Leonardo

Sometimes leading by example isn't the best idea. A decade after the fall of Raphael, the Foot Clan's new leader, Oroku Hiroto, invited the Hamato Clan to Japan for a peace negotiation. Splinter and Donatello went to meeting, but soon after they left, Baxter Stockman and his Footbots attacked the Sewer Lair in an attempt to recapture Fugitoid. As April and Michelangelo got their robot friend to safety, Leonardo and Casey Jones held off the attackers. Frustrated, Baxter Stockman sent in scores of his newest Mousers and set them to explode, killing Leo and Casey and injuring the rest. So spoiler #2, the Last Ronin is not Leonardo. In a previous review, we wondered what continuity The Last Ronin is meant to have spun off from. Then someone pointed out the art makes them look like aged-up versions of the movie Turtles, and now that's all I can see. Leonardo absolutely looks like the Jim Henson puppet plus a few decades. (Though not like the actual puppets look plus a few decades, thank goodness.) The trend of the "Ronin-verse" Turtles wearing a bunch of clothes continues, and every time it makes it funnier and funnier that they spent their teenage years being bare-ass naked. Like Axl Heck from The Middle, just without even boxers. Other than his head, the only visible skin Leo is showing is on his upper arms. There are bandages wrapped from his biceps to his fingers, and from his toes to just below his knees. Unlike Raphael, Leonardo wears pants with his tactical vest, and a scarf/hood over top of it. There are more pouches on his utility belt, and a few big straps crossed over his chest. which may or may not be a reference to the way he wore his belt back in the original toyline. We get better paint on Leonardo than we did on Raphael. It's not just that his skin has more of a blue tint, it's that the tone is more vibrant - he doesn't look faded. His clothing is dark, but the wraps on the arms and legs are light, as is the wider band across the chest. In an effort to do "comicbook" style paint, there are thin black outlines scattered about. It's the same thing they always do for the comic figures, and it generally works fine, but not so much on the white parts here: there's just too much contrast between the white and black, and the lines feel applied at random rather than accentuating the sculpt they're on. So they're fine from a distance, just don't look too closely. As is the style with this sub-line, Leonardo gets an alternate head that's angrier than the standard one. Were you on the fence about this purchase, but mad that you couldn't see Leo's teeth? Well don't worry, NECA has you covered! You utter weirdo. There are also four pairs of hands: fists that he's using right out of the package, a pair to hold his swords, a flat pair for fighting, and a pair open too wide to hold anything. Maybe he's supposed to be grabbing an enemy's wrist? The toy's articulation is good. Leo has swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivels at the top and bottom of the thighs, balljointed hips, swivel/​hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head, plus a swivel that lets the ties on his mask move around. The armored pad on his right hip is attached to the leg, so it'll affect how you move the hip joint. Fortunately, it's soft PVC, so it'll flex plenty instead of blocking the joint at all. The bulk of his vest keeps the left arm from coming down as far as it should, so it's always kind of hovering away from his body. On the plus side, unlike with Raph none of the joints popped apart when first moving them. Naturally, Leonardo's armed with a pair of katanas, because of course he is. They can store on his back when he's not using them, with slits in the cape that allow access to the loops on his vest that hold them securely. It's neat! He also gets five tiny kunai knives, all of which can slip into his belt at different spots. I suppose you could fit them between the fingers on the "open" hands, but it really feels like there should have been a hand that could hold the knives between the finger and thumb, like a person who's going to throw something would actually hold it. Doing the "First to Fall" variation for Raphael worked in a way that "Fight or Flight" Leonardo wouldn't: it's one thing to make an action figure of a character getting pierced by arrows, it's entirely another to show one getting exploded. What were they supposed to do, paint him like a Looney Tunes character who just had a big cartoon bomb go off in front of them? His Last Ronin costume is a very cool look, though, and makes for a great figure regardless. -- 12/26/24 How would you make an Exploded Leonardo? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

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