Spinnerette: Dr. Universe, wait! At least tell me something! You were a respected scientist, your work on the Cherenkovkirby Reactor was going to benefit all of mankind! Why would you turn into a supervillain? WHY?!
Dr. Universe: I read an Ayn Rand novel.
The Evil Genius is obviously intelligent, and is the one building the Wave Motion Gun or shipping the nukes into the country or resurrecting the Lost Superweapon or what have you. This character is usually the one that will demonstrate how to use a particular MacGuffin. They're usually a Mad Scientist, a military tactician, a specialist in a particular field (such as computers or electronics), or has ties to The Government (or a combination), so they're in the best position to deliver the goodies to the Evil Overlord. In medieval fantasy settings, this role is often played by an evil strategist, rogue/spymaster, or a dark wizard (provided they aren't also the Big Bad). The Evil Genius is the most likely person to be the Big Bad because they are the brains behind the Evil Plan.
Although they tend to be the most intelligent, that intelligence usually never translates into political savvy, business acumen or leadership ability all of which rely more on street smarts, people skills and charisma than just technical knowledge. As a result, the evil genius is usually never the top dog. But he's still closer to the top than most.
The Evil Genius is a standard character in the Five-Bad Band dynamic. They're usually rather high-ranked, commonly below The Dragon but above the Quirky Miniboss Squad. They are almost exclusively male except in fiction that either has an unusually high female ratio or a female motif for its villains. Because an Evil Genius is not easily replaced and because he's not a realistic contender for the number one spot, his position is often more secure and less precarious than that of The Dragon or even the Big Bad. He usually doesn't need to worry about nasty things like Klingon Promotion eliminating him from the game.
Just like the Smart Guy (his Good Counterpart), this character is very frequently described as physically unimposing. Within the Five-Bad Band, the Evil Genius tends to rank lowest in the likeability department both In-Universe and with the fan base.
Prone to being Bad Boss'd when the ridiculously circuitous plan inevitably fails or if they are no longer needed and viewed as a liability. Whether this leads to a Heel–Face Turn is another matter.
An Evil Genius who is also the Big Bad will frequently be The Chessmaster and maybe even a Magnificent Bastard. They can also show up as members of Quirky Miniboss Squads, but then are usually made significantly less effective by virtue of their quirkiness. They often are also Morally Ambiguous Doctorate. Some even qualify as Four Eyes, Zero Soul.
Not to be confused with the Diabolical Mastermind simulation game Evil Genius, which has its own page. Nor the books by Catherine Jinks, which involve a School for Scheming aimed at creating these.
Dr. Universe: I read an Ayn Rand novel.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Johan Liebert from Monster. He's extremely smart, intellectual, and a sociopathic Serial Killer.
- One Piece makes occasional mention of the World Government's top scientist, Dr. Vegapunk. He is one of the most speculated-upon characters in the manga. Apparently, he's an Omnidisciplinary Scientist, having created a cyborg with Devil fruit powers (Kuma), multiple copies of said cyborg armed with laser weaponry (the Pacifista), catalogued all known devil fruits, revolutionized the power of the sea as uses of Seastone, and figured out a way for inanimate objects to "eat" Devil fruits. For all this, events around the Time Skip have alluded to Vegapunk being morally ambiguous, and truly any statement of him being "evil" before then was an assumption. During the Time Skip, Franky, having burned off all of his skin, rebuilds his body using Vegapunk's technology
- To a lesser extent, Gecko Moria's right hand man Dr Hogback, a surgeon of legendary skill who assisted Moria in creating a zombie army.
- Vegapunk's rival, Ceasar Clown, is stated by all parties except his underlings as being evil and then, only because he shifted the blame for his own atrocities onto Vegapunk, and was arrested by the world government for sabotaging the science team's human experimentation. His arc shows that his reputation is fully deserved
- Uno of Lyrical Nanoha, who is known as the second brain of Jail Scaglietti and acts as Mission Control for the Numbers. Jail himself easily qualifies as Big Bad variation.
- John Smith (no, that's not an alias) from Mai-Otome, with a dash of Mad Scientist thrown in.
- Solf J. Kimblee from Fullmetal Alchemist. On top of being a standout in a World of Badass, he's as sharp and devious as they come with photographic memory to boot.
- Shader in Chrono Crusade serves as the Sinner's main techie. Aion, the Big Bad, has elements as this as well, considering he's a bit of a chessmaster.
- Herr Doktor in Hellsing is the evil genius for Millennium.
- Hakase in Mahou Sensei Negima! probably would have played this part in Chao's evil army if not for the fact that Chao was also an Evil Genius of an even higher degree. Still, this was essentially her role in that she was the one overseeing the ritual to remove the world's Weirdness Censor, not actually taking part in the battle
- Naruto has Orochimaru with Sasori for the Akatsuki after Pain's death Tobi the Big Bad takes the role until Kabuto joins and is this for Tobi's akatsuk army.
- Whether either of them actually qualifies as evil is up for debate.
- Professor Nanba (or is it Kimba?) is the Evil Genius who gives Butch and Cassidy orders in Pokémon.
- Kururu from Sgt. Frog lives and breathes Evil Genius, though he's technically with the good guys.
- Sosuke Aizen from Bleach combines this with Big Bad (as well as Manipulative Bastard, Magnificent Bastard, The Chessmaster, etc).
- Also in Bleach, R&D Head and 12th Company Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi is the Evil Genius for the entire Soul Society along with being the Mad Scientist. His Arrancar counterpart, Smug Snake 8th Espada Sayzel Apporro Granz is more or less the same, but with the addition of Squicky sexual imagery and Sissy Villain to the list. And then there's the Anti-Villain 1st Espada Coyote Stark, who's a Brilliant, but Lazy Awesomeness by Analysis type.
- Koshiro Kokujo of Duel Masters was this, or so he said.
Kokujo: I know everything!
Shobu: How's that?
Kokujo: Because I'm an evil genius! - The Doctor from Black Cat is an Evilutionary Biologist and psychopath who serves as Creed's go to guy for technology and weapons, while doing double duty as a villainous example of The Medic.
- Hoji from Rurouni Kenshin is Shishio's Strategist, logistician, and all around Psycho Supporter.
- Cassius from Kimba the White Lion tends to make the Evil Plans for his boss Claw.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Nicol, The Dark Chick, also took on this role to the Antivillainous Le Creuset team, relying on stealth, caution and an Invisibility Cloak. It only made him more of an outcast on a team of guys who wouldn't know subtle if it bit them in the ass. One could argue that Big Bad Rau Le Creuset also plays this role.
- Amongst the Earth Forces high command, General Staff officer Captain William Sutherland did double-duty as The Dragon and Evil Genius, serving as Muruta Azrael's Number Two and The Strategist. Every morally reprehensible plan you see the Earth Forces execute? This guy's idea.
- As the Only Sane Man among a group of Axe Crazy Tykebombs, Sting Oakley fullfills this role for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny's Extended, since he's the only one with any common sense. He leads the group in Neo's absence, does his best to keep Auel and Stella out of trouble, and is the one who usually has to call retreat. The ZAFT team lacked a specific Evil Genius; fortunately, Big Bad Gilbert Durandal was able to handle both positions.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Chief Engineer Tsubarov was this to the Romefeller Foundation. A brilliant technician, he invented the remote-controlled Mobile Dolls whose useage consumes much of the subsequent plot; he's also one of the few men at the OZ base who realises that using the captive Gundam pilots as test subjects might be a bad idea. Curiously, he had a personality that one would more typically associate with The Brute being a thuggish Jerkass and Smug Snake who loathed pacifism, had No Indoor Voice, dealt with problems by applying as much brute force as possible, and went out in the midst of a truly epic Villainous Breakdown, ranting about how he was invincible.
- The original Evil Genius in a Gundam series was actually Princess Kycilia Zabi. She's one of the Principality of Zeon's better strategists and admirals, is in charge of Newtype research and the new mobile suits and mobile armours that come with it, and on top of it she's a Lady of War who's not afraid of getting her hands dirty if she has to.
- Alister/Amalda was this to Dartz's group of henchmen in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Nesbitt plays this role to the Big 5, being their tech guy and weapons expert; oddly enough, he's perhaps their poorest duelist.
- Eyeshield 21: Jerk Jock Clifford D. Louis is The Strategist and Evil Genius of the American Pentagram, in addition to being a member of the Big Bad Duumvirate alongside Mr. Don. Youichi Hiruma and Reiji Marco could also be considered evil geniuses, with the former being an Antiheroic Guile Hero and the latter his Evil Counterpart and the Big Bad of the Kantou Regionals Arc.
- Fairy Tail gives a few examples.
- Fried Justine pulls double duty, being both this and The Dragon.
- Brain, leader of Oracion Seis, is a full blown Mad Scientist who is also the Big Bad of his arc. Only he's not really the Big Bad, that's his Superpowered Evil Side, Zero.
- Byro from the Edolas arc fights using potions and other chemicals, and has also created Edolas's equivalent of a Wave Motion Gun.
- Samuel from the Zentopia arc cements his status as this with Awesomeness by Analysis.
- Seilah of Tatarus is in charge of the technology that gives her guildmates Resurrective Immortality.
Comic Books
- In Superman comics, Lex Luthor was originally this trope with shades of Big Bad. Post-Crisis the roles were inverted: Luthor was a Big Bad with shades of Evil Genius. He also has some other Evil Geniuses on his payroll.
- The Intergang mob had Dabney Donovan as their Evil Genius.
- The Cyborg Superman builds all of the technology used by the Sinestro Corps, including the Manhunter robots who recharge yellow rings and the space station they used as a base.
- Captain Marvel a.k.a. SHAZAM's enemy Dr Sivana is another early textbook example of this. He's the guy in the picture above. When he's in teams, he finds himself here.
- Captain America foe The Red Skull is often depicted this way.
- Spider-Man has described Doctor Octopus as one, and seeing as Ock is a brilliant engineer and inventor, he fits, although unlike most, whenever he's part of a group, he's usually the one in charge.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles baddie Baxter Stockman can be viewed as a kind-of failed evil genius in most versions.
- Darth Maladi from Star Wars: Legacy is both a Sith alchemist and the head of Sith Intelligence. She's generally portrayed as one of the most cunning Sith characters in the comic, but seems to enjoy her schemes and experiments more for their own sake than from the hope of doing anything constructive with them.
- Also Vul Isen as he is believed to be a scientist. He never accepts anything without a proof.
- In All Fall Down, IQ is VERY bitter about not being one of these anymore.
Films — Animated
- Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 doubles as this and the Big Bad.
- Jumba Jookiba from Lilo & Stitch likes to call himself this, although the "evil" part is eventually subverted. He was even smarter as an "evil genius child prodigy!" And adorable.
Baby!Jumba: "Haha! Ewil! Ewil!"
Films — Live-Action
- A very frequent minion type in the James Bond series.
- Dr. No: Dent to Dr. No. Dr. No himself is this to Blofeld.
- From Russia with Love: Kronsteen to Klebb
- Goldfinger: Ling to Goldfinger
- Thunderball: Kutze to Largo
- Osato (You Only Live Twice) and later Metz (Diamonds Are Forever) to Blofeld
- The Man with the Golden Gun: Hai Fat to Scaramanga
- A View to a Kill: Mortner to Zorin
- Licence to Kill: Krest to Sanchez
- GoldenEye: Boris to Trevelyan
- Tomorrow Never Dies: Gupta to Carver
- The World Is Not Enough: Arkov to Renard
- Die Another Day: Popov to Graves
- There are occasional subversions: Whitaker, Khan, Kananga, Drax, Kristatos, and Le Chiffre were all the "main brains" in their operations as well as the leaders while Stromberg has kills both of his early in the film to cover his tracks.
- Theo to Hans Gruber in the first Die Hard.
- Star Wars:
- Grand Moff Tarkin from A New Hope could count, as he has the Death Star, and is a strategist with his own doctrine.
- And in the prequel trilogy era, Nute Gunray and the Separatist Council fit the role as they are the brain of everything, and later when they are no longer needed, they are killed by their boss.
- Palpatine himself has traits of this.
- James McCullen and the Doctor in GI Joe The Riseof Cobra. At the end of the film, the Doctor becomes the Big Bad, Cobra Commander, and turns McCullen into Destro.
- Mystery Men's Casanova Frankenstein is an evil Disco genius. Even his archnemesis asks him for help with his quips. He wears a set of golden finger cuffs that carry sonic rays and hyper-lasers, and a pair of slippers that emit poison gas. And that's just what his enemy knows he's wearing while he just sits around in his dressing gown.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, has Quartermaster, a zombie who can always predict a future, and he is the one who guides Blackbeard to the Fountain of Youth.
- The Dollars Trilogy
- In A Fistful of Dollars, Ramon Rojo is a non-stereotypical example. In a family of archetypal Mexican banditos, Ramon is The Strategist, concocting the plan to steal the gold from under the Mexican army's nose, and orchestrating the eventual massacre of the rival Baxter family. He's also the only one to see through Joe, and keeps a wary eye on him throughout the film, eventually deducing that he is the traitor in their ranks.
- in For a Few Dollars More, El Indio is a similar case.
- Soundwave plays the Evil Genius role in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon as an intelligence specialist as well as overseeing a decades-long scheme in the latter movie.
- Pete from Neighbors.
- X-Men:
- Magneto, with truly amazing schemes. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he was able to steal a file containing the details of the Sentinels, after reading it over he was somehow able to reprogram them while inserting metal tracks within the bodies.
- Toad from X-Men. He's even seen tampering with Magneto's machine.
- In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Professor Fassbender is a total subversion. A full-blown good guy who was kidnapped along with his daughter Margo by henchmen of former Chief Inspector Dreyfus, he was forced to build a doomsday machine and be part of Dreyfus' criminal organization against his will when Dreyfus used the professor's daughter as leverage. He still hated having to work for a madman bent on world domination. And probably things didn't get better after Dreyfus' defeat as he might have had to face charges for crimes committed against his will (like the destruction of the United Nations building), especially with Dreyfus himself too destroyed to be arrested (assuming the events of the later sequels never happened, including Dreyfus' Unexplained Recovery).
- White House Down has a classical example in Skip Tyler, a computer hacker working for the White Supremacist militia, who spends most of the film in the computer room while listening to classical music. In the end, he gets killed by one of his own traps.
- The Hunger Games: The unnamed male tribute from District 3 to the the Career Tributes' group.
- Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs is probably the most famous example of this trope.
Literature
- Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. He discovered and implemented the Horcrux system himself. Though he does carry the Villain Ball occasionally.
- Barty Crouch Jr. is a better example. He replaces a teacher, kills his father, and lures Harry away from potential protectors, and no one realizes until nearly the last moment what he's up to.
- Professor Moriarty, the Arch-Enemy of Sherlock Holmes, is described by Holmes himself as "a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker." Moriarty uses his brilliant mind to run his criminal organization,and, unlike many other evil geniuses, he is clearly the boss.
- In The Elenium, by David Eddings, Krager is this to Annias and Martel. Annias himself is this to Azash.
- Its sequel, The Tamuli, gives us Zalasta.
- The Five-Bad Band in Eddings' The Redemption of Althalus has Argan, a Smug Snake and Sinister Minister who does most of Daeva's talking for him, and has a distinctive rivalry with Ghend.
- In The Witcher, we have Vilgefortz. He is easily the most smart and powerful wizard in the North, and he let it get into his head.
- Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire, an educated, smart, and calculating dwarf sort of qualifies. However, he wasn't really an ally of House Lannister and he was enemies with Tywin. He embodies this trope in his own organization, in which he is also the Big Bad. He isn't really that evil though.
- Also, from the group of Brave Companions we have Qyburn and Septon Utt.
- The Artemis Fowl series is full of these, which makes sense, since the protagonist himself is a Teen Genius, and that requires antagonists to match. We have Artemis himself in book 1 (in his status as Villain Protagonist), Opal Koboi in book 2, Jon Spiro in book 3, Opal Koboi again in book 4, Minerva in book 5, Opal Koboi AGAIN in book 6. Turnball Root in book 7, and Opal yet AGAIN in book 8.
- Transformers: TransTech Shockwave, master of Playing with Syringes, is a self-proclaimed "morally ambiguous" genius.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us Bevel Lemelisk, chief designer of the Death Star, although the actual designers were superintelligent alien children whose planet was being held hostage.
- Trapped on Draconica: Lucia's the one with the magical know-how for the evil beasts and teleportation spells and other magic to power Gothon's army.
- Several members of the Forsaken in The Wheel of Time, including Ishamael (specializes in philosophy, theology, and metaphysics), Graendal (specializes in personal manipulation) and Demandred (specializes in millitary strategy).
- The main character of Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain is a Mad Scientist who comes up with both most of the technology and most of the plans her team uses.
- In Agatha Christie's story "The Face of Helen", the villain is a brilliant chemist who specialized in poison gas during World War I, and attempts to murder the object of his unrequited love with an elaborate death trap involving a glass sphere full of gas and a Glass-Shattering Sound.
Live Action TV
- Most incarnations of Power Rangers and Super Sentai have one of these among the villains, with responsibilities commonly including mass-producing Mooks and the Monster of the Week, making monsters grow, and generally being the one who knows the most about the finer points of the magic/technology of the season. In Power Rangers, the first and probably the most iconic among fans was Finister, the series' first monster maker.
- Smallville had plenty of Evil Geniuses, with Lionel Luthor, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Winslow "The Toyman" Schott running around. One interesting example was Tess Mercer, who started out as a villain, but eventually pulled a Heel–Face Turn. She became one of two Smart Guys on the heroic side, but still in traditionally evil areas, being The Chessmaster, a Manipulative Bastard, and The Cracker to Emil Hamilton's Medic and Gadgeteer Genius.
- Giller from Legend of the Seeker is both Mad Scientist and Evil Sorcerer; the two most typical archtypes that fall under this trope.
- Elizabeth from Wicked Science becomes a genius and she uses her new intelligence as a way to try to get money, fame and Toby's affections. The evil part is that she has little morals when it comes to use her inventions, including using a teleporter to sneak in Toby's laboratory so her goon can destroy/steal/sabotage whatever Toby is creating in the episode, or trapping him in a "Groundhog Day" Loop so he accepts the new universe in which he's trapped, where they are a couple and his friends hate him.
- Depending on whether you see them as Antiheroes or Antivillains, Hardison of Leverage Consulting & Associates is either The Smart Guy or Evil Genius. His Evil Counterpart, Colin "Chaos" Mason is a non-ambiguous example being an Insufferable Genius and Jerkass extraordinaire who seems to view committing crimes as a way to stroke his own ego, and constantly betrays his own allies.
- Revenge: If you go by Alternate Character Interpretation, Mason Treadwell seems to take this role later in the first season, although he isn't fully aware of his role in Emily's scheming.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel:
- Pretty much all of the big bads both the Scoobies and Angel Investigations go up against - though definitely except Glory. Much straighter variations though are Warren Mears and Angelus. While both are Manipulative Bastards Warren is a more straight-up Mad Scientist, while Angelus is The Chessmaster.
- Toru especially - he builds a device capable of projecting a hologram, a giant Mecha-Dawn, and a device capable of casting a spell worldwide to Depower the Slayers.
- Breaking Bad is a Deconstruction of this in a more realistic setting.
- The campy 60's Batman series had lots of villains who were Canon Foreigners but one of the few who was entertaining enough to make return appearances was the Evil Genius Egghead, played by Vincent Price (who often commented publically how much he enjoyed playing the role).
- Doctor Who: Davros, creator of the Daleks. Though crippled with only one working arm, he created the most dangerous life form the universe has ever seen and set them on a path of genocide against all other forms of life in existence. His intellect is so great that the Daleks often will refuse to kill him, despite him being an "inferior" creature by their doctrine, simply because his intelligence is too useful to them. Even the Doctor readily admits Davros' genius, and he is not one inclined to praise other's mental capabilities (at least not without stating how much smarter he is). As for why he's doing any of this? If the Daleks win, and all life is wiped out save for them... it would be his hand that set it all in motion. He would be the one who killed the universe.
Davros: That power would set me above the gods! And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!
Mythology
- Shakuni, Evil Uncle of Evil Prince Duryodhana in the Mahabharata
Professional Wrestling
- Manager turned wrestler turned manager "Pretty Boy" Bobby Heenan, while perhaps not thinking of himself as "evil", is insufferable on anything he believes to be correct and almost completely immoral. In WCW it turned out he didn't approve of the new World order though but true to the trope, was the only one to suggest Hulk Hogan might be a part of it, though he had been critical of Hogan since the AWA. Another irony is that Heenan had to drop out of school as a child due to a lack of money got his first managerial role after carrying wrestler bags to support his family. His loud mouth "Brain" persona may have been a front.
- Lightning Hernandez was described as "an evil genius" on the Dominican Republic television program "International Wrestling" and was implied to be directing all the bad wrestlers and managers(but then, Jack Veneno was implied to be behind all the tecnicos).
- In the remnants of the National Wrestling Alliance, "The Mastermind" Dave DuPont is an expy of Heenan, shifting between wrestler and manager.
Tabletop Games
- In Magic: The Gathering, Yawgmoth is this and the Big Bad, but in New Phyrexia, with its five-color theme, Jin-Gitaxis, the blue praetor, takes this role.
- Warhammer 40K has Fabius Bile, former Apothecary of the Emperor's Children. Unlike most examples, he's very much imposing, being seven feet tall and wearing Power Armor, makes the Training from Hell and surgical procedures to make Chaos Space Marines even more restrictive, and has even declared that the four gods of Chaos have nothing left to offer him.
Video Games
- Wild ARMs 1 had the Mad Scientist demon Alhazad. Wild ARMs 4 had part scientist, part strategist Augst.
- Albert Silverberg of Suikoden III.
- Izuka in Fire Emblem 10 (Radiant Dawn).
- In Advance Wars Black Hole Rising and Dual Strike, Perky Goth Lash provides the bad guys with all of their advanced technology.
- Caulder/Dr Stolos in Days of Ruin, who eventually becomes the Big Bad.
- Hazama/Terumi Yuuki from BlazBlue. The most dangerous thing about his genius, however, isn't his trancendental knowledge of alchemy, which allowed him to create the titular Blaz Blue, the Black Beast, Arakune and some other unpleasant things, but rather his tactical genius, which, so far, has allowed him to outmaneuver an omniscient supercomputer with three minds (although he got help from the guy below). Then again, Hazama himself would qualify in any positions given in the Five-Bad Band.
- If this is what Hazama entails, then there must also be a mention of Relius Clover, a brilliant researcher who sought only perfection and has performed horrendous experiments and plans (as shown during his EX Story where he practically played Sector Seven and Kokonoe for chumps to create his Ignis). He just got less time to shine than Hazama though his inclusion as a playable character and a story mode for him in elevated him a bit.
- In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Vexen, a sterotypical Mad Scientist fits for this role. Then, in Kingdom Hearts II we have Luxord, a strategic gambler.
- In the original Kingdom Hearts, Jafar definately owned this role.
- Galak Fyyar from Jedi Outcast.
- In Epic Mickey, The Mad Doctor appears to be The Dragon for the Shadow Blot. Later however, it is revealed that the Shadow Blot himself is The Dragon for the real Shadow Blot (the other Blot revealed to be just a disconnected part). This moves our Mad Scientist, to the position of this trope.
- Agnus fills this position for Sanctus in Devil May Cry 4. Although one could equally argue that he's The Dragon, as he appears to be the only member of the Order beyond Sanctus who truly understands what's going on, killing him is the last thing that needs to be done before the final confrontation, and the nominal Dragon is a Honor Before Reason Hero Antagonist.
- The player character in Evil Genius, Captain Obvious.
- Murzhor in Hero's Realm. He's got a bit of Masterof Illusion to boot.
- Dr. Elvin Atombender from the Impossible Mission games is a genius computer programmer and former university professor. Although he has been unstable his whole life, he officially became criminally insane when a power failure caused the deletion of an artificial intelligence program that he had nearly finished. The player must stop him from hacking into the defense networks of the world's superpowers and starting a nuclear holocaust.
- Dr. Vu in the SimCity and The Sims series.
- Lunar: The Silver Star has Taben, who creates a mechanical army for the Vile Tribe and Magic Emperor.
- Strider has Herzog Schlange in Strider 2 and Professor Schlange in the HD Strider remake. Both are (mad) geniuses in charge of building the bizarre mechanical monsters and weapons used by the Grandmaster's army. In the latter's case, he's charged over the Grandmaster's entire research complex, and seems to be only below Juroung in terms of ranks. Though this didn't save him from being offed in the end.
- The Grandmaster himself has shades of this, though he leans more toward genetic engineering instead of robotics, in his quest to create a new race to which replace "the sons of old gods" and rule Earth as a true God.
- Dr. Kimaira in Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, notably because he's a Mad Scientist who creates wooden automatons with hidden machine-guns in medieval Japan.
- Crow from Nefarious, who doubles as the playable Villain Protagonist.
- Though most of Umbrella's scientists in Resident Evil counted as this, the most developed and well-known of them all was William Birkin. Not only was he one of the few scientists to not be completely unstable and insane, as he managed to have a (relatively) normal family life with a wife and child, but he was also responsible for creating both the T and G viruses which drove the entire plot up to Resident Evil 4. Albert Wesker's also pretty darned intelligent too, though his skills are more of the Chess Master / Magnificent Bastard variety rather than lab worknote .
- Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag has Julien du Casse playing this role for the Templars, serving as the Order's main supplier of weaponry and ammunition.
Visual Novels
Webcomics
- Folly and Innovation uses this trope here
speculating Facebook's origins
- Girl Genius is crawling with them. Even some protagonists, on a few occasions.
- Dr Nonami has Dr. Mechano, an eccentric yet dangerous evil mastermind.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Redcloak, who also happens to play Team Evil's Dragon with an Agenda.
- General Tarquin is sort of this to his own team of aging adventurers (nicknamed "The Vector Legion"). According to Word of the Giant, the other team members see him as the 'ideas guy', whose Genre Savvy allows him to come up with plans that a group of very powerful evil adventurers can all join in on for their mutual benefit without backstabbing each other. Tarquin himself thinks this makes him their leader. The others don't, but think he's useful enough not to press the issue. They also have two actual evil geniuses who takes care of all the actual planning and minutiae.
- Wayward Sons: Doctor Chu, who very much enjoys performing torturous experiments on live subjects.
- Elia of True Villains takes over most Evil Genius duties. Just replace technology with magic.
Web Original
- Führer Katrina Seran from v2 of Open Blue was a strategist, Chess Master, and ship captain who became ruler of her country at the age of 20, possibly due to her own machinations.
- Belial in The Salvation War is one of these, and is the one Baldrick who actually inflicts serious damage on the humans.
- Doctor Steel. Naturally.
- The Global Guardians PBEM Universe has several. Doctor Simian, the Evil Mastermind, Brainchild, and Baron Malthus are the most notable examples.
- In the Whateley Universe, there are lots of Mad Scientist types. The ones who work for other supervillains tend to be characters like Chessmaster or Nimbus. The two of them nearly destroyed Whateley Academy on Halloween.
- Dr. Spectre from The Tyrannosaur Chronicles.
- Tattletale fills this role in Worm, though it should be noted that she's not supersmart, instead her power makes her a master of the Sherlock Scan, which she uses to great effect in social, combat, and political situations.
Western Animation
- Tarantulas of Beast Wars is this all over the place.
- Darkwing Duck gives as Bushroot, a member of the Fearsome Five group, which makes perfect example of Five-Bad Band.
- Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory.
- Exo Squad has a race of Evil Geniuses called Neo Megas.
- Heloise on Jimmy Two-Shoes, whenever it suits her to work for Lucius.
- Wraith in The Mighty Ducks, distinguished for mainly using magic when the Big Bad prefers technology.
- Doctor Octopus goes the extra mile by having "Evil Genius" printed on the side of his coffee mug in The Spectacular Spider-Man. Although he is subordinate to no one.
- Alistair Smythe works as an evil genius for the Kingpin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series
- Two examples from Teen Titans- Gizmo is the resident Gadgeteer Genius of the HIVE Five, though his utter lack of people skills keeps him from rising any higher, while the Brain pulls double duty as Evil Genius and Big Bad of the Brotherhood of Evil.
- Cartman himself from South Park is this in "Scott Tenorman Must Die", where he tricked Scott Tenorman into eating his parents after calculating a painstaking amount of detail, up to Cartman's friends betraying him.
- Xiaolin Showdown: Though he doesn't fit all of the character tropes, Jack Spicer (himself a self-proclaimed Evil Genius, with emphasis on self-proclaimed) calls Chase Young "the greatest Evil Genius in the world" and there's no denying that it's true. As for Jack himself - there's no denying that he is a genius, it's just whether or not he's actually, you know, evil.
- In The Legend of Korra, both Varrick and Baatar Jr. (who's also The Dragon and Doctor Boyfriend) could be considered this for Kuvira's army, being Mad Scientists; when Varrick defects, Baatar takes the role full-time. Of course, it's more or less clear Baatar is much better than Varrick, a fact the latter is loathe to put up with.
- In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, there is Rhona Edwin, who was the best student at the Tomorrow Academy before Tony Stark showed up. After becoming convinced that Tony has been cheating, she takes the entire school hostage and forces Tony into a sort of game show from hell to prove his intelligence.
- Dr. Stinger from Super Duper Sumos is an interesting example because, while none of the other villains showed him any respect at all, he was really the only one on the villains' side who ever actually did anything.
- Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. A Ditzy Genius to be sure, but like the title characters, he's nevertheless smart enough to invent anything in only a few hours, even to the point of flagrantly defying the laws of physics.
- Brain in Pinky and the Brain'... kinda; despite attempting to Take Over the World every night, he's not really evil.
