No one knows for certain where he came from, but one thing is for sure, Rat King revels in scum and scum revels in him. The creepiest of sewer crawlies nest in his royally rotten rags. The self-proclaimed King of the Ratocracy, he hypnotizes his rodent subjects with his seductive flute playing. Even Splinter succumbs to his magical musical powers.

Rat King’s army protects his slimy kingdom by fighting tooth and whisker against all outsiders, good or bad. Watch out! Rat on his loyal subjects and you may be wrestling with his Rat Hook or running for your life from Rat King’s Royal Ratbow. Rat King’s motto is: “First the sewers, then the world!” He and Shredder are battling for total sewer domination while the Turtles are defending their “Home Sweet Sewer” from both. Looks like plenty of trouble underfoot.

THE RAT KING:
-Among the more odd things is that for every single Ninja Turtles comic & cartoon continuity, you find the Rat King- he debuted all the way back in the MIRAGE days, got his own toy and appearance in the 1987 cartoon series, and even shows up for both subsequent cartoons! He’s even in the Archie series and video games! This kind of spread is known only to the show’s core characters, The Rat King, and Leatherhead. This is primarily because he’s one of very few Super-Villains in the series created by the original Eastman & Laird duo- this “Grandfather Clause” ensures that he’s part of the core canon, despite being a fairly minor character in the long run. Much is made of his Nightmare Fuel rat-control powers, but every version is EXTREMELY different in origin, powers, and motivation.

Comics Rat Kings:
-In the Mirage series, he’s a swamp-living weirdo who randomly encounters the TMNT & Casey Jones. Defeated, he reappears and engages in a long-term spiritual debate with Splinter, who is trapped in the silo where the Rat King lost the first fight- in the end, Splinter, having finally fought his way free of the silo after regaining his strength (on the urgings of the Rat King) finds the decayed corpse of his ally, realizing that he’s been dead all along. Later, it turns out that his position is appointed, and the bandages are a sign of his station- a 2007 series reveals that the “Pantheon” exists, with a member for every species of animal. In the Archie books, the Rat King is more of an ally- he agrees to help the Turtles after they prove that they mean him and his rat subjects no harm. He doesn’t appear much. Another shows up in the IDW series as a strange manipulator with vast mental powers.

Cartoon Rat Kings:

Naturally, this one-off foe from the comics gets a WAY bigger role in the cartoon series, as a crazed hermit living in the sewers. He’s a great inventor (making great gear out of garbage), very strong, and can control the minds of rats, making him a lethal enemy to Splinter and the Turtles. He even controls the TMNT’s mentor and forces him to fight his own sons. He is often encountered in odd side-bits, like when he just randomly ended up in the middle of a fight between Shredder and the Turtles, or when Leatherhead went into the sewers and the two began a huge fight that threatened everyone. Occasionally, he has been seen aiding the Turtles, but at other points (such as Night of the Rogues), he allies with former adversaries like Shredder & Leatherhead in order to kill them. Hell, one time he tried to kill everyone in New York! Perhaps because he’s a solid “Side Villain”, unaccompanied by any others or much plot baggage, he was a regularly-appearing guy, showing up in ten of the series’ episodes- a number unmatched outside of the Technodrome crew.

The Rat King, as a solo villain against the heroes, is actually rather powerful. PL 8 unarmed, and PL 9 with his “Soda Pop Bombs” (pop cans that cause miniaturized explosions powerful enough to knock out Leatherhead in one hit), in addition to being PL 8.5 defensively. His main advantage, however, is his control over massive hordes of rats- not only are most people DISGUSTED by the idea of being swarmed by disease-carrying vermin, but in the show, their swarms seem to have powers akin to “Weaken Toughness”- they’re frequently shown tearing through walls, knocking ceilings down on the King’s opponents, and more! His Mind Control is only +4 as an Area Effect, but with his Flute, he can control even SPLINTER with his power.

The 2003 Cartoon uses him as a bio-mechanical super-soldier created by Agent Bishop’s technology, using DNA from aliens, the TMNT, Splinter, and himself. Wearing a face-concealing helmet, he was initially called the “Slayer”, and sent against the TMNT as a “test run”, where he was presumed dead during a flood. Damaged, missing parts, and mutating, he became “The Rat King”, as the rats who found him don’t fear him, and would follow him into battle. He fought the Turtles again, being defeated by Leonardo.

The Nick Toon turned him into Dr. Victor Falco, a Mad Scientist voiced by Jeffrey Combs (who played a similar character in The Re-Animator), secretly working for the Kraang and turning his colleague into a Telekinetic Monkey, and himself into a telepath. In his reappearance, he was badly injured when rats chewed on his machines- he was mutated, transforming into the monstrous, decayed-looking Rat King, looking like the New Batman Adventures Scarecrow (also voiced by Combs). Controlling the rats with psionics (he can no longer reach human minds), he controlled Splinter’s mind (evoking the 1987 series)- the boys are initially overconfident beacuse they were able to land a blow on him during training… but soon learn that Splinter had been going easy on them all along- he wrecks house until finally breaking free of the Rat King’s control and defeating the villain using only two fingers. He reappears vexing Splinter again, but Splinter blindfolds himself to render the villain blind (he was seeing through the eyes of rats), and he falls to his apparent demise. Later, we get an episode where an injured Splinter crawls out of a pit while fighting the Rat King, driven on by thoughts of his late wife and the TMNT… and we see the skeletan remains of Falco on the ground when he comes to- reveailng this as an homage to the aforementioned Mirage Comic- the Rat King is dead.

Programmed for peak performance, programmed for pulverizing pizza-eating peons – he’s Chrome Dome, Shredder’s synthetic soldier of doom. Transistorized for terror in the Technodrome, this vindictive villain has one command permanently burned into his memory chips – destroy all Turtles! Shredder packed Chrome Dome with deadly diodes of destruction, making this robotic ruffian the ultimate shogun warrior! With his own brand of digital dexterity, Chrome Dome weilds weapons from his atomic arsenal. And when this metallic menace swings his servo sai and gigobyte goupillon, the Turtles must duck or die! Shredder’s made this metallic marvel to be just like him – a master of martial mayhem, battle techniques and everlasting evil. He’s one programmed punk who will never rest until he rusts.

CHROME DOME:

Chrome Dome is the omnipresent kind of bad guy: The Killer Robot. Created by Shredder to finish off those meddling mutants, he was damn near unstoppable- and unlike most TMNT enemies, he was MUCH larger than normal- about twice the height of a normal human being, and also vastly stronger. He was created to supervise the construction of a second Technodrome, but was defeated when the Turtles found the controller chip on his back and deactivated him. Chrome Dome reappears in Night of the Rogues, where he’s been rebuilt and helps capture the four Turtles. He also holds off the entire rescue squad out to save them (including CASEY JONES, whose weapons just break against his body), and is only stopped when Splinter outsmarts him- he lures him onto a hydraulic press that flattens him.

Chrome Dome oddly doesn’t reappear throughout most of the franchise, despite being such an obvious idea- he is playable in one of the TMNT: Tournament Fighters video games but appears in none of the others! He doesn’t reappear until the 2012 Nick Toon, where he is a prototype of a more advanced kind of Foot-Bot. He is controlled by Karai to hunt down April, as she was nursing a big grudge at that point- however, when it captures her, it refuses to kill her. It has instead been overridden by the Kraang, who need April for their own ends. It manages to hold off Karai AND the Turtles, but is finally defeated when Donatello removes the panel on its back and Chrome Dome loses control of its faculties and Michelangelo finally stabs it through the chest with a plasma sword.