Jennika has been captured by her most recent nemesis, and being forced to face her past head on is exactly what she needed to truly overcome them.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Jennika II #6 by Ronda Pattison, Jodi Nishijima, Shawn Lee, and Bobby Curnow, on sale now.
Jennika has been fighting several different battles on all kinds of fronts lately. From fighting to keep Mutant Town’s reputation at least halfway decent as far as the outside world is compared to worrying that her own inner demons will doom the future, she hasn’t been having an easy time of things. Even worse, she’s just been taken captive by her most recent nemesis, someone she thought she could trust or at the very least help. As bleak as the situation might be, it has at least given her an opportunity to confront one of the darkest moments from her past, and that might just be exactly what Jennika needs to fight through this particular battle as well.
Since first refusing Lucia’s offer to become her own personal master assassin, Jennika has been knocked out, chained up, and is about to face one of the worst threats imaginable. When Lucia realizes that going after Jennika’s family won’t do the trick, she threatens her very own son with whom Jennika has formed a fast friendship. Lucia continues putting her cruelty on display when she not only admits to being the one who had her husband killed, but confirms any suspicions that Jennika was the one who carried out the hit. Later on, Junior returns by himself to visit Jennika and ask if the things his mother said were true. Of course, they unfortunately were, though Jennika is openly and genuinely remorseful for her prior actions.
Besides opening up to Junior about her own past, Jennika offers him an open ear regarding the way his father’s reputation has followed him throughout the entirety of his young life. They discuss the ways that Jennika changed, and how she had hoped helping Lucia would be a way to help Junior as well, some small recompense for killing his father. That isn’t how things played out, though, and now both of their lives are on the line. Even with the stakes so high, Jennika assures Junior that she isn’t going to kill let alone harm anyone if she can avoid it, but that the two of them are going to get out of there.
As always, Jennika means what she has said, and soon enough she and Junior are hatching their escape plan.
This kind of conversation isn’t one that comes easy for Jennika, especially when stacked up against how she has reacted to the dark vision of the future the time traveling Lita brought back for her. Jennika’s past has been haunting her in more than a few ways recently, not the least of which was being found by Lucia and introduced to Junior. Still, as difficult as it all might have been, confronting that side of herself head on seems to have worked out for the best not just for Jennika, but for Junior as well.
There might be some telling what the future holds, but it looks as though Jennika and Junior are both well on their way to making it far better than what the Ninja Turtles have been warned about.
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