Doctor Wily
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| Mega Man character | |
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| Doctor Wily | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Human |
| Weapons | Various |
| Loyalty | Himself |
| First Appearance | Mega Man |
| Voice actor (English) | Ian James Corlett (Captain N) Scott McNeil (Ruby-Spears cartoon) Unknown (VG) (1997-2005) Dean Galloway (VG) (2006-present) |
| Voice actor (Japanese) | Takeshi Aono |
Doctor Albert W. Wily is a video game character and antagonist of the Mega Man Classic series. His goal is usually world domination and he constructs robots to carry out his plans.
Doctor Wily is the typical mad scientist; he is 57 years old (Capcom officially states this in the Rockman & Forte Japanese game manual), wears a white lab coat (he also sometimes wears a red cape), is unkempt, has a large mustache and is prone to temper tantrums. His looks and name seem to be based on Albert Einstein. There are other, mostly coincidental, similarities to other people.[1]
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[edit] History
[edit] Original Mega Man series
At the beginning of the Mega Man timeline, in the original Japanese version, Doctor Wily was Dr. Light's rival, and in the changed U.S. and Europe versions, he was his assistant, and helped to create eight powerful robots: Rock (Mega), Roll, Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, and Elec Man. It should be noted in the remake of the original NES Mega Man game known as Mega Man Powered Up, Capcom has retconned the original story and added Time Man and Oil Man, thus changing the total that Dr. Light created from nine robots to eleven, while also apparently reverted to the original version of the story where Dr. Wily and Dr. Light never worked together prior to the events of the first game.
Doctor Wily became jealous of his rival, Dr. Light for creating the eight/ten robots mentioned above, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the committee gave no credit to Wily for his contributions to the robots. Some time later, he discovered Dr. Light's prototype robot, Proto Man. As Proto Man's systems were failing, Dr. Wily took him in and restored him as best as he could. Utilizing the knowledge gained from studying Proto Man, Wily mass produced Sniper Joe robots based on Proto Man's design and reprogrammed six (eight, according to the PSP remake) of Dr. Light's robots to do his bidding. Though they were originally robots made to help humanity - land reclamation, efficient demolition and construction, time travel research, and the like - they were soon modified for battle and destruction. However, he passes up the opportunity to reprogram Rock, seeing no potential special abilities in him. Doctor Wily used the power of Dr. Light's robots to attempt global conquest, and Dr. Light was left at a loss for a solution. According to Mega Man 4 and Mega Man Powered Up, Rock volunteered to be converted into a battle robot in order to stop Doctor Wily. Dr. Light agreed and went right to work. From that day forward, Rock also became known as Rockman (Mega Man). The events of the first Mega Man game and the PSP remake are concerned with Doctor Wily's first attempt at conquest.
Beginning with Mega Man 2 on, Doctor Wily's main goal is revenge for his humiliation, first on Dr. Light and Mega Man, and then the world. Despite surrendering at the end of each game (typically by bowing in mercy in front of Mega Man), he always returns for the next, to try and conquer the world by creating or stealing eight new Robot Masters. In some of the games, Wily disguises his intentions by blackmailing Russian scientist Dr. Cossack, framing Proto Man (which led some fans thinking Mega Man's brother to be evil), impersonating a tournament sponsor called Mr. X, having the Stardroids attempt to conquer the world, or making cover with a fake invasion leader robot named King.
After failing this way several times, he built a new robot based on Mega Man: Bass. As powerful as Mega Man, he confronted the Blue Bomber several times, only to lose each time. Bass was rebellious and brutal, and even fought against Wily sometimes, mostly to prove himself as the strongest of all the robots Wily sends against Mega Man.
[edit] Megaman Battle Network
[edit] Personality
Doctor Wily personifies an evil villain, and always has. He is driven by madness, greed, and rage at his failure to defeat Mega Man and (indirectly) Dr. Light. This madness seems to increase over time as his plans grow more and more haphazard, caring less and less for the sanctity of life and simple common sense.
Somehow, in the Japanese game Superadventure Rockman, although Wily is shown as mad as ever, he is none but used as a pawn of La Moon. When Mega Man decides to blast it using all of his strength in the Mega Buster, Wily seems to be worried about Mega Man's condition after the battle, considering that the Final Blast can consume Mega Man's life.
[edit] Wily and Zero
Wily recognized that Bass was too unstable and difficult to control, and he felt he could not trust him enough to fight for his legacy. The mad scientist therefore built in secret a very special robot: Zero (as he mentions in the ending of Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters -- see special quotes below). This robot is stated in later X games as the most powerful robot in the world, and contains the most powerful energy in the world, which Wily discovered accidentally, implemented into Bass (dubbing it Bassnium), and refined into what would be used in Zero.
A red-armored humanoid warrior with long yellow hair, Doctor Wily implanted special memory parts to manipulate him indirectly so as not to awaken rebellious feelings (Zero sees Wily in his dreams in Mega Man X4). Zero was meant to be released years in the future after his death. Originally, Zero served his purpose as Wily's machine of destruction, carrying a special violent program (this is according to "Rockman Perfect Works" released by Capcom). Eventually, Sigma, who was not yet a Maverick, fought him. Sigma seemed to stand little to no chance, until he punched Zero's forehead crystal, shattering it. Zero was recovered and reprogrammed using the "suffering circuit" program from X (which apparently adds empathy to X's design but isn't fully compatible with Reploids), ironically making the once-destructive Zero brave and good (though Zero wasn't designed by Dr. Light, he apparently still has a similar enough design for the suffering circuit to work), fighting against Sigma for freedom and peace. But Zero still seems to have the violent program, and it has been foreshadowed that something will force X to destroy him to save humanity. Of note is that during the reprogramming of Zero, the violent program was installed into Sigma. Since Sigma is a reploid and already had a copy of suffering circuit installed (which meant there was instability to begin with), the addition of Zero's special Wily given programming warped him, though instead of becoming super violent, he became a plotting madman intent on world domination instead. Sigma's programming, as well as the suffering circuit and Zero's custom program eventually fused into a single cruel entity, the Sigma virus.
Sigma strangely knows about Doctor Wily (presumably because he possesses Wily's violent program in its entirety), as in the ending of Mega Man X2, he is thwarted by Zero, he tells him: "Wait Zero! I know your secret! You were destined to follow me!" and when his Neo-Sigma holographic form is destroyed by Mega Man X, he says: "I... don't quite understand... Why did Zero... He is... last... of the doctor's creations..."
Sigma also mentions a "comrade" who wants to destroy X and acts like Zero's "father" in the final battle of Mega Man X5. If you manage to save Zero and keep him from being infected by the Zero Virus in Mega Man X5 and fight Sigma as Zero, Sigma is far more blunt, saying "I met an old man who knows a lot about you, Zero. He said you are the most powerful thing in the world." It's easy to interpret who this "Old Man" is. The storyline of the X series seems to indicate that Doctor Wily is still alive in some form, and is manipulating events behind the scenes to unite Zero with the virus in order to turn Zero back into the destructive killing machine he built him to be. His presence is very evident in X5, not only because of Sigma's words, but the fact that his "W" insignia appears in the background of two boss fights in the final levels (against the Shadow Devil and during the battle between X and Zero).
In Mega Man X6, a robot named Isoc is shown to be the assistant of a Reploid scientist named Gate. Besides looking vaguely similar to Doctor Wily, he also speaks of searching for the "body of Zero" and knowing of the power he possesses. Whether or not he could be Wily in robot form remains unknown, for X and Zero found Isoc's body wiped of all memory near the end of X6 (although Zero did swear he heard a vaguely familiar voice shortly after this discovery).
[edit] Trivia
- Wily often waggles his eyebrows when confronting Mega Man.
- Wily's saucer was originally red.
- On a nostalgic note, his saucer is indeed red in Mega Man Powered Up.
- Wily's name has had a few variants over the years due to localization issues. In the early Mega Man manuals (and in a line of text used in Mega Man 3, possibly the only non-ending one) he is referred to as Dr. Wiley in the same manner as Dr. Light was called Dr. Wright in the manual of the first game. Due to the similarity with the actual name, this misspelling has become wide-spread. A typo at the beginning of Mega Man VII refers to the character as Dr. Willy. This was corrected in the Anniversary Collection release.
- Albert W. Wily's middle name is supposedly William, but this mostly originates from fandom.
- Wily was a semi-regular on the animated series Captain N: The Game Master, where he was depicted as one of Mother Brain's minions, and with a wheezing problem. Although Mega Man and Dr. Light didn't look at all like themselves on Captain N, Wily's design closely resembled his NES sprites. Ironically, Wily's voice in Captain N was provided by Ian James Corlett, who would later voice Mega Man on his own cartoon in 1994.
- Even though Wily is American in the U.S. cartoon show, his accent is a stereotypical exaggerated "mad scientist" German accent in the American cartoon shows (which may be another nod to Albert Einstein who was a German-American).
- In Mega Man II for the Game Boy, Wily had used an experimental Time Skimmer stolen from the Chronos Institute to travel approximately 37,426 years into the future in order to kidnap Mega Man there and alter him for his own purposes, resulting in Quint, the boss that the player faces right after destroying all eight Robot Masters in the game. The "Sakugarne" can be obtained upon defeating him.
- In Mega Man Legends for the PlayStation (Mega Man 64 for the Nintendo 64), Wily makes an appearance as the owner of "Wily Boat", which is a boat rental shop. This is the only Mega Man game in which he actually helps Mega Man (although neither is actually the original character, as Legends actually occurs thousands of years after the Zero series).
- On the same note, in the Misadventures of Tron Bonne, the in-game artwork for the puzzle games shows a boat with the name "Wily" on it.
- In Mega Man Powered Up, Dr. Wily is voiced by Dean Galloway, who also provided the voice for Chill Penguin in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X.
- In Mega Man X6, a robot that vaguely resembles Wily's appearance and ways named Isoc was a slightly important character. Although not much is said about him, he did give speeches against the "Nightmare Virus" and claimed to know Zero inside out, laughing while Zero destroyed his own creations. Later, his body was found deactivated, seeming as if its "soul" was drained from it. Although this is unconfirmed, Isoc could have been a pawn in Wily's "Other Project" as mentioned in Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters in Bass' ending scene.
- There is also another debate saying that Doctor Wily may also be Dr. Weil in the Mega Man Zero series, though recent evidence shows they are two completely different people, and Dr. Weil was originally "Dr. Vile" in Japan (who is not related in any way to the reploid Vile, who is named Vava in Japan). Given these facts (and the fact Dr. Weil/Dr. Vile looks more like "Dr. Doppler" from Mega Man X3), this debate is fairly baseless.
- Dr. Wily is voiced by Takeshi Aono in the Japanese version of Mega Man 8. He also did some voice acting in the X series as Dr. Wily in Zero's dream, and as Isoc in Rock Man X6. This could be further evidence about Dr. Wily's involvement in the X series.
- In the manual for Mega Man Powered Up, it notes that Wily was kicked out of an institute for his extreme theories.
- Wily shares the same first name and last initial with Albert Wesker, an antagonist of the Resident Evil series, also made by Capcom.
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