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Robot Master

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/robot-master_7528.jpg
Not just a badly-dressed dork, but a badly-dressed dork with his own Humongous Mecha.

"You know what I love about machines? They do what they're told."
— Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

A scientist who specializes in building or maintaining robots.

If he is a Mad Scientist, this skill will probably manifest as an ability to effortlessly manufacture Mecha-Mooks in bulk. Robots don't have to be his only area of expertise (as a mad scientist, he's probably also an Omnidisciplinary Scientist), but he's a Robot Master if robot-making is far and away his most commonly displayed skill. For instance, Doctor Doom is a scientist who builds robots periodically, but fellow Fantastic Four enemy the Mad Thinker builds robots virtually every time he appears.

Just building one robot doesn't qualify you for this trope. This is for people whose resumés are more than 50% taken up with robot-building or at least robot-fixing.

Not to be confused with the Mega Man (Classic) Robot Masters, though this trope does apply to their creators.

May or may not overlap with Marionette Master. Many Igors qualify, depending on their bosses' area of expertise. Compare with Drone Deployer and The Turretmaster (for different kind of "robots") and Wicked Toymaker. If you were looking for a robot that is a master, see Master Computer.

Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Dr. Gero from Dragon Ball Z made many robots to fight Goku, though some of them are cyborgs (17, 18, and himself) or artificial lifeforms (Cell).
  • Dr. Vegapunk of One Piece. This may change later on, as he's pretty much stated to have a whole plethora of other accomplishments under his belt, but his most prominent role in the story thus far is creating a small army of Pacifistas for the World Government.
  • Jail Scaglietti from Lyrical Nanoha. He also builds cyborgs.
  • Winry of Fullmetal Alchemist is constantly repairing robotic limbs and such.
  • All Incarnations of Dr. Hell from the Mazinger series are this to varying degrees.
  • Dr. Rotwang from Tiger & Bunny.
  • Engineer Sakaki from Patlabor.
  • Doctor Tenma and Doctor Ochanomizu from Astro Boy.
  • Doll by Mitsukazu Mihara is an anthology series about humans interacting with robots, so it's only natural that many of its characters are robot specialists.
  • Norman Burg in The Big O knows how to maintain a megadeus — though being an amnesiac like everyone his age in Paradigm City, he doesn't remember how he learned this skill. He repairs and maintains the Big O for Roger.
  • Biko Daitokuji (B-Ko) from Project A-Ko is this as Tony Stark levels, a high school student capable of building a new Super Robot mecha to battle A-Ko every night.
  • Metal Knight, and to a lesser extent Child Emperor, from One-Punch Man.

    Comic Books 
  • Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men.
  • The Mad Thinker from Fantastic Four is this trope combined with The Chessmaster. His most well-known creation is a biological robot called the Awesome Android.
  • The Toyman from Superman can build lifelike androids, but prefers to make his killer robots look like toys.
  • Justice League of America:
    • Dr. T.O. Morrow, creator of Red Tornado, Tomorrow Woman, and assorted other bots. They tend to rebel on him, but since he's evil, that's usually a good thing. Ironically, Morrow has at times expressed pride that he's capable of creating androids so intelligent they're capable of going against their programming and rebelling against him.
    • Professor Ivo built Amazo, a robot capable of mimicking his enemies' powers.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Spencer Smythe, creator of the Spider-Slayers. After his death, his son, Alistaire Smythe, continued his legacy by building more Spider-Slayers, eventually turning himself into a cyborg.
    • Also minor Spidey antagonists Armada and Future Max.
    • And minor character Mendel Stromm, who actually calls himself "Robot Master".
  • Dr. Abel Stack, who built Aaron Stack the Machine Man. He also helped build all the previous robots in Aaron's series, who all went mad. The reason Aaron turned out all right is that Abel actually raised him as a son. Of course, years later, the Celestials kidnapped Aaron, causing him to suffer a nervous breakdown and turn into the snarky, endearingly neurotic Jerkass we know from Nextwave, but that's another story.
  • Bolivar Trask, creator of the X-Men's robot nemeses, the Sentinels.
  • The (possible) Trope Namer from The Transformers (Marvel) is actually an invocation of this trope: failing comic-book writer Donny Finkelberg is enlisted by the government to pose as his character "Robot Master" and claim credit for the Transformers' battles, as this was judged less publicly frightening than an alien civil war. Hilarity Ensues when the 'cons found out that some dumb squishy was pretending to be their master. In fact, when Megatron awakens, he decides to keep Finkleberg around to continue the charade, since he could make it look like all robots are under his control, making it harder for the Autobots to enlist human allies. It doesn't quite work in the long run, since it's kind of hard to explain why one guy would have two sets of robots fighting each other, but it becomes moot when Finkleberg manages to escape.
  • The Avengers: Despite being a robot himself, Ultron would certainly count. He built The Vision, Jocasta, Victorius, and Alkhema, as well as countless duplicates of himself — usually just replacement bodies for when he inevitably gets destroyed at the end of each appearance, but he has built armies of these duplicates on a couple of occasions (with the predictable Conservation of Ninjutsu in full effect). His unique creations have a tendency to rebel against him and become superheroes.
  • The Followers of the Light from Shogun Warriors are aliens who built the titular Humongous Mecha to fight giant monsters.
  • Tyranik from ManTech was driven mad by the same ancient "knowledge ray" that taught him about robotics, so he wants to wipe out mankind and replace it with robots.
  • The Katayanagi twins from Scott Pilgrim, though the building itself happens off-screen. In the comics, anyway; the film changes them to techno-themed Musical Assassins.
  • Baxter Stockman from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics is a computer expert who builds small "Mouser" robots and uses them to commit crimes.
  • Astro City:
    • The first Assemblyman creates rampaging robots for anyone who pays.
    • Vivi Vector is a female example who thinks big — she's spent decades infiltrating robotics and electronics systems worldwide with her creations.
    • Ellie Jennersen was a robotics genius even before she got into college and broadened her expertise. Unfortunately, her potential was cut short after her roommate Mind Raped her and stole her work.
    • Dr. Saturday is a Mad Scientist who builds giant robots that resemble cartoon characters.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): Byrna Brilyant, the "Snowman", is a brilliant roboticist who used her chemist father's notes to create a weather machine, and her own know how to make a battalion of identical rocket propelled robots and matching Powered Armor equipped with a Freeze Ray.
    • Doctor Cyber traditionally has a legion of robotic assassins at her beck and call.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 

    Manhwa and Korean Animation 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Champions:
    • Robot Gladiators supplement. Dr. Anton Wolcott, Chief Roboticist of the Interstellar Gladiator Authority.
    • Mechanon probably counts: as a robot, he used automated factories to make improved versions of himself.
  • Evil Sorcerer variant: Xin, the High King of ancient Thassilon in Pathfinder, was enamored with powerful clockwork automatons, and in fact was entombed in a "living" clockwork sarcophagus.
    • House Ardoc in the city of Kaer Maga specializes in animating golems and other magical constructs.
  • The wizard Trioband in Forgotten Realms, who created various specialized metal automatons.
  • In Sentinels of the Multiverse, the villain Omnitron builds Drones to fight the heroes, while the hero Unity creates mechanical golems that do her fighting for her.
  • Magic: The Gathering: Both of Tezzeret's planeswalker cards have abilities that search the player's deck for artifacts and turn them into powerful creatures.

    Theater 

    Video Games 
  • Gaige the Mechromancer and her Killer Robot / Science Fair project D374-TP a.k.a. "Deathtrap" from Borderlands 2.
  • Robotics Masterminds in City of Heroes/Villains are playable robot masters.
  • Dr. Proton, in Duke Nukem, took over an entire city with the TechBots he'd built, not to mention the moon base (in Episode 2) and a city in the far-flung future (in Episode 3). This aspect was very much downplayed by the time of his appearance the 2011 game's DLC, "The Doctor Who Cloned Me", though the 2001 version might've seen him play a larger role, Robot Master status included.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • In the series' Backstory, the extinct Dwemer were masters at creating mechanical "animunculi", ranging from miniature spider centurion workers to sphere and steam centurion soldiers to full blown Humongous Mecha. As the Dwemer were known to tinker with the "earthbones" (essentially the laws of physics and nature in the ES universe), they could make their creations impervious to wear and tear, meaning that many are still up and running even thousands of years after their disappearance.
    • Morrowind:
      • Edwinna Elbert, Stewardess of the Ald-Ruhn Mages Guild, studies Dwemer creations. If one brings her a copy of a certain rare book, she'll mention how she wants to be one of these, believing it will make her famous.
      • In the Tribunal expansion, one can meet Ignatius Flaccus in Mournhold. Ignatius spends his time restoring Dwemer centurions to use as combatants in his robot arena. Of course, he quickly learns the hard way that Dwemer creations tend to behave erratically if taken outside of Dwemer ruins.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout: New Vegas
      • Mr. House of New Vegas has elements of this himself — while his skills extended quite a bit beyond robots, it was a major focus of him and the company he created, RobCo, and in the modern day his influence on the outside world mainly occurs through controlled and sometimes modified Securitrons. He's also implied to have had a hand in the creation of Liberty Prime.
      • In theory, this is 0's job in Big MT in Fallout: New Vegas Old World Blues. In practice, while he's not too bad at the mechanical side of things (his modification of RobCo's Securitrons are more powerful, despite having been in the open seemingly without maintenance for centuries), his software skills are... not quite up to the task (his robots either a) have gone berserk or b) hates their job).
    • Fallout 4
      • The Mechanist is an expert of robotics and has an army of robot for terrorizing the Commonwealth and killing everything coming across their path, complete with a factory as the lair to mass produce the robots. You can become one after acquiring the Robot Workshop as well.
      • The Institute, and Father, also qualify to some extent with their synths: machines that emulate the appearance and behaviors of humans. While Gen 1 and Gen 2 synths look more like mannequins than people, Gen 3 synths are practically indistinguishable from humans. How much the Institute qualifies as robot masters is largely dependent on whether one considers synths to be mere machines or living beings.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's, Big Bad William Afton was a roboticist and Serial Killer who used his talents to create his own line of Suck E. Cheese's to prey on children in.
  • Dr. Elvin Atombender in Impossible Mission: "Destroy him, my robots!"
  • Lord Agony from Lock's Quest.
  • Dr. Wily and Dr. Light from the Mega Man (Classic) games, whose main robots are coincidentally known as Robot Masters.
  • Lightspeakers from Nexus Clash are fragile, cheerful angels devoted to defending justice and protecting the innocent by building and maintaining an army of relentless robotic minions. They're much more positive than most examples of this trope, but their armies can be incredibly dangerous if they fall prone to the Black-and-White Insanity that often tempts angels in the Nexus.
  • In Professor Layton and the Curious Village, we have Bruno, who built ALL of the inhabitants of St. Mystere with the exception of the late Baron Reinhold's daughter, Flora
  • Sonic the Hedgehog's diabolical Doctor Eggman, whose portfolio includes trying to turn everyone in the world into a robot.
  • Purge from Space Channel 5 Part 2 makes hundreds of robots to face off against Ulala. Apparently he's so talented, he mass-produced the Peace Carrier 8 times in under a day.
  • Spyborgs have it's Big Bad, Jackal, being a rogue roboticist whose army of machines dominates the city, and you need to stop him.
  • Ju Shifang from Sword & Fairy 6 is a playable example. He builds remotely-controlled robotic bears in Wuxia setting! He carries one of them around in backpack form, and deploys it when battle begins.

    Webcomics 
  • Agatha Heterodyne of Girl Genius.
  • In Homestuck, the Troll Equius Zahhak is quite skilled at building robots and cybernetic limbs. He does this so that he can blow off steam by fighting killer robots.
  • Rika, a British example from RPG World.
  • In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Sean "Dark Smoke Puncher" McNinja likes to build robot animals with laser vision and stuff. Their main job is to guard the family home, but that's just an excuse—he just likes making the suckers.
  • Molly from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! builds lots of robots, mostly for fun. Only one of them has turned out sentient — the one made out of a milking machine. Two of the others are made of snow, and of those, one can transform into a giant ice ballista. Yes.

    Web Original 
  • Doctor Steel, creating an army of giant robots, and having a robot band. And a lot of robot toys.

    Western Animation 
  • Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown uses a wide array of robots in addition to the series's magical MacGuffins.
  • The Transformers:
    • The Quintessons, who may or may not be machines themselves, are perhaps the biggest example in the franchise. They're the original creators of the entire Transformer race, and seem to have created several species of metallic minions like their Sharkticons and Allicons. Some media credits them with the direct creation of the animalistic Decepticon combiner teams of the Predacons and Terrorcons. They seem to have a thing for making transforming animal robots.
    • The supercomputer TORQ-III from the episode "Day of the Machines" is described as a "machine that can build other machines." When Megatron reprograms TORQ to be hostile, TORQ commands all of the robots he's built to go on a rampage.
    • Any of the "medic" characters, like Ratchet or First Aid, would qualify for "maintaining" robots. As Mechanical Lifeforms, they just think of it in different terms. Wreck-Gar and Alpha Trion would probably count, too.
    • Dr. Fujiyama, creator of Nightbird the robot ninja.
  • Transformers: Animated's Isaac Sumdac, who reverse engineered technology from Megatron's head, resulting in Detroit being a center of robot production.
  • Ming's flunky Dr. Tav from Flash Gordon (1979). Dr. Tav invented Ming's army of Mecha-Mooks.
  • Though he has many other accomplishments, Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory is constantly building robots.
  • Tobey from WordGirl, with his mega-giant-attack robots.
  • Dr. Von Richter from Cybersix specialized in biological androids.
  • DuckTales (1987): Gyro Gearloose. After one disaster, Scrooge McDuck specifically forbade Gyro from making robots, because A.I. Is a Crapshoot. At least once Gyro attempted to get around this restriction by building piloted robots, and rather than causing mayhem on their own, the Beagle Boys simply stole them and caused mayhem anyway. He tried once more in the third season, building a sentient robot maid who promptly fell in Mad Love with Fenton and went berserk; Gyro was ultimately able to pacify her without having to junk her, though. Third time's the charm, apparently.
    • Gyro's bad track record with robots is played up even more in the 2017 reboot. Frustration with his robots "turning evil" is actually what drives him to bypass A.I. entirely and build the piloted Gizmoduck suit instead. He did manage to create one robot that never went evil on its own, though: 2B0, AKA B.O.Y.D.
  • Ziv Zulander from the appropriately titled The Bots Master, a Teen Genius responsible for introducing semi-advanced robots, called 3Asnote  to his world. He also built a bunch of even more advanced robots, who are sentient with human-like personalities, called BOYZZnote .
  • In Bolts & Blip, all the robots on the Moon were built by Dr. Tommy, except the evil Mecha-Mooks who were built by Dr. Blood.
  • Nora Wakeman, Jenny's "Mom" from My Life as a Teenage Robot.
  • Dr. Nightmare, a Space Ghost villain who builds Mechanical Monsters.
  • Kaeloo: Olaf the emperor penguin has his own robot, which he uses to get anyhing he wants or needs. He also once turned Stumpy into a cyborg, and he built a robot army in the second season finale.
  • Sunfire's crazy uncle in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode "Sunfire" first built a bunch of samurai-themed Mecha-Mooks, then created a giant artificial fire monster (you know, the one from the show's opening credits).
  • Wander over Yonder:
    • Knight of Cerebus Lord Dominator has an army of lava-powered robots as a Darker and Edgier counterpoint to Lord Hater's live army of Watchdogs. Amusingly, Lord Hater seems to think he's one of these (arguably a Mythology Gag in that the Watchdogs were originally conceived as Do-Anything Robots:
      Hater: You know those eyeball guys I have? How often do I need to change their batteries?
    • Aging villain Mandrake the Malfeasant has an appropriately retro army of Tin-Can Robots.
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Lord Boxman creates all of his robotic minions, making a whole business out it. His corporation supposedly sells them to other villains, but his own obsession with destroying the plaza tends to stymie much of his sales.

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