- "Dominator. These guys are so last year."
- —Kara Danvers on a Dominator.[src]
Dominators are a race of extraterrestrial beings from Swan Moon.[1] They are conquerors intent on maintaining the status quo in the universe by any means, with the unpredictable meta-humans being their prime targets on Earth (Earth-1), and the slave trade on Maaldoria on Earth-38.
History
Earth-1
In 1951 of Earth-1, the Dominators landed on Earth (Earth-1) in Redmond; Oregon; USA, abducting humans to gather information about them. After President Ike Eisenhower waited for too long without action, the extraterrestrials attacked, killing hundreds of soldiers. Unbeknownst to them, Steel, Heat Wave, and Vixen arrived and subdued a straggler. Suddenly, the National Security Agency appeared and took them into custody, including the Dominator.[2]
As the Legends begin to interrogate the captive Dominator, Agent Smith appears and has the Dominator pinned down onto a lab table while experimenting on them. This results in the National Security Agency forming a truce to keep the equilibrium of Earth (Earth-1) balanced.
In October 1988 in Ivy Town, an anachronistic baby Dominator was found by eight-year old Ray Palmer, who took it in as a pet and nicknaming it "Gumball". The queen of the Dominators, furious, landed on Earth (Earth-1), and instinctively attacked the Legends and Sandy Palmer in the process of searching. Gumball, along with young Ray and Zari Tarazi, was captured by NSA agents and had them locked up in a nearby lab, revealed to be operated by Agent Smith. They later escape and the Legends return Gumball to the queen.[3]
Sixty-five years later after the incident in 1951, however, with the appearance of meta-humans, especially Barry Allen/The Flash, the Dominators returned to Earth-1, prefaced with a warning to Earthly authorities that they meant no harm, though in fact planning war. Four ships crash landed, one of them in Central City, spilling forth with Dominators. This faction kidnapped the President Traveler and set up a mind control device in an old salt mine, but this device was eventually destroyed by Supergirl, with the help of The Flash.[2] However, they soon abducted Sara Lance, John Diggle, Thea Queen, Ray Palmer and Oliver Queen, placing them into an induced dream world. They eventually escaped, fighting against the Dominators, before escaping in a pod, itself picked up by the Waverider. As they headed down towards Earth (Earth-1), a fleet of drop-ships and then the mothership followed them. At this time, the Dominators were about to be finished with their superweapon (an anti-meta-human bomb) that they intended to use to wipe out all meta-humans on Earth-1. They threatened to drop it unless Barry Allen surrendered himself in 24 hours, which he refused.[4]
They lowered the mothership down on Central City and began to drop the meta bomb, while a platoon of Dominators fought the heroes on top of the S.T.A.R. Labs hall/hangar. Barry placed the high-frequency transmitting devices made by Martin on the Dominators, and Felicity detonated them, effectively taking them out.
The bomb began descending, with Sara in the Waverider attempting to use the ship's tractor beam to hold it up. Firestorm arrives and uses his powers to transmute the bomb into water, successfully saving the planet Earth (Earth-1). The mothership then flies off into deep space. The Dominators' status is unknown after that and it is clearly unknown if they will strike again.
Earth-38
Sometime before Kara Danvers was born, the Dominators traveled to Krypton (Earth-38) and performed experiments on a number of people, as well as killing a lot more.[2]
Over a year after Kara became Supergirl, one of the Dominators allied themselves with Roulette, who went into the slave trade on Slaver's Moon after Supergirl dismantled her fighting club, wanting to buy all her human prisoners. Later, while helping the prisoners escape, Mon-El almost gets shot by one of the guards, but the Dominator stops the guard and bows to Mon-El.[5] Sometime after Kara and Mon-El's escape, Lar Gand and Rhea arrived on Slaver's Moon and one of the Dominators informed them of their son's exploits and told them that they had gone to Earth (Earth-38).[6]
In late 2017 on Earth-38, a Dominator caused trouble in National City (Earth-38), but was stopped by Supergirl.[7]
Earth-Prime
In late 2016, Dominators attacked Earth (Earth-Prime) but were repelled by Earth-Prime's greatest heroes, especially congratulated in the Hall of Justice.[8]
In early 2020, a Dominator was wreaking havoc in National City (Earth-Prime), but was subdued by Dreamer. It was then taken into the D.E.O.'s custody.[9]
Powers and abilities
Powers
Dominator physiology is far superior to the human one, and they possess many mental abilities. Infant Dominators such as Gumball possess the same range of abilities as adults such as his mother/the queen, but none of their discretion.[3]
- Telepathy: Dominators are able to communicate telepathically with others, seemingly also being able to use their own language, despite human languages such as English not being their native language.[2]
- Illusions: The Dominator queen took on the appearance of Ray's mother Sandy to trick Nate Heywood.[3]
- Mind control: Dominators are able to control one's mind. This ability manifests as early as infancy, such as for Gumball.[3]
- Temporal awareness: Dominators are able to sense any alterations in the timeline of Earth-1, and the time traveler who altered it; such as either Barry or the Legends. It is unclear whether this ability is of their physiology or advanced technology that can detect time alterations.[10]
- Organic Webbing/Cocoon creation: The Dominator queen was able to produce organic web, trapping her targets inside of upside-down cocoons. It is unknown if only the queen is able to perform this ability.[3]
- Super strength: Dominators are very strong, shown when a Dominator hit Oliver, sending him flying off the roof of a Central City (Earth-1) building.[10]
- Super durability: Dominators are resilient to gun bullets, and other attacks by the combined Teams Legends, Arrow, and Flash.[10] Dominators can withstand hits from solar-empowered Kryptonians, with Kara having a certain difficulty to defeat a rough Dominator.[11]
Abilities
- Expert hand-to-hand combatant: The Dominators are proficient in unarmed combat, being able to keep up with expert human armies and martial artists like Oliver Queen and John Diggle.[10]
- High-level intellect: The Dominators are a highly intellectual species, being able to assess the risk of meta-humans to the normal course of the Earth-1 universe and the timeline of Earth-1, at least for Earth (Earth-1).[10] Kara stated that they experimented on Kryptonians on Krypton (Earth-38), implying that they have the natural instinct of curiosity. They are able to carry out their plans, as shown by their organization in planning the invasion and in creating traps like the mind control device causing everyone to go hostile.[2]
- Eidetic memory: When Gumball used his mind control ability on the NSA agents, he exactly remembered the song Good Morning from the film Singin' in the Rain, and made them sing and dance exactly like in the film that he and young Ray watched.
- Bilingualism: The Dominators can understand the English language, along with their mother tongue.
- Impersonation: Using the knowledge from stolen memories, the Dominator queen was able to masquerade as Ray's mother Sandy convincingly enough to fool Nate Heywood.[3]
- Advanced science and technology: Dominators are an advanced space faring race with Dominator technology millennium/s ahead of humanity. They have interstellar vessels, Timeships, and energy weapons. Along with advanced mind control technology which can control humans, meta-humans, Kryptonians such as Kara Danvers, and even a being of two minds like Firestorm. They even developed a weapon (the meta-bomb) meant to exterminate every meta-human on Earth (Earth-1) at once.
Weaknesses
- Martin Stein's pain devices: During the Dominator invasion (Earth-1), Dr. Martin Stein mass-produced a small device that when placed on a Dominator, induces a large of amount of pain. The devices are controlled by a switch that will simultaneously activate once turned on.[10]
- Power-dampening cuffs: Similar to meta-humans, Dominators in their infancy such as Gumball can have their powers suppressed by the device. It was also able to administer indescribable pain to an infant Dominator such as Gumball.[3]
- Sedation: "Gumball" was vulnerable to the chemical injected to him when he was captured by the NSA, and was easily sedated by the agents under Smith's command.[3]
Equipment
- Firearm: The Dominator mothership had a firearm hung on the wall, ready to be used by anyone. When triggered, it shoots two parallel beams of light towards the target. This weapon was used by Oliver Queen to escape the Dominator mothership, stating that some [[[gun]]s]' principles of design are universal.[4]
- Dominator technology: Dominator technology was used when the Dominators arrived on Earth (Earth-1), they used a mind control device to take control of certain people, including humans, meta-humans, and Kryptonians; such as Kara Danvers, Sara Lance, Mick Rory, Ray Palmer, John Diggle, Thea Queen, and Firestorm (Martin Stein and Jefferson Jackson). However afterwards the heroes are freed from its control.[4]
Known Dominators
- Dominator queen
- "Gumball"
- Many unnamed Earth-1 Dominators
- Two unnamed Earth-38 Dominators
- One unnamed Earth-Prime Dominators
Appearances
Supergirl
Season 2
Season 3Season 5
Season 6
|
The Flash
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
|
Arrow
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
|
DC's Legends of Tomorrow
Season 2
Season 3
|
The Chronicles of Cisco
- Post 47 "#AlienMovieNight" (mentioned)
Trivia
- The Dominators see meta-humans as a threat to their kind and appear to act based on fear of them.
- Their concern comes from thinking about the possibility of people (even ordinary humans like NSA Agent Smith, who sadistically tortured a Dominator) gaining superpowers, as well as Barry Allen/The Flash recklessly using his Speed Force powers to create Flashpoint via time travel.
- Their meta-bomb seems to only affect meta-humans, as is their prejudice against them: standard humans (at least in '88) are treated somewhat better by Dominators, being trapped in coccoons instead: for example, while the Dominator queen tried to contact Gumball by searching human memories (in one instance, disguising herself as Sandy Palmer to fool Nate Heywood).
Behind the scenes
- The Dominators served as the main antagonists of the Arrowverse Invasion! crossover event.
- In the DC comics, the Dominators were also the main antagonists in the Invasion! event. However, to attack Earth they first formed an alien alliance first consisting of them, the shape-shifting Durlans, the fanatically fascist Thanagarians, the supply-producing Gil'Dishpan, the ruthless and deadly Daxamites, the strategic weaponsmiths Warlords of Okaara, the hunkering, slovenly Citadelians, the sadistic and scientific Psions, and finally, the Khund, the "most brutal, most innately savage race of war-mongers in the universe".
- Also, their defeat at the hands of the heroes of Earth came before the dropping of the meta-bomb, which the Dominators had no knowledge of. Though the Dominators had agreed to surrender, and they left, one of the Dominators, eager to prove his low caste level (the small size of the red mark on his forehead) didn't mean he wasn't intelligent, acted alone and invented and released the meta-bomb, which successfully neutralized all of Earth's metahumans. The non-metahuman heroes managed to travel through outer space to obtain an antidote and spread it with help from the extraterrestrial superhero team known as the Omega Men.
References
- ↑ "There Will Be Blood"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Invasion!"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "Phone Home"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Invasion!"
- ↑ "Supergirl Lives"
- ↑ "Star-Crossed"
- ↑ "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1"
- ↑ "Marathon"
- ↑ "Reality Bytes"
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 "Invasion!"
- ↑ "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1"