Dr. Ovi Kintobor

Dr. Ovi Kintobor is a character featured in the Sonic the Hedgehog promotional comic and Sonic the Comic. He is Robotnik's original, good natured self before an accident transformed him into Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Ovi Kintobor's name is actually Ivo Robotnik's name spelled backwards.

Little known fact: Ovum is the latin word for egg. Coincidence? Nah.

Story

Sonic the Hedgehog Promotional Comic

Ovi Kintobor in the promotional comic

Dr. Kintobor was a scientist who had embarked on a mission to rid the planet Mobius of negative energy by using a machine termed the Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor (ROCC) to compress this negative energy into the Chaos Emeralds. While preparing this experiment, Kintobor met a brown hedgehog called Sonic for the first time, who had accidentally dug into the laboratory.

Kintobor and Sonic quickly became friends, with Kintobor helping Sonic advance his speed by running on a treadmill. Following an accident involving the treadmill exploding (due to Sonic breaking the sound barrier while running on it), Sonic attained his much-recognised blue colouring, due to the Cobalt Effect. After this event, during a lunch, Sonic brought Kintobor an egg and soda. Kintobor accidentally dropped his soda on the R.O.C.C. while still holding the egg. This caused the R.O.C.C. to explode, exposing Kintobor to the negative energy within the emeralds, and scattering gold rings across the planet. At the same time, Kintobor's body was morphed to resemble the egg's shape and rottenness, giving him his classic Robotnik appearance and personality.

Sonic the Comic

Ovi Kintobor in Sonic the Comic

Dr. Kintobor was a scientist who had embarked on a mission to rid the planet Mobius of negative energy by using a machine termed the Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor (ROCC) to compress this negative energy into the Chaos Emeralds. While preparing this experiment, Kintobor met a brown hedgehog called Sonic for the first time, who had accidentally dug into the laboratory.

Kintobor and Sonic quickly became friends, with Kintobor helping Sonic advance his speed by giving him his trademark red and white friction-reducing shoes and measuring Sonic's running speed in a 'kinetic gyroscope' (essentially a circular treadmill). Breaking the sound barrier during the experiment caused the machine to explode, fusing Sonic's quills together and giving him his trademark blue colouring. After this, Sonic used his new-found super speed to search out the seventh Chaos Emerald, which, Kintobor theorised, would stabilise the energy contained in the other six. Sonic failed to find this last emerald (which, at the time, was on the Floating Island), forcing Kintobor to find a way to stabilise the energy using only six emeralds. Shortly before they intended to perform the procedure, the two decided to have lunch. However, Kintobor had been so engrossed in his work that he had forgotten to restock the fridge, leaving only a single rotten egg. While carrying this egg back to the ROCC, Kintobor tripped over a wire and fell, slamming his hand, and the egg, onto the console. This caused the ROCC to overload and explode, exposing Kintobor to the negative energy within the emeralds, and scattering gold rings across the planet. At the same time, Kintobor's body was morphed to resemble the egg's shape and rottenness, giving him his classic Robotnik appearance and personality.

Although the original Kintobor was essentially lost to the Robotnik persona, the ROCC explosion somehow imprinted Kintobor's mind onto a ring. When Sonic and his friends discovered the ring in the lab's ruins, it was used as the basis of the 'Kintobor Computer', a pseudo-AI computer system which projected a hologram of Kintobor's head when in use. The computer was used by the Freedom Fighters in their Emerald Hill Zone base. Shortly before the base was destroyed by Robotnik, Kintobor's mind was re-imprinted onto a ring, allowing him to survive and continue serving as the core of various computer systems.

In issue #71, wherein the Brotherhood of Metallix had altered history and erased Robotnik's existence in an effort to take over the planet, a future version of Sonic was forced to directly cause the ROCC accident, placing the rotten egg and tripping Kintobor with one of the cables lying across the floor. This led Sonic to the unsatisfying realisation that he was responsible for the creation of his arch-nemesis. Sonic also learned that it was Grimer, Robotnik's assistant, that had created Metallix, and that Robotnik's only contribution to the design of the Metallix was the implementation of a self-destruct mechanism inside them all.

Dr. Kintobor briefly regained control of his body after Sonic and Knuckles the Echidna used the Grey Emerald to drain a colossal Robotnik of the emerald power he had absorbed. The rapid drain caused Robotnik to shrink to subatomic proportions, reverting back to Kintobor as he landed on the planet Shanazar. During this time, he was appointed as the vizier to Princess Kupacious. This was temporary, however, and Kintobor gradually reverted back to Robotnik even though he had invented an elixir to stave off the transformation.

Other Versions

• In the UK book, Sonic: The Story, a slightly different course of events was described, wherein Sonic had ventured to the fridge out of boredom and hunger, to find a single rotten egg on the shelves. Taking this egg back to Kintobor, he attempted to hand it to him while the Dr. was entering a series of calculations. Due to this distraction of taking the egg off Sonic, Kintobor entered one of these calculations incorrectly, and it was this error which caused the ROCC accident.

• In Sonic the Comic Online, Kintobor's backstory from StC is used and built upon during an expository flashback in issue #234 by Shadow the Hedgehog, who is detailing his own origin in this continuity) to Sonic, leading to extra details about Kintobor's 'origin'. It explicitly shows that Kintobor ended up on Mobius through accidental teleportation from Earth, possibly via a natural phenomenon, after he gets lost while walking to the supermarket (and conveniently carrying lots of unspecified equipment with him). Following his discovery of the abandoned Emerald Hill Laboratory and 6 of the Chaos Emeralds, Kintobor is shown to do various things that didn't appear in the original StC canon:
  • Studying and utilising Chaos Energy for genetic blending (leading to Shadow's creation in this continuity) and the creation of true Artificial Intelligence.
  • Establishing contact and 'transport links' with the Special Zone, specifically the Equinox laboratories and the Omni-Viewer.
  • Improving the standard of life in the Emerald Hill Zone by redeveloping the houses and land, bringing them to the typical standards of modern human (Earth) life.