Dr. Eggman

In Sonic the Hedgehog video games, Doctor Eggman (in modern-day and Japanese versions), or Doctor Ivo Robotnik (early United States and European versions), is the archnemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog. His character designer is Naoto Ohshima.

The Eggman

Dr. Eggman, the grandson of Prof. Gerald Robotnik, is an evil genius with an I.Q. of 300 and a very childish demeanor. He's always trying to take over the world by enslaving the population inside robots to serve his every whim. Of course, Sonic and his friends are always there to stop him, no matter what he tries, and he's tried an awful lot of plans.

He has built countless airships to rule the skies (Such as the Egg Carrier),as well as a moon-sized space station called the Death Egg (a play on Star Wars's Death Star); he's also built countless robots, a great deal either resemble him or his longtime rival, Sonic.

Unlike many other video game villains, in most of the Sonic games Eggman appears as the boss of every level, in a different machine each time. Most games only feature the main villain as the boss in the final stage.

Egg Robots

The doctor's Eggman-shaped robots have evolved throughout the series, first appearing in Sonic and Knuckles as the simple, but numerous Egg-Bots or Egg-Robos, but soon after, Eggman followed up with more lethal incarnations that could think for themselves- the E-series. Most notable are E-101 Beta, E-102 Gamma and E-123 Omega.

Gamma, who was forced by Eggman to defeat his brother Beta, gained a conscience after an encounter with Amy Rose, and decided to free the animals imprisoned in all of Eggman's robots, including the ones inside the E-series. Beta, on the other hand, never got over his first defeat at the hands of Gamma, and actively reengineered and modified himself to finally destroy Gamma once and for all. Gamma, having destroyed all the other robots and freed the animals inside, went on to have a final showdown with Beta, going into battle with a final thought in mind: he too has an animal imprisoned inside.

Omega, on the other hand, is a prototype robot which Eggman quickly dumped after he began work on the next line of robots, the E-2000. Omega, not liking that at all, got into the mindset of thanking Eggman for unceremoniously dumping him like yesterday's trash the only way a robot of mass destruction cab give thanks: utter and complete destruction. Therefore, he joined Team Dark with Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat in Sonic Heroes to do just that.

Sonic Robots

Robotnik, aside from the huge mechas and robots he builds in his likeness, also seems to enjoy trying to make robot Sonic the Hedgehog knock-offs to pit against his rival. His first attempt was Silver Sonic, a dismal failure due to the fact that it was the total opposite of the original - slow, unwieldy, big, and stupid. Silver Sonic II, or Mecha Sonic, was a much sleeker and more aggressive design, and it was also faster and able to fly. Sonic thought he had defeated it in the Sky Sanctuary of Angel Island, but Knuckles, who got stuck with dealing with it, begs to differ. Mecha Sonic got hold of the Master Emerald and attacked Knuckles as Super Mecha Sonic, but, not being able to absorb the Emerald into its being, needed to constantly recharge his power. Knuckles soon managed to defeat it during these recharge lapses.

However, the Eggman's most successful and persistent Sonic copy to date is Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic, after his first defeat at the hands of Sonic, went on to harass the Chaotix, where he was able to turn into a huge, red, Godzilla-sized version of himself via the Chaos Rings and wreak havoc for a while, until he was defeated once again. Since then, he's been seen around participating in any kind of racing or fighting Sonic joins in, in hopes of defeating him one day.

In Sonic Heroes, Metal Sonic seems to impersonate Eggman in an attempt to copy the Sonic Heroes' DNA and fi nally put an end to their rivalry, once and for all.

In the Sonic Adventure games, Eggman became increasingly used as comic relief.

Cartoons

He has been the primary antagonist in all of Sonic's cartoons, each with a different voice:

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog - Long John Baldry
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) - Jim Cummings
• Sonic Underground (US, France) - Gary Chalk
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Anime, Japan) - Edwin Neal
• Sonic X - Mike Pollock