Leatherhead (2012 TV series)

Leatherhead appears in the 2012 TV series. He is an ally to the turtles in this incarnation. In this series, Leatherhead made his debut appearance in the episode. 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 in particular is another potent calming influence, for which Leatherhead is very grateful.

History
When Leatherhead was a normal baby alligator, a human boy kept him secretly as a pet. One day, the boy's parents discovered him and forcefully flushed the baby alligator down the toilet into the sewers. After this, the Kraang found Leatherhead and took him back to their home dimension, where they performed horrid mutagen experiments on him. They either purposely or unintentionally changed him into an intelligent and strong, but monstrous mutant. However, in spite of this, Leatherhead's spirit remained unbroken.

One day, Leatherhead was able to break free and escaped back to his own dimension in New York. Six months before meeting the Turtles, Leatherhead stole a power cell -- a piece of technology the Kraang need to control their dimensional portal. They chased and hunted him down to get the power cell back, and they eventually cornered him in the sewers under New York City. Leatherhead refused to surrender the power cell and defeated many of the Kraang-droids in battle, but was subdued by electrocution. While he was unconscious, the Turtles came to his side and defeated the remaining Kraang-droids. At Mikey's insistence, they took him back to the lair with them.

When Leatherhead awoke in the lair, he momentarily believed that the Kraang were still attacking him. He immediately grabbed Donnie and attacked the turtles, but was knocked out again when Leo electrocuted him with a stun gun. Leatherhead woke up some time later - and would have harmed Mikey if not for the chains restraining his arms. After calming down, he began to trust Mikey enough to eat his cooking and let him give him a name. Leatherhead also told him that he did not mean to attack the Turtles earlier, but he cannot control himself when he enters that aggressive state and he is always ashamed of himself afterward.

By the time Leo, Raph, and Donnie return to the lair with the power cell, Leatherhead had calmed down enough so that Mikey could remove his chains. They tried to ask him about the power cell, but they quickly found out that mentioning The Kraang caused Leatherhead to become violently angry. He blindly attacked the Turtles, including Mikey. Splinter intervened, managed to defeat Leatherhead in combat, and drove him out of the lair. Leatherhead took the power cell with him as he left, unaware that Mikey was following him.

Leatherhead retreats to his own lair, a graffiti-covered subway car. He plays an old vinyl jazz record that seems to calm his rage. Mikey comes in and demands an explanation for his actions. Leatherhead reminds him that he must be alone, as there is a dangerous force within him. Mikey's brothers soon arrive and command Leatherhead to leave Mikey alone. Leatherhead pleads that he means Mikey no harm and he tells The Turtles the story of his past - how he stole the power cell, and why the Kraang need it so badly.

Just then a squad of Kraang droids attack the subway car. The Turtles defend Leatherhead the best they can, but there are too many and they can't hold them off for long. Leo suggests Donnie use the power cell to get the subway car mobilized. Leatherhead entrusts Mikey with the cell and confronts The Kraang to buy Donnie some time. Leatherhead decimates The Kraang forces, and Donnie manages to hook the power cell to the subway car's motor and the Turtles escape.

After the battle, two surviving Kraang attempt to regroup and warn their allies that the turtles escaped with the power cell, only for Leatherhead to confront them, assuring them that they would not be telling anyone anything. With a rumbling roar, the huge reptile lunged at them with his jaws wide open, suggesting that he killed the two aliens.

Leatherhead appears again in. The Turtles have lost the precious power cell to the Kraang. Leatherhead had trusted that they would keep the cell, so Leo suggests that they should pay Leatherhead a visit, in order to solve the problem. Leatherhead awakens, but the turtles still had to tell him about the loss of the cell. Donnie informs them that Leatherhead will attack, but Leatherhead is able to calm himself when Mikey tells Leatherhead who they are once again. Leatherhead reports to them that all he remembered was a logo that the Kraang could operate under, and Donnie is able to track that logo to the T.C.R.I. work center in Brooklyn. The building had been the main base of the Kraang. The turtles have to investigate the building and stop the portal from being activated. Leatherhead helps them break into the building and he fights the Kraang-droids while the Turtles go to the top floor. By the time Leatherhead catches up with them, they are fighting Traag, a gigantic monster that came through the portal to Dimension X. All seems lost until Leatherhead arrives and joins the fight. He grabs Traag by the feet and throws him towards the portal. However, Traag is not still not defeated, and in spite of Mikey's protests, Leatherhead says farewell and pulls Traag into the portal with him, and they both disappear into Dimension X.

Leatherhead "appears" in, but not as himself. When a Mutant Sparrow named Sir Malachi tricks the Turtles into playing an illusionary world created by their board game, Sir Malachi uses Leatherhead's likeness as the Dragon that guards Princess April from the Turtles. Acting as Sir Malachi's dragon, this illusion of Leatherhead could breath fire and possesses none of his personality traits except for his ferocity. Later after the Turtles expose Sir Malachi's illusions as being false, the illusion of Leatherhead (along with Dr. Tyler Rockwell as "Monkey Goblins") is seen following Sir Malachi as they leave the Sewer.

As of Leatherhead has grown a few decades older, due to Dimension X's different quantum physics and time differential. Stealing a communication orb, Leatherhead managed to send a warning to the Turtles that the Kraang had perfected the mutagen and were planning to invade. However, eh was cut off and recaptured by the Kraang and subjected to torture. Eventually, he was rescued by the Turtles. As the Kraang began to initiate the invasion of Earth, Leatherhead believed that they should go down fighting, whilst Donnie believed in fleeing. However, Mikey came up with the plan to sabotage the portals, leaving only one back to Earth for them to escape before destroying the Kraang base behind them. Once the portals were deactivated, Leatherhead wanted to guard the Turtles' escape but Mikey refused to leave him behind and kicked him through the portal.

During Leatherhead showed up to save Splinter from nearly getting killed, first by some of the Kraangdroids where they teamed up to find the turtles. When Splinter is about to be killed by Shredder, Leatherhead grabs him in his mouth and thrashes him around. Despite catching Shredder off-guard, when he tends to Splinter, Shredder uses this time to ultimately brutally injure Leatherhead and knock him onto a platform in a construction site surrounded by water, which collapsed under his weight.

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 Crocodilia 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, and a very tough hide.

Friends / Allies

 * - 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 floor. Leatherhead and Michelangelo were forcibly separated in  when Leatherhead became stranded in, and they would not meet again for an entire season. Later in  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  and neither he nor Splinter joined the others who fled to the O'Neil Farm.  Leatherhead is one of the few people to consistently call Michelangelo by his full five-syllable name, rather than just "Mikey."
 * - 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.


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


 * - 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, but he eventually grew on him.


 * - A friend and ally of Leatherhead's. In, Leatherhead arrives to join Splinter in a fight against pursuing Kraangdroids, and calls Splinter his friend. They later fight the together as comrades.

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.


 * - 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.

Gallery
See: Leatherhead (2012 TV series)/Gallery

Trivia

 * Every time Leatherhead loses control of his anger around the Turtles, he tends to grab Donatello by the face and shake him like a rag doll.
 * He is one of a few mutants that was not human before he was mutated, the others are the Turtles, the Parasitica Wasps, Pete, Chong, Slash, the Squirrelanoids, Rat King's Giant Rats, and Ice Cream Kitty.
 * 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 the prey apart.
 * In  it was revealed in one of Michelangelo's flashbacks that sometime in between meeting the Turtles & getting trapped back in Dimension X for them, there was one time Mikey slept on the turtle lair's floor with Leatherhead curled around him.