Anubis Cruger

Anubis Cruger

Commander Anubis Cruger, affectionately called "Doggie" by his co-workers, is a fictional character from the Power Rangers universe, appearing in the television series Power Rangers: S.P.D. He is a member of the Space Patrol Delta organization.

S.P.D.

Anubis Cruger is a member of the doglike Sirian race from the planet Sirius and was a member of the original Space Patrol Delta, training in the Academy alongside the future criminal Icthior. He leads the SPD forces against the Troobian Empire's invasion, personally fighting and searing off his right horn, scarring Emperor Gruumm, before General Benagg kidnaps his wife Isinia and manages to bring down Cruger from behind. The battle was lost and all the Sirians except for Cruger and Isinia are killed, and he did not even know she was still alive in Gruumm's custody. After that he made a vow to never fight again and left for Earth.

On Earth, Anubis founded the S.P.D. Earth Academy and trained the elite S.P.D. Ranger squads. He sends the A-Squad Rangers to the Helix Nebula to fight at the front line against Grumm, not realising this was a trap by Gruumm to take out Earth's front line of defense. When he hears that Gruumm is on his way to Earth and could not contact the A-Squad, he promotes the B-Squad Rangers to active status and gives Jack Landors, Schyler "Sky" Tate, Bridge Carson, Elizabeth "Z" Delgado, and Syndey "Syd" Drew a set of S.P.D. Morphers.

Cruger is portrayed as a good judge of character. He gives both Jack Landors and Elizabeth "Z" Delgado, two criminals, a chance at redemption by making them Rangers, and sees the potential in Boom when he drops out of the Academy. He gets along well with Dr. Kat Manx (despite her being cat-like in physical appearance) Kat refers to Anubis as a "stubborn old dog" (out of frustration) in the episode "Shadow, Part 1". In the episode "Idol", she refers to him as an "old dog" while he is in a coma, at which he promptly wakes with a growl and asks "Who are you calling an old dog?"

Shadow Ranger

Anubis will go to any lengths to protect those he values and loves, for example, when Dr. Manx was abducted by General Benaag, he broke his own vow of peace and became the Shadow Ranger (suit number 100). He is armed with his Patrol Morpher (his morphing call of "S.P.D. Emergency!" is the same as the other S.P.D. Rangers but his morpher is different as the white on the other SPD is changed to black), the Shadow Saber, and the Delta Command Megazord (in reality, the S.P.D. Base). As the Shadow Ranger, he has proved to be a great asset to the B-Squad Rangers. He takes a very hardline approach to discipline and training, once deliberately letting the Rangers see he was watching them being defeated and not intervening in order to make them stop relying on Shadow Ranger to solve their battles for them. Sometimes he can go too far, at which point Kat will argue against him.

Cruger is not fond of his superior officer, Supreme Commander Fowler Birdy. He demonstrates this in his referring to Birdy as "that overstuffed pelican". The two do not have similar strategic styles, and this temporarily resulted in Cruger being dismissed and relieved of command duty. However, Birdy changed his tune forever when the Shadow Ranger showed up to save him from Gruumm.

Although he believed that his wife was dead since the Battle of Sirius, an encounter with his old friend-turned-enemy Icthior cast doubt on that belief. Icthior claimed that Isinia Cruger was still alive, and Cruger wasn't sure what to believe. He never told the B-Squad about his marriage to Isinia or about her in general--keeping his painful secret from everyone but Kat.

The question was answered after he was taken captive by A-Squad. He saw her being held captive onboard Gruumm's spacecraft. Also when the A-Squad returned he started to ignore B-Squad and they thought that he was just demoting them on purpose and was going to ignore them again although he presumably did this because of procedure. Dr. Kat Manx admitted to the B-Squad when they went to fight the A-Squad that he told her that they were the best squad that he ever had the pleasure of working with showing them just how highly he really thought of them.

After B-Squad was thrown into captivity along with Cruger, they all escaped with Piggy's help. B-Squad returned to Earth while Cruger morphed and engaged Gruumm in battle card-capturing Mora along the way. Doggie came out the winner and rescued Isinia while Grumm apparently fell to his death, but he had one more task to complete. Cruger was tasked with opening an access panel in the left arm of the Magnificence, which would allow the S.W.A.T. Megazord to destroy it with a maxed-out laser blast. He did, and the Megazord fired, causing the Magnificence to implode destroying Omni and saving Earth and the universe. Doggie was thought dead, but he and Isinia survived. This discovery overjoyed the Rangers.

Gruumm survived as well, and engaged Doggie (who was unmorphed) one last time, only to lose his left horn and be contained. Following the battle, he promoted B-Squad to A-level, only to have them refuse because ultimately, they were the B Squad, the team that had come through their trials together. Doggie made Squad B be the highest Ranger level at S.P.D. on the spot, saying then that there would be no A-Squad. He also promoted Sky to Red Ranger status, and Bridge to Blue Ranger status following the departure of Jack. There was no mention of a new Green S.P.D. Ranger.

In the first half of the two-part Operation Overdrive episode "Once a Ranger", it's revealed that an unknown amount of time after the finale of S.P.D., Doggie is promoted to Supreme Commander when Fowler Birdy retires, bringing about the subsequent promotions of Sky Tate to Commander of S.P.D. Earth, and Bridge Carson to B-Squad's leader as the Red Ranger. It is unknown if he kept his Shadow Ranger powers, or if he passed them down to Sky when Sky was promoted to his old position.

It is of course possible that at the end of the last episode of SPD that Doggie was seen in the Supreme Commander's uniform, however there was no explanation for it. It is of course possible it was just a reuse.

Appearance

Unlike his Japanese counterpart in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (whose name is spelled Doggy Kruger), Cruger was brought to life with sophisticated animatronics. John Tui is both the suit actor and the voice for Cruger, apparently seeing through the mouth of the costume.

His overall appearance is that of a semi-reptilian dog (he has scales instead of fur, and webbed ears). His ears are more inspired by his namesake, the Jackal headed Egyptian god Anubis (as they form a right triangle), than a normal dog.

Trivia

Template:Trivia

• Anubis Cruger is the second advisor-turned-Ranger, the first one being Cam Watanabe, and the first Ranger using animatronics. He is also the first known Ranger who appears nonhumanoid.

• Anubis Cruger is named after Anubis, the god of mummification in Egyptian mythology. This is also a nod to his Sentai counterpart's origins, where Anubis was the character's planet of origin and, thus, his species (Anubian).

• Anubis Cruger comes from the planet Sirius. In the real world, a star named Sirius is also known as the "Dog Star."

• A common joke among fans is to try to figure out how Cruger's snout fit into the helmet, as the helmet is flat-faced (like every other Power Rangers helmet), and would physically be impossible for his long muzzle to comfortably fit into it. While S.P.D. never gave any thought to explaining this conundrum, its Japanese counterpart, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, had a brief intermission at the end of one episode that does address it. However, in it, Cruger just brushed the question away, leaving it unanswered to this day. Curiously, concept designs of the DekaMaster/Shadow Ranger costume had an elongated helmet, better suited to fit with Cruger's unusual head design; it's unknown why this design was scrapped, though it's likely in order to conserve consistency between the Rangers' looks. One explanation, however, is that Cruger's body including his snout shapeshifts to fit his suit (a prior example of this happening was Justin Stewart of Power Rangers: Turbo whose body grew to adult size since Justin's Sentai CounterPart Blue Racer was tall, though his voice remained the same). In a Dekaranger Yonkoma, the comic revealed that "Doggy" took off his snout before his henshin into Dekamaster, much to Swan-san's chagrin.

• Early promos and merchandise addressed him as "Chief", though once the season began, his actual rank was renamed "Commander".

• Cruger has well-honed hearing, similar to that of a normal dogs and can hear from long distances. This is first shown in "Wired Pt 2" when Sophie deliberately raises the pitch of her scream to ensure that Cruger would hear it. This is referenced many times after that, including "SWAT Pt 1" when Cruger intervenes in the middle of them fighting, going "Enough! I can hear you from Kat's lab!" Bridge explains that Cruger has those ears that can hear from long distances, but is soon silenced.

• He has a personal grudge against Gruumm as Gruumm destroyed his home world and kidnapped his wife (initially he thought her killed). He's the one responsible for Gruumm missing half of one horn and when he finally captures him right in front of SPD in the finale he cuts off the other horn.

• Producer Greg Aronowitz has stated in a podcast interview that Cruger was in love with Kat Manx and vice versa, but that he never acted on it due to the "chip on his shoulder".