Leatherhead

**Leatherhead** appears in the 2012 TV series. He is an ally to the turtles in this incarnation, and has also become Slash's second-in-command in the Mighty Mutanimals. In this series, Leatherhead made his debut appearance in the episode It Came From The Depths. He is voiced by Peter Lurie.

## Personality

Leatherhead is, overall, a rather heroic character with good intentions, but he can be dangerously unstable thanks to the Kraang's cruelty to him since he was flushed in the sewers and captured by them. Simply mentioning the word "Kraang" causes him to lose control and he is sent on a violent rampage. When he regains his senses, he is often horrified by what he's done and so he tries to isolate himself from others. Leatherhead seems to find himself unbearable to live with, and he would prefer to live a secluded life.

Despite his temperamental side, Leatherhead also has a calm side that is very kind, gentle, sensitive, loving and affectionate. Leatherhead spends most of his time alone, and he uses candles and soothing music to restore a useful calm. But since he has befriended the Turtles, his time spent with Michelangelo in particular is another potent calming influence, for which Leatherhead is very grateful. Leatherhead has proven to be a strong ally and a friend to the Turtles.

Since returning to Earth after the decades Leatherhead spent trapped in Dimension X, Leatherhead is still a fierce fighter, but has never been shown losing control of his emotions anymore, having changed from an unstable volatile personality to a personality more stable than those around him. He befriends Slash, becoming the brother figure the turtle always wanted (aside from Raph). Leatherhead also functions as Slash's reliable second-in-command of the Mighty Mutanimals. In particular, Leatherhead has become a reassuring voice of moral wisdom, demonstrating this new-found capacity when Slash suffers moments of self-doubt.

## Abilities

In battle, Leatherhead relies mostly on crude punches and powerful bites to subdue his opponents, but he also incorporates in his fighting style the characteristic spin move, referred by experts as a "death roll", that the Crocodilian reptiles, like crocodiles or alligators, use to remove the meat from their prey. Usually, Leatherhead uses this movement to get rid of opponents clinging to his back or to crush them under his mighty weight. He is extremely strong and fast-moving, making him quite a dangerous adversary. He also has keen senses, a very tough hide, and ,like all Crocodilian reptiles, a good swimmer.

## Relationships

### Friends / Allies

* Donatello - Nominally a friend and ally of Leatherhead's, along with the rest of the turtles. However, Donatello is the most wary of Leatherhead's violent tendencies. When Leatherhead has his fits of rage, he has a habit of reaching for Donatello's face and shaking his entire body like a rag doll. As such, their first few encounters are marked by great mutual agitation. Later, after Leatherhead was forced to abandon his subway car home, Donatello took the subway car with him and converted it into the Shellraiser. After being rescued from Dimension X, Leatherhead was never seen losing control of his temper again, much less grabbing Donatello by the face again.

* Jack J. Kurtzman - Sometime after the events of The Invasion, Part 2, Kurtzman became involved independently with the Mighty Mutanimals, of which Leatherhead became a member along with Slash, Pigeon Pete and Dr. Tyler Rockwell. Kurtzman was a noncombatant who assisted the Mighty Mutanimals using his expertise on the Kraang.

* Leonardo - Leatherhead considers him to be a friend and ally along with the rest of the turtles.

* Michelangelo - Leatherhead's most beloved friend, the two hit it off very quickly and came to share a loving bromance. Michelangelo was the first person since mutation ever to show Leatherhead compassion, and the two developed a strong mutual affinity and rapport. Michelangelo has proven to be one of the few influences that could calm Leatherhead down from his fits of rage and make him feel at ease. Indeed, they became extraordinarily affectionate and intimate, with Michelangelo giving Leatherhead massages and body rubs and even sleeping spooned together on the Living Room floor. In TCRI, when the Turtles saw Leatherhead again for the first time in the episode, Michelangelo immediately reacted with love at the sight of Leatherhead sleeping. Later in this episode, Leatherhead became stranded in Dimension X, and the two would not meet again for an entire season. Later in Into Dimension X! after the long-imprisoned Leatherhead managed to send a message through a portal to the turtles, Michelangelo was shown to strongly love and miss Leatherhead in a series of tender sepia-toned flashback scenes, and he impulsively leapt into Dimension X to rescue him. This reunion was short-lived, as Leatherhead soon went missing again during The Invasion, Part 2 and neither he nor Splinter joined the others who fled to the O'Neil Farm. Mikey and Leatherhead met again in Battle for New York, Part 1and Battle for New York, Part 2, with their mutual affection undiminished as they shared tender loving embraces in three separate scenes over course of the two-part episode's events. In Clash of the Mutanimals, when a beaten Leatherhead rushed to the Turtle Lair, Mikey caringly called him "adorable yet tortured". Leatherhead is one of the few people to consistently call Michelangelo by his full five-syllable name, rather than just "Mikey."

* Pigeon Pete - Pigeon Pete and Leatherhead first met sometime after the events of The Invasion, Part 2, when they formed the Mighty Mutanimals along with Slash and Dr. Tyler Rockwell and the cooperation of Jack J. Kurtzman.

* Raphael - Leatherhead considers him to be a friend and ally along with the rest of the turtles. When the turtles first encountered Leatherhead and Michelangelo felt compassion for him, Raphael was originally vocally opposed to bringing Leatherhead back to the Turtle Lair, but he eventually grew on him.

* Dr. Tyler Rockwell - Dr. Rockwell and Leatherhead first met sometime after the events of The Invasion, Part 2, when they formed the Mighty Mutanimals along with Slash and Pigeon Pete and the cooperation of Jack J. Kurtzman.

* Slash - Slash and Leatherhead first met sometime after the events of The Invasion, Part 2, when they formed the Mighty Mutanimals along with Pigeon Pete and Dr. Tyler Rockwell and the cooperation of Jack J. Kurtzman. In Battle for New York, Part 1 and Part 2 Leatherhead was Slash's second-in-command and friend who provided him with level-headed moral counsel. Slash addresses Leatherhead as "brother," similarly to the Newtralizer before him, implying that, in Leatherhead, Slash finally found the brother figure he had longed for.

* Splinter - A friend and ally of Leatherhead's. In The Invasion, Part 2, Leatherhead arrives to join Splinter in a fight against pursuing Kraangdroids, and calls Splinter his friend. They later fight the Shredder together as comrades. Leatherhead also was shocked at Splinter's death and was present at his funeral, mourning his friends death.
* Tsukiko Rei - His love interest. He is completely smitten the first time he saw her.

### Enemies

* The Kraang - Leatherhead's archnemesis. In Leatherhead's youth, after he was flushed down the toilet, he was taken and mutated by the Kraang, and horrifically experimented on, but eventually managed to escape. Leatherhead retains a great deal of loathing for the Kraang; even the very mention of them can automatically trigger one of Leatherhead's fits of rage. Leatherhead gained control of his rage triggers after decades trapped in Dimension X. Later, as part of the Mighty Mutanimals, Leatherhead was instrumental in expelling the Kraang from Earth.

* Shredder - An enemy of Splinter and the turtles makes him an enemy of Leatherhead. When Splinter became trapped underneath a pile of large pipes by the Shredder, Leatherhead came to Splinter's rescue and fought the Shredder. But the Shredder proved too quick for Leatherhead and eventually defeated him. Later, as part of the Mighty Mutanimals, Leatherhead joined forces with Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Pigeon Pete to rescue Slash, Dr. Tyler Rockwell and Raphael from the Shredder's mind control.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Leatherhead, Rin and Scar live in the sewers to hide from the Krang. He loves his daughters and won't let anybody hurt them. Especially the Krang. In Season 3, he had formed the Mighty Mutanimals with the help of Jack Kurtzman.

## Trivia

* In Leatherhead's first two episodes in the first season, every time he loses control of his anger around the Turtles, he tended to grab Donatello by the face and shake him like a rag doll.
* Leatherhead has a scar on the upper left side of his chest. He received it when he stole the power cell from the Kraang.
* When he is angry, Leatherhead's eyes are covered with white membranes, the nictitating membranes, that in normal alligators, crocodiles and relatives, protects the eyes when they are diving.
* His head looks much more like that of a crocodile than an alligator.
* Leatherhead's rollover is an actual crocodile/alligator movement known as the 'death roll'; it is something of a signature move that is primarily intended to tear their prey apart.
* In Into Dimension X!, it was revealed in one of Michelangelo's flashbacks that sometime in between the beginning of It Came From The Depths and Leatherhead's second appearance in TCRI, there was at least one time Leatherhead and Mikey slept together on the floor of the common area. This briefly-shown tepia-toned ambient-lit scene showed them both sleeping on their left sides against the floor grate, Mikey's back spooned into Leatherhead's front, with Leatherhead's long trail curled around Mikey's other side.
* Leatherhead was introduced with green scales, but since Into Dimension X!, his scales have gone grey from age. In the new opening sequence that premiered with the episode, Return to New York, Leatherhead is shown with his youthful green scales in the scene where he jumps from the rooftop of the Party Wagon to the rooftop of Bebop and Rocksteady's van. But when he makes his return episode appearance in Battle for New York, Part 1, his scales are still grey.