Mad Scientists in Comic Books.
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- Krona (of JLA/Avengers fame) is a mad scientist from a species of humanoids who had discovered immortality and realized the potential of the mind's raw power well before Earth's solar system had formed. He was determined to unlock the secret of existence: How had the universe come into being? To this end, he created a "time window" that would allow him to peer at the moment of creation. Unfortunately, apparently the act of looking caused the creation to go awry, and instead of a single universe, a multiverse was formed. Unfortunately, this included one evil antimatter universe... and the seeds for the Crisis on Infinite Earths were sown. Krona was banished, but eventually was employed by Nekron (the Lord of the Unliving) and turned into the embodiment of entropy. As such, he gradually grew in power, until he reached a point where he vivisected entire universes in his restless quest for answers. He forcibly interrogated Galactus to find out what he knew. All in the name of science.
Hasbro
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero has featured two Cobra mad scientists:
- Dr. Venom (real name Dr. Archibald Monev) was Cobra's original scientist. He created the Brainwave Scanner, and developed a virus that was intended to be used as a biological weapon, first by tainting newly-printed $20 bills (a plot foiled by the Joes), and then by using the Cobra officer known as Scar-Face as a vector against the Joes (thwarted by Scar-Face himself when he found out he was being sacrificed like that, by stealing the antidote). Dr. Venom and his arch-nemesis, the mercenary Kwinn, killed each other during the 1st Battle of Fort Wadsworth, but it was revealed years later (in IDW's continuation of the original series) that Dr. Venom copied his brain patterns into the Brainwave Scanner.
- Dr. Mindbender was originally a benevolent orthodontist named Dr. Binder, who in researching ways to alleviate dental pain, used an experimental brainwave device on himself, which turned him twisted and evil. He auditioned for the role of Cobra scientist by creating the Battle Android Troopers and creeper vine spores, and went on to create Serpentornote . Mindbender is incredibly vain, usually going shirtless to show off his well-developed pectorals. He was also paranoid enough to have a clone backup of himself in the event of his own demise, and create mind-control chips for high-ranking Cobra officers that, in conjunction with a Brainwave Scanner treatment, would ensure their loyalty.
- Dr. Venom in Transformers vs. G.I. Joe (pronounced Phe-nom) is mad and then some, which is why the Joes (and later their allies, the Autobots) don't trust him after they liberate him from Cobra, even after he shoots Buzzer in the head. He doesn't exactly give them much reason to trust him, either.
- The Transformers: All Hail Megatron makes Brainstorm into one. He seemingly has no qualms about putting suggestion ideas inside Kup's mind at Prowl's request to exert more control over the army. In The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers Brainstorm works at the Kimia Facility, an R & D lab full of mad scientists. And Brainstorm in particular is considered especially insane even by their standards. He makes a hobby of creating weapons so horrible, they're classified as unmentionable by the Ethics Committee. In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye he builds all sorts of weapons and a holding cell for the crew and to hold Overlord, including a gun designed to shrink people, a bomb designed to break the fourth wall, an overpowered laser gun labelled My First Blaster (complete with flashing lights and sounds), and a gun that turns Cybertronians into Spark-devouring monsters. Tellingly, when someone asks him about one of his inventions snuffing out a sun, he dismisses it as "filthy, stinking lies"... because they got a small detail wrong. The sun in question did get snuffed out.
- Also from Wreckers is Ironfist, whose weapons have been responsible for the death of millions of cons, but he himself is quite naive and doesn't know of their effects as well as the war's toll outside of statistics. He builds a gun which targets the brain, and that was banned by the ethics committee.
- Skyfall is a less comedic and naive example; he isn't as smart or successful as the others, but he's quite mad, and sold Ironfist's most deadly invention to the Decepticons, and rigged one of those brain bullets to lodge inside Ironfist's skull and kill him.
- Jhiaxus. If his attempt to introduce gender to Cybertron by force doesn't count, or his experimenting on six beings to make an insane combining mecha, then what does? Perhaps finding a planet and influencing the local civilisation to begin turning themselves into cyborgs, then into fully mechanical beings capable of altering their bodies into vehicles. And all of this? He just does it because he can. It backfires when one of his "test subjects" dedicates her life to hunting him down and repaying him for what he did.
Other
- In Astro City, Professor Borzoi, Dr. Ganss, Dr. Nautilus, and Dr. Lewis Croft all do strange and unspeakable things with conventional science. While Infidel is an Evil Sorcerer who is also capable of using Mad Science when he wants.
- Grant McKay from Black Science is a genius physicist, but his expression of it is tied to his paranoid rejection of all authority figures and insanely overblown ego. While exploring his mind Doxta specifically asks whether his madness caused or held back his genius. Apparently it runs in the family; Grant's similarly genius father was mentally ill and ended up committing suicide when Grant was young.
- The scientists that captured N°73 in Black Tears have kidnapped countless children (if our protagonist number means anything, almost a hundred) and turned them all into monsters, all with the purpose of creating what they fear more: the darkness. They are stereotypical one-note madmen, with them having spiral glasses, and we don't know how or why they got funded for their research, or why they even decided to give a body to an entity they fear.
- Skunky from Bunny vs. Monkey has built a number of machines for his numerous plans to take over the forest.
- The Disney Mouse and Duck Comics has more than a few, the more relevants being:
- The trio of simian mad scientists named Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex, that in their first appearance, the Floyd Gottfredson comic strip arc "Blaggard Castle", having them capture Mickey Mouse and Horace Horsecollar to test a Hypno Ray on them with the intention of using their machine to take over the world and kill a bunch of people. The original story ended with Mickey using their ray against them and hypnotizing them into being good scientists, but they would still return in subsequent comics back in their old evil ways.
- Portis, Pete's cousin, is a provider of many advanced technologies for his thieving relative.
- One of the reasons the Phantom Blot is held as Disney's answer to Doctor Doom is that he's quite the formidable scientist, capable of creating devices to accelerate his subjective time to the point of Super-Speed or "save" a state of the universe and reload it at will as if it was a video game. The series "Darkenblot" makes great use of it, taking name from the Power Armor models he uses in various attempts at conquering the planet.
- Emil Eagle, Gyro's Foil, is prone to make invention for crimes-and at some point became rich by selling them, becoming the CEO of a megacorp just as he moved to become Super Goof's enemy in a parallel to Superman and Lex Luthor.
- Gyro himself is a little mad, as shown when he decided that the best way to prove Donald that he had invented a liquid that makes Immune to Bullets was to kick him in a pool of said liquid and then shoot him with a high-powered revolver.
- It's apparently a family thing, as his great-grandfather was a genius scientist working for Fantomius the Gentleman Thief and said great-grandfather's Evil Twin was a full-blown criminal scientist.
- Paperinik New Adventures examples:
- Everett Ducklair, the creator of One and many of the gadgets Paperinik uses, is a unwilling case: because of his Science-Related Memetic Disorder (implied to be the result of the many years he spent as a Reluctant Scientist for a Galactic Conqueror), he simply can't create something without turning it in a weapon. He eventually retreats to a monastery to meditate and search for the better part of himself.
- In the reboot "Pikappa" we have Vulnus Vendor, who is much less concerned about creating dangerous inventions.
- Herbie: Professor Flipdome is a friend of Herbie; his wacky inventions invariably cause problems that Herbie has to take care of.
- D.A. Sinclair of Invincible is easily one of the most sadistic mad scientists in fiction. He started making zombielike techno-organic minions, Re-Animen, from dead bodies, which is bad enough. But he eventually moved on to live subjects, kidnapping his roommate and tearing out his vocal cords so that he couldn't scream while he operated on him (D.A. is a college student, after all, and can't afford anesthetic). And he tore his arm off and overrode his free will. Then he started duplicating the process on homeless people. Naturally, the US Government saw to it that he served no jail time when he was caught, and gave him a cushy job making Re-Animen for military use.
- Simon von Simon from Little Gloomy. He's got it all, from his powerful machinery, futuristic inventions (such as the television and the microwave. Before you say anything, he invented them before anyone else did), hunchbacked Halfhearted Henchman, to his seething rage for everybody but himself. The fact that his plans for world domination were motivated by Gloomy dumping him, and the fact that the series calls him on not marketing his fantastic creations to get on top in a less freaky way undermines his menace somewhat; This, in turn, is offset by his army of ravenous zombies.
- Warren Ellis's Doktor Sleepless intentionally invokes this: nobody listens to "real people," so he becomes the cartoony mad scientist character of Doktor Sleepless to draw attention.
- The titular character of Léonard le Génie is one, especially when he goes all out on his rival Albert in the episode La Guerre de Genie ("The Genius Wars").
- Profesor Bacterio from Mortadelo y Filemón. Both T.I.A. agents have very good reasons to run away really fast when ordered to test one of his inventions.
- In Rainbow Brite Murky Dismal has been reimagined as this.
- Requiem Vampire Knight features an entire faction of these with the Archaeologists. They were originally scientists who made disastrous inventions in life, and were damned to become mummy-like beings on Résurrection. The Archaeologists are the only beings allowed to control human technology in order to keep it out of the hands of the lower masses in the setting and prevent them from overthrowing the current regime. And then you have the Hierophants, the higher-ranked Archaeologists who embody the "mad" part of this trope by wearing other people's skin when they come out from their sarcophagus.
- In Sherlock Holmes and the Horror of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorious is the mad scientist who freed the Frankenstein Monster from the Arctic ice, revived it, and is now attempting to create a similar creature.
- Zorglub, from Spirou & Fantasio, is one. Champignac is often seen as one by the villagers, and he actually behaves like one on occasion.
- The Military Doctor in Sturmtruppen: He believes he's discovered the Invisibility Elixir without getting insane, while his attendants point out that's actually the other way around. He also thought that a case of anemia was actually caused by a Vampire.
- Escariano Avieso from Superlópez. White lab robe? Check. Sinister Shades? Check. A heaping helping of Evil Plans? Check. Wacky and Escarolitropic-Gmnesic circuit-ridden inventions? Double check.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage) gives us Baxter Stockman. He was already making money with his legitimate science company and products, but turned to Cartoonish Supervillainy for fun.
- "The Vampire Maker" in Uncanny Tales from the Grave #4note presents a rare heroic example in Dr. Gottfried, who creates an artificial vampire that preys on other vampires shortly before being killed by a misinformed mob.
- Ungrounded has Doktor Bleak.
- There is a double subversion in Universal War One. The scientist who invented the wormhole is the only one to care about a possible Time Paradox, so he kills the fools who want to "go home" even if it endangers the universe. However, when Kalish explains to him there is no way to create a time paradox, the scientist becomes mad.
- Dr. Billy Joe Robidoux from Wynonna Earp. To quote Wynonna: "He's a southern-fried gumbo of Dr. Josef Mengele, Dr. Frankenstein and runs a real-life version of The Island of Doctor Moreau."
- In Y: The Last Man, geneticist Dr Allison Mann claims that she was illegally cloning a nephew who needed a bone transplant. She later admits this story was fictional to gain Agent 355's sympathy rather than be thought of as a 'mad scientist'; her actual motive was to spite her father who was nearing success in cloning the first human. After several Red Herrings, we discover that the real mad scientist is in fact Allison's father, who was seeking to clone his daughter so he could be a better parent the next time round, yet who also sabotaged Allison's cloning experiment out of sheer spite and may have accidentally caused the plague that all but wiped out all males.
