Dr. Albert W. Wily
Voiced by: Ian James Corlett (Captain N), Takeshi Aono (JP), Kenichi Ogata (JP, OVA), Scott McNeil (Animated series, OVA, Puzzle Fighter), Chikao Ohtsuka (Rockman 7 Ad), Takaoh Ishimori (Arcade), Douglas Kendall (EN, Mega Man 8), Dean Galloway (EN, Powered Up), Hideyuki Umezu (JP, Mega Man 11), Keith Silverstein (EN, Mega Man 11)
From Mega Man 11.
The main antagonist of the series and Dr. Light's former associate. Jealous of being overshadowed by his former colleague's success, he reprogrammed the original six Robot Masters and used them to take over the city, and would eventually attempt to conquer the world with them.
Ever since then, Wily has repeatedly attempted to take over the world with middling degrees of success each time. He’ll use a variety of methods, from creating his own Robot Masters, to stealing other Robot Masters, to manipulating other people. Every time he’s defeated, however, one thing that is always guaranteed is him pleading for mercy, begging for forgiveness and promising that he’ll never do anything bad again. His infamy lives on in the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero series, as both prominently feature Zero, the doctor’s final creation, and other aspects of the series have his lingering influence on them as well.
Robot Masters that have been designed by Wily usually bear the serial number DWN.XXX (Doctor Wily Numbers), although some special-purpose ones such as Bass have the serial number SWN.XXX (Special Wily Number). This numbering system also includes robots that have been stolen by Wily that aren’t from Dr. Light, with the supposed modifications being made to them acting as justification.
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20XX
- Aborted Arc: Whatever arc the X Series had going on with him is officially dropped by the time of X7.
- Actually a Doombot: He initially had the Alien from Mega Man 2 take his form in fighting Mega Man, until the Blue Bomber defeated it twice in both the Wily Machine 2 it was piloting and the Alien itself with Bubble Man's Bubble Lead. From Mega Man 3 onwards, it's played more straight when he has a robotic decoy of himself pilot the Wily Machine 3, had another decoy beg for mercy during Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters during the "Search for Wily" storyline, with Mega Man, Bass, and Duo tricked into thinking he was the real deal note and had another decoy fight alongside him in Mega Man 10's Wily Capsule boss fight, this one having grey skin and red triangle on his forehead, similar to what Reploids would later have in Mega Man ZX, 2 centuries after Zero, his last and greatest creation, fulfilled Dr. Light's dream and his original dream. In addition, he also replaced Dr. Light with a robot decoy of him in both Rockman: Yomigaeru Blues and Mega Man 9.
- Always Second Best: To Dr. Light. No matter what he did, no matter what awards he'd gotten, he was always the runner up. As a result, Light is considered "The Father of Modern Robotics" in the present, with his work providing the primary foundation of the Mega Man world's future; while Wily, despite his final creation's inadvertent heroism centuries later, is primarily remembered as a villain for his nefarious actions that ultimately stem from his jealousy.
- Anti-Villain: In 10, he leaves behind enough cures for Roboenza following his escape, and in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, he calls Zero his son and doesn't really care that he hasn't killed X anymore. Also, in Rockman Gold Empire
, he was this close to finally quitting the world domination business, and according to one magazine issue, he eventually did see the error of his ways in the future Quint originated. However, the "anti" part goes away in Mega Man X, and he becomes a straight up monster. - Arch-Enemy: To Mega Man. His first scheme involving stealing the first 6 Robot Masters he and Light created togethernote forced Rock to become the Blue Bomber and stop his evil ambitions to one up his former friend and colleague.
- Art Evolution: Initially being an Einstein Expy, his design eventually evolved over time to have his hair stylized in his more trademark bat-wing-like style, as well as having a more lean appearance while still retaining his usual clothes.
- Bald of Evil: While he has wild hair on the sides of his head, he has none on top.
- Bat Out of Hell: Aside from the Battons and their various variants, in addition to creating the Tabans from Mega Man 5, and Shade Man, one of the Robot Masters in his service, his hair resembles the wings of a bat.
- Batman Gambit: After framing Dr. Light in 9, Wily coerces the population to fund his efforts to stop him. The funding instead went into building Wily's new Fortress guardians.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: 11 reveals that Wily's initial goal was to use the Double Gear system to create "true heroes" out of robots. After his project was rejected in favor of Light's, however, he became consumed with jealousy and resentment until he became a megalomaniacal Mad Scientist hell-bent on world domination as we know him by now. Ironically, though he had more sinister motivations in creating him, Zero would eventually go on to become this "true hero" he initially wanted to create.
- Beware the Silly Ones: At first glance, he's just a cooky, stubborn jerk of a mad scientist who looks like Einstein, right? As a direct result of his actions over the course of his life of villainy, he would subsequently doom the world for centuries to constant war and no fewer than two different near-apocalypses. This is to speak nothing of his greatest creation, which, upon having his original personality restored, single-handedly wiped out nearly all sentient life on Earth. And this was while they were still recovering from the first near-apocalypse, in which it was stated he somehow had a direct hand in despite being dead for nearly a hundred years.
- Big Bad: The mad scientist to contrast Dr. Light, using the Robot Masters in order to control the world rather than benefit mankind. Almost every game in the classic series is about stopping him.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Whenever another villain overthrows Wily like Sunstar in V and Ra Moon in Super Adventure Rockman.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He'd rather hijack Dr. Light's creations than make his own, but what he does make is exceptionally high-quality — Bass and Zero being prime examples. That is not to say his "Wily Machines"— while the quality and strength of each machine can vary wildly, the "Wily Capsules" always give intense(ly frustrating) battles in almost every game, in addition to creating various Wily Bots of his own, such as Bomb Filers, Holograns, and Junk Golems, Imorms, Kabatoncues, and Mantans, Dachones, Mousubeils, Power Musclers, and Tabans, Gorilla Tanks, Hotchkiss'ns, Peats, Pelicanus, and Power Slams, and many more, such as the Mecha-Dragon, Guts Tank, and Mechazaurus Fortress Bosses. χ-kai-'s backstory, if taken as canon, implies that Wily actually got his hands on X's blueprints, but gave up on taking advantage of it because X's logic circuits were too difficult for him to replicate, instead focusing on Zero.
- Also, out of over a hundred Robot Masters featured in the series thus far, Wily has only designed and created around forty of them just by himself, the rest being stolen and reprogrammed, or in the case of the third game, designed with help from Dr. Light (and even then, there was Shadow Man, who was built by aliens). And that's including King, Bass, the Mega Man Killers and the Genesis Unit, without them the count is merely 32, not counting Doc Robot and the Dark Men. The man can be brilliant when he works up the effort, but maybe he'd have more success convincing people of his genius if he wasn't a chronic kleptomaniac and plagiarist. He even has the gall to make all of the stolen robots part of the DWN series!
- The Cameo: Drs. Light and Wily appear in Resident Evil 3 (Remake) of all places, on a subway poster advertising an upcoming Science forum.
- Character Tics: Raising his eyebrows repeatedly.
- Charlie Brown from Outta Town: In 6, instead of working in the shadows behind another villain, he dons a fake beard and calls himself "Mr. X".
- The Chessmaster: He was mainly responsible for the events of almost all of the games, sometimes even doing it in such a way where the blame couldn't possibly be pinned on him, demonstrating his tactical genius (supplementary material states that he's outright smarter than Dr. Light, just more self-centered and ego-driven, though not necessarily smarter in all areas - if we take χ-kai-'s backstory from Mega Man X DiVE as canon, Wily tried to replicate X's logic circuits despite having stolen a copy of the blueprints but simply gave up due to the sheer difficulty of the task, meaning he couldn't match Light in terms of expertise with advanced AI). In fact, the only game that had something happen that he was not responsible for at all (or at least, he certainly didn't intend for it to go that way at all) was Rockman & Forte: Challenger from the Future, where, although Wily did technically create Rockman Shadow, he was not involved in Shadow's attack at all. This extends to the next 100 years in the X series.
- Cool Shades: As seen in Megamix manga.
- Cool Starship: His iconic Wily UFO, which has a variety of features, such as claws to grab objects such as the Guts Man from the Robot Master Museum, Evil Energy, and the Memory Circuit detailing Wily's involvement, a tractor beam, a Speed Gear, and a laser beam, in addition to attaching itself to the Wily Machines 1 and 2, while making this sound.
- Costume Evolution: In Mega Man 8 and Mega Man & Bass, he trades the lab coat for a white Badass Cape before reverting back to his old look for Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10. His changes his look up again in Mega Man 11 with a new black shirt and a subtle redesign of his coat as a Badass Longcoat.
- Crazy-Prepared: Just to provide an example: in 10, he unleashed a robot plague that he allowed to cause himself to be attacked just to make his story of innocence more credible, working with the heroes to create a cure so he could dangle it over the heads of infected robots, as he engineered the virus to have a warmup time before they went berserk so they might agree to serve him in exchange for a cure. While he was at it, he infected Mega Man before he left. And just in case that somehow didn't take, he set up a fortress. And then he set up a fortress on top of that fortress, upside-down and in space.
- Demoted to Extra: There is exactly one game in the classic Mega Man series where Dr. Wily is not fought and isn't even the villain of the game; the obscure WonderSwan game Rockman & Forte: Challenger from the Future. The villain is Rockman Shadow, who may have been built by Wily, but he's completely acting of his own accord and wants Mega Man and Bass to destroy him. Wily doesn't appear at all in-game, and is only mentioned in passing in the manual.
- Determinator: He just doesn't know when to quit with his plans of world domination.
- Dirty Coward: Wily acts out of pride, not honor. There's really no slimy trick or deception he won't try to cover his own hide.
- Einstein Hair: He even shares the same first name!
- Embarrassing Pyjamas: In 11 he wears light purple ones with a skull pattern.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Suddenly recalls one of his research concepts in 11.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He outright states in Super Adventure Rockman that he does love his robots.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Dr. Light is his biggest rival and simply wants to prove he's the better scientist. He's more or less above killing a fellow human like Light but destroying his robot kids is fair game.
- Evil Counterpart: To Dr. Light.
- Evil Laugh Turned Coughing Fit: In 10, he signs off his broadcast announcing him to be the creator of Robozena and brags that the world is his, though at the end of his evil laughing, he sneezes. It's a sign he's caught a cold.
- Evil Old Folks: According to Mega Man & Bass's Japanese manual, he's 57 by the time the events of that game occur.
- Eyebrow Waggle: He does this in all of the classic games before you go to his castle stage, lampshading his bad guy status.
- Failure Is the Only Option: He will never succeed in taking over the world, because Mega Man will always be there to stop him.
- False Friend: In 3, where he "reformed" as Dr. Light's partner (although the Archie version portrays him as more internally conflicted than he lets on).
- Final Boss: Serves as the final opponent in all games.
- Final-Exam Boss: In the Normal and Hard modes of Mega Man Powered Up.
- Freudian Excuse: He only turned evil because he was tired of being in Light's shadow. 11 clarifies this when Light was against Wily's own ideas, including his gear system. Suffice to say, he was not pleased.
- Gadgeteer Genius: While he was never able to outpace Dr. Light in life, it should be noted that as a whole Wily is incredibly gifted in his own right, as he can create robot masters and other such gadgets that can give Mega Man a real challenge in the span of months based on some of the time frame gaps in between games. His ultimate creation, Zero, not only ends up outlasting Dr. Light's ultimate creation, X but is still an incredible powerhouse that is able to outpace creations that have centuries of technological advancements over him. χ-kai-'s backstory implies that Wily's main expertise is the physical construction and engineering, and while he's no slouch with AI, he never was able to catch up to Light in that department, as he gave up on trying to replicate X's logic circuits due to the sheer difficulty despite having stolen X's blueprints, meaning Light's magnum opus was indeed the most advanced pre-Reploid AI system ever created.
- Greater-Scope Paragon: An unintentional one. His creation, Zero, manages to be one of the strongest heroes in X and beyond, despite his original intent for him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: By
Word of God, Wily somehow restored himself after his death to manipulate Sigma, and his virus has been plaguing the world for hundreds of years after his passing. - Green-Eyed Monster: This is why Dr. Wily became a villain, although his previous position depends on the translation and instruction manual — either he started out as Dr. Light's assistant and then wasn't given enough credit for his help, or he started out as an unaffiliated rival but Dr. Light kept outshining him. Either way, he couldn't stand the public seeing Dr. Light as better than him, so he intends to take over the world to prove his brilliance. 11 expands on this by Wily turning heel due to his well-intentioned (but dangerous) invention, the Double Gear System, being rejected by the council in favor of Light's thesis on free-thinking robots.
- Herr Doktor: Wily has a pronounced German accent in the cartoon series.
- Hijacked By Dr. Wily: Extending into the X series!
- Subverted exactly once in the classic series when Sunstar turns on him in V.
- Inverted in Super Adventure Rockman, because Ra Moon turns on him.
- Honor Before Reason: When they were starting out, both Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were interested in bettering robot standings in society. However, whereas Dr. Light wanted to increase robot independence so they could become partners to mankind, Wily developed an apparatus to vastly increase a robot's performance that they may be something to be idolized. While the series explores the dangers of both, Wily's were far more immediately present and unmitigated, but he refused to acknowledge any of it. And of course, when his research was dropped from support.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: There are occasions when a weapon of his own design is the only reason Mega Man could ultimately defeat him. For example, in Mega Man 2, his Alien Hologram Machine is only damaged by Bubble Lead. Had he not created Bubble Man, Mega Man could have never stolen the weapon to use against it, thus preventing Mega Man from possessing any means of destroying the final obstacle.
- Hypocrite: Wily calls foul in 11 for the Light household using his Double Gear System against him. This from Albert Wily. You know, the Mad Scientist who built up at least half his forces from stealing other peoples' robots and designs. Heck, even in the same game, he stole Light's latest series of Robot Masters to test his revised system on!
- I Have Your Daughter: In Mega Man 4, Wily blackmails Dr. Cossack into doing his dirty work by holding his daughter Kalinka captive.
- Iron Butt Monkey:
- Try to remember that, when his Wily Machines go into their second forms, the target would usually be Wily himself, with little to no protection against a robot attack. This is at its finest in Powered Up, where he visibly flinches whenever an attack hits him!
- He's also survived being crushed under the rubble of at least one crumbling castle, two crash landings (which, naturally, resulted in a huge explosion each time), and catching a cold. Clearly, that man has great physical health!
- Irony:
- A grander scale that carried all the way to the Zero series: he created Zero to specifically fight X to the death, but by the time X and Zero meet, they become close friends who saved the world countless times. And then by the time of the Zero series, not only did Zero outlive X, he also unified human and robot relations. So Wily basically accomplished Dr. Light's goals.
- Two-fold with Zero. Wily never intended to create Zero to be Three Laws-Compliant, but he ends up following them by his own choice. Doing this not only gave Zero enough morality to deal with Dr. Weil, but killing him ends up saving the world. Thusly, Dr. Wily created a non-compliant powerful robot who can kill human mass murderers without repercussions, something Mega Man himself couldn't do. This irony extends to the above example.
- It's mentioned in Mega Man X Di VE that Wily's specialty was never in AI and was much more into the mechanics of robot creation, specifically noting that he couldn't understand X's AI from his stolen blueprints and largely gave up on it to focus more on the mechanical aspect of them. Not only did the AI that would become Zero outlast X in the long term, but it eventually grew crafty and skilled enough to take down its original body at full power while using a much more inferior replica of his body.
- It's Personal: In Mega Man 11, Wily loved his Double Gear System invention so much that he took high pride in it, so after learning that Light installed the prototype Double Gear that he invented back in Robot University into Mega Man, he of course didn't take very kindly to that, and, after the defeat of all of the eight Robot Masters he installed the Double Gear into, he let the crew of Light Labs know of it in no uncertain terms.Wily: How dare you use my Double Gear System! Now you've crossed the line. I'll turn you into scrap myself!
- I Was Quite a Looker: Now we know where Zero gets his good looks from! Would you have believed that Wily used to look like this? The flashbacks in 11 aren't too far off from it either.
- Joker Immunity: It took three games before Wily seemingly met his end, but an observant player can easily see during the ending that he's still kicking. It took three more to simply go to jail, and even that only lasts for half a year.
- Knight of Cerebus: Surprisingly, his involvement in the X series, but especially X4 and X5 are this. In X4, he urges Zero to kill X in the former's nightmares, while in X5, he has direct (but unseen) involvement in the game's plot. He's also responsible with the Maverick Virus that's meant to make Zero stronger, and it spreads wherever he goes.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: 11 sheds light on Wily's past, showing the start of his feud with Dr. Light. Wily actually had good intentions with his Double Gear System, that would turn a robot into a revered and respected hero, but Light saw the dangerous flaw of his design and came up with the idea of giving robots free and independent thought instead. However, while both ideas would ultimately not be ideal, Wily's thesis presented far more immediate and concrete ethical complicationsnote and his research was rejected in favor of Light's. It's really no wonder why Wily decided to stop playing nice and became Light's rival. Light himself realizes that he should have tried to compromise with Wily, admits that the Double Gear System can be used properly and attempts to reconcile with him, though it is rejected. The game shows that while Wily is still a villain, he wasn't always the total monster as we've come to know him.
- Mad Scientist: Wily fits the archetype to a T, always plotting to take over the world with an army of robots both stolen and self-made.
- The Man Behind the Man: A common tactic of his, Wily is responsible for Dr. Cossack briefly going evil in 4, using Dark Man to frame Proto Man for kidnapping Dr. Light in 5, and inverts it by pretending to be the man behind himself in 6 by posing as Mr. X, and the list keeps going on and on right on to the X series long after he died due to the Maverick Virus.
- McNinja: He claims to be a ninja in the Japanese OVAs.
- Money Dumb: Dr. Wily tends to suffer from money issues, sometimes from having a very limited budget, sometimes from not using it or his income sources wisely. Unlike Dr. Light, he didn't start with private funding followed by a successful business, so multiple times in the series his works have been noted to have been influenced by his budget.
- Crystal Man was originally designed to make crystals, which provided Wily a steady source of income for his other schemes... until Crystal Man was repurposed as a fighting robot.
- This is most fraught in the Gear Fortress of Mega Man 11, where Dr. Wily's overly-ambitious attempt to mass-produce and apply the Double Gear System on such a scale left him too dried up on money and time to incorporate it in all the ways he'd wanted, and had to cut corners on his fortress bosses. Yellow Devil Mk III was supposed to use both of them, and Mawverne was intended to be a Dual Boss with a Speed and Power Gear split between its two units.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He got dropped from the Robotics Institute of Technology, so technically speaking Wily's not a certified doctor. That's not going to stop him from telling everybody he is, and since he's well-known to have the credentials where intellect is concerned, nobody calls him on it.
- Mysterious Middle Initial: His full name is Albert W. Wily. What the W stands for has never been specified.
- Mundane Utility: What does Wily do after being defeated yet again? Cut his losses and run away using his Gear System? Nope! He uses it to beg for mercy. And this man is responsible for the Crapsack World that is Mega Man X?
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The name "Wily" does not exactly scream "morally upstanding individual".
- Not Me This Time: Becomes a recurring theme in the later games. In all of them, he was faking his story.
- In Mega Man 3, Wily appears to have turned a new leaf and has nothing to do with the recent rash of robot rebellions that are hindering the construction of Gamma.
- In Mega Man & Bass, Wily claims that King usurped him and is building his own robot army while recruiting 2 of his Robot Masters, Astro Man and Tengu Man, from the Evil Energy incident into his fold.
- In Mega Man 9, Wily claims to be completely innocent when Dr. Light's newest Robot Masters start rebelling again, and implicates Dr. Light.
- In Mega Man 10, Wily claims to have nothing to do with the Roboenza epidemic.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: After so many times that he has decayed, you'd think that he isn't a credible threat anymore, right? Tell that to the future generations...
- Obviously Evil: Dr. Wily isn't exactly known for his subtlety. If the shifty eyes don't give it away, the skull motifs on his castle, Wily Machines, and pretty much everything else certainly do.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Mr. X from Mega Man 6 is really Dr. Wily in disguise? But Mr. X has a beard! And opaque glasses! And a cape! And a dot on his forehead!
- Past Experience Nightmare: As the man himself says in the prologue of Mega Man 11:Dr. Wily: Bad memories make the worst dreams. A genius of my caliber needs sleep to keep his brain in gear...
- Pet the Dog: In Super Adventure, Wily says he loves his robots and would never give them up. That didn't particularly last, mind, but hey, he felt it at some point. He also warned Mega Man that using the Double Mega/Rock Buster might kill him.
- In Zero's ending in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, his calling Zero "son"...unless the "unfinished task" he mentioned there is "Kill your best friend in his sleep", which is entirely possible.
- But, it is shown, in 10, when he leaves the hospital, the clincher? He left probably about enough Roboenza capsules to cure an entire population.
- Pose of Supplication: Dr. Wily does this every time his most powerful war machine is destroyed. In the first game he seems sincere about it, but after that he usually does it to distract Mega Man so he can make his escape. This doesn't always work...
- In 6, Mega Man cuts to the chase and arrests Wily. This winds up setting up the events of the next game.
- In 7, Mega Man seriously contemplates blowing Wily's brains out; Wily is saved by dint of collapsing lair and Bass.
- In 9, Mega Man shows Wily a montage of every prior instance of this trope; Wily manages to find another way to escape.
- In 10, Mega Man takes Wily to a hospital due to the cold he was suffering from; Wily gets away, but leaves enough Roboenza vaccines behind to sample an effective cure.
- In 11, after defeating the second phase of the Wily Machine 11, Wily announces that he's resorting to his "Plan B", does a dramatic backwards leap in slow motion (complete with Speed Echoes)...and then assumes this pose again. Mega Man, of course, doesn't buy it since he used it so much that he knows Wily is just lying to save himself, but Wily escapes anyway because Light tries to talk him out of villainy to no avail.
- This has become such a trademark pose for Wily that his trophy in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS depicts him doing it, and knocking out his Assist Character form in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will cause him to do it as well.
- Pride: He decided to Take Over the World essentially because he was sick with being in Dr. Light's shadow. Despite his numerous failed attempts, he refuses to acknowledge anyone as superior to himself. Hell, the man loved his Double Gear system...until Dr. Light used it on Mega Man to combat the newest batch of Robot Masters Wily stole and outfitted with said system.
- Properly Paranoid: Before his Start of Darkness, Wily tried to convince the Board of Robotics and Dr. Light that humans can’t rely on his eventual ex-colleague’s optimism of having robots with independent thought, though said research won out anyway over Wily’s Double Gear System. Come 21XX and beyond, while Dr. Light, having created X as the first Reploid and deciding to seal him away for 30 years of ethical testing, no doubt having taken Wily’s fears to heart while being cautious about it and understood the risks, Dr. Cain and the humans didn’t fully understand the complex designs behind X’s creation and were NOT cautious about the risks, creating Reploids like crazy, which would eventually make the Reploids themselves go crazy through various factors, such as faulty programming, getting hacked, becoming evil of their own free will, and, of course, the Maverick/Sigma Virus. And that's not even getting into Dr. Wiel's plans of brainwashing Reploids via Omega and his own mad ambitions...
- Put on a Prison Bus: 6 closes out the NES era with Doctor Wily at last arrested and behind bars. Of course, this isn't the end of Wily, as he gets freed at the start of the next game by Burst Man, Freeze Man, Junk Man, and Cloud Man.
- Redemption Rejection: In the ending of Mega Man 11, Dr. Light tries to get Wily to reform (for real this time) and work together with him again after telling him how Mega Man is the realization of Wily's original goal of using the Double Gear system to create "a true hero", but Wily rejects his offer before making his escape.
- Sanity Slippage: As the series has progressed, Wily has gotten...worse. At first he was only concerned for his pride, but then, well, a gigantic slab of stone nearly killed him. Next we see him, he's abducted a child. Then, after he's finally arrested, he breaks out in a very violent and dangerous attack which annihilates the city. Perhaps above all else, we see distinctly in Rock's memories as Duo views them in the ending of 8 that Wily's robots would kill civilians if not stopped. This is all cemented by the Early-Bird Cameo of a certain red super-robot in The Power Fighters, where Bass of all characters is legitimately disturbed at how unhinged his maker is.
- Sigil Spam:
- The classic "Dr. W" logo, which always means trouble.
- He's also quite fond of skulls, to the point where he models entire fortresses after them. Even his bed has skulls on it!
- Smug Snake: For all of his posturing over his supposed brilliance, most of his "Robot Masters" are either stolen or copied from the work of more legitimate inventors.
- The Social Darwinist: Even before going full villain, Wily had a mild view of robots as nothing more than tools, and the best way for them to be regarded as humanity's equals is to give them superior power. His thesis surrounding the invention of the Double Gear System was meant to show this. His views only grew more extreme when turning evil, viewing his Robot Masters and other creations as just a means to his goal of world domination.
- The Sociopath: He has no empathy or guilt for the destruction and death he causes, is more than willing to harm innocent people with glee, manipulates people and his own creations like pawns for his own ego, and is a starkly remorselessly malevolent figure compared to the rest of the cast.
- Spell My Name With An S: Similarly, to Light, in the English language localizations of the first few games, his name was rendered as Wily, Wiley, and even Willy (which isn't even pronounced the same way!) before Wily became the standard spelling.
- Supervillain Lair: Skull Castle, a veritable Platform Hell. To make things more difficult, he sometimes has multiple castles.
- Take Over the World: What he aims at.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Part of Wily's reasoning for losing it. Light's dream of robots with independent thought was something far more fanciful compared to Wily's thesis for the far more objective and utility-based Double Gear System, but it carried immediate dangers Wily saw no need to stop for. Despite the potential applications, Wily was brought before a committee and had his research cancelled, only for the board to immediately give their consent to the research of the very man who spoke out against him. It's this sequence of events the convinced Wily that Light was out to get him, and he swore revenge ever since.
- They Called Me Mad!: Wily's Start of Darkness came about when, between his and Dr. Light's respective thesis that would receive support, not only was Wily's not chosen by committee, it was shut down for being so blatantly dangerous in ways that Wily had no concern with accounting for.note Of course, Dr. Wily refused to accept the decision as being valid, decided that Thomas had just been jealous of and persecuted him, and the rest is history.
- Truce Trickery:
- After once again begging for mercy at the end of Mega Man 9, Mega Man shows him all his past defeats from the first 8 games and the scheme involving King's "robot revolution", Wily tells him that Fake Man, a police robot he created arrested Dr. Light and offers him to the Blue Bomber out of goodwill. However, Proto Man warns his brother that "Dr. Light" is actually a robot used by Wily in the broadcast footage, though Mega Man insists it's their father and touches him, though he gets a nasty shock and Wily mocks the Blue Bomber for his naivety, leaving him to die in the castle's destruction.
- During the events of Mega Man 10, he's attacked by robots infected by Robozena and offers to help his former friend and his family find a cure for the robot disease, though the medicine is taken by the infected robots, causing Mega Man, as well as Proto Man and Bass, to stop them and reclaim the cure. However, once the game's 8 Robot Masters are defeated, it's revealed that Wily created Robozena and would only give the cure to robots who would serve him, even infecting Mega Man to nip him in the bud.
- Villainous Legacy: Like you would not believe. His actions leave their destructive mark on the Mega Man timeline for centuries after his death.
- Villain Has a Point:
- In Mega Man 9, he convinces Dr. Light's newest Robot Masters that were created without his help, all of whom are about to reach their expiration date and due to be recycled, that they shouldn't have to die because the law says so and that they can still live perfectly useful lives. While Wily is just saying this so he can use them to frame Dr. Light, he is right in that the Robot Masters are still sentient living beings that are being trashed because of the law and not by choice.
- While Wily is obviously showing off his genius of the Double Gear System during Mega Man 11, he's not wrong that Mega Man beat him with his own system that Dr. Light used on his second son to stop the latest plot the doctor had going on.
- Villain Override: Boosts King's brainwashing level in Mega Man & Bass when it becomes clear that the self-proclaimed lord of robots doesn't particularly want to kill his own kind.
- Villains Want Mercy: At the end of every Mega Man game, he begs for mercy. Even after 6, when it's clear Mega Man won't let him off easily, he still does it.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Due to his belief that robots are nothing more than tools, Wily developed the Double Gear System with the intention to showing the world the true power of robots and give them the respect and reverence they deserve. However, Wily never considered the immediate dangers and long-term ramifications of his invention, which caused Light to speak out against him. Wily's research was cancelled in favor of Light's idea of independent thought research, but this only caused Wily to view Light as a jealous rival who was out to get him. Wily's views grew even more extreme to the point where he dropped any pretense of good intentions and just settled on world domination plots instead. He makes no attempt to even justify his actions in Mega Man X.
- We Used to Be Friends: Wily and Light were once colleagues who worked together on robotics, but Wily's view that robots are nothing more than machines clashed with Light's goal of making robots that think for themselves. The continuous recognition that Light got instead of Wily eventually caused Wily to turn evil.
- Xanatos Gambit: 6 and 7. He anticipated the possibility of being caught, and built four of the game's Robot Masters to break him out if that happened.
- Younger Than He Looks: His bio states he's 57, yet looks at least seventy.
21XX (Unmarked Spoilers!)
Mega Man X | Main Character Index
Heroes (X | Zero) | Villains (Sigma | True mastermind) | Maverick Bosses | Supporting Cast
Heroes (X | Zero) | Villains (Sigma | True mastermind) | Maverick Bosses | Supporting Cast
Voiced by: Takeshi Aono (JP), John O'Corner (ENG)
Thought to have been gone since 20XX, the mad doctor himself seemingly takes a page out of Dr. Light's book, in that he actually might have cheated death. Despite having to seal away Zero in the hopes he would be more obedient due to a single programming flaw, his evil continues to live on in the Maverick Virus, infecting many Reploids into Mavericks, which also included Sigma himself, causing the once noble leader of the Maverick Hunters to become the leader of the Mavericks and instigate his war against humanity in the name of Reploid evolution. While there are two probable host bodies the man has used, he HAS teamed up with Sigma himself, in the hopes his last and greatest creation would awaken and remember his true purpose...
- Aborted Arc: Hinted to be The Man Behind the Man in X5, but after that we only get a few half-hearted follow-ups. Revisited in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, where Wily seems to come to terms with Zero being a good guy, saying how proud he is of Zero and wishing him well and to never give up, though there is a small hint towards Zero's original dark purpose.
- Back from the Dead:
- The Japanese version of X2 heavily implies that Serges/Sagesse is Dr. Wily. He refers to X as "Rock" before correcting himself, and namedrops Dr. Light when defeated for good. Serges was also in charge of repairing Zero, in the game that first implied Zero was created by Wily.
- Word of God is that he returned to life for X5 and that the Maverick Virus had something to do with it. It's implied that the Virus is a creation of Wily and fan theories speculate that he used either the Evil Energy from Mega Man 8, the Roboenza virus of Mega Man 10, or both as a baseline for its creation.
- The Nightmare Investigator from X6, Isoc, has the same voice actor as Dr. Wily's Japanese voice actor in other works, as well as a very too-detailed knowledge of Zero's systems. When found later on? Isoc is simply a dead Reploid shell, his AI simply gone. It's implied that Dr. Wily exists as a formless AI.
- Bald of Evil: As usual for Wily.
- Deader than Dead: If the backstory of Mega Man Zero is anything to go by, the Maverick Virus was eradicated by the Mother Elf, likely also nullifying whatever was left of Wily within. Although some of it persisted through the Deep Log (which exists outside of conventional time, space, and narrative), it too was also purged with ViA and iCO's deletions and the treatment of the unique characters it had spread to.
- Evil Counterpart: To Dr. Light, as always. Whereas Light lived on in the form of capsules made to help X, as well as Zero, Wily took on the form of a virus that led to centuries of Robot Wars.
- Evil Plan: Even though Sigma got in the way of either destroying or corrupting X, he still got a century of war out of it. Heck, the next series starts with Zero out of commission and an evil X running the last of the destroyed world — while it's not the real thing, he arguably won.
- Greater-Scope Villain: As Zero was (unconsciously) responsible for Sigma's corruption, who in turn is the primary antagonist of the series, it is Dr. Wily who is the ultimate root of basically all of the X series' conflict.
- Hijacked by Ganon: If the series' conflict (through The Virus and Zero) can really be attributed to him.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Ultimately it's Dr. Wily, a human scientist, who's directly and indirectly behind almost all the problems of the X series. Not that he's human any longer.
- Irony:
- Even after all the damage his creation(s) have done, who's the one who eventually ended it all?
- Although Wily created the Maverick Virus to make Zero obey, the very last of its manifestations, the virtual avatar ViA, spent years denying Wily's purpose for it as a harbinger of destruction. He only causes as much damage as he does due to prolonging the inevitable, and eventually commits Suicide by Cop when he realizes nothing else can be done to help him. For added irony, ViA represents himself as a perfect fusion of Bass and every form Zero has ever taken.
- The Man Behind the Man: He created the virus responsible for pretty much every bad thing in the series and he's implied to have been this to Sigma directly in X5.
- My Death Is Only The Beginning: It was (presumably) after his death that the Maverick Virus was unleashed. It's even implied he's somehow living through the virus.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: In the Classic series, Wily is depicted as a Laughably Evil villain whose atrocities are downplayed by the games' lighthearted tone and his occasional redeeming moments. In the X series, his plans are of a much larger scale and are treated with an equally serious gravitas.
- Posthumous Character: Long dead, but he is to blame for all the Maverick incidents because of his creations, Zero and the Maverick Virus.
- Sigil Spam: Even beyond the grave, his trademark warped 'W' appears in X5 as the background for the Shadow Devil battle in a heavily corrupted appearance and in a more solid state during the fated battle between X and Zero.
- Sinister Silhouettes: Appears this way in both of his physical "appearances". Justified since he only appears in Zero's memories, and Zero never knew him personally.
- So Proud of You: Surprisingly, yes. In Tatsunoko vs. Capcom he accepts that even if Zero was never quite what he designed him to be, that doesn't mean his creation never achieved greatness. He's so proud of Zero that he even acknowledges him as his son, something he'd never done for any of his other creations.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Dr. Wily in the Classic series was a villain, but he was never the kind of person to cause destruction on a worldwide scale for his own ends that he's become.
- Was Once a Man: Human in the Classic series, Wily is all but outright stated to have become part of The Virus by 21XX and it's implied two Reploid antagonists, Serges and Isoc, were his robotic avatars.
