TMNT: Mutant Mayhem - That Avengers: Endgame Reference Explained

Contains spoilers for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem"

Teenagers, right? One minute they're anti-social mumblers who don't want to share anything, and the next minute they're running over rooftops to pummel thugs with ninja weapons. Such is the struggle for our poor old Splinter (Jackie Chan), who is trying to keep his eye on four troublesome turtle sons. As teens do, they still talk in acronyms, want to get everything on video, and argue their points through pop culture comparisons. All of that high main character energy comes to fruition pretty early on in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" when the team gets the idea of just how to obtain a positive image in the eyes of the public they've made sure to stay out of sight of.

In their fantasy of seeing a world where they're allowed out of the sewer, Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) does his best to argue that it would be doable, as he's seen it happen elsewhere. The only setback is that he uses "Avengers: Endgame" as a reference point. Suggesting that their lives could be like the autograph-signing Hulk at the tail end of Marvel's epic movie, Mikey drops some trivia, revealing that Mark Ruffalo improvised the whole scene.

It's not essential, but it is a great little moment that gets called back later in the film and highlights just what kind of useless info this group of teenagers has in their heads. It also establishes a potentially brain-melting moment involving another key character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that could crack this one in two.

When the Turtles cross paths with Superfly (Ice Cube) and his mutant pals, there's an immediate kinship between Mikey and Mondo Gecko, voiced by none other than Paul Rudd. Going as far as to introduce "Cowabunga" into his lexicon (Gecko admits to making it up on the spot), it's clear the two are inseparable pretty early on. It's pretty strange, then, that with the two being thick as thieves from the off, Mikey doesn't pick up on the fact that his new beady-eyed bud sounds just like Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man – who happens to be in the specific "Avengers: Endgame" scene the green teen refers to.

While it seems like the kind of gag a film crammed with pop culture references would go for (Ice Cube's Superfly at one point quotes an Ice-T song), this one seems to be skipped over. It's a shame, really, particularly as Paul Rudd's incredibly odd character would fit perfectly with that kind of punchline, and it would have been a clever wink to the audience. That said, with a sequel and TV show on the way, Mikey has the potential to have that lightbulb moment in the future.