the Archie Comics series that began as an adaptation of the cartoon. That issue is his first comic appearance, and it carries the first comic appearances of Bebop and Rocksteady as well, which makes it the shared key for the cartoon’s signature villains. The Mirage comics and their separate first-appearance keys are on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team page.
