Anubis Cruger

Anubis "Doggie" Cruger

Series	Power Rangers SPD
Title(s)	S.P.D. Shadow Ranger
First appearance	Beginnings, Part 1 (Power Rangers S.P.D.)
Last appearance	Endings, Part 2 (Power Rangers S.P.D.)
Status	Active
Homeworld	Sirius
Zords	Delta Command Megazord
Portrayed by	John Tui, Steve Blum (Voice in Power Rangers: Super Legends)

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 future criminal Icthior. He led the SPD forces against the Troobian Empire's invasion, fighting and scarring Emperor Gruumm by shearing off his right horn, before General Benagg kidnapped his wife Isinia and managed to bring down Cruger from behind. The battle was lost and all the Sirians except for Cruger and Isinia were killed. After that, Anubis made a vow to never fight again and left for Earth, thinking his wife lost.

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 Schyler "Sky" Tate, Bridge Carson, and Sydney "Syd" Drew a set of S.P.D. Morphers. They were soon rejoined by Elizabeth "Z" Delgado, and Jack Landors,

Cruger is portrayed as a good judge of character. He gives both Jack Landors and Elizabeth Delgado, two criminals, a chance at redemption by making them Rangers, and sees the potential in Boom when he drops out of the Academy.

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 normally white area is 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. When Cruger used his Morpher/judgement scanner for abducting his wife, the morpher "acquitted" Icthior. Icthior then 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.

References