| NOTE: This article is about the USA version of Dr. Ivo Robotnik from the early '90s, the mainstream version can be found here. |
| “ | HA HA HA HA! I got you now Sonic! | „ |
| ~ Dr. Robotnik when introduced in the US promotional comic. |
| “ | NO! I'll get you yet! | „ |
| ~ Robotnik when he along with his Egg Mobile get tripped over in the US promotional comic. |
| “ | I must destroy you... you walking pin cushion! | „ |
| ~ Kintobor when he transformed into Robotnik. |
Dr. Ivo Robotnik, formerly known as Dr. Ovi Kintobor, is the main antagonist of early western lore of Sonic the Hedgehog media.
In Japan, the character was known as Dr. Eggman, was not called Robotnik whatsoever (save for that his real name ''Robotnik'' would finally be introduced in the Japanese Sonic Jam Official Guide and Sonic Adventure: Navigation Guide), and was a comedic villain, and completely human, compared to the western Robotnik, who was not a human, at least after his transformation into Robotnik. Instead, he was a mutated monster, barely having any of the humanity that his former self had.
Western versions of the character's backstory state that he is a mutated scientist and the embodiment of all evil in Mobius, as well as the arch-nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog. He was formerly a benevolent scientist known as Ovi Kintobor, but after an accident, he was infused with a rotten egg and turned into the monstrous tyrant known as Ivo Robotnik, the exact opposite of his former self.
This version of him was used as the base for majority of the western Sonic media, spawning various incarnations such as the Robotnik from Sonic the Comic, who had the same origins as this Robotnik and started out being based on this version, having the exact same appearance, but slowly became a mix of other. He also spawned the Robotnik from the French comic book Sonic Adventures. This design would later become obselete, having been replaced by the more infamous Dr. Ivo Robotnik from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog or otherwise his Sonic the Hedeghog (SatAM) cartoon designs as the main source of inspiration for the designs of later Robotniks in western states. The latter would even be an inspiration for his counterpart seen in the Archie Comics and later his one seen in Sonic Underground. Mainly, the original appearance of the doctor alongside Sonic's adapted design was used in the North American and European box arts designed by artist Greg James Martin. However, all of these changes and backstories were slowly abandoned as time moved on, causing the Japanese canon to begin to be adopted worldwide.
Appearance[]
Like most depictions of the same character, Robotnik is an incredibly obese man with a long crazy moustache and a bald head. He goes through many changes in media:
Robotnik's earlier western design is relatively the same as his Japanese counterpart, donning the same exact outfit and moustache (albeit curvier and coloured redish orange), though the primary difference is that instead of wearing a pair of pince nez glasses that obscured his eyes, his eyes were either a pair of dotted eyes or a set of vacant eye holes unlike his Japanese counterpart where they are seemingly normal cartoony eyes (shown by his OVA counterpart, and some of the Sonic shorts set in the classic era), those black eyes likely served as a primary inspiration for later western designs, where he is depicted with black sclera albeit given visible irises. He even (usually) doesn't wear his white gloves and has a curvier moustache as opposed to it having three triangular tufts sticking out. Save for a few rare occasions were this was the opposite for the two forementioned features. In the Virgin Books, Robotnik highly resembles his original Japanese design as he has three giant triangular tufts sticking out of his moustache and has two normal white eyes with icy blue pupils.
While still loosely similar, later on, Robotnik's design strayed much more from the Japanese counterpart, having a more conical head, a more comically obese body, a more ragged moustache, and depicted with black sclera with visible red irises. His outfit was also drastically changed, now sporting a red and black jumpsuit with a yellow cross going around, with dark gray leggings, a pair of red pointed boots, and grayish gloves, being his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog television series design. It would be recently modified in design in the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon where he has a less cartoony look with the differences being that he has a less ragged mustache, a fatter chin, no black pupils on his eyes, slightly different gloves, a roboticized left arm with two short navy-blue sleeves of his bodysuit, red shoulder pads, a yellow cape and black boots with red accents. the latter would be an inspiration for his potrayal seen in the Archie Comics and later Sonic Underground from 1999 but both with some minor changes to the appearence. The former would also be used in spin-off titles such as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and be used as the primary inspiration for his design in Sonic Spinball.
As Kintobor, his appearance is unknown and differs depending on version. In the US Promotional comic, he wore a brown blazer with a white shirt underneath, as well as blue jeans with a black belt. He had messy white sideburns and a large white Kaiser mustache. In Fleetway's Sonic the Comic, his appearence as the aforementioned form is similar to that of his Robotnik form, though he was a lean and slick man as opposed to obese, he even had an oval shaped bald head, he also had a long strip of ginger hair behind his head, resembling his moustache. For attire, he wore a white labcoat and white gloves and silver pince-nez sunglasses.
Personality[]
As Kintobor, he was a very kind and benevolent, albeit clumsy scientist, helping people in need and saving sick and poisoned animals, and using his talents to benefit others rather than himself. After his transformation into Robotnik, he became a monstrous tyrant that only cared about himself, and would do anything to destroy Sonic the Hedgehog, even going to extreme lengths to fulfil his dream to conquering Mobius for himself.
Biography[]
Sonic Bible[]
Robotnik, originally known as Ovi Kintobor, was a kind and benevolent scientist that once served as the head scientist of the government's controversial Nuvolution research. The goal of the research was to somehow reverse the effects of accumulated centuries of pollution and restore Earth to its natural, pristine state. Kintobor's team worked towards this goal for fifteen years, until the funding for the work was cut. With their project doomed to oblivion, the scientists scattered. Many team members took lucrative positions in private industries, while others went mad with frustration. Kintobor on the other hand abhorred such resignation to one's fate, and instead of bailing out he sabotaged the government's security system and moved the lab to a local toxic waste dump in order to continue his research. He was using a device called the Cogwinder Retractable Partulent Corer to search for Chaos Emeralds, specifically the final, gray emerald. One day, he accidentally dug up a hibernating brown hedgehog named Sonny. He used a machine called the Lingua Scrambler'Um to teach Sonny how to speak human language. Kintobor explained to Sonny that he needs the Chaos Emeralds to reverse years of pollution and rid Planet Mobius of all evil, reverting it to its natural state.
Kintobor rescued many poisoned and struggling animals in his base, many of which Sonny befriended. Eventually, Kintobor appointed Sonny to be his right-hand assistant so he could help him in his search for the emeralds. Kintobor began teaching Sonny about physics, but Sonny discovered a treadmill that Kintobor had constructed. Running on it to pass the time, he eventually broke the sound barrier, crossing all known limits of acceleration and moving at the speed of light. Kintobor was alarmed, rushing to slow down the treadmill, only to find that Sonny had somehow turned blue. Kintobor began calling Sonny "Sonic" due to how fast he was moving. Sonic used his speed to further assist Kintobor in his experiments, and discovered a machine made entirely out of gold rings. He found out Kintobor had used this machine to gather all evil in Earth into six colored emeralds and had them stored them in a cabinet.
Kintobor explained that the emeralds could eliminate all pollution from the world, or in the worst scenario, double the amount of evil in the world if they were to be hit by radiation. Unfortunately, just as he said that, a wave of pollution penetrated Mobius' surface and hit the emeralds, which made Kintobor's machine, the Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor turn on and cast a beam on Kintobor, a half-eaten egg, and the Chaos Emeralds.
This transformed Ovi Kintobor from the benevolent, kind, scientist into a cold-blooded, wrathful beast that uses his intellect to spread more pollution and evil into the world, unlike Kintobor, who wanted to rid the world of it. The creature chased after Sonic, who grabbed many gold rings and ran out of there as fast as possible. The monster named itself Dr. Ivo Robotnik and swore to destroy Sonic no matter what.
List of notable incarnations[]
- Dr. Robotnik (Archie Comics)
- Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Fleetway)
- Robotnik (Sirène)
- Dr. Robotnik (Virgin Books)
- Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Dr. Robotnik (SatAM)
- Dr. Robotnik (Sonic Underground)
Trivia[]
- Originally, unlike in the United States, the box art of Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) in European regions such as the United Kingdom was actually given the Japanese design of Dr. Eggman, alongside Sonic. As for the release for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), this was quickly changed to their American designs.
- The reason why western Sonic media changed the appearance of the doctor for their media instead of using the original Japanese design is possibly due to the fact that they considered Japan's version of him a bit friendly looking for a villain. They even most likely gave him the empty black eyes to give him a sinister look. Its unknown why his gloves were removed though.
- Unlike his JP counterpart, he is not often seen smiling and is instead often seen with aggressive facial expressions, whereas the former looks happier and can be seen making happy or friendly looking demeanours.
- The exact cause of the accident that turned Kintobor into Robotnik differs depending on continuity; In the earliest draft of the Sonic Bible, the Reverse Quantum BioFormulator casts a beam on Kintobor, the Chaos Emeralds, and a half-eaten egg that Kintobor was eating, infusing all of them into one entity known as Ivo Robotnik. The final versions of the Sonic Bible involved Kintobor mis-keying a command while distracted from the egg in his hand.
- The Fleetway incarnation of this Robotnik was the only one that did not completely fade into obscurity.
- The earlier design was also used in the Fleetway comics, but as time moved on, would have his classic attire combined with his AoStH styled bodysuit, and would later rehatch himself in a design completely based off his AoStH incarnation.
- Alongside the Fleetway, Sirène and Archie incarnations, this version of Eggman is one of the only ones to not be a human.
- Even though the Japanese version is the one called Eggman, Robotnik is a literal egg-man, as he is practically an egg infused with a person.
- In the artwork of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, he was given beady black cartoonish eyes, when Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came out, his eyes where depicted as bigger scary looking completely black eyes with an intimidating look which was possibly be a basis for his AoStH counterpart, hence the similar look of having the menacing black eyes and an orange-ish moustache instead of brown, but the cartoon versions would be given red irises instead of being empty. In the latter games artwork, he even has a beard which is nowhere to be seen in the actual game. He even has a similar appearence to Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes.
- Unlike most of the doctor's western designs, he wears his white gloves in the American promotional comic.
- While the American design of Dr. Eggman doesn't wear glasses, his Kintobor form in Sonic the Comic wore pince-nez sunglasses along with white gloves likely nodding to the ones of his JP design, though he lost the two aforementioned attire when he transformed into Robotnik, quite possibly due to the fact the producers didnt want him to have much to do with the JP one, save for that he did wear his white gloves in the first issue of Sonic the Comic before he was no longer seen wearing them after the following story.
- In addition, in the original issue of Sonic the Comic, Robotnik had an appearence resembling his original JP design for having the three tufts sticking out of his moustache alongside his white gloves (as mentioned above) until this immediently toned down to his one seen on the Western box arts where he has a curvier moustache and no gloves.
- Unlike in the original Sonic the Hedgehog game, in the gameplay of: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles actually depicts his blue glasses as completely black eyes (despite that they can be mistaken for black glasses), nodding the American artwork. In Sonic 3&K, his black eyes were later recoloured to blue glasses in Sonic Orgins and its expansion pack Sonic Origins Plus while 02 stayed the same. This is because both of these two games were produced in the USA.
- Some rare Western artworks depict his beady eyes as blue instead of black (see below).
- His quote I'll get you yet! he utters at the beginning of the US promotional comic has been referenced by his AoStH (in the Mobius 5000), and Archie counterpart (on the cover of the premiere issue). The said phrase was also used as the name of one of the soundtracks in the SegaSonic the Hedgehog arcade game.
- Although this design was not used in the Archie Comics, the main cover of the premiere issue of Archies Sonic the Hedgehog comic series sports Dr. Robotnik in this early design. Whereas in the actual issue he sports his design from the Sonic the Hedgehog TV series.
- It is possible that Dr. Ovi Kintobor formerly being a government scientist would later go on to inspire Robotnik's live action counterpart and Professor Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Ivo Robotnik's grandfather in the main series due to his body shape and head. Not just that, also introducing the doctor as "Robotnik" first.
- A prototype art of Dr. Robotnik for the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) television series, depicts him with an appearence similar to this original American design for having completely black eyes and a lack of gloves. Although there are a few colour variations.
- Although, adapted designs of Robotnik have largely died down since the early 2000's, Robotnik's live-action film counterpart is a bit similar to this bunch of original western Robotnik's:
- He has a unique look
- In the ending scene of Sonic the Hedgehog (film), his moustache resembles his one from his original American design due to its shape.
- His eyes got sunken dark in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film which are theorized to be a partial nod to his ones seen on this bunch epecially his AoStH counterpart of designs. And fun fact, in the storyboards for the Sonic movie sequel, he bears a bodysuit that is in addition similar to his AoStH signature bodysuit for having a belt going around his waist with a circular buckle in the center and a line going upwards to his collar.\
- In addition, his body shape is similar to his Kintobor form from Sonic the Comic.
Gallery[]
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