Donatello

Don

Age: 15

**Hamato "Donnie" Donatello** is the most intellectual of all his brothers.

## Volume 1

In the comics, Donatello is originally presented along with Leonardo as one of the two calmer Turtles. While the comics' portrayal of the team has no official command structure, in the early stories he is depicted as second-in-command. In the first issue, he is the one that killed the Shredder by knocking him and his grenade off the roof.

The second issue elaborated more on each of the Turtles' personalities and opened with Donatello soldering a circuit. Later in the issue, Donatello states that he is "familiar with some computer systems" and helps April O'Neil deactivate the Mousers.

In the Donatello one shot, Donatello encounters an artist called Kirby (an homage to the comic artist Jack Kirby) whose mysterious crystal brings his drawings to life before disappearing. The two newfound friends journey to a dimension inhabited by Kirby's creations and help the heroes defeat the invading monsters.

During the Turtles' exile to Northampton, Donatello becomes obsessed with fixing up and repairing the many broken things within the farmhouse where they were living. Most notably, he spent days and nights fixing the boiler to give his family hot running water as well as building a windmill and a water wheel to provide electricity. He also finds an old typewriter and writes his own personal credo.

In the *Shades of Grey* storyline, Casey Jones encounters the Turtle by a ravine as he was pondering "the fractal structure of natural patterns". Casey accuses the Turtle of using big words and acting better than everyone else. Donatello suggests they should continue the conversation when Casey is sober. Grabbing a stick, an angry Jones continually pokes the Turtle until he loses his temper and sends Casey careening into the water.

## City at War

In the City at War storyline, the Turtles return to New York to put an end to the Foot Clan's civil war. During a battle with Shredder's Elite Guards in the ruins of the Second Time Around Shop, Donatello falls through the floor and breaks his leg. Seeing their ally Karai subdued and about to be killed, Donatello grabs one of the Foot's machine guns and repeatedly shoots the Foot Elite. Donatello is visibly shaken by the violence and throws the gun away.

At the end of the story the Turtles, April and Casey move back to New York save for Donatello who chooses to stay in Northampton with Master Splinter to heal from his injury as well as reflect on everything that had happened.

## Volume 2

While meditating with Splinter, Donatello receives a vision of the future where he is in the village of Chihaya in Japan. When Donatello asks what he would be doing there, his master simply replies "To bury me."

After encountering the Turtles' vigilante ally Nobody in civilian guise, he returns with him to New York to help his brothers battle Baxter Stockman.

## Volume 4

In the volume 4 comics, Donatello finds an armored truck in the sewers which apparently had been part of a bank robbery in the sixties. Along with Raphael and Casey Jones, he undertakes the task of fixing up the vehicle.

After the death of Splinter, Donatello secretly goes to his body and asks forgiveness before clipping something off of him. Shortly after, Donatello decides to accompany the Utroms on a mission to Tepui to search for two missing research teams. The group is attacked by strange wooden creatures who shrink them to miniature size. The creatures turn out to be a group of Utroms which had been stranded in the Jungle during their first stay on Earth and had been living in secret thanks to their Quantum Inversion Redimensioning device which could alter their size. The process could not be reversed on Donatello, possibly due to his mutation, leaving him the size of an action figure.

While the Utroms work on returning him to normal, Donatello put his new size to use infiltrating a terrorist organization's warehouse. He's also made a robotic body for himself made to resemble a turtle to help him move around.

This incarnation of Donatello appeared in the Turtles Forever crossover special voiced by Christopher C. Adams. He also appears briefly in Trans-Dimensional Turtles.

## Powers & Abilities

### Known Superhuman Powers

Donatello possesses several of the species wide adaptions that one would find in reptiles classified as turtles (chelonians).

He:

* Possesses a durable bony shell that originates from his ribs and protects his chest and back.
* Can hold his breath underwater for approximately 10 minutes.
* Can draw his neck down into his shell.
* Can operate for extended periods in below-freezing conditions with little or no protection from the elements.

Presumably the mutagenic ooze converted Donatello into a warm-blooded organism (unlike normal turtles).

### Abilities

Through intensive life long training, Donatello has become an accomplished hand to hand combatant. The education provided to him from has made him:

* A skilled practitioner of the Bojutsu martial arts style.
* A superb athlete.
* A world-class acrobat.
* A master of Ninjutsu.

Outside of his physical attributes, Donatello possesses a genius level intellect. Despite his not receiving any formal education, he is capable of understanding complex concepts with ease (especially those within the field of software development and hardware engineering). He’s also adept at repairing conventional technology when given the right materials.

## Description

Like all of his brothers, Donatello appears to be a large bipedal turtle. His body is hairless, has no visible ears or nose and is a deep green colour. His hands and feet are three fingered/toed, and his eyes are jet black.

Unlike a normal turtle, his eyes point directly forward and are distinctly human in appearance (if not unusually large). Donatello is the tallest and leanest of his brothers.

Donatello has a large and pronounced shell situated in the centre of his back. It is clearly a part of his body, and extends across the entirety of his torso. The portion of the shell that covers his chest, stomach and crotch area is a light brown in colour.

With his shell protecting his modesty as well as his vitals, Donatello doesn’t normally wear cloths unless he is attempting to hide his mutated features from humans.

The only clothing that he wears is:

* A battered leather belt that he uses as a harness/holster for his weapons.
* Light strips of cloths around his joints (wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles).
* A red strip of cloth that he wears around his eyes when expecting combat. The cloth resembles a domino mask while on, but in truth does little to protect his identity.

## Personality

Of the four brothers, Donatello is the quietest and most pensive. He doesn’t share their love of combat. While he takes his lessons seriously, if given a choice he will spend his time working out an interesting mental puzzle or playing with a computer instead of practicing his ninjutsu.

He constantly searches for a better (and often more modern) way of dealing with the issue at hand. He embraces technology that his siblings and father would not.

Donatello scientific mind and practical manner has made him the “odd duck” of the family. The others have similar (if still varied) interests that he simply doesn’t share.

## Quotes

Donatello: “You know, I could get used to this… “
: “What’s that, Don ?”
 Donatello: “Living above the streets, Leo, rather than under them.”

“For Splinter !”

“Your overconfidence betrays you for I am a ninja turtle, and my best weapons are my body and my mind ! HYAH !”

“I’ll go first — this place must have security devices —”

“Hmmm… just as I thought — magnetic locks ! So all I’ve got to do is create the right flux pattern in this probe… mmm…”

Donatello: “These machines monitor and support his vital functions !”
: “I — I guess you would know, Don —”

“For honor !”

April: “You sound sad, Don… “
 Donatello: “Shouldn’t I be, April ? A man died yesterday — a sick, deluded, misguided man, yes — but still a living being.”

“We’re not the guardians of society, Raphael. We never were.”

“We’ll need a diversion to pull foot troops away from the main complex… timed and preset infiltration alarms at various outputs around the city should do it.”

Trivia

* He is right-handed.