Lord Dominator

Lord Dominator Alias: Dominator, D. Species: Humanoid-Star Nomad Gender: Female Friends and Family Friends: Bot 13 (formerly), Bot 79, Bot 108 Enemies: Wander Sylvia Lord Hater (former admirer) Commander Peepers Emperor Awesome (former admirer) Westley Little Bits Physical Information Eye(s): Black with Light Brilliant-Crimson sclera Hair: White Body: Pale Green with Moderate-Tangelo freckles Outfit: Helmet: Black with Bright Yellow spiked serrated-horns Top: Black with a dripping Scarlet-Red heart Skirt: XYZ Gloves: Bright Yellow Socks: White with Black and Bright Yellow stripes Shoes: Black with White laces, soles and toes Behind the Scenes First Appearance:   "The Rider" (animatic) "The Greater Hater" (official) Last Appearance:   "The End of the Galaxy" Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore (disguised form) Noel Wells (real form)

"That... was... Amazing! *chuckle* They were all like, 'What, who was this guy!?' Ha! Then I was like, serious, then I was all, 'HURAAGH!' And then the lava was, 'whoosh', and they were all, 'AAAHH! NOO! WHYY!?' *chortle* What a bunch of dorks. This is going to be... Fun!" — Lord Dominator

Lord Dominator is the former lead in the Galactic Villain Leaderboard who takes pride in her mayhem the same way a bully enjoys messing with nerdy kids - and according to her, the whole galaxy is full of "nerdy kids". She first appeared in Season 2 episode "The Greater Hater".

Physical Appearance

Lord Dominator's appearance is that of a tall, slender, humanoid and pale green-skinned alien with pointy ears and moderate-tangelo freckles/spots. Her white shoulder-length hair is kept freely and has been shaved into a mohawk, and her black eyes are oval-shaped with sclera that is colored in a light, brilliant-crimson.

Her makeup is both simple yet meaningful to her appearance and status as a true villain - consisting of black mascara, black lipstick, and very distinctive black eyeliner which had been drawn to resemble running teardrops, as a nod to her bragging about how much misery she cause in the galaxy.

Into Battle

Masked Lord Dominator

When fully armored, Lord Dominator dons a giant, brawny suit of mech armor that covers her from head-to-toe like a cloak. There is no need for her to fetch this armor as she is always wearing it as her main outfit, able to transform from her battle-ready suit to a more casual outfit at will. Fully armored, the claws on her hands become massive, as do her helmet horns and spiked pauldrons. There is a dark red graphic that somewhat resembles blood or magma on the front of her suit - vaguely in the shape of a heart - and a spinal cord design runs up the back of her suit, with circuity patterns branching off of both of them. Unlike the design on the front, the latter is not a flat pattern, but rather a three-dimensional part of her power suit. Whether this feature serves a functional purpose or is purely cosmetic is unknown.

She typically keeps her helmet's retractable, skull-like mask over her face when she is fully armored, as it alters her voice to sound deep and monstrous. There are a few times in which she has her full armor activated but doesn't have her helmet/mask on, though, as seen in "The Greater Hater", "The Battle Royale", "My Fair Hatey" and "The End of the Galaxy".

Out of Battle

Dominator's power suit takes the form of a black crop top with spiked shoulder pads, a floor-length black skirt with thigh-high slits on each side, and yellow gloves just like Lord Hater's. She also wears a black helmet topped with giant serrated yellow horns, socks similar to Wander's and shoes similar to Lord Hater's. Dominator's insignia, a dripping red heart that looks like it was painted in blood, adorns the front of her crop top. (Although it is less noticeable, it can also be seen on her fully-armored form.)

Personality

In Dominator's giant mech armor, she is an imposing silent force who drains planets dry in order to use their resources, namely Volcanium X, to power her fleet and power suit. However, beneath the mask, she is an overly-enthusiastic woman who absolutely geeks out over wreaking chaos and destruction. Dominator is just as hyperactive as Wander is, if not even more so, and frequently screams, laughs, and bounces around in excitement over her own evildoing. Despite her bubbly personality, however, Lord Dominator is a sadistic menace through and through. Rather than conquer the entire galaxy, she wishes to destroy it for her own amusement. She takes pleasure in watching others suffer at her hands, never feeling a shred of remorse for the numerous atrocities that she commits, and takes immense pride in how much pain and misery she causes. She even goes so far as to draw large "mascara tears" on her face and wears a bloody heart symbol as her insignia to represent and brag about all the suffering that she's inflicted onto others. She is far more evil than the likes of Lord Hater, though rather than commit villainous acts out of hatred, she does so out of a twisted love for evildoing and causing harm. Lord Dominator is greatly driven by her passion for destruction and has no problem with destroying anyone who might hinder her plans. She demands complete loyalty from her minions, but views them as little more than pawns, tolerating them only as long as they are extremely serviceable to her and quickly disposing of them when they are not. When she is pleased with them, she regards them with praise and affectionate gestures, whereas any displeasure brought to her gets met with violence. Lord Dominator's deviously upbeat nature is further offset by her short temper; she is quick to show displeasure, irritation, and even rage at any perceived nuisance. Naturally, friendship is a foreign concept to her, so much so that she initially believed it to be another word for subservience, and then quickly wrote it off as being "dumb and way overrated" after learning that friends aren't people who will follow your every command. She also occasionally refers to herself in the third person (possibly to emphasize her sense of self-importance) and displays a twisted sense of humor.

The reason why Lord Dominator acts like such a "bully," i.e., ceaselessly torments Wander and his friends, is because she's lonely and craves socialization, albeit in her own cruel and antagonistic way. Although she understands, in a way, that she longs for companionship, she continuously denies it.

Powers

Magma Manipulation

Dominator's most prominent ability is her power over (Volcanium-infused) lava, being able to generate it from her gloves to fire as projectiles, shape it into different weapons, or change into her battle form at will. Her ship is equipped with a specialized drill that mines Volcanium X directly from a planet's core to serve as both fuel and material with which to manufacture her minions in on-board factories.

Optic Beam

During the fight for the Ring of Invincibility, Dominator demonstrated the ability to fire an energy wave from her visor powerful enough to vaporize Lord Hater's ship in one shot.

Ice Manipulation

Following the events of "My Fair Hatey", Dominator gained powers of ice and snow where she acquired these powers when Commander Peepers attempted to destroy her ship's core with his frostonium ray, not knowing that this could backfire. She still keeps her fire and lava powers and uses them in conjunction with this ability, making her twice as powerful. As of "The End of the Galaxy", she has become proficient in its use, shown when she created an ice sculpture decoy of Sylvia before immobilizing Wander in ice.

Weaknesses

Lord Dominator's abilities are tied to her armor. While disguised as "D" in "The Night Out", she could not use her normal lava powers, but she was still strong and agile enough to hold her own in a fight.

As revealed in "The Flower", Dominator is not immune to common allergens or diseases. When the flower in question sprayed pollen in her face, she began to sneeze so uncontrollably that it bought Wander and Sylvia enough time to escape.

Dominator's technology is also vulnerable to Lord Hater's lightning powers, making him the only known character who can defeat her.

What is perhaps Lord Dominator's biggest weakness is her reluctance to destroy victims of hers that she is strongly fixated on bullying, even if they make for a formidable rival, like Lord Hater. She is so drunk with power that she never considers anyone to be an actual threat to her. In The End of The Galaxy, it was exactly this kind of mindset that led to her downfall. She considered the rebels to be "just a bunch of goofy idiots" and held off on destroying them all as much as she could, just for the fun of savoring their torment, thinking that they were powerless against her.

Relationships

Lord Hater

Lord Hater first encountered Lord Dominator in "The Greater Hater" when the latter deliberately drilled into a planet that Lord Hater was trying to conquer. He boarded her ship and immediately became jealous of Dominator's weapons, powers, and bots when seeing it all firsthand. He tried to defeat her during their first encounter, but he was quickly overwhelmed by the force of her lava powers, and was forced to escape with Wander, Sylvia and Commander Peepers. He came to view Lord Dominator as his most hated enemy and subsequently made it his goal to defeat her and reclaim the title of "Greatest in the Galaxy". (This often proved difficult for him, however, as he is unable to get over his obsession with destroying Wander.) Meanwhile, Lord Dominator simply viewed him as a dork rather than a serious rival.

During an all-out battle royale of villains for a powerful "Ring of Invincibility" in "The Battle Royale", Hater faced Dominator again, not knowing that the ring was made of candy, and that the whole thing was originally a plan conceived by Wander to hook the two villains up. (Dominator, however, knew the ring was fake from the very beginning.) Hater did not know of Dominator's true identity until he successfully knocked off her helmet, and, in spite of the battle ending in his defeat, he then fell madly in love with her. This was a one-sided infatuation, as Dominator does not feel the same way and was even shown to be repulsed by his affections later on. In "The New Toy", she tricks Hater into giving her the keys to the H.A.T.E.R.V., and when he tells her "I love you", she says, "I know" with annoyance and disgust, confirming that she dislikes and doesn't return Lord Hater's feelings, and that she only uses his crush on her to manipulate him. It is worth noting that she only seems to do so if she spots a good opportunity to make a complete fool out of him, and drops the act once she does. When Hater gives her flowers in The Bad Hatter, she reacts violently and tries to shoot down his ship.

In "My Fair Hatey", she laughs at Lord Hater for asking her out and calls him and Wander idiots for believing that she would ever be interested in him. She tells them through song that she is not a potential love interest or someone to be saved, but that she's "the bad guy" of the story and genuinely enjoys crushing others' hopes and dreams, and that she doesn't care about anybody else. Hater finally realizes that she is not interested and resumes competing with her as the greatest in the galaxy.

In "The End of the Galaxy", Dominator was shocked to see Hater and his army fight against her so competently. She couldn't even believe it because she sees him as "a terrible bad guy". She took it upon herself to relentlessly insult and belittle Hater in order to discourage him from using his force field, but her plan fails once Sylvia begins a chant of "Hate's Great, Best Villain" to boost his morale, which powers Lord Hater with enough love and support from his allies to destroy her ship with her own planet-destroying drill.

Wander

Wander tries to make friends with Lord Dominator in the episode, "The Greater Hater." However, he was constantly ignored or tossed aside while she continued her attack on a planet that Lord Hater was planning to conquer. Wander was deeply upset by this and ended up telling her off for being rude and inconsiderate. He even goes so far as to say that he doesn't think she deserves a fruit basket, and doesn't think he wants to be her friend. When he finds out that she's actually a girl, Wander decides that he should try to pair her up with Lord Hater, hoping that it would cancel out all of their evil if they fell in love. His plan semi-worked because Hater fell in love with her, but his affections were unrequited. In "My Fair Hatey", Dominator calls Wander and Hater idiots for thinking that she would ever be interested in dating Hater, or that offers of love and friendship would even mean anything to her (for being evil is what she truly loves). Through her villain song, she made Wander realize how cold and heartless she is, and that it's a terrible idea for anyone to want to romance her, but the song fails to convince him that she cannot change for the better.

As of "The End of the Galaxy", Wander remains persistent in his beliefs and once again tries to reason with Lord Dominator, seeing it as the right thing to do despite how scared and upset she makes him, only for Dominator to repeatedly refuse his offer of friendship and hold him captive so that she may torture him for the fun of it. However, her resolve begins to crack as she is defeated by Lord Hater. Hit by the epiphany that Dominator is lonely, Wander understands her a bit better and once again offers her his friendship after saving them from the destruction of her ship. Dominator rejects his offer, unable to comprehend why he would still choose to treat her kindly, and vows revenge on them all.

Emperor Awesome

In "The Rival", Lord Dominator allowed Emperor Awesome onto her ship so he could show her a secret weapon, not realizing Awesome's actual motive of trying to get her to go out with him. The "secret weapon" was really just Awesome showing off his muscles, which he had hoped would woo her. Unfortunately for Awesome, Dominator has no interest in him or any other guy. She only pretended to be interested in his display so that her actual response would be all the more effective. Dominator grabbed Awesome's leg and encased him in lava while stating that he was pathetic, and then trapped him in rock before kicking him away from her and blasting him. Initially, it was unclear as to whether or not Dominator had killed him; however, as it turned out, she was holding Emperor Awesome prisoner along with all the other villains she defeated, which was revealed in "My Fair Hatey". In "The Bad Neighbors" , it was shown that he had escaped her ship, but developed PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from the whole ordeal, as he can't even say her name without getting freaked out.

Sylvia

Sylvia is enemies with Lord Dominator and usually has no qualms about fighting against her. In "The Night Out", however, Dominator encountered Sylvia while visiting a karaoke bar in disguise and struck up a friendship with the Zbornak, starting a bar fight in the process. Perused by the bar owner's goons, the two of them spent the whole night out together, having fun in the city while trying to evade their capture. After their fun-filled chase through the city came to an end, however, their friendship did too when Dominator refused to apologize to the bar's owner and attempted to seize control of his criminal empire. When Sylvia refused to join her and instead leapt in to save the bar owner from his own pit monster, Dominator left her to fight it off herself as punishment for her insubordination (believing friendship to be another word for subservience), reverting back to their usual antagonistic relationship. In "The Flower", Dominator never bothered to remember Sylvia's name after spending a whole night out with her, and despite the fact that Sylvia is one of her greatest threats. In "The End of the Galaxy," Dominator destroyed an ice decoy of Sylvia to emotionally torment Wander before proceeding to mock him for it. Though she had initially established a genuine bond with Sylvia during "The Night Out," Dominator had no qualms with trying to destroy her with her ship's drill in "The End of the Galaxy", and was even happy to do so, as it would mean destroying the last planet in the galaxy while making Wander suffer as much as possible. Had it not been for Hater's intervention, she would have succeeded in doing so.

Appearances

Season 1

• "The Rider" (Animatic only)

Season 2

• "The Greater Hater" ^{(First appearance)}
• "The Big Day" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Boy Wander" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Axe" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The It" ^{(Pictured only)}
• "The Rager" ^{(Pictured only)}
• "The Good Bad Guy" ^{(Pictured only)}
• "The Battle Royale"
• "The Matchmaker"
• "The New Toy"
• "The Eye on the Skull Ship" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Secret Planet" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Bad Hatter" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Show Stopper"
• "The Cartoon"
• "The Bot"
• "The Family Reunion" ^{(Pictured only)}
• "The Rival"
• "My Fair Hatey"
• "The Legend" ^{(Pictured only)}
• "The Bad Neighbors" ^{(as a toy)}
• "The Party Poopers" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Hot Shot"  ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Night Out"
• "The Search for Captain Tim" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Heebie Jeebies" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Sick Day" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Sky Guy" ^{(Mentioned only)}
• "The Robomechabotatron"
• "The Flower"
• "The End of the Galaxy" ^{(final appearance)}

Trivia

• Lord Dominator's armored form is seen as a silhouette in the end credits of "The Rider".
• Major Threat was originally a potential name for Lord Dominator, but it was deemed too "jokey" and the name was later used for another character.
• According to Dave Thomas, Lord Dominator was originally conceived as a villain from an anime.
• Craig’s original pitch for Lord Dominator's armored form was that she would be the “Michael Bay” version of Lord Hater. In other words, what Hater would be like if Michael Bay were to make a gritty, live-action reboot of Wander Over Yonder; Hater, but way cooler and more extreme.
• In terms of personality, the writers wanted for Dominator to challenge each of the other main characters, so they decided that she had to be more evil than Lord Hater, tougher than Sylvia, smarter than Commander Peepers, and either more excitable than Wander, or just as excited about doing evil as Wander is about doing good.
• According to Lord Dominator's audition sides, "Dominator refuses to be typecast as "the girl."" This is expressed in the audition line in which she says, "Don’t you get it? I’m not the girlfriend. I’m not the damsel in distress. I’m the bad guy," which later served as the basis for her villain song in the show!
  • This aspect of her personality voices how her character itself was handled and written; in Craig McCracken's own words, “Lord Dominator’s gender is not what defines her. If male characters can be all things, then it follows that female characters can be all things as well.”
• According to Francisco Angones, Dominator uses the title of "Lord" instead of "Lady" because she likes to mess with people, but was never hiding her identity or disguising herself, and has always referred to herself as Lord Dominator because "why can’t a woman be an evil overlord"?
• ND Stevenson confirmed in a charity stream that he wrote Lord Dominator as a lesbian, most notably in "The Night Out." This was alluded to less subtly in the original episode script through a risqué joke that Standards and Practices ordered the removal of. (Note: this is not to be confused as "Word of God" confirmation, as he was not speaking on Craig's vision of the character when sharing this piece of trivia.)
  • Dominator isn't interested in being in a relationship with anybody, as galactic destruction is her sole focus and passion in life, but if she did want a partner, she would want somebody who, according to Dave Thomas, "inspired her to be the best version of her evil self she could be."
• The reason Lord Dominator's outfit resembled Lord Hater's was to irritate him, which was shown to have worked in her debut episode, where Lord Hater was clearly angered by her copying his look.
• Lord Dominator's bleeding heart insignia and fake mascara tears are worn as badges of honor, bragging about how much misery she’s caused.
• Dominator designed all her clothes herself. She also invented all of her technology and built her ship, bots, and power suit all by herself.
  • Lord Dominator's skills in engineering are self-taught.
• Lord Dominator held every other villain in the galaxy prisoner except for Lord Hater and his army, as revealed in My Fair Hatey.
  • However, according to Francisco Angones, they all escaped with the Watchdogs at the end.
• The galaxy that the show takes place in is not the first galaxy that Lord Dominator's demolished.
• In The End of the Galaxy, it is revealed that the reason why Lord Dominator repeatedly tormented the other main characters instead of just getting it over with and destroying them whenever she had the chance is because she's lonely and craves the socialization.
  • According to Francisco Angones and Dave Thomas respectively, her loneliness is not the result of some tragic backstory, but the result of her being so destructive and evil.
• In The Night Out, Lord Dominator temporarily finds a friend in Sylvia, but ends up pushing her friendship away because she loves to cause pain and destruction above all else, and ultimately rejects Sylvia for refusing to follow her every command. She is shown to not understand the concept of friendship, believing a 'friend' to be someone who will do whatever she says, much like her robots. She currently doesn't care about the concept of friendship, or at least does not fully understand it, while still longing for companionship.
• Like Dr. Screwball Jones, Lord Dominator is one of the only villains in the galaxy that Wander appears to be unable to befriend/reform.
• Dominator's favorite music genre is Punk, namely Riot Grrrl, Hardcore, and Glam Punk.
• All of Lord Dominator's masked lines were recorded by Noël Wells and then dubbed over by Fred Tatasciore in order to match the exact delivery and nuances of her performance. This ensured that all of her lines sounded like herself!

Gallery

The image gallery for Lord Dominator may be viewed here.