Syndrome

"You can't count on anyone, especially your heroes!"

- Syndrome's belief

Buddy Pine, better known by his supervillain name Syndrome, was the main antagonist of The Incredibles. He was a supervillain and mad scientist who used to be Mr. Incredible's biggest fan until he had refused to let him be his sidekick when he was young.

Beginnings
"Well, I'm Incrediboy!"

- Buddy Pine

Syndrome's (At the time dubbing Incrediboy) real name is Buddy Pine (even though his last name was never mentioned).

As a young child, he goes into a youthful Mr. Incredible's car and when asked by the super who he is supposed to be, Buddy tells him he is his self-appointed sidekick IncrediBoy and that he doesn't have to worry about training him since he knows everything about him, being his #1 fan. However, rather than allow Incrediboy to accompany him, Mr. Incredible ejects Buddy from his car and speeds off, with Buddy calling out from the road and telling him to wait.

Later on that night, right when Mr. Incredible was sent to a bank hostage to stop Bomb Voyage, Buddy showed up again as IncrediBoy and told Mr. Incredible that he made new rocket boots and that he finally figured out who he is: His ward IncrediBoy (Similar to a Batman/Robin tone). But when Mr. Incredible tells him that he's now officially carried it too far, Buddy thinks it is because he doesn't have powers and says that not every superhero has powers and they can be super without them (Similar to Kick-Ass).

After asking Mr. Incredible if he can fly since he can with his rocket boots, he responded (while holding up Bomb Voyage, who tried to escape during his and Buddy's conversation), "Fly home, Buddy. I work alone." Buddy tells Mr. Incredible to just give him one chance and that he'll show him by getting the police; but as he was leaving, Bomb Voyage put a bomb on the end of his cape (which Buddy was unaware), so Mr. Incredible was forced to let Bomb Voyage escape to save Buddy and dispose of the bomb. Unfortunately, the rescue ended up opening the floodgate of other lawsuits against supers (because of the two lawsuits that Mr. Incredible faced and lost) and thus, it abolished supers altogether.

Now sick and tired of Buddy, Mr. Incredible handed him over to the police in the back of their police car, telling them to send him back home and tell his mom what he's been doing so she can have a talk with him. When Mr. Incredible told the officers that Bomb Voyage escaped, he also added that "Skippy" made sure of that, only for Buddy to correct him, but Mr. Incredible responded that he's not affiliated with him.

After Buddy was sent home and probably even scolded and sent to his room by his mom (which was shown in a flashback with a grown-up Buddy {as Syndrome} telling it to an older Mr. Incredible), he believed that he could not trust anyone, and that he realized that his life-long dreams had been crushed. which gradually drove him to a hatred for Mr. Incredible and the other supers for not letting him help and join him, and then it finally drove him to revenge.

Later years
"The name is not BUDDY! And it's not "Incrediboy" either!!! All I wanted was to help you, I only wanted to help! And what did you say to me? ... (Flashback)... It tore me apart, but I finally learned an important lesson...You can't count on *anyone*, especially your heroes."

- Syndrome



15 years later now 25-years-old and operating through his agent Mirage, Buddy, now known by his new supervillain name Syndrome, contacted many retired superheroes, tasking them with the destruction of various prototypes of the enormous Omnidroid battle robots, which was secretly a plan that would lead to the demise of dozens of the old supers. He also got extremely rich from building loads of weapons. But no matter how rich he became, he never forgot about Mr. Incredible and finally started to get his revenge. Deciding that his Omnidroid was now good enough to fight Mr. Incredible, Syndrome had Mirage recruit his old idol, who was able to defeat the Omnidroid.

After repairing and improving the machine, Syndrome sent it to fight Mr. Incredible. When the hero was outmatched, Syndrome revealed himself (also saying that all he wanted was to help Mr. Incredible, but what made him snap was when he told him to fly home and that he works alone) and he declared that he would be Mr. Incredible's new nemesis. Mr. Incredible realized that he was wrong to treat Syndrome the way he did, and apologized for what he had done. Syndrome assumed that since he now had power over him he was bluffing, and accidentally used his zero-point energy ray to throw Mr. Incredible over a waterfall using his index finger. Not wanting to take any chances, he then tried to finish him off with an explosive device to ensure his demise.

A scared Mr. Incredible sees the explosion in the water, but Syndrome sends his life-detector to see if Mr. Incredible survived the explosion. Mr. Incredible used Gazerbeam's skeletal remains (who had been presumably killed by Syndrome for knowing too much about his schemes) to make Syndrome think that he was killed by the bomb, which works.

Unfortunately, Syndrome was able to capture Mr. Incredible when he tried to infiltrate his base later on, also realizing that he wasn't killed by the bomb after all. Due to the fact that Mrs. Incredible had activated the tracking device on his supersuit, Syndrome and Mirage believed that he had made contact with someone and began to interrogate him.

When the rest of the Incredible family followed, Syndrome assumed that Mr. Incredible had sent for reinforcements with the tracking device and he ordered their plane to be shot down with missiles, taking cruel pleasure in the knowledge that he had killed them, recalling how Mr. Incredible had told him that he worked alone after he offered to be his sidekick. Mr. Incredible then retaliated by threatening to kill Mirage by crushing her; but Syndrome refused to release him, knowing that even with nothing to lose, Mr. Incredible would never, ever kill an enemy.

Mr. Incredible decided to let her go, realizing that that wouldn't make things better and Syndrome teased that he knew Mr. Incredible couldn't do it, even when he's got nothing to lose because he says that Mr. Incredible's weak and that he's outgrown him. This eventually makes Mirage mad at Syndrome for having very little respect for the lives of others, telling her former boss afterwards, "Next time you gamble... bet your own life!" and leaves. She then frees Mr. Incredible from captivity, informs him of his family's survival, and helps him escape and reunite with his family.

But Syndrome was able to re-capture Mr. Incredible along with his family, remarking how Mr. Incredible had married Elastigirl and had two children with her, believing that he had hit the jackpot by capturing an entire family of superheroes. Taking the opportunity to elaborate on his plan. He intends to set the Omnidroid on Metroville and then stop it himself, taking the credit and setting himself up as the city's new hero. He would then proceed to sell his inventions so that others could be super, thus eliminating the concept of supers.

But this plan ultimately failed, as the Omnidroid's ability to learn allowed it to identify Syndrome as a threat, disabling his remote control wristband and sending him flying into a building out of control (which scared him real bad), knocking him out cold. He then tried to get back up, only to fall back down. He remained unconscious during the Incredibles' and Frozone's fight with the Omnidroid and they're able to disable it. Thus, Syndrome was robbed of his victory.



Death
"Huh? (Realizes the Incredibles won the battle) NO!"

- Syndrome after losing his attempt to be a "hero")

With his assets now frozen by the secret service and a wanted criminal, an angry Syndrome (who couldn't believe what was happening) made one final attempt at revenge by breaking into the Incredibles' house and abducting Jack-Jack, persuading his current babysitter that he was a replacement, telling her that the S on his shirt stood for Sitter and that he could not run around with a "BS" on his shirt in public. When the Incredibles arrived to rescue Jack Jack, Syndrome zapped them with his zero-point energy ray with his finger and reassured them that he'll be a good mentor to him, and probably even turn him into a sidekick in time. He then threw the Incredibles out of the home and crashed through the ceiling and up to his jet plane while holding a crying Jack-Jack.

But unfortunately for Syndrome, this plan also failed when Jack-Jack's transforming superpower manifested and allowed him to beat Syndrome up. Then Mrs. Incredible was then thrown into the air by Mr. Incredible and she grabbed her baby (who fell out of Syndrome's arms when he hit the wing of his plane) and then she used her body as a parachute to glide back down. Finally realizing that he lost, Syndrome leaned from the side door of his jet plane, yelling out to the Incredible family that this isn't the end of it, that he'll come back and get Jack-Jack again, vowing revenge again; he then proceeded to laugh evilly.

Mr. Incredible then started looking around for something to throw at Syndrome, spotting the car that he had bought with the money Syndrome have given him earlier, and threw it at Syndrome's plane, knocking him off-balance. Syndrome's cape gets caught in the jet engine (echoing an earlier scene in the movie regarding the dangers of wearing a cape by Edna, which Syndrome learned the hard way), resulting in his demise when the blades sucked him in and the plane exploded (which was similar to what happened to Stratogale).



Appearance
Syndrome stood 5 feet and 7 inches tall, excluding the height of his hair. He was barrel-chested and weighed 185 lb. His red hair extended straight up in a manner reminiscent of flames. Syndrome was supposedly "not a super", but he demonstrated exceptional ingenuity, technical knowledge, and planning skill far beyond the science of his time.

Weapons and Inventions
Syndrome's list of super weapons that he made was extensive, but several notable ones included:


 * Rocket boots
 * Zero-point energy ray (trapped and paralyzed the victim{s} in an energy beam)
 * Omnidroid models
 * Tracking / Scanning devices
 * Miniature explosives
 * Velocipods

Quotes
"You took away my future. I'm simply returning the favor."

- Syndrome, after zapping the Incredibles with his zero-point energy ray

"Cool! Ready for takeoff!"

- Young Buddy after he gets into a young Mr. Incredible's car

"YOU sir, truly ARE Mr. Incredible. You know, I was right to idolize you, and I always knew you were tough, but tricking the probe by hiding under the bones of another super, aw man! I'm still geeking out about it! And then you just had to go and.. ruin the ride. I mean Mr. Incredible calling for help? "Help me, Help me!!" - lame lame lame lame LAME! Alright, who did you contact?!?"

- Syndrome after he kidnaps Mr. Incredible.

"It's finally ready! You know, I went through quite a few supers to make it worthy to fight you, but man, it wasn't good enough! After you trashed the last one, I had to make some major modifications! Sure it was difficult, but you, are worth it! (Laughs) I mean, after all... I am your biggest fan."

- Syndrome to Mr. Incredible after having his Omnidroid defeat him.

"And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions, so that everyone can be superheroes, everyone can be super! And when everyone's super . . . no one will be."

- Syndrome, explaining his true goal.

Trivia

 * Syndrome's hair was styled like Jimmy Neutron's hairdo, another CG-animated genius.
 * Syndrome is similar to Scrappy-Doo: Both become leaders of their own organizations to get revenge on the main protagonists for what they did to them years ago.
 * He also bears some resemblance to Doctor Doom, both being evil genius type supervillains who rely on their intellect and weaponry to further their agendas. Both also seek vengeance and are the chief enemies of a quartet of superheroes that double as a family.
 * In The Incredibles: The Video Game, the young Buddy was seen as IncrediBoy when a youthful Mr. Incredible was holding onto his cape, trying to remove the bomb from Buddy's cape. But for the rest of the game, Buddy was never seen again as a 23-year-old under the supervillain name Syndrome. It is unknown why he never came back after the incident of the bomb being on his cape when he was little.
 * Syndrome made a cameo appearance in Jack-Jack Attack, in which he was seen without his mask and posed as a replacement for Kari.
 * He is the third Pixar villain to die and the sixth Pixar character to die.
 * Syndrome is similar to Charles Muntz from Up in several in a few aspects.
 * Both are serial killers.
 * Both are willing to kill children (Russell in the case of Charles Muntz and Dash and Violet in the case of Syndrome).
 * Both own a flying vehicle (in Charles Muntz's case, the Spirit Of Adventure).
 * Both have a large amount of evil minions to do their bidding.
 * Both have had one of their minions betray them (Mirage in his case and Dug in Charles Muntz's case).
 * In an interesting reversal however, while Syndrome was a fan of the hero who then became evil, Charles Muntz is the reverse: a character who was once idolized by the hero before becoming a villain.
 * He is the second Pixar villain to die, the first being Hopper from A Bug's Life.
 * He is widely regarded as being considerably dark for a Disney villain, as the director of the Incredibles (Brad Bird) believed that portraying criminals as not being willing to harm children was more harmful to minors than helpful.