Dr. Eggman: So let me get this straight... We team up to wreak havoc on our respective enemies.
Dr. Wily: Yep.
Dr. Eggman: We combine our intelligences to create powerful robots and unnecessarily complex schemes.
Dr. Wily: That's right.
Dr. Eggman: And in the end, everything will blow up in our faces.
Dr. Wily: Probably.
Dr. Eggman: So why are we doing this?
Dr. Wily: You have anything better to do?
Dr. Wily: Yep.
Dr. Eggman: We combine our intelligences to create powerful robots and unnecessarily complex schemes.
Dr. Wily: That's right.
Dr. Eggman: And in the end, everything will blow up in our faces.
Dr. Wily: Probably.
Dr. Eggman: So why are we doing this?
Dr. Wily: You have anything better to do?
— Two Evil Scientist Villains Victorious, Pt 1
Two Evil Scientists
is a long-running sprite comic that has been updated since 2004 and has enjoyed a somewhat more than modest fanfare. Initially starting out on keenspace (now comicgenesis) the comic was moved to smackjeeves where it became one of the longest running comics on the site. The comic takes a somewhat lighthearted idea and makes it work; pitting together the characters from both the Mega Man series and the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Rather than solely focusing on the exploits of the heroes of these series however, the comic, as its title implies, has a heavier focus on the two main villains (Dr. Albert Wily and Dr. Ivo Robotnik) from these series. The author makes use of the many similarities between these series to make for an interesting comic.
Years after Two Evil Scientists was created (not to mention after suffering its Schedule Slip), Capcom, Sega, and Archie Comics would create an official crossover between their flagship franchises with Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide. As far as we know, none of them are aware of TES, but it nonetheless features some striking similarities.
The series has not been updated since January 2011, with no word from the writer.
With Smack Jeeves having closed down on December 31, 2020, the comic’s website has been archived on archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/smackjeeves-5533
The comic has also been archived in this Google Slides file:
Also here is a link to a PDF to further Keep Circulating the Tapes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Svh6wJsT2BBeJTtzhP49nsiOqIXQB3dK/view?usp=sharing
Includes examples of:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Ashura is able to run on the air simply by not looking down!
- A Day in the Limelight: Most characters have at least two storylines devoted to them.
- Affably Evil: The titular duo, as in canon.
- A God Am I: Many of the villains felt this way. Particularly the commander on the ark, Doppelganger, and Gemerl after being exposed to the super emeralds.
- Alternate Timeline: With a twist. Two super villains from alternate timelines are competing to make their timelines a reality. Also Quint and the Time Skimmer.
- Answer Cut: Ryan loves using these.
- Arc Villain: The comic uses this a lot. While Eggman and Dr. Wily are the most prominent and recurring, 'Two Evil Scientists' spends a hefty amount of time using other villains. As some examples...
- Metal Sonic takes center stage in 'Rise of the Metal Devil'
- Vile serves as this for the 'Sonic X' arc, while the Commander of the Ark and the Gizoid serve as this for 'Mega Man's Ark'. Quint serves as the Greater-Scope Villain of the arcs.
- King serves as this for the 'All the King's Men' arc, though Omochao turns out to be the true antagonist.
- Art Evolution: A minor example with this comic, which starts the use of new, more smooth speech bubbles.
- Ascended Extra: Downplayed with Blue. He goes from a minor Cameo character to a somewhat more important supporting character during the latter half of Gemerl's arc.
- A Wizard Did It: Seen here.
- Back from the Dead: Mega Man and Sonic... twice.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: Omachao replacing King.
- Big Bad Wannabe: King. While he serves as the Arc Villain twice, he's upstaged both times, with Omochao being behind his actions the first time, and the Gizoid ultimately giving him a massive My God, What Have I Done? moment.
- Big Brother Instinct: Bass may technically be Cream's younger brother, but he nonetheless acts like her older sibling.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Buzz's girlfriend Beedra. Most characters react accordingly when they see her.
- Big Little Brother: Bass to Cream.
- Brain Bleach: Dr. Light in the shower.
- Or the fact that he built a fully functioning artificial penis for Mega Man X before he even finished the designs for his other systems. Did I mention that he keeps it in his pocket? Yeah, there's a reason he's a mad scientist.
- Break the Cutie: Bass does this to Cream when she finds out he is, in fact, evil.
- Brick Joke: The Big/Auto fusion.
- B-Side Comics: The author, MC Ryan's Mega Girl (on hiatus, or dead) and Chrono Crossover (now ended) feature characters that have at one point appeared in the main comic but use storylines far different from the main comic.
- Came Back Wrong: Bass, likely as a Type 2. It later turns out that this was part of Robot Wily and Egg Robo's Gambit Roulette Earlier King.
- Cast Calculus: Characters that tend to fit the same roles in both series are always paired together: Mega Man/Sonic, Shadow/Bass, Amy/Roll...
- Of course, sometimes it's rather hard to pull this off. The closest thing to Rouge is Treble.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The comic initially starts off rather goofy and joke heavy, and while it remains comedic, the plot slowly gets more intense over time.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Nack the Weasel, who continues this behavior in a side story Spin-Off, Chrono Crossover, which has ended.
- Conqueror from the Future: Eggman Nega and Dr. Weil. The two are from Alternate Timelines, and are competing to alter the past to cause events to play out in their favor.
- Continuity Porn: The comic, especially in its later arcs, LOVES referencing plot beats and bringing back previous characters from canonical Sonic and Mega Man games.
- Composite Character: Copy Robot, once he shows up, utilizes Mega Man?'s scarf, and a triangle protursion instead of the actual Mega Man's square one.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You could count the number of characters that have been Killed Off for Real on one hand. More often than not, the characters that die are robots, so they'll just be rebuilt if they get killed.
- Death Is Cheap: Zero's appearence at the start of the comic lampshades his inability to stay dead within the actual franchise. Mega Man and Sonic's deaths are also cheap, with them literally walking through a Plot Hole to return to life.
- Don't Explain the Joke: Ryan frequently invokes and lampshades this when commenting on the comics.
- Double Entendre: Amy is prepping Roll for her first time in battle, and it sounds like she's talking about the first time she got laid. Just for an added joke, Roll's first opponent? Plant Man (vines and all.)
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played with with Dr Wily-while he does care for his ex-girlfriend Vanilla and daughter Cream the Rabbit, he cares more about world domination than their lives. This costs him his relationship with both.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The titular scientists once used their robots to save orphans form a burning building. Why? Because they're evil, not heartless!
- Everybody Knew Already: It's difficult for Mega Man to hide his identity from the rest of the cast.
- Evil Duo: The Two Evil Scientists themselves... obviously.
- More recently, Wily with Eggman Nega and Eggman with Weil. And then there's Metal Sonic and Yellow Devil, Metal Sonic and The Copy Robot, and likely Robot Wily and Egg Robo
- Explosive Leash: Eggman has a tendency to install bombs in the heads of his robots to make sure that they don't rebel.
- Faux Affably Evil: Eggman Nega and Dr. Weil. Again, as in canon.
- Filler Strips: Never in the main comic, but it has entire other comics devoted to doing that.
- Before the Out of Continuity comic, a few of the filler series, namely the two Christmas ones, were in the main comic and were later moved there.
- Fun with Acronyms: After a long hiatus, this.
- Fusion Dance: Merged forms, consisting of a Sonic character and their closest counterpart from the Mega Man series. The list is as follows:
- Mega Hedgehog (Sonic and Mega Man)
- Proto Echidna (Knuckles and Proto Man)
- Turbo (Tails and Rush)
- Badass (Shadow and Bass)
- Trouble (Rouge and Treble)
- Metal Devil (Metal Sonic and Yellow Devil)
- Glitch (Ashura and Quint)
- Rosy (Amy and Roll)
- Rabbot (Cream and Tango)
- Doppelganger (Metal Sonic and The Copy Robot)
- Cadillac (Big and Auto)
- Hip Hop (Froggy and Eddie)
- Gambit Pileup: A result of having many characters. Usually, either one of the scientists will turn on the other, or
oneseveral of The Dragons will turn on them. - Good Angel, Bad Angel: Emerl and Maria Robotnik for Gemerl while inside his Mental World.
- Intercontinuity Crossover
- Interspecies Romance: Dr Light (and later Dr Wily) with Vanilla, the latter becoming more important. Mega Man also has a crush on Amy, though he loses it later on, only for Amy to finally reciprocate. Sonic gets a crush on Ciel around the same time.
- Incompatible Orientation: Joe turns out to have a crush on Buzz. His Dying Declaration of Love ultimately results in a Flat "What",
- I Think You Broke Her: When Knuckles steals all of Rouge's jewels.
- Kamehame Hadoken: While not used, it references one of the trope namers while using the other here.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Bass has made it quite clear that if anyone wrongs his sister, they will suffer... slowly.
- Lame Comeback: In this strip. Even lamer when the one who said the comeback actually went through with it.
- Lampshade Hanging: Knuckles and Proto Man sum it up pretty nicely after they find the Chaos Emerald Shadow was looking for:Proto Man: "And we just happened to find [a Chaos Emerald] on your little treasure hunt?"Knuckles: "Stranger things have happened!"Proto Man: "A lot of it has happened recently too."
- Last-Second Word Swap: In this strip, Bass changes "fuck" to "funny hats" after Cream walks in.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Bass constantly flips between working for Wily and being an Anti-Hero.
- Ho Yay: Invoked here, where Kalinka asks if Gemerl having Maria's soul makes her a lesbian.
- Love Triangle: For a while, there was one with Amy, Mega Man, and Sonic. Quint's first role in the story was an attempt to remove Sonic from the equation, leaving nothing in between Amy and Mega Man.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Cream surprises Dr. Wily by revealing she's his kid.
- Mad Scientist: In the current time alone, there's 5: Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Dr. Eggman, Dr. Cossack, and Tails. Out of all of them, Dr. Light is the most disturbing.
- The Man in Front of the Man:King's Mysterious Benefactor? Turns out to be Omochao using an upgraded Doc Robot as a vessel.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Downplayed, as the focus is primarily on the cast of Sonic and Mega Man, but it's clear that the world of the comic incorporates many different franchises, with [[Franchise/Metroid]] and [[Franchise/Pokemon]] being the most prominent.
- Mauve Shirt: Hauser and Fairborne, the two G.U.N. Agents who went with Shadow, Rouge, and Vanilla to "rescue" Cream from Bass.
- Meanwhile, in the Future…: While Sonic and Mega Man are trapped in the future and past respectively, it keeps jumping back between them.
- Morality Pet: Cream to Wily and Bass.
- Mundane Utility: The titular scientists used two of their shapeshifting robots to pose as Amy and Roll and babysit for Wily's daughter Cream. This bites them in the ass later on when the two robots decide to betray them partly because of being used mundanely.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Or more acurately, for Quint, send him to the future.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mega Hedgehog destroys the Master Emerald, the only thing powering Doppelganger's massive army. Too bad it was also the only thing preventing the Death Egg from crashing into the populated city below it.
- "Not Really Married" Plot: Late in the story, it's revealed that Wily and Vanilla's marriage wasn't actually valid because Eggman lied about getting ordained online. Since Wily was currently in jail for trying to take over the world again, Vanilla (who was only willing to stay with him because she didn't believe in divorce) decides to cut her losses and leaves him to rot.
- Off with His Head!: Happens to Silver, or rather, Metal Sonic when Roll comes across him.
- Oh, Crap!: Robot Dr. Wily gets a fantastic one right after he brings Bass back to life.
- One-Man Army: Doppelganger is a rather literal example, if he has enough power.
- Plot Coupon: The Chaos Emeralds, and recently the Sol Emeralds.
- Plot Hole: Used as a plot device to bring Sonic and Mega Man back from the dead. Twice.
- Right Behind Me: Played with many times.
- Robosexual: Kalinka and Beedra, who love Gemerl and Buzz respectively.
- Running Gag: Mega Man's ego (or lack thereof).
- Schedule Slip: In-Universe: An entirely new comic was devoted towards this called Waiting for Ryan.
- Self-Made Orphan: Bass plans on fully making himself this once he comes back... badly.Bass: Patricide is a long standing tradition in video games.
- Shoot the Hostage: Quint scores a double hit.
- Shout-Out: G.U.N. agents Hauser and Faireborn have the same last names as Duke and Flint.
- Sprite Comic: One of the many to be made in the mid-2000s.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: Joe and Buzz.
- The Starscream:
- Metal Sonic takes after his characterization in Heroes, and tries to usurp the doctors twice.
- Bass, unsurprisingly, also takes on this role whenever he's working for Wily.
- Super Mode: The Chaos Emeralds, as usual, grant this ability.
- Tempting Fate: Done on a regular basis.
- The Slow Path: How Mega Man got to the future.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Amy and Mega Man.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Lampshaded and justified in this strip. (Warning: Spoilers!)
- Villains Out Shopping: Eggman has his own restaurant for a while.
- Villain Protagonist: Eggman and Wily, the titular "Two Evil Scientists."
- Webcomic Time: Played with occasionally.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dr. Weil sees himself as this. This is inaccurate.
- Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Wily, when he proposes to Vanilla.
- Would Hit a Girl: Ashura.
- You and What Army?: Lampshaded by Joe.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: When Bass comes to Dr. Wily asking for... "special equipment", he calls him "Dad", which tips Wily off that something's up.
