No fan could have anticipated the unique character that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise debuted. There is a mysterious fifth turtle that appears in addition to the four main turtle characters and shares many traits with Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael.
Metalhead is the name given to this persona. He has a variety of pasts and demonstrates that he can either be an excellent ally or the ninja turtles’ worst nightmare. To clear up any misconceptions, we will be covering every aspect of Metalhead in this video, from his beginnings to the sources of all of his various abilities. So let us watch the video now without further ado.
Metalhead Origins
Metalhead appears for the first time in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe in the 1987 animated series. It was featured in “The Making of Metalhead,” episode 35 of the third season. Let us now examine its creation process. Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael are all sick with the flu when the episode opens in the Turtles’ den. They are weak, sneezing frequently, and have a high fever.
April O’Neil, their first human ally, is caring for them while their master, Master Splinter, explains to her that they are actually afflicted with the Turtlepox, a rare disease. It appears that only mutant turtles are afflicted by this illness. Krang, the series’ major antagonist, is currently hatching yet another strategy to engage in conflict with the turtles in order to eliminate them. Krang was reduced to resemble a brain some time ago after being deprived of his body. However, he finally got a new android body, and that is how he now looks to us.
Now, this is the first time that we are introduced to Metalhead. Krang has built a turtle robot and named it Metalhead. This robot has specialized advanced weaponry that is in-built and the customization of being able to use the ninja fighting skills of all the four turtles. However, in order to finish this final prototype, he needs the brainwave scans of the turtles. So, he gives his minion, Shredder, a portable brain analyzer and orders him to go to the surface and get the required brainwave scans.
Shredder, along with his mutant henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady, decides to break into and rob a facility known as Megatech so that when the media covers the robbery, it will draw out the turtles from hiding. However, back at their lair, the four turtles are sleeping, and Master Splinter thinks it is best not to wake them up because they would not be of any help in their current state. Shredder then decides to rob a bank and April ends up seeing them in motion so she finally wakes up the turtles.
Leonardo tells the others that even though they are sick, they are the only ones who can stop them. So, when all four of them arrive outside the bank through the sewers to stop Bebop and Rocksteady, Shredder manages to scan their brainwaves. When he is doing this, the turtles feel as if a heavy metal concert is going on in their heads, but they assume it to be the effects of the Turtlepox.
Back at Krang’s hideout, which is a mobile like fortress known as the Technodrome, he is successfully able to install the fighting methods of the four turtles in Metalhead. He orders Bebop and Rocksteady to fight Metalhead to test its abilities. And just as Krang predicted, Metalhead defeats Bebop and Rocksteady alone and is now considered to be the ultimate weapon against the mutant ninja turtles. He orders Metalhead to seek and destroy the turtles, the mission for which it was created. It also has a remote camera which will allow Krang to watch the destruction of the turtles as if it were a movie.
Metalhead makes its way into Splinter’s room and attacks him. However, Master Splinter’s attempts go in vain as Metalhead captures him and April using ropes. This chaos wakes the resting turtles and they get ready for a fight. Soon the turtles realize that this giant turtle machine seems to know all of their moves even before they act on them. Metalhead uses all its techniques and manages to capture the four turtles. It makes its way back to the Technodrome through the sewer system and drags the turtles along with April and Splinter.
Donatello then tries to use his Turtle Com to short circuit the memory banks of Metalhead and it successfully disassembles the robot turtle. They carry it back to their lair and Donatello deprograms and reprograms Metalhead. Now when Metalhead meets and talks to the turtles, it sounds exactly like all four of them and mimics their behavior. But since it contains four different personalities, it has a personality overload and does not work correctly due to dissociative identity disorder. According to April, Metalhead is a schizophrenic robot.
However, Metalhead instantly proves helpful as it informs the turtles that Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady are approaching. So, in order to protect the location of their hideout, the turtles go after the three troublemakers and attack them. This time Metalhead is on their side and it also attacks the enemies of the turtles. However, after coming out of the sewer system, Bebop fires at Metalhead and it gets confused about whether it is supposed to attack the turtles or Shredder. So, it ends up deciding to blast everybody instead.
Now, up on a tower, the turtles are trying to escape Metalhead when Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady catch up to them. Meanwhile, Donatello and April go inside the Channel 6 building so that Donatello can use a transmitter to stop Metalhead. While it is still deciding whom to attack, Donatello manages to jump start its newer program and the robot realizes that the turtles are its friends.
Metalhead then attacks Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady and defeats them. It now considers Donatello as its daddy since he was the one who gave it its new programming. The episode comes to an end as the turtles go back to being sick in their hideout and April hands over nurse duties to Metalhead.
Now, we do not get any separate origin story for Metalhead in the 2003 cartoon series of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the robot has no significant role. Later on, in the 2012 cartoon series, we get a new adaptation of Metalhead in the sixth episode of the first season. In this version, Metalhead was not created by Kraang but by Donatello. He had taken some of Kraang’s technology from an exoskeleton in order to upgrade his own weapons and used it to construct Metalhead.
Donatello also built an NES type controller through which he was easily able to control Metalhead and installed hidden cameras in both of its eyes so that he could watch Metalhead’s movements. The turtles would often take Metalhead along with them on missions since it was a very valuable asset. However, despite being nearly unstoppable and undefeated, Metalhead did pose some problems due to its large and heavy body.
On a mission where the turtles would need to sneak into a place, Metalhead’s loud footsteps would easily blow their cover. The turtles now had a new mission that required them to invade one of Kraang’s warehouses in order to stop him from poisoning the water supply of the city with Mutagen. Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael knew that they would not be successful if Metalhead went along with them. So, Leonardo made Metalhead stay back at their hideout.
Soon after, Donatello realized that his brothers were getting overpowered. So, he called in Metalhead as backup, and in no time Metalhead destroyed all of the Kraang’s droids. However, while it was fighting the droids, it accidentally blasted some of the explosives. As a result, Metalhead was thrown far away and lost the antenna that was on its head. Due to this, Donatello lost control over Metalhead. In the middle of this chaos, Kraang noticed that Metalhead was made using his own technology.
So, he decided to use Metalhead for his own evil plans. Kraang then left his android body to climb on top of the robot’s head to take control of it. Until now Metalhead, was taking orders from Donatello but it suddenly forgets all about him and begins to take orders from Kraang. Metalhead then proceeds to attack the turtles with the intent of killing all of them. However, Donatello soon manages to appear within close distance of Metalhead and pushes a support pillar on top of it. This results in Metalhead’s defeat and Kraang running away in order to save his own life before the turtles can catch him.
Now, later on, in 2014, we get to see a new version of Metalhead in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series which is published by IDW Publishing. It first appeared in Volume 9, Issue number #34 which is titled Monsters, Misfits, and Madmen, part 2. It was written by comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz and edited by Bobby Curnow. The story begins with a look at April O’Neil, Donatello, and two of their other crime fighting friends, Angel Bridge and Casey Jones.
Currently, April and Donatello are on their way to the lab of their scientist friend, Harold Lilja. They invite Angel and Casey to accompany them but Casey refuses. Now, Harold is not exactly a people person and is not thrilled about the fact that Donatello, aka Donnie, brought someone new with him to his highly sophisticated research and development facility. So, he constantly calls Angel “Preschool.” Harold clearly wants Donnie and his friends to leave as quickly as possible, but Donnie has something that he believes Harold will find too tempting to resist.
It is a notebook that contains plans for a working teleporter. This teleporter will help them go to Burnow Island so that they can stop Krang from building the Technodrome, the apocalypse machine. If the Technodrome goes operational, Krang will make sure to terraform the entire planet so that it can become habitable for his race and not for humans. Now, when April mocks Harold’s high-tech gauntlet, he dismisses her and introduces them to his latest invention, an exo-suit. He has included many of his past inventions in this exo suit, such as a new version of the gravity gauntlet, light refractors, Kevlar armor and concussion grenades.
Just as he is boasting about his exo suit, Angel finds another new invention created by Harold Lilja, and this is a robot turtle that looks very similar to Donatello, almost in a creepy way. So, apparently, Baxter Stockman, the owner of the scientific research company where April is working as an intern, Stock Gen, had attacked Harold and kidnapped him. Stockman wanted to use his genius for evil plans. After this incident, Harold decided that he needed to look out for his own safety.
So, he used his mutant friend Donatello’s body, abilities, speed, and flexibility as inspiration and constructed a security robot that would protect him. Its actions can be controlled with a remote-control device, but he had not given it a name yet, so Angel suggests that it can be called Metalhead. While Harold is showing off the abilities of his robot turtle by making it attack Angel, its circuits get fused. When Harold tries to shut it down, the robot turtle snatches the remote control from his hands and breaks it.
Metalhead is then just about to attack Harold when Donnie saves him. It looks like Harold’s proud new invention has gone rogue. When it looks at April, it identifies her as a deadly threat since she is a Stock Gen employee, and Harold had programmed the entire employee list from the Stock Gen database into its memory. Metalhead tries to attack April, but Angel and Donnie save her and start fighting back. It also talks back, just like Harold.
This version of Metalhead also has an antigravity gauntlet, machine gun hands, flame thrower, and laser, due to which Angel and Donnie are constantly in defense mode. Soon after, Angel tricks Metalhead into breaking the case in which the exo suit is sealed. She then puts it on to reach Metalhead’s power level and have an equal fight. Metalhead also starts calling her preschool, just like Harold. The issue comes to an end when Angel manages to successfully shut down Metalhead with a good smash against the wall.
Later on in the comic, Metalhead comes in handy when during a fight against Rocksteady and Bebop, Donatello gets severely wounded and is almost on the verge of dying. Harold then transfers Donnie’s mind into the robot’s body in order to save his life. Eventually, Donatello’s mind is transported back to his actual body, and Metalhead receives significant damage due to the ongoing battle. Donnie then tries to fix Metalhead but finds that somehow there was a digital imprint of his mind left inside Metalhead’s body.
Michelangelo gave this new version of Metalhead the name Metal-Don. But this new version was not good news. Soon the artificial essence of Metalhead’s body started to affect Metal-Don’s mind and led him to behave very aggressively. So, Harold later constructed a better and improved version of Metalhead and abandoned its current body.
What Makes Him Such a Challenging Opponent?
Metalhead was ultimately built to serve as the greatest weapon against any enemy that it fights. Naturally, Metalhead’s body is full of weapons. It has grenade launchers, rifles, laser cannons as well as a baseball bat that has a nail embedded in it. Along with that, its different body parts contain different weapon systems. Metalhead also has wings, machine guns on its shoulders and flame throwers.
It also has rocket-powered fists that can be fired at opponents and returned to Metalhead’s arm. In fact, its bandanna can also be opened in order to shoot deadly bombs from its eyes. It has been created with such a design that most sharp and blunt force trauma does not cause any damage to the body. During a fight, it was also able to capture the weapons of the four turtles and render them useless.
Even when Metalhead fights without its weapons, it proves to be a threat to its enemies since it has constantly gone through multiple reprogramming. Moreover, the shell that Metalhead carries as a part of its body is actually constructed from a maintenance hole cover by the New York City sewer system. Metalhead also has two different fight modes. The first one is the “Speeder Mode”, in which its hands and legs transform into wheels and become a compact four wheeled vehicle. The second mode is the “Terminator Mode”, in which it shows the ability to self-activate weapons that have been installed within its body parts.
Metalhead’s Other Appearances
The character of Metalhead appears as part of a video game known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, which was developed by Tribute Games and published by Dotemu, a French video game publisher. In June 2022, after a lot of teasers the game was finally launched on Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Linux, and Xbox One.
In the Shredder’s Revenge video game, Metalhead appears as a reprogrammed Techno Terrapin and serves as the featured boss of Silicon Alley in the 10th episode which is titled “A Few Screws Loose”. The story of this titanium turtle is similar to the one in the 1987 cartoon series, but with a slight difference. In the video game, it is programmed by Donatello and later Shredder gets hold of it. He reprograms Metalhead in order to make it do whatever he wants.
When it comes to attacking patterns, Metalhead mainly has three attacks that are capable of easily crushing you. Metalhead will hop around the entire battle field, even on the edges of the arena. It will then spread its robotic arms in order to engage in a dual punching assault. Now, just like some of the other bosses in the game, if you manage to get too close to Metalhead, it will use a fast kick attack to defeat you.
More miniature robots can also be found around Metalhead, giving it assistance in the fight. It also has the ability to shoot missiles from its back along with generating a defensive laser barrier. These new abilities that are included in the video game make it even more fun for the players and their allies.
Metalhead has been a constant part of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise and certainly adds its own excitement and confusion to the story of the infamous turtles. They can actually continue using this robot as a part of their extended team since Metalhead has the potential to include a lot more technological benefits for the four brothers.
Well, guys, that is all for today; we hope you enjoyed watching this video as much as we enjoyed making it for you. Have a fantastic day ahead!