Doctor Eggman
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In the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Doctor Eggman (in modern-day and Japanese versions), or Doctor Ivo Robotnik (early United States and European, and modern-day versions), is the archnemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog. His character designer is Naoto Ohshima.
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The Eggman
Dr. Eggman, the grandson of Professor Gerald Robotnik, is an evil genius with an I.Q. of 300 and a very childish demeanor. He tries 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.
He has built countless airships, such as the Egg Carrier, and a moon-sized space station called the Death Egg. He has also built countless robots, a number of which resemble either him or his longtime rival, Sonic.
In most video games, the main villain is the final boss fought by the player. Eggman, in contrast, appears as the boss of every level in most of the Sonic games, in a different machine each time.
Egg robots
The doctor's Eggman-shaped robots have evolved throughout the series, first appearing in Sonic & Knuckles as the simple but numerous Egg-Bots or Egg-Robos. Soon after, Eggman followed up with more lethal incarnations that could think for themselves — the E-series. Notable E-Series Robots include E-101 Beta, E-102 Gamma, E-123 Omega and E-121 Phi.
Gamma was forced by Eggman to defeat his brother Beta, who was theoretically his superior. Eggman then stated he would use the loser for "spare parts". After an encounter with Amy Rose, and his accidental witnessing of Beta being taken apart and remade, he decided to free the animals imprisoned in all of Eggman's robots, including the ones inside the E-series. Beta was actively reengineered and modified in the meantime. 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 one 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. Infuriated by this, Omega joined Team Dark with Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat in Sonic Heroes.
Phi is a grey robot that looks similar to Emerl (Sonic Battle). He looks very different to the other E-series robots because of this. There are 14 versions of him who all have different attacks (I.e. Phi #1 has Sonic's attacks while Phi #14 has Rouge's attacks). At the end of the game they are all destroyed by Emerl (although they appear alongside Eggman in the credits).
Death Egg
The Death Egg made its first appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, 1992), where it was a space station of an unknown shape. It was the final level of the game, containing only the final two bosses.
The Death Egg was Doctor Robotnik/Eggman's space station in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. It was moon-shaped, and built in the image of Eggman's face. (This idea was later recycled for the Space Colony ARK). In Sonic 3, Robotnik rebuilt the Death Egg and was about to launch it when Sonic arrived in the Launch Base Zone. Sonic quickly boarded the giant space station and defeated Dr. Robotnik, causing the space station's destruction. Docking Sonic 3 & Knuckles changed the event; instead of being destroyed, the Death Egg fell out of the sky and landed in the volcano of Angel Island (otherwise known as the Floating Island) where Lava Reef Zone and Hidden Palace Zone were situated. In Sonic & Knuckles, it was a two-Act Zone playable by Sonic and/or Tails containing an Act 1 boss and three Act 2 bosses (including Tails' final boss).
In the arcade game Sonic Championship (Sonic the Fighters in Japan), Robotnik went to make the Death Egg 2, which once again was home to the 2 last bosses. It then blew up and was never heard of again.
Later on, in Sonic Battle, Robotnik rebuilt the Death Egg for use of his "Final Egg Blaster."
The Death Egg is an obvious parody of the Death Star Space Station in the Star Wars series.
Sonic robots
Robotnik, aside from the huge mechas and robots he builds in his likeness, also seems to enjoy trying to make robot Sonic 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 it later reappeared and fought Knuckles. 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.
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 finally put an end to their rivalry, once and for all.
The Name Game
Eggman has two names, "Dr. Eggman" and "Dr. Ivo Robotnik." For the pre-Sonic Adventure games, he was called Eggman in the Japanese region and Robotnik in America and Europe. However, since Sonic Adventure, the character has switched between calling himself both names and being nicknamed Eggman by the good characters while calling himself Robotnik. General consensus now is that his real name is Robotnik and his nickname (which he calls himself sometimes) is Eggman.
In the Japanese version of Sonic X, his eyecatch profile card gives his name as: "ROBOTNIK (Dr. Eggman)"
In both comic book series after Sonic Adventure, he died and was revived as Dr. Eggman, though the methods for both differ.
Contrasting Stories
Five main continuities emerged in the first few years that the Sonic series existed - "SegaSonic" (as the video game canon is called by fans), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (AOSTH), Sonic the Comic (Fleetway), Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), and Archie).
SegaSonic
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The "SegaSonic" continuity, as it is known by fans, was created by Sega of Japan for the original game, and is generally thought of as the "official" storyline. This is mainly because of the belief that, since Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese creation (despite the fact the original game came out first in the United States, with Japan being the last of the three main regions to release it), the Japanese storyline should be the true one. The Sonic Anime used SegaSonic continuity, though it does not have an extensive backstory for Dr. Eggman, only that he is a mad scientist who wants to conquer Earth, and attempts to do so by enslaving the animal population in robots and trying to find the Chaos Emeralds to harness their power. This story was later developed into the current continuity used in most of the modern-day games, and the Sonic X anime series.
AoStH
Next came the AoStH continuity, shorthand for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, the first Sonic animated series, which had no history for Robotnik, merely presenting him as a villain who sought to rule Mobius. Notably, the design of Robotnik in this series was wildly different from his portrayal in the games.
Fleetway
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The Fleetway continuity originates with a short "official" storyline created by Sega of America for the original game, which was then expanded upon by the book, Stay Sonic, and even further by the enduring Sonic the Comic, as well as some other UK novels. As this extended continuity mainly featured in Sonic the Comic, is known as the Fleetway continuity, named after the comic's publisher. However, since, for a while, StC's storyline used aspects of SegaSonic storyline such as South Island, the differences between the two blur in places. In general, however, both are based on the game series.
Here, Doctor Robotnik (as he was consistently called, even when the Western video games switched to using the "Eggman" name) had a particularly different origin to anything from any other country. Originally, he was not Doctor Ivo Robotnik, but was Doctor Ovi Kintobor, a kindly scientist from Earth who embarked on a one-man science exploration of space, but wound up stranding himself on Mobius. The planet was a world of peace, and so he vowed to eradciate even the tiniest traces of negative energy from it. Using a machine he named the Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor (ROCC), formed of many purifying golden rings, he slowly gathered all the negative energy on Mobius. Requiring a container for chaotic energy, Kintobor discovered emeralds that served the job very well, locating six of them. It was then that a brown hedgehog named Sonic came tumbling into his lab.
Kintobor quickly became friends with Sonic, and helped him to advance his speed - while testing a new invention of Kintobor's termed "Power Sneakers," Sonic ran so fast that he broke the sound barrier, and the shockwaves fused his quills and tempered his body cobalt blue. Sonic used his new speed to help search for the seventh and final emerald, which was required to stabilise the energy transfer. Their efforts were in vain, but Kintobor eventually apparently discovered a way to complete the transfer without the seventh emerald. Before the process was initiated, the pair decided to have lunch, but going to the fridge, they found only one rotten egg. With it in his hand, muttering about it, Kintobor went back to the ROCC... and tripped on a cable, falling over and slamming his hand into the machine's control panel. The ROCC exploded, bathing Kintobor - and the egg - in chaos energy, and scattering the golden rings that comprised it across the planet. As the smoke cleared, Sonic made a terrifying discovery - the chaos energy had transformed Kintobor, along with the rotten egg he had been holding. Now, he was no longer Ovi Kintobor - now, he was Ivo Robotnik.
At the start of the Fleetway continuity, Dr. Robotnik looked and acted very similarly to the SegaSonic continuity. However, just under a year into the comic's life, it was decided to change his look to match that of his "AoStH" counterpart, (as the cartoon had recently begun airing at the time in the UK). In the comic, Robotnik, in his base inside the Special Zone, encased himself in a giant egg, and hatched as the new-look Robotnik, who proved to be more sinister and more of a dictator. Towards the end of the series, in a story arc based on the "Sonic Adventure" game, Robotnik's changed outfits to match the game character's appearance (though he didn't undergo any physical transformation).
Although his goals and actions where always evil, originally Robotnik's character was very tongue in cheek having silly characteristic (for example, replace in 'ex' with 'eggs' (eggs-actly)). However over time his character became darker and more sinister. After achieving near god hood at least twice and yet still being thwarted by Sonic, Robotnik fell into deep depression. His last act in the comic (before it was cancelled) would have resulted in the destruction of the planet. He had ceased to care about being it's ruler and simply wanted to 'end it all' and take the rest of Mobius with him.
SatAM
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The last continuity began with the SatAM cartoon, which is known as SatAM due to its original airing time(Saturday AM). Vastly different from the SegaSonic and Fleetway continuities, the only characters used from the original story are Sonic, Tails and Dr. Robotnik. Unlike his other incarnations, the SatAM Robotnik is by no means a mad scientist plotting world domination. In contrast, he is a malevolent dictator who has already conquered most of the planet Mobius. Due to the role he plays in the series, this Robotnik was given a sinister design to distinguish him from the often comical appearance of his counterparts. The cartoon ended after two 13-episode seasons, but the characters continued to appear in the American comic book series produced by Archie Comics, which developed its own continuity. The SatAM aired briefly in the UK, but UK viewers preferred AoStH much more, and it was cancelled halfway through the first series. The comics, known as the Archie, continuity are currently still being produced. Due to the onset of SEGA's new Sonic Adventure series and its Eggman, SatAM's Robotnik was supposedly killed off in the comics.
Modern day
In the modern-day games, Eggman has become increasingly used as comic relief. In Sonic Adventure (Sega Dreamcast, 1998 Jp, 1999 US/Eu) and remake Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut (Nintendo GameCube and PC, 2004), his ally throughout the game, Chaos, turns on him towards the end of the game. Chaos destroys the Egg Carrier shortly before Sonic battles him in the final battle. In Sonic Adventure 2 (Sega Dreamcast, 2001) and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (Nintendo Gamecube, 2001 Jp, 2002 US/Eu), he teams up with Sonic after a creation by Dr. Gerald Robotnik threatens to destroy Earth, and then swears off trying to conquer the world. And in Sonic Heroes (PlayStation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox and PC, 2004), he is captured by Metal Sonic and his appearances in the game are in fact Metal Sonic disguised as him.
Voice Actors
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Eggman has been the primary antagonist in all of Sonic's incarnations, and throughout all of them, a number of voice actors have played him:
- 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
- Video Game series (Sonic Adventure onward) - Chikao Otsuka (Japan), Deem Bristow (US; died 1/15/05 [1] (http://rotfw.fireball20xl.com/docs/deem.txt))
- Sonic X - Chikao Otsuka (Japan), Mike Pollock (US)