Is there something better than an action figure that feels great in your hand? In size, articulation, weight, and texture. I’ve been thinking about NECA’s Merge Leatherhead since I first saw photos from San Diego Comic Con in 2023 and when I first saw it myself at New York Comic Con in 2024. It’s a big figure!
You goddamn right that he’s big. It’s Leatherhead! Leatherhead isn’t known for being small, or being a forward leaning bipedal humanoid like the 1989 Playmates action figure. As drawn by Jim Lawson and Kevin Eastman in Tales of the TMNT #6, he’s a beast and towers over the turtles.
There’s a beautiful bit of scale when it comes to the NECA Leatherhead. It allows for a fantastic amount of detail in the smallest of places, like the dermal armor all over him. There’s a texture over his body that contrasts with the scutes on his chest, beautifully all over him. Sculpted by Gurjeet Singh, who also sculpted the Battle Damaged Last Ronin (aka the Naked Turtle), Savanti Romero, The Last Ronin Nightwatch Turtles, and more. His sculpts tend to have small details that fill an action figure with life and charisma.
NECA’s paint work with scaled characters is not new, but the paint on this figure is something else. The paint job provides depth to the scales and scutes in a complimentary way to the sculpt. While the TMNT Adventures Mondo Gecko figure stands out for copying the style of the Archie books, this figure merges the Lawson style from Tales of the TMNT 6 with Dan Berger’s art from TMNT issue 45, each getting their own head for the figure.
I’ll also give them credit for two completely different head sculpts with no reused parts. This includes the teeth, the tongue, eyes, scutes, etc. Everyone is different about these two, allowing for the two artistic interpretations of Leatherhead.
As far as I can tell, this is the third Leatherhead sculpt from NECA and the fourth released figure. The original cartoon figure came in a two-pack with Slash in the summer of 2020 and was re-released with a new paint job for a Turtles in Time release in June of 2021. They wouldn’t return to Leatherhead until 2024’s Stump Wrestling Leatherhead and then the Mirage Leatherhead pre-sale going up in the last days of the same year.
The profile of the figure from behind gives Godzilla vibes, but with longer arms. The scutes on his back along with the articulation are some of my favorite features of the figure. His massive tail helps him balance and stand straight bit of articulation.
The downsides of the figure sit with the articulation. Like most chunky boys, Leatherhead isn’t terribly flexible. The elbows and knees are single jointed, which limits their movement, and the shoulders are so bulky that they’re difficult to maneuver. While the tail has about eight segments to it, it’s still limited in its movement. The head is on a ball joint There’s an obvious trade of form over function with these joints.
Kevin Eastman provides the packaging illustration, as he does with all of the Mirage figures. NECA has their picks for packaging illustrators. Ken Mitchroney provides the Adventures illustrations, Aaron Hazouri does the cartoon line, and Kevin Eastman does the Mirage line. Eastman, as far as I can tell, didn’t pencil any of the Mirage comics with Leatherhead. Eastman’s co-credited with the cover for Tales of the TMNT #6, but the style is more akin to Steve Lavigne. The book itself was Lavigne with Ryan Brown on story and inks. Ryan Brown is credited as creating Leatherhead. His there appearance is in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #45, but that’s all credited to Dan Berger. I’m not saying that Eastman isn’t appropriate for the job, I’ll never say otherwise, but it would be interesting to include the creators of the character or the artists that penciled him.
| Title | Credits |
| Director | Randy Falk Trvor Zammit |
| Sculpt & Fabrication | Gurjeet Singh |
| Paint | Geoff Trapp Mike Puzzo |
| Prototypes | Roger Fernandez |
| Photography | Stephen Mazurek |
| Packaging | Travis Hastback |
| Illustration | Kevin Eastman |
Leatherhead was available for pre-order directly from NECA in December 2024 but isn’t an exclusive and is available from other retailers. I keep writing glowing reviews of figures from NECA, but I write about the ones that I absolutely love and inspire me. Leatherhead you chonky boy, I love you.