Rat King (TMNT 2012)

Near Pure Evil

Mutated
Normal

Full Name

Victor Falco

Alias

The Rat King

Dr. Falco

Origin

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)

Allies

Aristotle

His rat army
Dr. Tyler Rockwell (formerly)

Powers / Skills

High intelligence

Scientific knowledge
Telepathy
Mind control
Fighting skills

Goals

Gain brain reading powers (abandoned)

Cleanse New York City of Mankind
Kill the human race and take over the world
Brainwash Splinter (all failed)

Moral Event Horizon

Mutating and experimenting on Tyler Rockwell.

Brainwashing Splinter and forcing him to fight and kill his sons.
Attempting to destroy humanity by releasing a serum that infects humans and turns them into mutated rat people, and using humans as test subjects.

Kill Count

Hundreds

Billions (attempted)

Crimes

Unethical experimentation

Battery
Tresspassing
Brainwashing
Torture
Property damage
Attempted genocide
Mass murder

Type of Villain

Misanthropic Scientist

“	This city is infested. Eight million parasites, scrambling around in their pointless lives, spreading disease, forcing US, to live in the shadows like vermin! No more! They are the true plague. Together, we shall rid this city of humanity and reclaim it for ourselves! And no one, not even those vile turtles, shall stand in our way!	„
	~ Falco’s new main goal.

Dr. Victor Falco, better known as the Rat King, is a recurring antagonist in the 2012 action animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, serving as the secondary antagonist of Season 1, a minor antagonist in Season 2 and the posthumous secondary antagonist of the Season 4 episode "Darkest Plight".

Falco was formerly a scientist who worked with Dr. Tyler Rockwell. However, Falco betrayed Rockwell and experimented on him, hoping to gain the power of mind control. After his crimes got exposed, Falco escaped and, after being injured in a lab accident, became the Rat King, with his goal becoming to make all of mankind suffer for his troubles. He is the second archenemy of Hamato Yoshi/Splinter.

He was voiced by Jeffrey Combs, who also voiced the Scarecrow and Doctor Moon in the DC Animated Universe.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]

Experimented on his colleague, Dr. Tyler Rockwell, keeping him locked in a tight cage and planning to painfully inject him with more mutagen. He then extracted the Mutagen DNA from his blood to gain mind control abilities.
Beat up the Turtles after they came to stop him.
Planned revenge against everyone who "wronged" him before his accident.
Attempted to rid New York of humanity following his transformation into the Rat King.
Painfully brainwashed Splinter by playing on his insecurities, then sacking him onto his sons so they wouldn't interfere with his plans.
Kidnapped humans from across the city while sending his rats on a rampage.
Planned to experiment on the captured humans, eventually intending for them to painfully mutate into human-rat hybrids and spread the mutation to the rest of the world.
Accidentally turned a man into a horrific abomination only capable of ranting about cheese, shrugging it off as routine for experiments.
Brainwashed Splinter once again and told him to destroy his sons one by one.
Despite his rhetoric, his claim of caring for rats is nearly always shallow, as he has no issues with the Turtles blowing hundreds of them up or throwing them into a canyon at Splinter to kill him, and it is obvious he is simply an egomaniac wanting to lash out at the world for rightfully rejecting his genius.
Despite the high heinous standard, the Rat King stands out due to a combination of his low resources, his few appearances, his very high onscreen bodycount, uniquely vile and visceral crimes of painfully brainwashing Splinter for hours at a time and attempting to painfully transform the human race, and his personal villainy to Splinter that leaves its mark on him even in Season 4.
His mental manipulation and control over Splinter leaves him with serious psychological trauma, to the point that Splinter hallucinated the Rat King while he was trapped in the chasm he threw the Rat King down.
- It is also possible that Splinter was actually interacting with the ghost of the Rat King, given how he was able to further damage Splinter's broken foot.
Despite being injected with the mutagen, he has moral agency, as he was capable of blending in as a normal member of human society, the mutagen was modified, and he never showed any resistance, unlike victims of the mutagen who resisted actions they didn't like.
While he acts affable to the people he kidnapped, it's obviously a front of sophistication and sadism, not actual affability, especially since he hates humans.
Despite the comedic tone of the show, he is near always taken seriously, having only one comedic moment in his second episode that was quickly overshadowed, with the turtles eventually regarding him as a menace and creep.

What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]

Despite his care for his rats mostly being shallow, he cares for his main rat, Aristotle. Before Aristotle died, the Rat King displayed favoritism to him, always keeping him on the shoulder and being willing to talk and to listen to him. After Aristotle was kicked into a ravine, the Rat King attempted to save him and promised to make Splinter pay, and remarking he could still see through his eyes, as a way of proving he could still do it, demonstrating it wasn't out of pragmatism.