NECA Nightwatcher Leonardo Looks Like a Badass Grey Ghost. The Weapons...

There have been approximately eight billion Leonardo figures made over the years. Green Turtle, blue mask, two swords, serious expression. Put him next to Raphael looking pissed off, Michelangelo looking like he found the pizza and Donatello looking like the smartest turtle in the room. We know the routine.

NECA's Nightwatcher Leonardo isn't that Leonardo. Taken from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin – The Lost Years, this is Leo from one of the darkest periods in the Turtles' future, and NECA went all in on making him look like it. The familiar green and blue are gone, replaced by gray skin, black armor, white details and a huge red scarf and cape wrapping around him. He's heavier, meaner and immediately recognizable as Leonardo while looking almost nothing like the version most of us grew up with.

And I love the way he looks.

The Nightwatchers

The story behind this version of Leonardo is a big part of what made me want the figure in the first place. The Last Ronin – The Lost Years doesn't just fill in Michelangelo's journey toward becoming the Last Ronin. It also reaches backward and shows us pieces of the original family's history that we didn't get to see in the first series.

Nightwatcher Leonardo comes directly from one of those pieces.

After Raphael's death, Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo regroup with April O'Neil and Casey Jones and form the Nightwatchers. This version of Leonardo is based on his appearance in issue #3, and NECA has gone much further with that relatively small part of The Last Ronin mythology than I ever expected a toy company to go.

There isn't a Nightwatcher Raphael because Raphael's death is what leads to the formation of the team. NECA has instead built the group around Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Casey and April, taking what could've remained a cool little piece of comic-book history and turning it into an actual collection.

That's the kind of deep-cut I love seeing from a company like NECA. Everybody will make another classic Leonardo. Making this Leonardo means somebody was actually paying attention.

Black, White and Red All Over

The first thing that sold me on this figure was the color scheme. The black, white and red are striking as hell together, and it's the reason I specifically photographed Nightwatcher Leonardo between two of my more traditional Leonardo figures.

I wanted all that green and blue around him.

Putting them together shows exactly how different this design is. The older Leos immediately read as the character we've known forever. Then you've got this badass grey ghost standing between them in black armor with the red scarf exploding around his shoulders.

The red is what really makes the entire thing pop, but there is enough going on underneath it that the figure doesn't depend on one splash of color to carry the design. The gray skin, black clothing and armor, white chest strap and red accents all break the body up nicely. NECA's comic-style paint work adds heavy black lines throughout the figure, which fits perfectly with The Last Ronin aesthetic instead of making him look like a realistic Turtle wearing a comic-book costume.

The sculpting and texture are excellent too. There is detail across the wraps, armor, clothing, belts, pouches and skin, and none of it feels like NECA just covered the figure in random texture because they could. Everything has a purpose and the whole thing feels good in your hands.

He's Not Actually Seven Inches Tall

NECA calls this Leonardo a 7-inch-scale figure, which is not the same thing as saying Leonardo himself stands seven inches tall. Mine is closer to about five and a half inches, which makes sense. He's a Turtle living in a line scaled around human characters. If they actually made him seven inches tall, he'd be wandering around New York looking Casey Jones directly in the eyes.

Again, that comparison shot with the other Leonardos helps. Nightwatcher Leo is bulkier and considerably more substantial than those older figures, but he's not absurdly tall. The size works with the character, and the heavier build makes the armor and oversized scarf feel even more imposing.

That scarf is one of my favorite parts of the figure. From the front it frames the head and shoulders, but from behind it becomes almost a cape and completely changes Leonardo's silhouette. NECA also incorporated the sword storage directly into it. There are two openings in the back where the katanas slide in, both swords fit nicely and they look great stored there.

Unfortunately, the swords themselves are where this review starts going sideways.

Changing Parts Shouldn't Require a Prayer

Before getting to the problems, I need to give NECA credit for something that has absolutely annoyed me on other figures: changing parts on this thing is easy.

The hands switch in and out without a fight. I wasn't wrestling with pegs, heating plastic or wondering whether the entire wrist was going to come off with the hand. The alternate head came off and went back on just as easily. That's how interchangeable parts are supposed to work.

The selection of hands is good too. You get useful weapon grips and enough different gestures to actually change the personality of a pose. The weapons stay securely in the gripping hands, so once you've got the swords positioned, they're not slowly sliding around or rotating until Leo looks like he's forgotten how swords work.

The figure itself feels solid. That's important because sometimes you can tell the second you start moving a collector figure around that every joint needs to be treated like you're defusing a bomb. I didn't get that feeling here. Leonardo feels good, the articulation works, the hands work, the head works and I didn't have any problem posing him for the photos.

That ease of handling is especially welcome after figures like the Marvel Legends Lizard, where a great-looking figure came with its own set of physical headaches.

Then he fell over.

Well, There Goes One of the Swords

I had already finished taking the pictures when Leonardo tipped over.

One of the swords broke.

That's the entire story. I didn't bend it backward. I didn't step on it. I didn't decide to test whether NECA had secretly forged the thing out of actual Japanese steel. The figure fell over, landed badly and the blade snapped right where it meets the guard.

That shouldn't happen. I'm not expecting an adult collectible to survive being thrown across the room, and I'm not going to pretend these things are supposed to be Tonka trucks. But one of the primary accessories breaking because the figure tipped over is a durability problem.

It makes the whole thing more frustrating because NECA got everything around the swords right. They look good. The hands hold them securely. The storage behind the scarf is excellent. You can display Leo with both drawn, one drawn or both on his back and every version works.

The sword just apparently can't survive Leonardo falling over.

Jack Handey and the World's Smallest Throwing Knives

Then there are the throwing knives.

They're a cool addition to the figure and the belt is actually designed well enough to hold them securely. Once they're in there, they look great and add another layer to the whole Nightwatcher idea. This isn't simply Leonardo carrying his usual two swords anymore. He's geared up.

The problem is that the knives are so tiny.

Now, I will acknowledge that part of this problem belongs to me because I have giant sausage fingers. There are normal human fingers, there are delicate little fingers capable of painting eyelashes onto a Warhammer miniature, and then there are the ones attached to my hands. These knives were not designed for the third group.

I managed to get them into the belt without losing any, and once they're there, I'm inclined to leave them there. Because if one of those things hits the floor, we have entered full-on search party territory.

As the great Jack Handey once said about losing your keys in a river of molten lava: let 'em go, because man, they're gone.

Drop one of these little bastards on the wrong floor and just accept that your figure now has one fewer throwing knife.

The Figure Is Better Than Its Weapons

That's ultimately where I land with this guy, because the actual figure is really damn good.

The sculpting and textures are excellent. The black, white and red color scheme might be one of my favorite looks I've seen on Leonardo. The hands swap easily, the alternate head swaps easily, the selection of gestures gives you real posing options and the figure feels good when you're handling him. Even the accessory storage is smart. The swords fit neatly into the scarf and those microscopic knives sit securely on the belt once my sausage fingers manage to get them there.

And the backstory makes the design even better. This isn't just NECA trying another Leonardo color scheme because they needed something else to put on a shelf. This is Leonardo after Raphael is gone, during a period when what remains of the family has regrouped as the Nightwatchers and we already know where all of this is eventually heading.

That makes the figure feel like a little physical piece of The Last Ronin history rather than Leonardo number eight billion and one.

I just wish the weapons were as good as the figure carrying them.

Because when Nightwatcher Leonardo is standing on the shelf, he looks fantastic. He's different enough to jump out immediately next to every traditional version of Leo I own, the black, white and red combination looks even better in person than it did in the package and NECA absolutely nailed the sculpt.

Just make sure he stays standing.

One sword has already fulfilled its destiny as the Last Katana.