Board Thread:New on TMNTPedia/@comment-39821279-20190707133143/@comment-995426-20190913184003

Most of the different versions of Leatherhead have been very different from each other. Leatherhead (Mirage), Jess Harley, Leatherhead (1987 TV series), Leatherhead (2003 TV series), Leatherhead (2012 TV series), Leatherhead (IDW)... If a new version of Leatherhead appears in Rise of the TMNT, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to closely resemble any other version. For fun, let's compare the other versions: So, what do you think? If you were to see a Rise version of Leatherhead, what would you expect of him, or want to see in him? Rise has no obvious Utrom characters, nor any other rebooted versions of Mutanimals characters, not yet at least. If he were to fit into the story, he would almost necessarily need a very new backstory and motivation. Would he be a friend or ally? An antagonist? A frenemy? A neutral character? Would he be originally human, originally animal, or another yōkai from the Hidden City who may have been born with that whole situation to begin with?
 * In the Mirage continuity, was a baby alligator who was let loose on the streets when his pet store was assaulted by robbers with automatic firearms, shattering his water tank.  He was later found in the sewer by an  from  named Xeinos ("Dr. X"), who mutated Leatherhead under controlled laboratory conditions using human DNA, and, as a surrogate mother, raised Leatherhead in Utrom culture and with an education in Utrom science and technology.  He considered himself part Alligator mississippiensis and part human, but culturally an Utrom.  Since TCRI's destruction, Leatherhead and Dr. X were accidentally marooned on  instead of making it through the  with the other Utroms to the, and he kept trying to build a new transmat from scratch to rejoin Utrom society.  When he met the , Leatherhead's old makeshift lair was discovered and wrecked by prize hunter , so the Turtles invited Leatherhead to live in the partially intact ruins of their .  After the Utroms made official public first contact with the Earth in 2001, Leatherhead had the freedom to travel to the Utrom Homeworld, but eventually chose to remain on Earth, though keeping in close association with the Utroms stationed on Utrom Island in Upper New York Bay.  This version of Leatherhead could be very friendly and speak with the polished and eloquent manner of an academic, but was prone to uncontrolled outbursts of rage which he constantly struggled to keep under control.  Unlike some later versions, these outbursts were not necessarily triggered by post-traumatic stress disorder, but were a lingering instability in his own mutation.  Leatherhead' intentional mutation was implied to be somewhat different from the accidental mutation of  and the Turtles, as Leatherhead had received a controlled dose of , and was later implied to be regressing into a more animal-like state without access to Utrom medicine, though even later still this appeared to have been remedied, and as late as "Adventures in Bunnysitting", Leatherhead was shown living and working as an Utrom scientist and appearing as stable as ever.
 * In the Archie continuity, Jess Harley was an impoverished human from the Louisiana bayou who bulgarized the Turnstone from a local witch, Mary Bones, and traveled to New York City to sell it for some quick wealth. But Mary Bones tracked him down in NYC and used the Turnstone to change Jess into a mutant alligator.  The naive Leatherhead first fell in with the, but when he realized how corrupt the Shredder was and how noble the  were, he never worked with the Shredder again.  Leatherhead and the Turtles found themselves on  where they were corralled into performing on stage in .  When the Turtles left, Leatherhead stayed behind and wrestled professionally for a while.  But after a while, he and fellow wrestlers  and  became too disgusted by Stump's complete lack of ethics and had Cudley the Cowlick take them back to .  There, Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose came into contact with other Turtle friends , ,  and , and though hostile at first, they found themselves working together in opposition to , and remained together on a Caribbean island, calling themselves the , which had a short-lived spinoff comic book series and extensive crossovers with TMNT Adventures.  Apart from Mutanimals involvement, Leatherhead also become good friends with , and would sometimes collaborate to test Don's technology or have friendly sparring matches.  Leatherhead along with the rest of the Mutanimals were later ambushed and murdered by the  and buried together on their island.
 * The 1987 TV series version of appears visually based off Jess Harley, but was written entirely villainous.  The writers of TMNT Adventures were not happy about this.
 * I can't say I finished watching the 2003 TV series, but its version of mostly takes after the Mirage version.  There are a few differences, such as this Leatherhead's tendency to always wear a white lab coat, whereas the Mirage version didn't wear clothes.  Also, unlike most versions of Leatherhead, this version was a crocodile, not an alligator.
 * The 2012 TV series version has a backstory that seems inspired by the Mirage version, except that instead of being raised by friendly Utroms who treated him with love and respect, he was get as a prisoner from a young age by the in .  He managed to escape to  and find refuge in New York City's abandoned underground tunnels, but when the  found him, it was evident he not only had problems controlling his rage, but was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder from his brutal upbringing.  Leatherhead developed an emotionally intimate bond with, whose kindness was able to coax out Leatherhead's gentle and sensitive soul.  He later had himself stranded back in Dimension X to save the Turtles; when the Turtles ventured into Dimension X on their own and encountered Leatherhead again, he had aged many decades because of the temporal differential between Dimension X and the Earth's dimension, and had changed from green to grey in color.  Later on (at least going by Amazing Adventures), after the Kraang invaded and occupied New York City,  and  rescued Leatherhead and  from a Kraang holding facility in the city, and the four decided to form a new team, the .  The series' story went really south soon after this point, and I eventually stopped following it.
 * The IDW continuity's version of seems to combine both Mirage and 2012 TV series influences, as well as making him more of an antivillain.  He was an alligator on Burnow Island who was accidentally mutated in the 1700s when the crew of a pirate ship, the Shirley's Revenge, dumped a seized stash of  in one of the island's streams.  Leatherhead was discovered and captured by the island's ruler, the  warlord, General, who initially gave Leatherhead an advanced education as part of an experimental program to create intelligent mutant operatives.  But Krang was volatile and abusive, and he would inevitably resort to torturing Leatherhead for fun to take out his own frustrations.  This went on for centuries, as Leatherhead would prove to have a very long lifespan.  After Krang was defeated and transported to  to stand trial for war crimes and control of Burnow Island was handed over to other Utroms recently reawakened from , Leatherhead introduced himself to the other Utroms along with Professor  and the  as an accidental mutant who had tried to stay out of view for most of his life, and even donated a canister of  he had salvaged to save 's life after he was mortally wounded by .  But Leatherhead was lying about his backstory, and started secretly killing Utroms.  When his role was uncovered, his true face was of a mutant who hated having been mutated, saw himself and all mutants as an affront to nature, and was suffering from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder after centuries of torture.  To end Leatherhead's killing spree on Burnow Island, the Turtles transported him back to New York City where they parted ways, Leatherhead retreating alone into the sewer.  When  of the  discovered and tried to recruit Leatherhead into his organization, they instead clashed violently, Leatherhead not wanting to be in league with any mutants; there was a sad irony in this, as it was the very kinds of abuses mutants like Leatherhead had suffered that Hob and his group most wanted to put to an end.  Later, Leatherhead was subpoenaed to appear at Krang's trial in Dimension X, where Leatherhead provided the most damning testimony of all.  Krang was convicted, but when it was decided he should be extradited to the Utroms on Burnow Island, Leatherhead angrily intervened and ate Krang, swallowing him whole.  After Leatherhead returned to NYC, he and the Turtles came to an uneasy truce, for the most part leaving each other alone.  Leatherhead's traumatic past earned him a degree of sympathy from the Turtles, but he still hated his own nature and was hostile to other mutants, and was also haunted by PTSD-fueled hallucinations of the deceased Krang taunting him.
 * The Palladium continuity's, despite appearances, is not a version of Leatherhead at all, but actually an original creation of Palladium Books who debuted in 1986 before the first version of Leatherhead debuted in the Mirage continuity in 1988.