Syndrome

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

- Syndrome's belief

"...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.

Buddy Pine a.k.a Syndrome (intially known as IncrediBoy and Skippy) is the main antagonist of Pixar's 6th animated feature film The Incredibles.

He was the biggest fan of his mentor, Mr. Incredible, until he denied him to be his sidekick when he was young. Buddy took this denial to heart and since then, devoted to become a supervillain and mad scientist who had set up retired heroes, having Omnidroids kill them, and later pose as a superhero himself by controlling the threat, planning to sell his inventions in the future and make the term "superheroes" have no significance in the world.

He was voiced by Jason Lee.

Movie's Beginning
"I am your number one fan!"

- Buddy Pine

Buddy Pine, a superhero fanatic & inventor goes into a youthful Mr. Incredible's car willing to be 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 allowing Incrediboy to accompany him, Mr. Incredible ejects Buddy from his car, saying that he works alone and speeds off, with Buddy calling out from the road and telling him to wait.

Later on that night, right when Mr. Incredible saves pedestrian Oliver Sansweet from near-suicide convoluted into a bank robbery 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's because he doesn't have powers and says that not every superhero has powers and they can be super without them (Similar to Batman).

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 throws 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 realised that his lifelong 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, losing his sanity.

Later years
"I am your biggest fan (Mr. Incredible: Buddy?) My name is not BUDDY! And it's not "Incrediboy" either!!! That ship has sailed. 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 to test the robots against old supers. If the super dies, they failed. If they can survive and disable the robot, then the data is used to make a bigger robot that is designed to kill that particular super. No super ever survived the second fight, if they even survived the first fight. This led to the Omnidroids becoming more difficult to defeat every time, with the eventual goal to make the Omnidroid good enough to defeat Mr. Incredible. He also got extremely rich from building loads of weapons and presumably selling it to evil terrorist organizations. 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 rather quickly, 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 he goes on a monologue with Mr. Incredible. After Mr. Incredible takes advantage of the moment to throw a log at Syndrome (who dodges it), Syndrome immobilizes Mr. Incredible with his zero-point energy ray, which is shot from the pointer finger of Syndrome's glove. Syndrome's zero-point energy ray causes a person (or superhero, in this case) hit by the ray to immediately become immobilized, lose all velocity, and levitate off of the ground, making them unable to speak or move. If their skin is exposed, then their facial movements are reduced to only being able to move their eyeballs, giving Syndrome complete control of their motion in all three dimensions. After using the ray to throw Mr. Incredible around several times to show his power over the superhero, Syndrome accidentally uses his zero-point energy ray to throw Mr. Incredible over a waterfall. 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 (during which Mr. Incredible discovered Syndrome's computer and found out that Syndrome had killed dozens of supers with his Omnidroids), also realizing that he wasn't killed by the bomb after all. Due to the fact that Elastigirl had activated the tracking device on his supersuit in an attempt to find where Mr. Incredible was, 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. He ordered Elastigirl's plane to be shot down with missiles, taking cruel pleasure in the knowledge that he had killed them (not knowing that the occupants were really Mr. Incredible's wife Elastigirl and their two kids, also not knowing that Mr. Incredible's family had survived the crash), 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.

After the Incredibles quickly overpower his guards, Syndrome was able to re-capture Mr. Incredible along with his family by immobilizing them, discovering that Mr. Incredible had married Elastigirl and had two children with her.

He believed that he had hit the jackpot by capturing an entire family of superheroes. He then imprisons the Incredibles in one of his multi-prisoner containment units. He takes the opportunity to elaborate on his plan to the entire family, meanwhile bragging about how he had beaten them without having any superpowers himself. 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
"This isn't the end of it! I will get your son eventually, I will get your son! Oh no..."

- Syndrome's last words, before being sucked into the jet turbine and shredded to death With his assets now frozen by the US government and a warrant put out for his arrest, 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 Elastigirl 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 had given him earlier, and threw it at Syndrome's plane, knocking him off-balance inches away from the air turbine. He had attempted to escape, but his cape snagged him in and is then ripped to shreds followed by an explosion, killing Syndrome (and  echoing an earlier scene in the  movie  regarding the dangers of wearing a cape by Edna).

His death was of similarity to Stratogale, a hero that died prior to the film.

Jack-Jack Attack
Syndrome appeared in a cameo at the end of the short Jack-Jack Attack where she tricked an already confused baby-sitter, Kori into handing him over Jack-Jack Parr so he can finish his revenge against Mister Incredible. He was also able to cleverly lie when Kori asked as why had a massive S against his chest he responded by saying it was short for "sitter" as people would jump to the wrong conclusion if it said BS.

Personality
Syndrome's personality, namely his callous disregard of others and lack of conscience or morality all stem back to psychopathy. He is a mad scientist destined to make himself a hero even if it meant creating a killer robot to murder various retired ones. Due to Mr. Incredible making him believe that he could count on nobody except for himself, he has no value of human life which was shown when he let loose the Omnidroid on a populated area, allowed missiles to fire on Helen, Dash and Violet's plane even after discovering the two were children and was willing to risk Mirage's safety to call Mr. Incredible's bluff.

Syndrome was a scientific, technological, technical and mechanical genius, and possessed the intelligence and resourcefulness sufficient to create an incredible variety of weaponry and equipment. He was also capable of creating a sentient, self-aware, incredibly powerful and intelligent being that would ultimately become his downfall: the Omnidroid.

Aside from his derangement Syndrome is cynical, he thinks that the only way to get respect was to become a threat. He is sadistic as well, as shown when after realizing that Bob knew Helen from the transmission he instantly set missiles on their plane and then mocked them on their apparent deaths.

Like many sociopaths, Syndrome holds a firm belief that mercy is a weakness and disregarding life is strength which was pointed out by Mirage. Syndrome himself is a very calm, level-headed and laid-back young man, rarely if ever expressing his temper. When Mister Incredible had just destroyed his ninth Omnidroid instead of initial anger, simply compliments the feat by saying it was "impressive." This also shows when Bob had taken Mirage hostage and Syndrome shows no concern over her life although this could be due to a lack of empathy.

Syndrome is an extremely spiteful and vindictive individual; after being rejected by his former idol it turned him into a megalomaniacal super villain. However he was still intelligent enough not to make his hatred allow him to be arrogant and realized that the Omnidroid would have to be worthy before fighting Bob.

However it's needless to say that Syndrome wasn't always like this; Buddy Pine was cheerful, inventive optimistic and intelligent if not a little pestering and obnoxious. He was somewhat obsesses with Mister Incredible as he was a member of the fan club, knows his favourite catchphrases and fighting styles and his self-proclaimed number one fan. He is a child prodigy, creating rocket boots which allow him to fly sadly however his intrusions caused his idol to lose Bomb Voyage. After being rejected by Mister Incredible twice this led Buddy down a dark path until it became a desire for vengeance. However, even as a child, Syndrome believed being a superhero was about wearing cool outfits and getting to beat people up, showing no real desire to help others. This suggests that he could have potentially turned to the dark side even if Bob hadn't turned him down.

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
 * Containment units (in which the prisoner has mineballs on their hand and feet and is held up in a field of zero-point energy, causing the prisoner to be unable to escape)

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.

"Too late. 15 years too late!"

- Syndrome after Mr. Incredible begs him to call off the missiles

"Huh, huh? Oh, come on! You've got to admit this is cool! Just like a movie!The Omnidroid will emerge dramatically, do some damage, thousands of screaming people! Then when all hope is lost... Syndrome will save the day! I'll be a bigger hero than you ever were."

- Syndrome

Trivia

 * Joaquin Phoenix who also portrayed Commodus, was originally announced to voice Syndrome.
 * Syndrome's hair was styled like Jimmy Neutron's hairdo, another CG-animated genius.
 * He 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 sen without his mask and posed as a replacement for Kari.
 * He is the second main villain Pixar antagonist to be a Complete Monster after Hopper in A Bug's Life and before Lots-O' Huggin' Bear in Toy Story 3.
 * He is also the second main antagonist Pixar villain to die after Hopper and before Charles Muntz.
 * Syndrome is similar to Charles Muntz from Pixar's later movie 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.
 * Syndrome shares a mild similarity to Princess Morbucks in the fact both admired and original wished to be Superheroes until they were rejected by their idols.
 * Syndrome also bears a few similarities to Aldrich Killian:
 * They were both nerdy inventors who were rejected by their idols.
 * After being rejected, they make a considerable amount of money by secretly commiting crimes & murder using their inventions (In Syndrome's case, Omnidroids & In Killian's case, EXTREMIS)
 * Ironically, this was heavily referenced in HISHE's How Iron Man 3 Should Have Ended in which Tony compared himself & Killian with Mr. Incredible & Syndrome, much to the latter's shock.
 * 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.
 * He shares some similarities to Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2:
 * Both were once nerdy.
 * Both idolized a hero (Mr. Incredible for Syndrome and Spider-Man for Electro).
 * Both became evil after an event involving the protagonist (though Syndrome's was on purpose, Electro's was due to a misunderstanding).
 * Both died in an explosion.