Lord Dregg is an alien warlord who became the main villain of the last two seasons (season 9 and 10) of the 87's TV TMNT series after Shredder and Krang were banished to Dimension X. A destined conqueror of the universe, he travels aboard a large alien spaceship known as the Dreggnought, and attempted to conquer the planet Earth many times after he first discovered it. The Turtles had thwarted his every plan however, and he has despised them ever since.
Unlike Shredder and Krang, Dregg has a more serious attitude and never took the time for comedic remarks, which probably made him a more suitable villain for the more serious "Red Sky" episodes of the series.
History
Lord Dregg first appeared in the first episode of season nine, The Unknown Ninja. Dregg and his army the TechnoGang (a group of bug-like alien soldiers), led by HiTech (also Dregg's assistant), broke into the Federal Reserve Bank and stole the world's gold in order to conquer it. Then, Dregg met the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time as they, together with their new friend Carter, stopped him. Dregg reappeared in the next episode "Dregg of the Earth"; Dregg manipulates the people by introducing himself to them as their savior who came to Earth to help and save them. The people blindly trust Dregg as he turns dirty water into pure clean water. Dregg however cheated, as he did it with the help of a machine. In return, the people gave him his own tower, the Dregg Tower (actually just a steel structure with the Dreggnaut on top of it). The Turtles didn't believe him and wanted to expose him. They went to Dregg Tower where Lord Dregg tells that the people don't like them anymore and the Turtles better stop protecting them. He asks them to join him, but they refuse. Dregg gives orders to destroy the Turtles, but they stop him, destroying Dregg Tower in the process.
After that, Lord Dregg launches a propaganda campaign throughout the city, letting the people believe that the Turtles are dangerous and that they want to prevent Dregg from saving the Earth. Since then, the Turtles are disliked by the people and are many times chased by police or other authorities. With this, Dregg is free to destroy the Turtles. His propaganda campaign lasts during the entire ninth season, and finally ends in the episode "Doomquest". There, an intergalactic conqueror named Doomquest tried to take over the world, with Dregg being to weak to fight him. When the Turtles defeat Doomquest at the end, Dregg escapes in fear. Realizing that their "Hero" left them behind, the people start to question Lord Dregg. With the help of the Turtles, April finally convinces the people that Dregg is a traitor and the Turtles the heroes when she shows a tape of Dregg (She filmed it in the previous episode "Carter, the enforcer") in which he says that the Earthlings will finally surrender to him.
Dregg, however, is not defeated because of this. He still plans to conquer Earth, but has to get rid of those "reptiles" first. In a story arc of three episodes, Lord Dregg gets Shredder and Krang out of Dimension X. Since all three of the villains despise the Turtles, Dregg suggests they should work together to destroy the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Shredder however does not want work with Dregg since Shredder is the one who should conquer Earth. Together with Krang, he plans to both take out Dregg and the Turtles and take over the world. The Turtles trap Shredder and Krang back into Dimension X, defeating them once and for all, since they would never been seen again for the rest of the series. Dregg escapes again with Mung (Dregg's assistant who replaced Hi-Tech at the beginning of season ten) in the Dreggnought.
In the last episode of the tenth season and also the final episode of the series, Divide and Conquer, Dregg had lost his edge after having been constantly defeated by the Turtles, and became more obsessed with destroying the Turtles than conquering Earth. He therefore devised a plan to get rid of them for good by creating a powerful suit known as the Morphogenesis Exoskeleton and tricking five powerful aliens into being absorbed into his suit, thus giving him their powers multiplied by a hundred from the suit. He tried to destroy the Turtles, but they escaped. Dregg instead kidnaps April in order to lure the Turtles to him. Leonardo and Raphael go save April while Donatello and Michelangelo travel with the Transdimensional Portal to Dimension X to get Krang's android body since only with it could the Turtles defeat the now super strong Dregg. Michelangelo and Donatello find an abandoned and wrecked Technodrome (which had been standing there since Turtle Trek). Inside, they grow the android body to super size so they can both fit in it.
After getting back to Earth and now controlling the body, they grab Dregg tight around the android's arms with a special movement Master Splinter taught them earlier in the episode. They then get out of the android before it grows to normal size, resulting in Dregg being unable to escape from its grasp. The Turtles then push Dregg and the android body into the Transdimensional Portal, before the strain of the atoms in the android body caused itself to selfdestruct, taking Dregg with it.
Personality
Flamboyant but hardly a farceur, Dregg is one of the Turtles' deadliest opponents.
Being a former galactic overlord, Dregg has great pride in his forces and does not tolerate failure unless it is inevitable. He sees those he does not employ as insects and disposable as such. Though vile and pure evil, Dregg respects bravery and arrogance. He is willing to go to any length to ensure his victories. He has a great talent for acting, given he managed to fool the populace of New York into thinking he was a benevolent alien at first. He is not above hiring mecenaries for ridiculuously high prices or using last ditch efforts to attack the Turtles. By the end of the Tenth season, Dregg had begun to go insane due to the stress the Turtles constantly cause him by foiling his efforts to rule the earth and kill them.
Powers and abilities
Lord Dregg is shown to be one of, if not, the most dangerous villain the Turtles have ever had to contend with. Even during their first few battles there were multiple different occasions where Dregg would have destroyed them if not for Carter interfering. In fact, Carter does a good chunk of the fighting against Dregg, often assisting the Turtles against him.
Around the end of the series, Dregg was actually able to capture the TMNT and defeat them by draining their powers, and at the same time, keeping tabs on Shredder and Krang, the show's previous antagonists.
Dregg is a genius. He is decisive, intelligent, and is very quick with master plans. He's very well experienced in the fields of genetics and mutations. Dregg is also a master strategist, even out smarting the Turtles on certain occasions. In the episode, "Mobsters from Dimension X", he was able to defeat Donatello in a "battle of the minds", showing that he even has a greater focus than the hyper intelligent mutant.
He has control over billions of little robotic bugs called "micro-bots" that can build ANYTHING Dregg wishes.
He can blast lasers from his hands and eyes, though he isn't that much of a fighter. Dregg has used his deceiving skills to steal power from other powerful beings.
In a three part episode, Dregg absorbs the mental and physical strengths of the TMNT and Krang, as well as the Turtles' super mutations, making him the most powerful and intelligent being in the universe at that point.
In the episode, "Divide and Conquer", he used his micro-bots to build a morpho genesis exo skeleton suit, which has the ability to steal and drain life energy from other beings into its possessor. Dregg used this suit to steal the power of five incredibly powerful aliens, and multiplied their combined power a hundredfold, and he became a super being.
Appearance
Dregg has blue skin and glowing red eyes. His head towers past his forehead in a black brace. He wears a purple suit and cape with a red and orange striped outfit underneath. His eyes glow brighter when he is either delighted or rageful.
Trivia
- Dregg's name is a play on the word dreg. This term refers to and is synonymous with sediment, dirt, soiled items,the least valuable parts of a thing, and very bad persons.
- Dregg was voiced by the late Tony Jay. Jay was not only a popular voice actor for children's programming but an accomplished Shakespearean actor of stage and screen. He's noted as a legend in his own right.
- Dregg was created due to the fact that Power Rangers was changing their villain at the time.
- Along with other characters from the Red Sky series, Dregg never got merchandise based on him.