Regarding the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it has always been easy to pick out who their leader is. With Mutant Mayhem arriving in just under a month, we thought we’d go a bit of backpedalling and go over who is in charge of the teens in a half-shell.
Please be advised that if you’re to the TMNT franchise, this post will contain spoilers for many media pieces.
The leader of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has almost always been the blue-masked turtle, Leonardo, commonly known as Leo. Traditionally, he is the eldest of Master Splinter’s four sons.
However, in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles, Raphael is the oldest and the leader for both seasons of the show before he hands the leadership over to Leo, the second oldest.
Splinter makes Leo the leader because he is the most disciplined and willing to follow the rules. This usually annoys Raph as he sees his elder brother as a teacher’s pet. This is evident in the 2007 film, where the siblings are well-known to show high amounts of animosity towards each other. However, when Leonardo gets in trouble, Raph leads their family to rush him.
Leo is also the secondary patriarch of the Hamato clan in the absence of Splinter. However, upon Splinter’s demise in various media, Leonardo does step up as the head of the family. Though, he doesn’t try to replace their father. Fatherhood is what Splinter was known for, and it is not something that should be denied.
