He then said, "Could you imagine a character with weapons on his arms like this?" Peter Laird suggested the name The Shredder. Although Shredder is often depicted as the main antagonist in the Ninja Turtles franchise, it was never the creators' intention to be the case in his original inception in the Mirage Comics:  In the original comic books from Mirage Comics, Oroku Saki is the younger brother of Oroku Nagi who had been killed by a fellow ninja Hamato Yoshi (the owner of Splinter, the Turtles' mentor) in a feud over a woman named Tang Shen resulting in Yoshi fleeing with Shen to the United States. Angry at the death of his older brother, Saki joined the Foot Clan and trained to be a ninja. He quickly became one of their deadliest warriors and rose up the ranks and was chosen to lead the Foot's American branch. Operating in New York under the name of The Shredder, Saki used the opportunity to avenge his brother by killing Yoshi and Shen. Under Saki's leadership, the Foot participated in variety of criminal activities, including drug smuggling, arms running, and assassination. Thirteen years later Saki was challenged by the Ninja Turtles, who were the result of an accident exposing four ordinary turtles to radioactive waste. They were trained by Yoshi's pet rat Splinter, who had also been mutated by the same substance, to avenge his former master. After a lengthy rooftop battle where Saki seemed to be winning, Leonardo managed to plunge his sword through Saki's torso. Defeated, he was offered the opportunity to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), but Shredder refused and detonated a thermite grenade, in an attempt to take their lives as well along his. But at the last second, Donatello used his bo to knock Shredder off the building to his death. However, it was not yet the end of the Shredder. He returned on Christmas Eve seemingly resurrected with an army of Foot Ninjas severely beating Leonardo and burning down the apartment of the turtles' ally April O'Neil, forcing them to go into hiding outside the city. A year later, in the story "Return to New York", the Turtles returned to settle the score with the Shredder. Leonardo faced off against Oroku Saki alone, during which Saki revealed he was brought back to life by a technique using worms feeding on his body and recreating his cells to reform his body. In the battle, Leonardo decapitates the villain, finally killing him, and the four turtles burn his body at the Hudson River.