Who the @#%!! is Eggman?

Okay, so every now and then some Sonic Plebe will ask the following:

"In Sonic the Hedgehog, we were fighting the bad guy Doctor Robotnik, right? Then who the heck is Eggman? He looks just like Robotnik, so why did they change his name?"

My response is usually something along the lines of, "Please just accept that he is called Eggman in the games. I promise you don't want to know."

"Oh ho ho, I'm called Eggman because my nose looks like an EGGplant! Get it? HOHOHO--No but seriously, I have no idea."

But you wanted to know, you assholes. You wanted to know. Well, I don't see anyone bugging King Koopa about being turned into Bowser, but you know what? I'll give you the lowdown on Doctor Robotnik. You cool? I'm cool. Let's do this.

First, you need to understand some history, and "history" is a very broad term here because if you just play the video games, you literally do not know any of this. But let's make some stuff clear for you. The guy in the video games, from the first Sonic game all the way to the end... he was not originally named Ivo Robotnik. Okay? That's not his real name. Granted, that was probably the first name he got from the developers of the Sonic comics, but his "real name" as in "birth name" was not Ivo Robotnik, because that's too on the nose for a series whose main character has a best friend who's name is just a joke about speed. Uh... not the drug. I mean, like... speed.

BUT ADORABLE, SO ADORABLE!

Nope. Doctor Ivo Robotnik is actually one Julian Kintobor of the House of Ivo. But you want to know what's confusing about that? His dad is named Ivo Kintobor. Which is weird because I'm not sure I really get why Robotnik didn't stick with the Julian first name. Not evil enough? Anyway, Julian is the son of Ivo and Bertha Kintobor and has an older brother named Colin, who got married twice (once to Miriam Day and once to Angela Hopkins, but they're both dead) and Colin had two kids: Colin Jr. and Hope. Colin Jr. is more often known as Snively. You know... of Sonic SatAM fame?

Okay, so... more questions, right? Robotnik has family, so what happened to them and how come Robotnik is so evil? Was his family all a bunch of evil people? To that I have to sigh and tell you about the name Robotnik.

This was retconned so hard it hurts, but originally Robotnik was just a moniker for Julian because I guess he needed one. But the games don't follow the comic continuity (I actually like the comics, but I'm still going to say thank god for small miracles), so in the games, it seemed like he was always just named Dr. Robotnik. Now, Gerald (when the series started) didn't exist, so they had to retcon (retcon meaning retroactive continuity, just in case we're not clear) Gerald into existence. At first it seems like we aren't actually retconning since Gerald never existed but there was a place for him to exist, but remember that Robotnik was initially just a moniker in the comic series. Now, I've read (most) of the comics and I don't remember Gerald being brought up until Shadow was brought up since their stories are intertwined. Because of that the retcon seems more obvious in the comics since the two names (Kintobor and Robotnik) are reversals of each other and it doesn't seem like Julian put very much thought into his new evil name initially. In the games, there's no sign of retconning at all. Again, Kintobor as a name doesn't exist in the games. So when Gerald from the comic books was introduced, it only went to follow that he would have the name "Robotnik" as well in the games even though the enemy at the time was Dr. Eggman.

So the timeline works like this: In the comics, Gerald doesn't exist until they need him in the Shadow arc. Then he is created and added to Robotnik's history retroactively. But instead of being named Kintobor in the comics (which would have made him Julian's paternal grandfather and kept the story the same as always), he was given the last name Robotnik to match with the character Julian was at the time, Ivo Robotnik. But then someone pointed out that in the past, Ivo Robotnik was Julian Kintobor, so Gerald ended up being Julian's maternal grandfather and when he names himself Robotnik, he takes the name from his grandfather. In the games, Robotnik was never Julian Kintobor (technically), so that making Gerald's last name Robotnik makes total sense. Except for the part where Robotnik no longer exists, and all that remains is Eggman.

Since Julian's maternal grandfather was Gerald Robotnik, his mother Bertha was once Bertha Robotnik, and in order for Maria Robotnik to exist and be his cousin, he had at least one maternal uncle (with the inspired name Geraldo, like he was an Italian version of his father or something) who was married and gave birth to her. And, get this, Gerald Robotnik, Bertha Robotnik, Geraldo Robotnik, and Gerald's wife Jennifer Vasquez? None of these people are evil.

But Gerald was in prison for turning against the government.

Granted, Gerald can be seen as evil when you think a bit about his storyline and why he created Shadow to be the way Shadow is. You see, due to no one wanting to tell this story (or they did and I haven't read this part yet?), Maria doesn't live with her parents and has Neuro-Immuno Deficiency Disorder or NIDS. NIDS is possibly fatal, rare, and of course, incurable. But before you start getting up in arms about it, there is one other character who has this particular ailment, so while yes it is just an up-the-ante-esque way to get Maria aboard ARK, it does show up within the Sonic timeline more than once. And it is a plot device both times it shows up. Also, it only shows up in women right now.

On the inside, they're crying.

Anyway, Gerald Robotnik wanted to create a cure for NIDS, but that funding just wasn't happening. But he got help from the Republic of Station Square and was able to go forth researching a cure for his grand daughter by, I kid you not, working on a way to make immortality a real thing. This is about to get wicked convoluted, but I'm not here to explain Shadow, so I'll make this quick: Gerald gets in contact with the Black Arms race leader Black Doom, who is immortal and has Chaos Control, and gets his help by telling him he will make Project: Shadow into a weapon, but double crosses him. Gerald eventually makes Shadow and the BioLizard or the "ARK Monster". Shadow is to be used to defend the world from Black Doom, but then the Guardian Units of the Nation (GUN) heard about Shadow and want to use him for a weapon themselves. Gerald, not having any of that shit, tells Maria to take Shadow and go to an escape pod but Maria gets shot in the back when she tries to save herself and Shadow (seemingly on purpose, which calls a LOT into question about GUN, but I'm not here to make you aware of the politics of Mobius). Original Shadow, however, escapes. GUN finds Original Shadow after ordering Gerald to make them another Shadow (which of course, they ask after they tell him his granddaughter's dead) and Gerald, correctly assuming that they killed her, reprograms Original Shadow to take revenge on the whole planet. But then, afterwards, he tries to create another Shadow for GUN, and GUN isn't sure if he's dicking around so they kill him. There was never a cure for NIDS. So, an old man who out of love for his "only granddaughter" (considering that Hope is his great granddaughter, you get a pass, Gerald... but a very narrow pass) went to work on a project that should've been impossible succeeds only to watch his granddaughter die before him and then gets killed after that. He seemed like a sweet old guy to me, but other people have other opinions of him. But the only reason I even told you this story is because this is the only person who, in Robotnik's current family, could be considered someone who "turned evil". He consorts with clearly evil people, tries to take revenge on a planet, and reneges on two promises to deliver weaponry into client's hands. But your mileage may vary here. Technically, you could argue Gerald isn't evil because he consorts with Black Arms to complete the weapon for GUN, who were putting him in a tight spot by only giving him the money to cure NIDS if he did an altogether shitty thing in the first place. He does things that evil people would do, but does that make him evil? I don't know, I'm not here to discuss that.

In other news, Bertha and Ivo are both normal (Bertha doesn't seem to be the genius that her father was) and have supposedly normal kids, except for the part where Julian is a super genius.

If you consider his track record, this image is accurate.

Colin is a surprisingly heroic older brother figure who teases Julian, who as you will recall is a genius, and generally is just luckier in life than his younger brother. He gets married twice and has two kids, but if you watched Sonic SatAM you already know that Snively exists. But, what you didn't know (maybe) is that Snively was not named Snively by Julian, but by Colin. Snively was raised by Colin because Miriam (Snively's mother and Colin's first wife) died and Colin had no idea how to parent his son. So Snively starts becoming rascal-like and silly, which makes Colin straight up disown him. I didn't read this comic that detailed this, so I don't actually know what Snively did that was so bad that he was disowned but the whole reason I bring this up is, out of literally everyone in his family, only Snively is someone you can consider "evil"... and it's a purely coincidental thing, because Snively isn't completely evil and does do things that are good. In fact, he does them often enough that you could consider him a double agent or an anti-hero at times. But just so you can be sure that no one in Robotnik's family is evil, Hope is named Hope because she is good and also because she is literally just Maria. Shadow becomes friends with her and everything. Okay to be perfectly honest, I absolutely hate Hope because she's literally just Elise from Sonic 2006 to me. But the point is that she isn't an evil person, she's actually very good.

So, now that we know that pretty much no one in Julian's family was evil, the question remains-- who the @#%!! is Eggman, am I right?

Okay. Now, pay attention, because this is going to get silly quick. No sugar coating, let's get to the meat of things.

Julian was born to Bertha and Ivo Kintobor and thought that they loved Colin more than him and thought Colin was annoying. But Julian was a super genius and trained under Dr. Nate Morgan. Nate was a really nice guy who created the Power Rings. I'm not going to explain those right now, but they're important. Anyway, Julian waited until Nate taught him everything he knew... then he staged an explosion and blamed Nate, banishing him from his labs.

I'm sorry, Nate. D:

Okay, so here's something you probably didn't understand but you need to to move on. There are humans, there are Overlanders, and there are Mobians and all of these races live on Mobius. When you play the games, you usually end up in a place called Station Square or Central City-- these are not on "Earth" per se. It's long and complicated, okay, but humans are like... ancient. They've all been changed into Overlanders via Gene Bombs. Gene Bombs were created by the Xorda (aquatic alien life forms who mastered intergalactic travel-- no seriously) and basically it changed humans from having five fingers to four. It was honestly supposed to be worse. Further it changed Earth to become more like Mesopotamia (again, it was supposed to be worse) and the inhabitants changed the name of Earth to Mobius. But it did one "good" thing: evolved animals to be like humans. The Gene Bombs also created the Chaos Emeralds and caused the first Day of Fury (Days of Fury are global disturbances that-- fuck it, you don't care, it's not really important right now). So, to reiterate, most humans (most because there are references to humans, but the references don't ever really state if the humans are currently living or ancient) are dead, Overlanders are de-evolved humans, Mobians are mutated animals, and Mobius is Mutated Earth . Get it? Got it? Good.

Here, have some reference material.

Now. What you need to understand is that the Mobians in the Kingdom of Acorn were trying to form a single civilization using every species and race in the world. They tried to include all species, but Overlanders were too aggressive and xenophobic, so the ruler at the time (Alexander) decided to leave them out. As such, the Overlanders were a complete mystery to the Mobians. Alexander's son made friends with an Overlander and was accidentally killed by the man with a gun. Alexander happened to see the Overlander leave (and to be honest, there was nothing the Overlander could've done, since they weren't like, besties or anything) and so he decided that there would be a no-gun policy in the Kingdom of Acorn. This ruffled the feathers of the Overlanders, so tensions started to get high.

Remember Nate Morgan? He was banished from his lab and ended up living amongst the Mobians, the first of his kind to do so. Nate was trying to make a clean power source... the Power Rings. The Power Rings plus the Chaos Emeralds allowed the Mobians to get better technology (Mobians are especially conscious of the environment because they're animals, you guys) and they flourished for a while. Until the sorcerer Ixis Naugus vilified Nate because Nate's science made his magic useless. He worked with a Mobian war hero, Kodos Lion, to vilify Nate by using his magic to amplfy the hatred that a nearby group of Overlanders felt towards the Mobians and then told the current King, Maximillion, that Nate told the Overlanders the location of the Kingdom of Acorn. Nate self-exiled himself (such a nice guy, jeez) because he didn't know if what Naugus said was true. What I mean is, he thought maybe that his existence with the Mobians was the problem, so he left. Kodos tried to kill Naugus so that Naugus couldn't, at some point, put any blame on him... but Naugus escaped to the Zone of Silence so that he could gain power and then rule what remained of the kingdoms. Kodos then locked the Zone of Silence to prevent Naugus from escaping. Still with me? Good. What followed was the Great War.

Back to Julian. He was an engineer for the Overlanders and created items for the military including a prototype weaponized satellite called the Ultimate Annihilator. But Julian used living Overlanders to test his weaponry. When he was found out, Colin (who was the Minister of Justice) sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment. Julian escaped imprisonment and made it to the Badlands where he was found by the hedgehog brothers Jules and Charles (also students of Nate Morgan). Jules is Sonic's father and Charles, his brother, is often known as Uncle Chuck. Despite Charles being skeptical of Julian, Jules convinces his brother to save Julian. Julian swears allegiance to the Kingdom of Acorn and gives them the technology to fight the Overlanders, which turns the war in the favor of the Mobians, who then ultimately win.  Also, this is pretty important: Jules worked alongside a hedgehog named Bernadette. She was his partner during the war and they liked each other, so they got married and had Sonic. Not now, but if I don't mention it now I'd have to mention it later.

Bernadette is adorable. And she's hugging Sonic here, by the way

Kodos took Julian under his wing (despite being xenophobic of Overlanders) and decided that he wanted to overthrow the King and rule the world with Julian, who agreed that world domination was awesome but not if he had to share the power, so he banished Kodos to the Zone of Silence. Julian took Kodos' title of Warlord. He was later joined by Snively.

Kodos was also kind of a crappy guy.

Let's take a breather. You're probably wondering what any of this has to do with a name change. Patience. If I just came out and told you "This is what happened," you'd have questions like "how" or "why". No, you need to actually understand what's happening to really get this.

Okay. You good? Let's jump back in.

Julian decided that if he was to take over the world, he wouldn't make the mistake the last two guys did-- i.e., he wouldn't share his plans with someone who would overthrow him by making sure everyone under him was lesser than him (Snively) or were cyborgs. This required testing, but because he didn't want to be caught like he  had been with the Overlanders, he picked people from another settlement to practice his schemes on. Ultimately, only one Mobian survived, Monkey Khan (or Ken Khan). Monkey Khan was roboticized where his people were killed, and used by Julian until he rebelled. Julian locked him away and started thinking about removing free will from cyborgs as a necessary next step.

Simultaneously, Charles had come up with a machine to prolong the lives of the sick and elderly, a Roboticiser. Julian tampered with it to make it remove the subject's free will and make the subject follow his commands. Jules was injured badly and Charles unknowingly made Jules into Julian's first victim. Heartbroken, Charles apologized to Bernadette (who had just had Sonic) and stepped down from his role as Minister of Science and left the Kingdom for a while. However, there was another way to win the war without the Roboticiser, and Julian decided to go for that. He arranged a duel between the two sides and assumed that one side would kill the other. However, Maximillion won but didn't kill the Overlander. Julian was going to fail, but Charles turned over the Roboticiser to him.

I'm so sorrieeeeeeee

Bernadette discovered that Julian tampered with the machine and was using Jules, which made Julian toss her into the machine and Charles came back to discover that she was no longer responding, like his brother. He took Sonic under his wing.

Since Maximillian had won the war (thanks mostly to Julian), he agreed to remove the status of Warlord and get rid of the military completely as Julian wished. He also planned on making Julian into the Minister of Science. This was all going according to plan, until Amadeus Prower figured out Julian's plans-- and on the date of his son's birth, no less! And Julian tossed him into the Roboticiser.

He wasn't amused.

Okay, so if you've seen the opening to Sonic SatAM, you should pretty much know the next part.  Literally from 0:14 to 0:15 is what happened when Julian was given power during the victory presentation. He robotocised almost every Mobian and then exiled Maximillian to the Zone of Silence. And this was where Julian got his first name change: he changed his name from Julian Kintobor to Ivo Robotnik.

Then the Freedom Fighters started threatening his rule. Robotnik was in trouble, because the Original Freedom Fighters were serious business and they took out a lot of his labs. He managed to get one of the members, a snake named Trey Scales, to turn against the group. Then Robotnik turned against him, roboticised all of them, and put them in the Zone of Silence. And, uh... then they all died afterwards.

This guy had nothing to do with it. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I mean he had everything to do with their deaths.

Robotnik went into the Zone of Silence, determined that he really didn't need to be there (and Naugus pretty much owned the Zone) so he left with Snively's help and determined that he wasn't ever going back. Instead he focused really hard on ruling what he did have.

But that's where Sonic came in. Sonic grew up with Chuck, who abandoned science to run a chili dog stand, and had met Robotnik as Julian when he was a child. He didn't even like him them. Chuck was roboticised and Sonic and Sally decided to form a Freedom Fighter unit themselves. So, you know. They did. Their base was the Knothole, a stump in the Great Forest, and they were known as the Knothole Freedom Fighters.

Robotnik tried really hard to kill Sonic. Really, really hard. He failed with Exceptionally Versatile Evolvanoid (E.V.E.) made from Sonic's cells and Robotnik's brain cells. Programmed to learn and adapt, E.V.E. learned that she could just exceed her programming and straight up shot him into an alternate dimension where he met another version of himself, Robo-Robotnik. (Just FYI, an alternate dimension in the Sonic universe GENERALLY SPEAKING is a world similar to Mobius, but usually with a different history, some extremely similar and some really different.) The Robotnik in the universe he was thrust into had become nothing more than a computer program, but Robotnik persuaded him to kill Sonic, who had forced him to upload his consciousness into a computer, and Robo-Robonik agreed before sending Robotnik back to fight his own version of Sonic again. Robotnik failed a few more times.

But he failed with a smile.

He achieved success when he partnered up with Nack the Weasel, who knocked Sonic out and brought him to Robotnik. Robotnik kicked Nack out of the city for his trouble. Sonic was turned into Mecha Sonic, and Mecha Sonic was a damn terror. Fortunately, Tails recruited Knuckles, who was injured until Sally used a portable roboticiser to make Knuckles into Mecha Knuckles and then gave Knuckles his free will with a Neuro-Overrider. He saves Sonic and they both become organic again (by different means).

The group saves Maximillion from the Zone of Silence and Robotnik gets wicked pissed. But Max's release leaves a neutron reading that allows Robotnik to discover the Knothole. And thus he creates Operation: EndGame.

EndGame was a very complex plan with many steps that sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded. He tried to murder Sally and frame Sonic for the murder, and he tried to infiltrate the Knothole with an automated version of King Acorn. And then he just showed up at their doorstep, apropos of nothing. He doesn't kill them, preferring to use them as test subjects for the Ultimate Annihilator. Remember that? Yeah, well now it can warp reality and erase matter.

Sonic is furious about Sally's murder and the two engage in MORTAL KOMBAT! But Robonik still activated the Ultimate Annihilator. It would've been perfect, but Snively had tampered with the machine, coding it to target only Robotnik's DNA. So by activating the machine... he destroyed himself.

Yeah. Robotnik? Erased. The end. Vamoose.

And that would've been it. The end of a story. The end of a great. But Sonic's story is more convoluted than this. See what you've just learned, what we know now, this is all occurring on Mobius Prime. But there are other Mobius's, other parallel worlds. Now. Robotnik Prime had come into contact with a Robotnik from a parallel world with a similar backstory, Robo-Robotnik, remember? That alternate universe Robotnik actually benefited from Robotnik Prime showing up in his world. He had gone mad after his universe's Sonic forced him to upload his consciousness to a computer. But Robotnik Prime told him to continue his reign, and Robo-Robotnik changed.  He pulled himself together, building himself a robot body (with something it is literally too time consuming to explain) and killing his universe's Sonic (who was a king and had kids with Sally at that time) as well as literally anyone else he could get his hands on (so... you know everyone). But upon hearing that his savior had been killed, he went to Mobius Prime to avenge him and to "fill the void".

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Robotnik!"

Sonic Prime and the others of Mobius Prime literally had ONE YEAR without Robotnik before Robo-Robonik came, and then the dude came and was even more conniving than Robotnik Prime. He caused an avalanche, brought secret satellites from his home dimension, released the imprisoned Snively (don't ask, that's a whole different story), and tricked Sonic and the others to think Robonik Prime was back from the dead by wearing a skin suit that was subsequently burned off with acid. After a fight (and finding Sonic's parents) the Freedom Fighters escape Robo-Robotnik, seemingly killing him. But Robo-Robotnik just uploaded his consciousness to another body under his capital.

And, my friends, this new body... this is Doctor Eggman. Guys. HE KILLED SONIC. HE DID IT ONCE. THAT WAS A THING THAT HAPPENED, FOR REALS.

So the next time you look at Doctor Eggman and think, "Shouldn't he be dead?" just remember that as long as he continues building bodies, he can just upload his consciousness wherever he wants. And also, he's murdered Sonic before. That's a real thing that happened. A real thing.

So who is Dr. Eggman? Somebody worse than Dr. Robotnik. Somebody way, way worse.