Rat King
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The bandage-and-rag-covered Rat King' is a fictional character from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. He was created by Mirage Studio's staff artist Jim Lawson and has appeared in the original Mirage comics, the 1987 and 2003 television series and the Archie TMNT Adventures comics.
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[edit] Mirage Comics
The Rat King first appears in Tales of the TMNT #4, plotted by Jim Lawson, he engages the turtles and Casey without provocation in an abandoned factory. After a fierce battle, the monster (he isn't given a name until the end of the story) is left for dead at the bottom of a silo. As he lies surrounded by rats--the only creatures who don't fear him, he reflects--he names himself The Rat King.
The Rat King's next appearance is in the City at War arc, where he appears several times before Splinter, who lies, dying, in the silo where the Rat King had fallen after encountering the turtles. However, months later, after Splinter recovers enough to explore, he finds a skeleton covered in his companion's rags.
Finally, the Rat King appears for a panel in the latest incarnation of the Mirage comic, watching over Master Splinter, shortly before the latter's death.
Little is truly known about the Rat King; his origins and the full extent of his power have never been accurately documented. Despite his name, the Rat King does not seem to exert any sort of control over rats, despite attempts to do so by controlling their feeding.
[edit] 1987 series
In the 1987 series the Rat King is depicited as a homeless man living in the sewers of New York City. The Rat King can communicate with rats. He plays on his flute to hypnotize the rats (like the Pied Piper), and even Splinter can be hypnotized by the music. He made his first appearance when he kidnapped April O'Neil when she was investigating the city's rat problem, and the turtles were able to rescue her, but not before he took control of Splinter. Throughout the series the Rat King was shown as a questionable character who generally has an obsession of using rats to start his own government, and although he has worked alongside The Shredder a few times, his morals have been somewhat questionable (In the episode Return of the Fly, he even cooperated with the Turtles to help them rescue April from Shredder.). One time he teamed up with the Shredder was in "Night of the Rogues" where other villains working with Shredder are Leatherhead, Slash, Tempestra, Anthrax, Scumbug, and Chrome Dome. His last episode was Wrath of the Rat King in which Shredder called him, who wore a trenchcoat in this episode, to help him and Rat King attacked the Turtles and had mutant giant rats, which where cut down to size in the end; due to Krang's strain of mutegen. The Turtles capture him in the end.
It is revealed during an episode that one of his rats is (nick) named Mickey. When questioned, he responded "We all have our role-models."
[edit] TMNT Adventures (Archie)
Despite being based on the original cartoon series, Archie's version of the Rat King shares more in common with the Mirage version. This version of Rat King (also called Ha’ntaan) is the so-called ruler of rats, and defender of their interests.
Ha’ntaan first appears in a small cameo in TMNT Adventures #11, where he reveals the Shredder’s whereabouts to the pursuing turtles. His only other appearance was in the story called The Future Shark Trilogy (TMNTA #42-44), a three-part story set in the late 21st century, where future selves of Donatello and Raphael travel back in time to enlist the turtles’ help for a rescue mission. There, it is revealed that Ha’ntaan—spurred by the mass-extermination of rats that future-Donatello was directly responsible for—had declared war on humanity. After a fierce battle, The Rat King retreated, only to reappear during the turtles’ rescue mission in the arc’s final issue.
Although physically among the weakest incarnations of the Rat King—he is knocked unconscious by one sucker-punch by Michelangelo—Ha’ntaan, is, nevertheless the most powerful. Unlike every other incarnation of the character, Ha’ntaan is capable of controlling any number of rats telepathically. He is also long-lived, aging only slightly in a hundred-year span.
[edit] 2003 series
Originally called “The Slayer”, this incarnation of the Rat King (voiced by David Zen Mansley) was created by Agent Bishop as the first of what would have become his super-soldier army — a group of sleeper agents grown from Bishop’s own DNA, combined with that of Splinter. His time under Bishop’s command was brief, however: minutes after being “born”, the laboratory where he was created flooded (the result of a fight between Bishop and Splinter), forcing him into the sewers.
The Slayer next appears in the episode I, Monster (based on the Tales of the TMNT comic of the same title), his appearance radically changed: his body and face, scarred and dirty, is covered in bandages; pieces of skin are missing; his nails are now several inches long. His mental state has also taken a turn for the worse, varying between moments of lucidness and fits of madness punctuated with wild laughter. It is in this later state that he engages the turtles and Casey, in an abandoned factory at the outskirts of New York. Like in the original story, the Rat King eventually falls into the bottom of a silo; there, he is swamped by rats and mistakenly left for dead. Curiously, neither party seems to recognize each other during this encounter.
The Rat King/Slayer's powers an abilities fluctuate between incarnations. As the Slayer, the Rat King possessed natural cloaking ability which rendered him invisible, a healing factor, and enhanced strength and agility. His “Monster” incarnation, however, seems to have lost most of these abilities (a possible result of the clone degeneration), retaining only his strength and what may or may not be an unconscious control of the rats around him.
[edit] Videogames
Rat King appears as the third boss in the Super NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. He is based on his 1987 cartoon incarnation, though he doesn't control any rats. Instead, he uses the Footski - a speedboat equipped with missiles and spiked buoys, which was also made into a toy for the Playmates action figure line. He is also the mid-boss in the Super NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, and also a secret playable character. Here he is based on the original comics designs, though he still doesn't use any rats to fight.
