() is a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

and the main antagonist of the original ''

Mega Man ''Mega Man'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man (character), Mega Man". Mega Man (video game), The original game w ...

'' series, as well as Mega Man's

archenemy In literature, an archenemy (sometimes spelled as arch-enemy) is the main enemy of someone. In fiction, it is a character who is the protagonist's, commonly a hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional cha ...

and is also the creator of

Bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

and

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by Multiplication, multiplying digits to the left of 0 by th ...

. He appeared in the first ''

'' video game and later in promotions and other media related to the series. In Japanese, he is voiced by

Takeshi Aono was a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Asahikawa, Hokkaidō. He was attached to Aoni Production at the time of his death. He graduated from Hokkaidō Asahikawa Higashi High School. Career Aono was most known for the roles of Shi ...

in all appearances except '' Mega Man: The Power Battle'' and its sequel, as well as '' Mega Man: Upon a Star'', where he instead was voiced by Kenichi Ogata; in English, the character is voiced by Douglas Kendall, Dean Galloway, Keith Silverstein, Ian James Corlett, and

Scott McNeil Scott McNeil is an Australian-born Canadian actor. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the best-known Canadian voice actors of all time, McNeil has provided voices to many characters in animated shows, most nota ...

voicing the character in '' Mega Man 8'', '' Mega Man Powered Up'', '' Mega Man 11'', '' Captain N: The Game Master'', and the

animated series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have eith ...

, respectively. Scott McNeil also reprised his role in '' Mega Man: Upon a Star'', and '' Puzzle Fighter'', being the only English voice actor to voice Dr. Wily more than once. Paul Dobson voiced the character in '' MegaMan NT Warrior''.

Conception and design

Artist and producer Keiji Inafune explained that Wily's design is inspired by

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

, and was initially conceived to appear as a tall, thin scientist with a mustache, glasses, balding hair, and lab coat. As a plus, his first name is Albert. As development on ''Mega Man'' progressed, Inafune redrew the character to match the in-game sprites, making him shorter and removing the glasses from his original design. Inafune has expressed disdain for this design, stating in a 2003 interview that if an artist approached him with similar work, he would reject it and demand better. With the production of '' Mega Man 2'', Inafune decided to redraw the character completely, aiming to tie into the common perception of a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly am ...

. To this end he made Wily slightly taller, and elongated his hair and chin. Satisfied with the alternations, Inafune kept the design consistent for later appearances of the character.

Appearances

In video games

Introduced in the first ''Mega Man'' game, Wily was an old friend of Dr. Light, whose achievements in designing several advanced robots (including intelligent humanlike robots) overshadowed Wily's own accomplishments. Jealous, he reprogrammed the robots for combat, seeking to use them as weapons to assist him in taking over the world, with the exception of the childlike robots Rock and Roll. However, he was defeated by Rock, now converted into the combat robot "Mega Man". Wily returned as the antagonist of subsequent titles in the main series with a different scheme each time, sometimes framing someone else for his crimes (Dr. Cossack, Proto Man, a disguise for himself named Mr. X, and Dr. Light), only to be defeated and surrender to Mega Man at the end. Wily is also responsible for the creation of several other characters throughout the series, including

and

, and is indirectly responsible for the behaviour of the antagonist of the '' Mega Man X'' series,

Sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used a ...

, during that series. In the separate continuity of the ''Mega Man Battle Network'' series, a different version of Wily, dubbed Mr. Wily, served as the primary antagonists in the first, third and sixth games. A former friend of Doctor Tadashi Hikari (the ''Battle Network'' version of Doctor Light), he became angered when his research in robotics was pushed aside in favor of Tadashi's research into expansion of the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

. Forming a crime syndicate, Wily sought to destroy Tadashi's work through the use of hacking and computer viruses, coming into direct conflict with Tadashi's grandson

Lan Hikari Since the debut of the first ''Mega Man'' video game in 1987, numerous characters have been introduced into the series. Overview Key: = Does Not Appear List indicator(s) * A dark grey cell indicates that the character was not in the prope ...

and by extension MegaMan.EXE. However, after several failures, the realization he had been a poor father to his son Dr. Regal, and taking the role of a surrogate father for Baryl, Wily reformed at the conclusion of ''

Mega Man Battle Network 6 and are 2005 tactical role-playing video games developed and published by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld game console. They are the sixth and final games in the ''Mega Man Battle Network'' series, and involves Lan's family and Meg ...

'' and worked alongside Lan's father for the remainder of the series. Wily appears in the Wily Capsule from '' Mega Man 7'' as an Assist Trophy in the crossover fighting game '' Super Smash Bros. Ultimate''. He is able to be defeated, upon which he will beg for mercy as he always does when defeated in the original games. Dr. Wily appeared in Dragalia Lost during the Dragalia Lost/Mega Man crossover event “Mega Man Chaos Protocol”. During the event, Dr. Wily went to the Dragalia Lost world and used technology to brainwash the Dragons known as the Greatwyrms, Brunhilda, Mercury, Midgardsomr, Jupiter, and Zodiark. He was also a boss during the event.

In animation

In '' Captain N: The Game Master'', Dr. Wily is a

stereotypical In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

who appears as a short, beady-eyed, and slightly grizzled old man. In service to Mother Brain (despite very few appearances in the show), Wily manages to be possibly the most competent of Mother Brain's henchmen, regularly using his genius to build powerful robot masters, wild gadgets or develop complicated schemes to defeat the N-Team. He speaks with a German accent, and is constantly wheezing in his speech. Dr. Wily is voiced by Ian James Corlett. In the Ruby-Spears cartoon, Wily's character and appearance is more in line with the original games, being Light's former assistant before turning against the world. As revealed in the first episode, Wily leaves Light after their test of their prototype humanoid robot failed, believing that Light sabotaged his work to steal all the credit. Wily steals the prototype, then later returns to reprogram Light's robots into his own servants, including the recently built Rock and Roll (though they do manage to escape from Wily), and proceeds with his plans to rule the world with his robots, all of which being inevitably foiled by Mega Man. As in ''Captain N'', Wily speaks with a German accent and is also prone to fits of maniacal laughter. He is voiced by

. Dr. Wily also appears to be more like a normal human in the TV series. In '' Mega Man: Fully Charged''. A school boy named Bert Wily is Aki Light's best friend. The comic book revival mini-series reveals that Bert is related to the ''Fully Charged'' version of Dr. Wily, who is his grandson. He manipulates Skull Man, the Robot Masters, Mega Man, and Nanagem against each other to create a robot uprising he would control in the shadows. After Skull Man's death and the reconciliation of Mega Man and Nanagem, Dr. Wily reveals he stole the former's schematics and pilots a giant mech to kill them both. He is defeated and begs for mercy before escaping. Dr. Wily was set to make a cameo appearance in the 2012

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

movie, ''

Wreck-It Ralph ''Wreck-It Ralph'' is a 2012 American Computer-animated film, computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The List of Walt Disney Animation Studios films, 52nd Disney animated f ...

'', as part of the villains' support group Bad-Anon, however, he was cut in the final version of the film.

In print

Archie Comics

In the

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York.''Mega Man'' series, Dr. Wily is, as in the games, an old colleague of Dr. Light's, as well as of Dr. Cossack and the comics-exclusive scientist Noele Lalinde. Wily was given a government contract to develop military robots, and creating a massive mobile Weapons platform known as the Wily Walker. However, when he chose to arm it with chemical weapons-supposedly for "demonstration" purposes-his work was seized, his labs shut down, and he was banned from working on advanced robotics. Unfortunately, Wily managed to find a loophole by convincing his old friend Dr. Light to help him participate in the design of the Robot Masters, in particular providing input on the development of

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

. However, Wily eventually became tired of Light receiving all the credit for what he considered their shared work, and decided to demonstrate his genius by reprogramming the first six Robot Masters to attack the city. However, Mega Man managed to defeat them and came to challenge Wily, who was imprisoned but later freed by Time Man and Oil Man of '' Mega Man Powered Up''. When a scheme involving infecting Mega Man with a virus using a second line of Robot Masters was also thwarted, Wily headed to the mysterious Lanfront Ruins, where he came across the alien computer Ra Moon from ''

Super Adventure Rockman is a 1998 interactive movie/ rail shooter video game developed by Kouyousha and published by Capcom for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn; it is a spin-off of the '' Mega Man'' series and follows Mega Man as he attempts to stop an ancient alien ...

.'' Ra Moon subsequently recreated Wily's first Robot Masters before creating a new set using designs created by Wily and Light and the remains of an alien robot found in the same ruins, creating the units from '' Mega Man 3.'' Much to Wily's surprise, his and Light's long-lost creation Blues turned up in the area, and Wily was able to repair his power supply. In gratitude, Blues pledged his loyalty to Wily, adopting the name Break Man as a means of turning his back on his former life. The Worlds Collide crossover with the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' comic began as a result of Wily's minions locating one of the Chaos Emeralds from

Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' games are platformers m ...

's reality, which enabled Wily to make contact with

Dr. Eggman Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik is the main antagonist of Sega's ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' franchise. Eggman was created and designed by Naoto Ohshima as part of many design choices for Sega's new mascot. After the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, Ohshi ...

. Realizing that they had much in common, the two scientists formed an alliance with an eye at reshaping both their universes as they saw fit, including the elimination of their hated rivals. Their plans initially saw success, as they were able to alter their worlds, turn several of Sonic's friends into "Roboticized Masters" who combined both their evil technologies, and trick Sonic and Mega Man into fighting each other. However, once the two heroes realized the error of their ways and joined forces, they made swift headway against Eggman and Wily. The alliance between the pair turned sour after Eggman attempted to kill the imprisoned Dr. Light-something the more moderate Wily did not condone-and they were eventually defeated, with Mega Man restoring his universe to normal. With no memories of ever contacting Eggman, Wily prepared to embark on his next plan, only to have Ra Moon betray him and blanket the world in an electromagnetic field that shut down all unprotected machinery. Wily's second line of Robot Masters fell under Ra Moon's control, as did the Ra Thor robot Wily built with Ra Moon's technology in an effort to destroy it. However, Break Man and his first line of Masters remained loyal to him, and teamed with the arriving Mega Man to battle Ra Moon's forces, which led to Ra Moon's destruction. With his plans for Ra Moon shattered, Wily laid the groundwork for another plan involving his forces of Robot Masters. Returning to Dr. Light with the damaged Mega Man, he helped repair the heroic robot and made the pretense of wishing to reform, and was actually tempted to do so for a time due to Light's warmth in welcoming him back. However, he decided to continue his schemes, having his second line of Robot Masters steal the power sources for Dr. Light's Gamma robot and using them to lure Mega Man away. He also tricked Mega Man and several other Robot Masters into going to his old lab where the Wily Walker remained in storage, and tricked them into activating it in a failed attempt to destroy them. He and Dr. Light also created Doc Robot, which Wily secretly planned to use to destroy Mega Man. During the comics' ''Mega Man 3'' adaptation, Wily, with Break Man's help, finally revealed his deception, stole Gamma, and destroyed Light Labs before escaping to a new Wily Castle to gain full control of Gamma. Before he could do so, Mega Man tracked him down and defeated him once again after being tipped off by Break Man, who then rescued Mega Man while Wily was seemingly killed. A mysterious group later retrieved badly injured Wily on behalf of "Mr. X", under whose employ Wily was abducted by Sigma from ''Mega Man X'', leading to the second Sonic/Mega Man crossover, Worlds Unite. Brought to the Lost Hex on Sonic's world, he found himself reunited with Eggman, from whom he learned about their prior partnership, although Eggman lied about his attempt to kill Dr. Light. Reconciled, the doctors persuaded Sigma to capture Sonic and Mega Man, whom they transformed into evil versions of themselves (dubbed "Sonic Man" and "M'egga Man") while secretly programming them to revert each other and set them on Sigma; this would allow them to take over his plans, which involved absorbing energy from different worlds using machines called Unity Engines. However, the intended reversion happened too soon, exposing the doctors' treachery and forcing them to team up with anti-robotics terrorist Xander Payne and an army of Sega/Capcom heroes led by Sonic and Mega Man. During a battle between the heroes and Sigma's forces, the doctors eventually infiltrated the Lost Hex with Payne's help and prepared to claim the energy that the Unity Engines had harvested, cutting off Sigma's power supply in the process and allowing Sonic and Mega Man to defeat him. However, Payne ultimately betrayed the doctors and altered time to prevent the crossover from occurring, although Wily (along with Eggman, Mega Man, and Sonic) retained some recollection of the ordeal. Thwarted again, Wily, after realizing that Mr. X was actually Payne, unhappily went back to the old drawing board. This led to the comics' '' Mega Man 4'' adaptation, in which Wily planned revenge on Dr. Cossack, another one of Light's colleagues, and had Break Man capture Cossack's daughter Kalinka to use as leverage. The series went on hiatus after this, ending the story on a cliffhanger.

Promotion and reception

Wily has been noted as a popular character and villain, and has been compared to similar characters such as Doctor Robotnik. From 1991 to 1994, ''

Nintendo Power ''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninten ...

'' consecutively named him one of the best villains in video games to appear on Nintendo-produced consoles in their annual Nintendo Power awards, describing him as "one of the most beloved mad scientists". He would later appear in their January 2010 issue, ranking in as their fourth best villain in Nintendo history. They also ranked him as having one of the best mustaches. He placed thirty-ninth in ''

GamePro Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally ...

'''s "47 Most Diabolical Video-Game Villains of All Time" article, noting him to be " early a standout from the overcrowded school of mad scientists". '' Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition'' listed Dr. Wily as 27th in their list of top 50 Villains. In a "Reader's Choice" edition of

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

's "Top Ten Video Game Villains" article, Wily placed fifth, and while noted as not receiving enough votes to place above Doctor Eggman on the list, the character came close. Dr. Wily ranked sixth on IGN's Top 10 Video Game Characters who should die along with his nemesis, Dr. Light. IGN editor Colin Moriarty stated that while their rivalry may have been fascinating for over 20 years, they need to go so the core series may advance. ''

GamesRadar ''GamesRadar+'' (formerly ''GamesRadar'') is an entertainment website for video game-related news, previews, and reviews. It is owned by Future plc. In late 2014, Future Publishing-owned sites '' Total Film'', '' SFX'', '' Edge'' and '' Comput ...

'' staff described Dr. Wily as one of the best villains in video games, stating that "Mad scientists are pretty standard fare, but Dr. Wily brings a certain flair to his evil schemes." ''

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...

'' named Wily as one of gaming's "baddest villains", praising his persistence despite his failure at the conclusion of each ''Mega Man'' game. 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish shared the sentiment, stating "the fact that his schemes ultimately boil down to creating eight themed robots with a fatal weakness to one another's powers casts his 'genius' descriptor into doubt. Still, you have to admire his persistence." GameDaily named him one of their favorite older characters in video games and one of the "Top 25 Evil Masterminds of All Time", ranking him second on their list while stating "using good robots to do bad things is sheer genius." They additionally cited his rivalry with Mega Man as one of the ten greatest in video games, describing it as one "still going strong to this day." In a later article, they listed the "evil mastermind" as one of their top 25 video game archetypes, using Wily as an example. IGN listed him as the 13th Best Video Game Villain, calling him one of the most "hopelessly persistent" video game villains.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wily Capcom antagonists Fictional physicians Fictional mechanics Fictional outlaws Fictional roboticists Fictional inventors in video games Mad scientist characters in video games Male characters in video games Male video game villains Mega Man characters Video game characters based on real people Video game bosses Video game characters introduced in 1987