The Master (Doctor Who)

"I only need two things. Your submission and your obedience to MY WILL!"

- The Master

The Master is a powerful supervillain from the Doctor Who series. He is a member of the Time Lords, who has become the archenemy of the Doctor.

Personality
The Master is deeply megalomaniacal and shows signs of psychopathic behaviour as his greatest fear in the universe is being outdone by the Doctor - leading him to becoming obsessed with ruining everything the Doctor stands for. This has served to make the Master one of the Doctor's greatest and most reoccuring opponents and also the one that has caused the most emotional pain to the Doctor during the decades long feud between the two characters. Like every Time Lord, the Master changes his looks and personality slightly everytime he regenerates to escape death.

Beginning
The Master's madness appeared to have began at the age of eight when he was taken before a gap in the fabric of space and time known as the Untempered Schism as part of a Time Lord initiation ceremony. Since then, the Master has been plagued by the four-beat sound of drums, believing them to be the "drums of war", and became into a would-be universal conqueror.

The Master first encountered the Doctor during his Third incarnation when he was trapped on Earth. Wanting to make the Doctor suffer, the Master allied himself with various evils like the Nestene Consciousness or the "Sea Devils", a mutated version of the Silurians, to undermine UNIT. After his scheme to provoke a war between the Human and Draconian Empires on behalf of the Daleks (though he was planning to betray them) failed, the Master retreated.

The Master's New Bodies
By the time he meets the Fourth Doctor, the Master's body is at its final incarnation and severely rotting. Despite the Doctor keeping him from extending his life with the artefacts of Rassilon, the Master cheats death by transferring his being into the body of a Trakenite scientist named Tremas. In his new body he heads to Logopolis to accomplish another evil plan which gets out of control soon, resulting in the Doctor having to work together with the Master to save the entire universe. However, after they stabilise the Charged Vacuum Emboitment, it turns out that the Master actually wants to threaten the peoples of the universe to accept his rules. The Doctor is able to stop him, but is killed and has to regenerate into the Fifth Doctor. To get revenge, the Master lures the Doctor to the city Castrovalva where he poses as the librarian Portrevee. After the Doctor foils his plan the city disappears along with the Master. However the Master returns by unexplained means.

When the five Incarnations of the Doctor were kidnapped into the Games of Rassilon, the Time Lords promised the Master new regenerations if he could save the Doctor. When the Fifth Doctor didn't trust him and was then teleported away, he allied the Cybermen and betrayed them to get to the Tower of Rassilon where it was possible to recieve immortality.

Although the Doctors can capture him, the Master, still searching for a way to extend his life, is still able to continue with his evil deeds at the Doctors future incarnations, like teaming up with the Rani against the Sixth Doctor to mess with Earths history, or bringing an evil alien race to Earth, before he is finally left behind on their dying planet by the Seventh Doctor.

Eventually, the Master is executed by the Daleks as a punishment for his "evil crimes". But the Master survives his execution by transferring his mind into a small, snake-like morphant that slithers inside the Eight Doctor's TARDIS console, forcing the vessel to crash land in San Francisco where it enters the body of paramedic named Bruce. But as Bruce's body is unsustainable and begins to slowly degenerate, the Master attempts to access the Eye of Harmony to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, but instead is sucked into it and killed.

The Time War
During the Time War with the Daleks, the Time Lords ressurected the Master to aid them as the ultimate front line soldier. But after the Dalek Emperor took control of "The Cruciform", the Master fled the war in fear, ignorant of its outcome as he uses a Chameleon Arch to stores his Time Lord nature and memories in a fob watch and allows him to become biologically human.

Ended up at the end of the universe, the Master's incarnation aged into the scientist, Professor Yana. The Professor was still plagued by the constant drumbeat in his head as he attempts to send the last remaining humans to Utopia.

The Master's Return
But when the Tenth Doctor and his companions Martha Jones and Jack Harkness arrive, they accidently cause Yana to recall his Time Lord essence and become the Master once more. Mortally wounded when his companion Chantho shoots him after he fatally injured her, the Master regenerates into a new younger incarnation as he steals the Doctor's TARDIS, which he later even converts into a "Paradox Machine". But as Doctor sabotages the TARDIS using his sonic screwdriver so he can only able to travel between Earth 2007 and the year 100 trillion, the Master assumes the identity Harold Saxon and makes his way to becoming England's Prime Minister.

As Harold Saxon the Master secretly interfered with the Doctors and Marthas life, for example through the scientist Richard Lazarus. From there, Master uses the Doctor's TARDIS to recruit the Toclafanes as allies, having them kill one tenth of the world population, and rules Earth for a year, while he turns whole nations into work-camps and bases for a fleet of war rockets.

However, the Doctor reverses the events with the Master shot by his wife Lucy Saxon and refusing to regenerate as his death is a small victory to emotionally hurt the Doctor. Though the Doctor cremates the Master's body on a pyre, his ring remains and is obtained by coven loyal to him.

Creation of the "Master Race"
By Christmas 2010, as the Ood foretold, the Master's coven conduct resurrects the Master at Broadfell prison, where Lucy was incarcerated before she sacrifices herself to sabotage the ritual. However, it only revived the Master in failing body with a ravenous hunger. Resorting to wandering the fringe of London and feeding on homeless people while being pursued by the Doctor, learning the sound of the drums is a signal, the Master is eventually captured by billionaire Joshua Naismith in order to use his knowledge to repair an alien 'Immortality Gate' to make Naismith's daughter immortal. But the Master hijacks the device, using its original purpose as a planet-wide medical tool to overwrite the DNA of every human on Earth with his own and create a "Master Race".

Using his duplicates, the Master triangulates the signal to its source: The Time Lord President Rassilon before obtaining an unique Gallifreyan diamond to create a link through which the Time Lords emerged. Though he intended to overwrite his DNA onto the Time Lord race, the Master's work on the human race is undone as he learns the truth that he was nothing more but a pawn in Rassilon's plan to destroy all creation so he and the other Time Lords can transcend into beings beyond time. When the Doctor destroys the link, the Master attacks Rassilon in an act of revenge for a lifetime of manipulation, disappearing into Gallifrey with the other Time Lords in the process.

Trivia

 * The Master's relation with the Doctor can be compared to that of Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Homes.