Since the topic of turtles has been swimming around these parts this week, I thought it'd be appropriate for this week's Z-Lister to not be a character from DC Comics or Marvel Comics, and instead for it to be one of the many comic book characters spun out of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That Z-Lister is the ally/enemy of the turtles, Leatherhead.
Created by Ryan Brown in "Tales of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #6" in 1988, the creature known as Leatherhead was once just a harmless baby alligator living in a pet store. Along with a small group of other baby alligators, this one escaped into the sewers of New York City where it and the others were found and captured by a group of aliens called the Utroms. Not to be confused with Ultron, the greatest father in Marvel Comics. These Utroms hailed from another world called Dimension X and where the same alien species as the reappearing turtle enemy, Krang. In New York, this group of Utroms worked undercover at a company called TCRI. While captured at their building, this one alligator was exposed to mutagen-the chemical that created The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-and was transformed into a walking, talking, intelligent alligator. After he escaped the TCRI building, this alligator saw the building self-destruct to cover the Utrom's trail.
Living in the sewers once again, the alligator was constantly hunted by a big-game hunter named Mr Marlin. The hunter gave the alligator the name Leatherhead, a name the alligator kept for convenience. Leatherhead eventually met the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the sewers and with their help chased off Mr Marlin. Growing in intelligence, Leatherhead began trying to build a "Transmat Device", a tool that could bring him to Dimension X and possibly reunite him with the other alligators who the Utrom's captured. Donatello-the smartest of the turtles-saw this plan being too dangerous and refused to help. However, four Foot Clan ninjas found Leatherhead in the sewers during a mission to attack the turtles and, in fear of death, agreed to help Leatherhead build the device. The turtles ran into Leatherhead and the ninjas and throught he was being attacked, but after explaining the situation the turtles agreed to help too. The device was complete, but failed to open the portal. In his rage of failure, Leatherhead killed two of the Foot ninjas and vowed vengeance on the turtles for ruining his plans.
An entire Volume later, Leatherhead would be found building another Transmat Device by Raphael. This time the device worked, but it brought a group of Utrom's through and the aliens kidnapped Leatherhead. Another group of Utroms came to the turtles later and informed them the group of Utroms who kidnapped and experimented on Leatherhead in the first place where part of a radical group of Utroms called "The Illuminated" and used hallucinogenic drugs to implant Leatherhead's goal to find them. The turtles are brought to Dimension X by the "good" Utroms to stop The Illuminated from cloning Leatherhead, they save Leatherhead and he returns to wandering the sewers of New York.
Leatherhead would appear in future TMNT comic books, three animated series, and in many video games. Interesting enough, Ryan Brown had planned on letting Mr Marlin kill off Leatherhead, but turtle's creator Peter Laird rejected this idea in favor for letting the character grow. Leatherhead is an interesting divergent of what the turtles could have been, I think he's a pretty neat character and I'm glad he has been carried to other pieces of media. I think the only thing keeping Leatherhead from showing up on film would be the constant comparisons to Batman's villain Killer Croc and Spider-Man's villain The Lizard. Still, the idea of how a mutated animal could have ended up adds a refreshing layer of originality to an otherwise repetitive formula in TMNT lore.
Thanks for reading.
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