The Rat King

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 **Skin Color**
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 **Enemies**
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 **First Appearance**

**Dr. Victor Falco**, later known as **The Rat King**, was a sleazy scientist who used his knowledge and talents for his own selfish gain. After an accident involving a fire, mutagen, and a chemical he was developing to give him telepathic powers, he became this series' incarnation of the Rat King.

## Appearance

As a normal human, Falco wore a white lab coat, had gray hair with white markings, brown shirt and pants, and a tie.

As the Rat King, his skin is pale green, his eyes glow red, he resembles a corpse, his teeth are rotten, he wears wraps on his arms and legs, he has a black coat and hat, his hair is messy and he wears a blindfold at time.

## History

Rat King started out as a human scientist named "Dr. Victor Falco", and he debuted in the episode Monkey Brains. He and his colleague Dr. Tyler Rockwell were working on an experiment that involved mutagen, a neurochemical, and monkey DNA when they were approached by the Kraang. When it was mentioned on the news that Dr. Rockwell was missing, Dr. Falco alluded that he was oblivious to the situation.

Falco pretended to help April O'Neil and the Turtles; and gained their sincere trust. The Turtles later figured out what Dr. Falco was really doing; experimenting with mutagen on his former colleague, Dr. Rockwell, turning the latter into a mutant monkey with the mutagen. Falco gained the same psychic powers temporarily by extracting a neurochemical from the mutant's brain and injecting himself with it. With his new power, Falco was able to defeat the Turtles in combat by reading their thoughts and predicting their every move. Donatello finally defeated him by fighting without thinking, but Falco escaped before the Turtles could ask him what he knew about the Kraang.

In I, Monster, Falco was shown living in hiding, and continued to work on his psychic neurochemical in a secret laboratory, with only sewer rats to experiment on. One day, the rats chewed through some cables and started a fire in the lab. Falco was injured by the flames, but the neurochemical splattered on him, granting him a psychic connection to rats. Falco used his new ability to control the rats in his lab and they saved him from the fire. Some time later, Falco went into hiding in the sewers, nicknamed himself as **The Rat King**, and began plotting to use his powers to take over New York City. He launched a full scale assault on the city with his hordes of rats. Eventually, Rat King became aware of Splinter through telepathy. Knowing that the Turtles would come to stop him, The Rat King used psychological warfare to control Splinter's mind. When Splinter fights the Turtles, they are overconfident because they were actually able to land a blow on him (though they lost soon after), but soon realize that Splinter was going easy on them all of those years. They manage to snap him out of it and Splinter defeats The Rat King with nothing but two fingers. Rat King was last seen being carried off by his rats. He is still alive...

In Of Rats and Men, the Rat King returned, first reaching into Splinters mind to both torment him, but also learn about the mutagen to create more like him, as well as sending giant mutated Rats to gather humans to be test subjects, in the end while fighting Splinter, Splinter knocks away one of the Rat kings rats then blindfolds himself, rendering the Rat king blind, who kept swatting at Splinter, only to fall in a bottomless void.

In Darkest Plight, after Splinter fell into the darkness of the Undercity during a fight with Super Shredder, he found his body battered and a leg broken. At the pit's bottom, he encountered the Rat King once again, his visage having gone pale, but still active enough to torment Splinter. Rat King attempted to subjugate Splinter, playing mind games with him, coercing him into eating a rat (which he refused), and attacking the ninja as a golem made of rats. Splinter eventually succumbed to his rat nature under the king's influence, but after seeing a vision of his sons and Tang Shen, he fought back and defeated Rat King. He then found Falco's skeletal remains lying splayed on the ground, revealing that he really had died following his defeat at Splinter's hands, and that what he saw was all a hallucination from his fever.

## Appearance

**As Victor Falco:**Falco is middle aged, with dark hair going gray at the temples, eyes taking on a blood shot look under the effects of the neuro-chemical, and a long lab coat and tan trousers. He is highly knowledgeable in neuroscience.

**As The Rat King:**Rat King is very skinny, pale, and zombie/corpse looking with dry and wrinkled flesh, decaying teeth, mostly burnt hair, and hypnotic eyes. He wears a long black coat and with a matching hat, bandages over his eyes (this helps his powers stay in control) and bandages on him in other places such as his arms.

## Quotes

* *(When trying to brainwash Splinter) "Join me...Join me!"*
* *Falco: "Why do you cling so hard to this life of your's? (Splinter: I am needed here.) Falco: By whom!?! Even your so-called 'Children' have begun to out-grow you".*
* *"We both have come to see the world through the eyes of rats...We both have lost everything we held dear. We both have become outcast from society."*
* *(During his fight with Donnie) "By the way...do you REALLY think you have a chance with April?"*
* *"I am THE RAT KING!"*
* *"Who says I'm not in control?" (while running away from Splinter)*

## Trivia

* Mikey tried to call him Verminator, as an homage to the Archie TMNT character, Verminator X.
* The Skeletons in Mazes & Mutants resemble The Rat King.