Mad Scientists in Webcomics.
- 70-Seas: In the side story Mary Mendele
, the title character is a Mad Scientist who is also a nun. - Addictive Science: Celia goes to a university for mad scientists, and is a bit trigger-happy with the transformation zappers she makes and keeps trying to take over the world (not too seriously though). And she's not the only one in the comic by a long shot.
- And Shine Heaven Now once featured a mad scientist convention, Eurekon, where a lot of them make cameos.
Doc: Today I give you the end of the world!
Professor Tomoe: Oh like we haven't all tried that before.
Professor Utonium: Hey! I resent the implication that everybody here is evil!
- Annyseed has the crazy, charming, sometimes grumpy and a little suspicious, yet lovable, Professor Tripadiculous. He likes doing tests on monkeys. He has the documents required for that sort of thing too. So don't question him.
- Arthur, King of Time and Space:
- Morgan Le Fey is an amoral sorceress in the baseline arc, but a Mad Scientist in the Western arc. And in the future arc, she's an amoral scientist and a Mad Sorceress.
- The same webcomic also applies elements of the Mad Scientist trope to King Pelles and his daughter Elaine of Carbonek, and their quest to create the ultimate hero of Christianity (Galahad), by merging their line with Lancelot's. The newspost under the strip revealing this plan (and that Elaine is based on Helen Narbon) calls them "Mad Theologians".
- Books Don't Work Here has Sparky to fill this role, and while he only has a bachelor's degree he is far enough removed from lucidity to qualify.
- The Brothers Quack: Al was inspired to make duck/butterfly chimeras after he had a nightmare about turning into one himself.
- Casey and Andy was created with the tagline, "Mad scientist roommates who periodically die." Both the eponymous mad scientists have, frequently, died, often at each other's hands, and often while indulging in mad science experiments. It doesn't help that one of them dates (a female) Satan, and their neighbour is an extreme Weirdness Magnet who is also an international jewel thief.
- Technically, Sage Miller from Castoff is a mage. But listen to him talk:
Sage: ... and someday make something so incredible they'll
regret kicking me out.
That'll show them.
- The thing they kicked him out for was human experimentation (with healing spells, considered impossible in the setting) that resulted in a classmate "nearly" losing his arm. Deprived of this possibility, Sage continued to experiment - on himself. And that's just the flashback to his youth. In present day, one of the first things we see him do is wonder out loud how to have Vector Strapped to an Operating Table. And, apart from the dubious ethics, he's using a proper scientific procedure.
- Commedia 2X00 features Professor Dottore, a cyberneticist whose experiments building Super Fighting Cyborgs got his funding cut off by the Institute Academy. Lives in an island fortress shaped like his head, occasionally yells things in Greek and Latin; labcoat, goggles, baldness.
- Cowbirds In Love observes that most mad 'scientists' are actually mad engineers.
- Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Jyrras Gianna dabbles in mixing science and sorcery (though he is not a wizard himself), invents a 'cosmetic patch' that alters one's appearance, builds hypertech weaponry out of boredom, and accidentally created new life forms twice (three times, if you count his part in the creation of the Mows). Unlike most mad scientists, he had enough on the ball to make a fortune from his inventions. His depiction in the Show Within a Show Spoof Spy Story depicts him as an actual one. He proceeds to subvert and lampshade various traditional tropes used by by Mad Scientists throughout the arc (while he has a Volcano Lair, it's dormant — the crater is in fact filled with orange pillows, not lava).
- Dr. Nonami: Dr. Mechano is the classic variant of the mad scientist archetype, though the hero Nonami also has some minor aspects of this.
- Eerie Cuties got professor Wilhelmina Twiggit. She's kind of fun. And always needs some guinea pigs. To the laboratory!
- EVIL (the Elite Villain's Institute of learning) has an entire Mad Science department.
- Evil Plan: Dr. Tal A. Kinesis is an almost textbook example. His pseudonym reflects the telekinesis he gave himself in an experiment. He has an underground lab filled with inventions, but he can't fix any of them himself. The reason? He's just the programmer, and after a fight the real inventor left to become his enemy.
- Exploitation Now: Jordan Kennedy is an embittered and tragic Teen Genius who is the last survivor of a project to enhance human intelligence to super-human levels. Known for holding countries for ransom with stolen nuclear weapons and an orbital laser or two.
- Fans!: There's a psychiatric wing for mad scientists. Professor Ignatius Fitz fits the trope to a T.
- Far Out There has a supporting cast swarming with mad scientists. Hardly surprising when a major arc took place in a mad scientist convention.
- Frankie and Stein: Stein is an adorable Mad Scientist child, complete with a Mad Scientist Laboratory.
- Freefall:
- Florence, a humanoid wolf and a main character, sometimes worries that her creator, Dr. Bowman, isn't entirely on the straight and narrow. Said wolf also thought breaking down stars for parts was a good idea...
- Bowman has been confirmed as an example as well, but for unusual reasons. He's a genetically engineered chimp. While he's a bit eccentric, and openly obsessive about his work, he's also well aware of the self-control issues inherent to his status and has arranged for his entire lab to be padded to prevent him from damaging it. All that aside, he's still a genius with a massive scope of interest. He casually admits that he's using an entire star system as a lab to test if humans can handle being a minority, then thinks up a way to make memes literally infectious.
Henri: Have you considered retiring before you break the galaxy?
- Dvorak could be considered a robot Mad Scientist. His various experiments are done purely For Science!, and "Information wants to be free!" is practically a catchphrase for him. He's responsible for inventing robot poison, robot booze, at least one system for motorising a corpse, and the widely feared feral waffle irons.
Dvorak: Also, I noticed your vacuum cleaner is underpowered. Would you like me to upgrade it to the megawatt range?
Winston: Wouldn't that make the house implode?
Dvorak: My owner asked the same question! The answer turned out to be 'Yes', but I know what I did wrong!
- Game Destroyers had Dr. Fred Edison of Maniac Mansion as their army's mad scientist for a period of time. He was replaced by Dr. Benedict and Magnus von Tazar later on.
- General Protection Fault has Nick Wellington and Dr. Wisebottom (his uncle), and Nick's evil Mirror Universe duplicate, Emperor Nick. There has been discussion of an "Inventor's Gene" running in the family.
- Girl Genius: The comic is set in an alternate timeline where "Mad Scientists rule the world. Badly." Here the trope is codified as "the Spark" (implying a "spark of genius"), and carries with it a strange charisma which binds minions to one's will — as well as an unfortunate tendency towards megalomania, obsession, and emotional outbursts of the "I'll show them all!" variety. Sane technicians and scientists are relatively uncommon, and often blend in with the crowd with Large Ham performances of their own. Centuries of Spark-to-Spark combat have left Europe a wasteland dotted with old wreckage, crumbling ruins, roaming monstrosities and the occasional heavily fortified town. Even the common people have adapted — those who have been under the protection of Spark dynasties for generations tend to fall readily under their spell as "natural minions", and are pleasantly surprised when they're not suddenly part of the latest experiment.
- The protagonist, Agatha, is the latest in a long line of incredibly powerful Sparks, who have served as Europa's boogeymen for generations and threatened the world with endless hordes of minions, monsters and dark plots from their fortress-city of Mechanicsburg. Agatha's father and uncle broke from this legacy to become heroes instead, and she's fairly conflicted over her family history. She herself has a habit of creating "dingbots" (a Do-Anything Robot about the size of an alarm clock). She's such a powerful Spark that they show Sparky tendencies themselves, and build dingbots of their own (though each generation is increasingly defective). In other words, even her creations fit the Mad Scientist trope.
- Agatha and Gilgamesh's interactions with Queen Albia of England, herself the most powerful Spark alive (at least in Europa), imply that there are levels of intellect even beyond the Spark. Common people become sparks in a process called "breaking through", where they awaken to their powers and insanity, and it's revealed that Sparks can break through a second time, in a process described as turning the spark into a fire — Albia herself did it millennia ago, as did others, but she's (more or less) the only surviving such person. While the details on this are kept light, it seems to blur the line between a "merely" very powerful mad scientist and a full Transhuman. Agatha herself very briefly achieved this state earlier in; the fact that she managed to revert to normal without exploding is described by Albia as very impressive.
- Sparks have specific "signatures" to their works which people familiar with them can recognize when studying their creations, and tend to specialize in what they work with; these tendencies tend to carry over from teacher to student. Agatha, for instance, mostly creates robots and one-person Lightning Guns and Death Rays; Dimitri Vapnoople is a Maker of Monsters and Uplifted Animals; Martellus von Blitzengaard inherited a propensity for animal monsters from his teacher Vapnoople but otherwise mostly does chemical work; Doctor Mittlemind, one of the prisoners in Castle Heterodyne (a dumping ground for mad scientists who are even more violently insane than the common-or-garden variety or who have otherwise violated the Pax Transylvania, alongside particularly nasty criminals and the more intractable products of mad science) is a mad social scientist, and none too pleased with how the hard mad sciences get all the funding.
Doctor Mittlemind: I told the Baron, give me a thousand orphans, a hedge maze and enough cheese, and I could—
- Baron Wulfenbach himself, though a lot more composed than his fellow Sparks, is yet another example. But with a twist: his scientific speciality is the Spark itself, meaning he has to experiment on his fellow madboys in order to do his research (though he does limit his test subjects to the more dangeous ones). The result is that Sparks tend to see him the same way normal people tend to see them; that is, a mad scientist.
- The Glass Scientists: The eponymous characters are all those — a kryptozoologist who turned himself into a werewolf, a man studying invisibility on his cat, Jekyll & Hyde... They're seen as public threat, but Henry Jekyll is attempting to rebrand them as beneficial for society.
- Gold Coin Comics: Alexa is a top scientist for the empire's military. She has alluded to dangerous experiments conducted in the past.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Dr. Germahn, Stereotypical German Scientist and Mr. Exposition; Tedd Verres, a self-aware Mad Scientist protagonist; Lord Tedd, his Alternate Universe Evil Overlord Counterpart who wields a Magitek gauntlet of his own design and seems to be determined to kill all of his alternates with monsters like The Goo. Finally, there were the scientists who worked on Project Lycanthrope.
- Most of Tedd's experiments were toned down later: The Transformation Ray Gun is alien technology (though Tedd turned his cosmetic prototype device into Lego Phenotype Machine and reverse engineered it to work in other much smaller devices) and Jeremy was just picked up... somewhere. Then again, after hearing that the Transformation Ray Gun uses the same forces as magic-users, he got obsessed with Magitek R&D.
- This seems to have rubbed onto Grace a little, too.
- Of the Project Lycanthrope staff only one lived to tell the tale (he was thrown out for his "fatal" mistake before their gruesome consequences applied, oh the irony).
- Dr. Germahn hasn't been seen in a while, but he dropped a tiny bit of Horny Scientist into the mix, creating such things as a drink that makes sweat temporarily eat clothing (he had just joined a health club), another that turns people into Anthromorphic cows (cause seriously, why not?), another that turns people young (he's rather old), and a
soda that shrinks people. All of which he tests on his hapless assistant. He knows what he is and can explains the difference between Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil variants, or what being Mad Scientist means:Dr. Germahn: This
isn't about money, you foolish intern! It's about having cool stuff to play with!
- Now Amanda joined the game. Aside of modest version of shrinking soda currently in development, she invented a Velocitoaster.
- Gunnerkrigg Court traditionally balances on the verge of this. Even not counting occasional pieces of Magitek. Starting from the creator of Court robots who did lose some important marbles from his head and his "children" are rather... fanciful — like non-flying Winged Humanoid "Seraph", or the cutest weather station you'll ever see. To trim the grass in park these guys happily use talking and learning robot cows with lasers in the eyes. And then there's Kat and her
compact anti-gravity device highly customized crystallizer. - The Horrifying Experiments of Dr. Pleasant!: Dr. Pleasant has shark teeth and emotional problems and science, and he's not afraid to use any of them. He excels at revival from the dead via Monster Girl.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!:
- Molly the Peanut Butter Monster, Galatea the Other Peanut Butter Monster, and Dean Martin. Poor Dr. Jean Poule would probably qualify as well, with her bizarre pet project which accidentally generated Molly – if not for the fact that Jean is, in many ways, the sanest person in the whole comic, a quality which in her universe is actually a bit of a handicap.
- The Rogue Canadian Scientists and their buddy Slick are by far the straightest examples in the comic, though. The former are named "Dr. Madden McMadmad and Dr. Amad de Mademad," and Slick gets to shout, "Blind fools!!!! They called me mad! I'll show them! I'll show them all!"
- Irritability: Exoth is a professional mad scientist who spends much of his time making things that are either random or actively harmful to those around him.
- Jayden And Crusader: Smic, also known as Sir Reginald, is a British mad scientist of neo-Victorian style. His antics include, harnessing the power of sunspots to fill a house with pizza, defeating an acid monster with his bare hands and raising the recently deceased.
- Jenny and the Multiverse has Doctor Laura Drake, who is often called one but loudly protests otherwise, insisting that she's well-intentioned and trying to avoid any accidents. Of course, accidents do tend to happen anyway, and her wardrobe doesn't help.
- Jix: One of Jix's Multiple Personalities is Lamerix, formed from Remula's suppressed urge to build stuff. Stuff like death rays, interdimensional portals, gender- and species-swap beams...
- Keychain of Creation has Elegant Nova of Progression. As mad scientists who may or may not be magitek robots themselves and occasionally get into fights with protagonists go, she's a pretty nice person; even her work to "upgrade" mortals seems to be reasonably consensual at least as far as the reader can tell, which isn't at all a given in the world of Exalted.
- Last Res0rt: Dr. Daisy Archanis, although right now she's unable to be a proper mad scientist, since she lacks access to an appropriate lab. Didn't stop her from building her own robotic leg while incarcerated, though.
- Maliki: Dr. Pilven conducted experiments to attempt to recreate mnesic cristallisations, by giving cats to orphans that they'll become attached to, then killing the cat in the hope of triggering the cristallisation. His "scientific protocol" also involved drugging the orphans beforehand in order for them to be easier to control, and sending the cristallisations he created to fight against others in order to test their fighting abilities.
- The Mansion of E: Sylvester's ancestor Ludwig, who left behind numerous dangerously useful magical-powered machines.
- Tales Of Gnosis College is devoted to this trope. Examples include the relatively benign Professor Joseph Corwin and the not-so-benign Dr. Emil Strangeways.
- Tales of the Questor:
- The Artifactor's Guild, the Alchemist's guild and more tellingly, the entire student body of their University.... on a grimmer note, they have the historical figure of Rosad Athair Beither, a biomancer (essentially a biologist/genetic engineer) who was obsessed with the origin of monsters, and created monstrosities and conducted horrific experiments on helpless victims as part of his "research." More horribly, his discoveries had such shocking implications that the Racconan government put a stay on his execution till he finished compiling his notes... and there is apparently a secret society of his followers still active in the Sanctuary City underground.
- A later side-arc introduces a slightly more benevolent version, in the form of a biomancer attempting to gain sponsorship for his toxin-removing plants...
- The protagonist and two of his friends (one an apprentice artifactor) managed to make an extremely powerful sword whose effects seem completely random, while drunk.
- In this world
magic lux can be scientifically analyzed, and makes up the bulk of Racconnan technology.
- Trevor (2020): The original members of the medical team sans Dr. Maddison were more than happy to experiment on Trevor and other subjects to try and create Super Soldiers for the military in exchange for a handsome paycheck.
- Herr Doktor Vernon Glasner, currently (since the nineteen forties, thanks to some Imported Alien Phlebotinum) residing in Area 51 of Trying Human and studying The Greys. When they cut you up, he'll hold the scalpel, and you don't want to know what he keeps in his office. He also has a penchant for making Half-Human Hybrids.
- Two Guys and Guy: Frank is a sociopathic Serial Killer who probes aliens. He has also made several back-up clones for Wayne and plenty of unique devices.
- Umlaut House and its successor involve several mad scientists, of both good and evil varieties, and had a Mad Science Convention.
- Wapsi Square: May was most likely one of these back in the day. Her inventions and plans have resulted in a few end of the world scenarios.
- Wayward Sons: Doctor Chu is a small being resembling a rat, who is a brilliant scientist. He also happens to get a lot of his results by performing torturous experiments on live subjects. And it's often not for science.
- The Whiteboard has Doc and Roger, though Doc focuses on paintball and military hardware. If you pay attention to the forums, Doc is also a Mad Scientist in Real Life, being a machinist with a penchant for mayhem.
