| “ | Into the action zone, scanning for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Locked, access, NOW! | „ |
| ~ First part of the intro of the first TMNT cartoon during the Red Sky Seasons. |
What Is the Work[]
Just so you people know, I’ve received permission from my buddy Overlord to use his effort post after talking with him in a post message and we have a candidate from one of the less likely incarnations of TMNT to feature one, Lord Dregg from the last two seasons of the first cartoon. Oh, I’ve also mended some errors from the original version of the post.
Who is Lord Dregg? What has he done?[]
Lord Dregg is an alien warlord that fell from his position of power after several of the planets under his control rebelled against him. Fleeing from galactic patrols, he came to a solar system unknown to the galactic patrols and contains one planet with life on it, Earth. Dregg plans to conquer Earth and make it his new base of operations.
Dregg's first scheme involved his minions attempting to steal some gold to help rebuild his weapons, but the Turtles thwart his troops. Dregg then reprograms some experimental robot police men and have them go on a rampage to cover a second attempt to steal the gold. The Turtles thwart Dregg and destroy the robots.
Dregg tries a new tactic, he comes to earth and pretends to be a friendly alien, showing off a device that turns polluted water into clean water. Stating he wants to help improve the human race, the people of Earth believe him and start to give all the resources he could want.
Dregg is given a tower to help him "improve" the human race, but really he is just building weapons there to try to conquer the world. The Turtles destroy Dregg's tower, but he is far from done.
Dregg hires a merc named Medusa to dispose of the Turtles and tries to use a space station (owned by the US government, but Dregg convinced them he could improve it) to knock out all of Earth's defenses. The Turtles defeat Medusa and take out the space station but Dregg declares the Turtles to be terrorists, blaming them for the space station's destruction.
Dregg buys a mansion on Earth and is building a death ray in it, planning to destroy several cities with it until the world surrenders to him. The Turtles, fighting Dregg's goons in one of his labs, accidentally free a slug creature, which Dregg was planning to use to torment the people of Earth after he conquered them. The slug is going on rampage in NYC, but Dregg does not care. The Turtles overload the death ray before he uses it to destroy NYC and defeat the slug creature.
Then Dregg hires another merc named Sleazebug to capture two of the Turtles (Leo and Mikey) and their friend Carter and sell them to an alien planet where they have to fight in gladiator games. Dregg lures the remaining Turtles into a trap and plans to learn of their genetic secrets (the Turtles have been mutating into monster creatures throughout season 9 and 10). Dregg decides to test his new mutagen on Sleazebug, turning him into a monster. Another defeat after Mikey and Leo escape from the gladiator planet and Dregg flees.
Next Dregg works with a mad super villain named Chronos, giving him a bunch of Earthquake machines he can use to destroy NYC and then loot in exchange for killing the Turtles. The Turtles defeat Chronos, but Dregg takes credit for his capture.
Next Dregg is building a new space station that he claims will be used to protect Earth, but he really intends to conquer Earth. The Turtles met two travelers from 20 years into the future (which would ironically be modern times) and we see a world where Dregg rules, reducing humanity to slavery (one of Dregg's troops arrests a woman for searching the garbage for food), forced to build new star ships so Dregg can conquer new worlds. The Turtles return to the past and destroy Dregg's space station, which he of course claims is more terrorism from them.
In the final episode of season 9, Dregg gets a powerful crystal to power a teleportation device that he can use to summon his scattered armies to Earth. However a more powerful alien named Doomquest comes to steal the crystal, planning to merge Earth with his home dimension. Dregg of course is revealed as a coward when faced by a superior foe and April gets a video tape revealing Dregg's true intentions to the world.
In season 10, Dregg decides to be more active in conquering the world, now that the world no longer trusts him. Deciding that his loyal minion Hitech has failed too often, Dregg puts him in a shuttle pod and blasts out into space (we never see him again and he was Dregg's main minion for all of season 9). Dregg replaces Hitech with a new chief henchman, Mung, whose microbots can build anything in hours.
One of Dregg's schemes in season 10 involves kidnapping a mutated Leo, bombarding him with a ray powered by plutonium, designed to turn Leo into a walking nuke, having him blow up and take NYC with him. The Turtles manage to cure Leo and Dregg again flees. That episode also shows Dregg kidnap April and Dregg agrees to release her, which he does by taking her out of a holding cell, but then he orders Mung to turn her into a cyborg minion.
Dregg then engages in his most mad scheme yet. Dregg frees Shredder and Krang from Dimension X to help defeat the Turtles, they don't get along of course and Dregg betrays them both, by putting Krang and the Turtles into a machine that steals their life energy and gives it to Dregg, gaining all of their abilities, which is a process that will eventually kill them. Shredder manages to escape and get Krang to safety. Dregg comes up with a new plan, attack Earth with several Spider Tanks Mung has built and then use his teleporter to to teleport parts of the Sun to cities on Earth, destroying them unless Earth surrenders (and if this mad scheme destroys Earth, Dregg seems fine with that). Dregg also plans to start teleporting pieces of the sun to cities on other planets, forcing them to submit to him or be destroyed. Anyway through a convoluted story involving time travel, the Turtles get their life energy back and the only thing Dregg's teleporter manages to destroy is his own spaceship.
However Mung quickly rebuilds Dregg's ship and Dregg hatches a new plan. Dregg hires intergalactic gangsters to steal an organic computer from Earth, which he uses to take over all of Earth's defense systems. He demands the Earth surrender power to him or he will destroy several major cities with orbiting laser satellites. The heads of most major governments agree, but Dregg plans to destroy a dozen major cities anyway, just to prove he is serious. Again the Turtles defeat him and again he flees.
In the next episode Dregg plans to suck the Earth through a wormhole, to one of the few remaining solar systems still in his control, this plan causes massive devastation on the Earth, before the Turtles foil it.
In his final appearance, Dregg has lost all interest in conquering Earth and wants the Turtles dead. Dregg hires several alien mercs to attack the Turtles, picking the 5 best to be part of a secret mission. Mung notices Dregg has lost interest in conquest and calls him out, Dregg flies into a rage, attacking Mung, stealing some of his microbots. We don't know what happened to Mung, the last we see of him he is covered in microbots, so he may be dead. Dregg uses the microbots to create an exoskeleton and the exoskeleton absorbs all of the mercs into it, giving Dregg all their powers (those guys are likely dead as well) . Dregg spends the rest of the episode trying to kill the Turtles with his new powers, until Mikey and Donnie go to the technodrome to get Krang's robot body to turn the tide. The robot body gives them the upper hand, until it overloads and is about to explode. The Turtles open a dimensional portal and force Dregg through, with the explosion finally killing him.
Is he heinous by the standards of the work?[]
This is a bit tricky, Shredder and Krang are the main villains for most of the series and their schemes range from goofy to generic to destructive.
For example Shredder and Krang tried to steal energy from the sun to freeze over the Earth, raise the Earth's temperature to get the world to surrender to them. But most of Shredder and Krang's schemes are pretty generic take over the world, kill the heroes schemes and some are just stupid, like Shredder trying to mind control NYC with a device he barely understood, which made people act like children, rather then slaves. Most of the one shot villains are generic, there was a mad scientist who wanted to spin the world's axis till it was as bald as head, but most one shot villains were not nearly as destructive. Doomquest was destructive for a one shot villain, but I don't know if he has enough of a personality to count, IMO and he is clearly more powerful than Dregg.
Dregg's schemes often have a potential body count of millions to billions and his acts of personal cruelty make him stick out.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?[]
No. His nice guy act from season 9 was a lie and he has no regards for his minions. He also lacks the humorous moments Shredder and Krang were known for and was always serious. He is just a power mad tyrant.
Final Verdict?[]
I say keep.