History Main / MadScientist

* The infamous [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Nazi]] scientist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele Josef Mengele]], AKA "the Angel of Death". It's not unheard of to think that his name was pronounced "Mangle", given what he did to the prisoners of Auschwitz (which included among other activities, unnecesary amputations, injecting toxic substances into victim's bodies, and ripping out healthy teeth for study). Mengele was primarily an anthropologist (he was a [=PhD=]/MD) and while not an incompetent one, used his experience to advance Nazi racial theories and led him to commit many of his atrocities in an effort to prove their supposed validity.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'': Traditionally, the Joker restrains himself to [[MasterPoisoner toxicology]] (his Joker Venom) and mechanical engineering ({{Death Trap}}s, {{Electric Joybuzzer}}s, etc.), but in the movie he graduates to highly advanced genetics and computer programming, to the extent of [[spoiler:making Tim Drake a CloneByConversion]].
-->'''Joker:''' Beneath this puckish exterior lies the mind of a genius years ahead of my time. [[spoiler:In the weeks young Robin [[BreakTheCutie was under]] [[WouldHurtAChild my tutelage]], I used him as the subject of my greatest experiment.]] Using cutting-edge genetics technology which I pinched here and there, I encoded my DNA in a microchip and [[spoiler:set it in Bird-Boy's birdbrain]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'':

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner "Dr." Emanuel Theodore Bronner]] was mad in a much more literal sense. As in, he had just as much in common with the rambling, stream-of-consciousness, probably-genuinely-schizophrenic "green ink" type of madmen such as Francis E. Dec or Gene "Time Cube" Ray. He was a soap salesman whose incomprehensible ramblings[[note]]which take up the entirety of the soap's labeling ''in fine print,'' by the way,[[/note]] claimed his soap could bring metaphysical cleansing in addition to the literal physical kind one would normally expect of soap, as well as unite all of humanity together. somehow. What earns him a place on this list is the fact that his soap is, surprisingly enough, a genuinely impressive product in its own right (if unable to live up to the more abstract selling points), being a MasterOfAll soap useable for pretty much any soapy application with the right dilution ratio, to the point where it's still available for purchase today. You can get your own box [[https://www.drbronner.com/ here]].

If a work has several Mad Scientists, you can expect them to be distinguished by their particular field of interest. While the classic Mad Scientist relies on electronic or mechanical engineering (such as the RobotMaster), there are others who become an EvilutionaryBiologist, PsychoPsychologist, SociopathicSoldier, EcoTerrorist, MadBomber, TechBro or even TheCracker. If a scientist ''wants'' to concentrate on ordinary science but is being coerced into producing terrible things, this can be a ReluctantMadScientist or even a KidnappedScientist. A mad scientist with good intentions, publicly or not, can end up being a WellIntentionedExtremist.

** Henry Murray was a psychologist who conducted psychologically damaging social experiments on students of Harvard University, in which they were subjected to intense verbal abuse to test their responses to extreme stress. Murray also supervised the research of psychologist Timothy Leary into psychoactive substances, and is theorized by multiple experts to have been involved with MKULTRA. One of Murray's [[DrivenToVillainy victims was 17-year-old Ted Kaczynski]], better known as The Unabomber.
** Kaczynski himself could qualify, as he was a brilliant mathematician who earned his Ph.D. before starting his life of crime. After retiring from academics he attempted to live in the wilderness but snapped and became an EcoTerrorist in response to witnessing deforestation near his cabin. He then successfully managed to evade the authorities throughout his 18-year bombing campaign, utilizing increasingly sophisticated explosives, until his brother David recognized his writing style and turned him in following the publication of his manifesto. After his arrest, Ted was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia which was likely exacerbated by Murray's experiments. Kaczynski was diagnosed with [[YourDaysAreNumbered terminal cancer in late 2021]], but at the moment continues to communicate with the public through letters, seeking successors to his VillainousLegacy.

* Computer scientist and MillionairePlayboy [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee John McAfee]] invented the first commercial anti-virus software in the 1980s and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg founded the company that bears his namesake]]. However, he had a long history of recreational drug use that made him inclined towards reckless, impulsive behavior such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiN3rq6kqKI a brief stint as a Central American warlord and allegedly putting out a hit on his neighbor for poisoning one of his dogs]]. He was on the run for a while before being detained by Guatemalan authorities and deported back to the US, married a prostitute 30 years his junior, ran for president as a Libertarian, before becoming a fugitive ''again'' for [[IntimidatingRevenueService tax evasion]] but sought the Libertarian presidential nomination for a second time anyway. He was very active on social media throughout all of this, discussing topics such as cryptocurrency, yoga, and [[BestialityIsDepraved consensual sex with]] ''[[HotSkittyOnWailordAction whales]]''. Unfortunately, he was found dead[[note]]or not, if his "[[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/dangerous experiments]]" regarding [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality quantum immortality]] bore any fruit[[/note]] in the summer of 2021 after his arrest by Spanish authorities, shortly before his planned extradition back to the US. This spawned many UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories surrounding his [[NeverSuicide alleged suicide, due to his frequent assertions that he was not suicidal and if anyone said he hanged himself, he was murdered]].

* Elon Musk has reached MemeticBadass status for his [[BuffySpeak mad sciencing]], having built and sold a ([[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial not a]]) flamethrower for the hell of it and shooting his car into space just to prove what the Space-X rocket was capable of. And this is only a few specific examples. A common joke is he's allowed to do what he wants out of fear he'll turn into [[Film/SpiderMan1 The Green Goblin]] if anyone tries to stop him. Granted Musk isn't directly involved in most of the research and inventions conducted by his companies and is more of a mad "investor" than a scientist, but the internet simply doesn't care.

If a work has several Mad Scientists, you can expect them to be distinguished by their particular field of interest. While the classic Mad Scientist relies on electronic or mechanical engineering (such as the RobotMaster), there are others who become an EvilutionaryBiologist, PsychoPsychologist, SociopathicSoldier, EcoTerrorist, MadBomber or even TheCracker. If a scientist ''wants'' to concentrate on ordinary science but is being coerced into producing terrible things, this can be a ReluctantMadScientist or even a KidnappedScientist. A mad scientist with good intentions, publicly or not, can end up being a WellIntentionedExtremist.

If a work has several Mad Scientists, you can expect them to be distinguished by their particular field of interest. While the classic Mad Scientist relies on electronic or mechanical engineering (such as the RobotMaster), there are others who become an EvilutionaryBiologist, PsychoPsychologist, SociopathicSoldier, EcoTerrorist, MadBomber or even TheCracker. If a scientist ''wants'' to concentrate on ordinary science but is being coerced into producing terrible things, this can be a ReluctantMadScientist or even a KidnappedScientist.

The Mad Scientist fulfills many needs for a story's creator, allowing the Scientist to fit into a wide range of stories. This is a mentally unsound type which allows the story's creator to cover a weak motive or BondVillainStupidity with a HandWave. This also helps the creator of the story explain [[EvidenceDungeon why mad scientists kept all their incriminating records]] and yet [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup don't have a duplicate monster or at least a blueprint lying around]]. Secondly, they're scientists, which in fiction means they can [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands invent whatever strange device the plot requires]]. Thirdly, their insistence on weird experiments gives them artistic license to invent those devices. And lastly, a mad scientist is almost certain to violate the ScaleOfScientificSins: expect AnAesop (even if it's [[FantasticAesop a preposterous one.]])

* ''AudioPlay/TheDollsOfNewAlbion'' features Annabelle [=McAlistair=] who's raising up the dead. She brings her school crush Jasper back to life. [[spoiler: It turns out he didn't want to be brought back to life and she destroys the Doll.]]

** And he learned from [[spoiler: Sinister]], who is demonstrated to have technology that can hide him from Heimdall, teleport through/manipulate dimensions, to have mastered human cloning, and even hide from Doctor Strange -- though that's indicated to be through someone else's assistance.
** Doctor [[spoiler: Reynolds]] in the Smallville arc of the sequel, who approaches this from an alchemists perspective, seeking (and succeeding) in combining science and magic to create what would essentially be distilled magic, which could be taken in liquid form (since magic and life-force are pretty much the same thing, it would boost the drinker's health and immune system). Unfortunately, he starts using BlackMagic and darker SympatheticMagic to get it [[spoiler: (by draining Clark, though his journal all but states that Clark isn't the first, and several test subjects died)]]. Since EvilIsNotAToy, this results in severe SanitySlippage and an unusual case of ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil (he ''knows'' he's gone zooming over the MoralEventHorizon, he just doesn't ''care'').

* ''Fanfic/SeventhEndmostVision'' has Dr. [[AdaptationalVillainy Lucrecia]] [[BigBad Valentine]], who is a ''sedate'' version of this trope, one oriented not around wild scientific discoveries, but around efficiency. A glimpse of her laboratories in Shinra HQ reveal the fundamental difference between her and her canon counterpart, Dr. Hojo; her laboratories actually give the [[BenevolentBoss best pay and best hours]] in Shinra, and it's all focused on incremental improvements [[PragmaticVillainy which give a guaranteed return.]] Her calmness in this regard seems to have paid off for her; [[spoiler: she's become the fic's equivalent of ''Weiss the Immaculate'', all through her own efforts, making her tremendously dangerous.]]

* ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestria'' (''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' & ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''): Twilight also became an amoral Mad Scientist, torturing and killing countless zebra war prisoners and pony political dissidents and subjecting Discord to a FateWorseThanDeath in an attempt to create a serum that would transform normal ponies into [[PhysicalGod alicorns]]. She [[LaserGuidedKarma pays for her misdeeds]] when her serum manages to [[spoiler: mutate Trixie into an EldritchAbomination that promptly [[CannibalismSuperpower devours her]] and [[TheAssimilator absorbs her mind]].]]

* ''[[http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-fan-fiction/828948-transformers-meta.html Transformers Meta]]'': Wheeljack reprises his traditional role as this. Appropriately, he has pulled [[BigDamnHero some pretty crazy stunts]], and has invented [[StuffBlowingUp some pretty implausible things]], like [[spoiler: grenades on a sword]].

* Twilight Sparkle in ''Fanfic/PagesOfHarmony'' is very much this, having an entire multi-roomed laboratory to [[spoiler: extract the genetic essence of the Elements of Harmony from her friends]].
* [[IHaveManyNames Virgo Zodiarts/Tachibana/Kunieru Emoto]] in ''FanFic/{{Horseshoes and Hand Grenades}}'' who has not only been treating Sonada and Kijima with Cosmic Energy injections so that they can bring back their lost Horoscopes powers, he also [[spoiler: transformed Ryusei into a brainwashed cyborg]] for reasons still not yet explained.

* In ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'', Comicbook/LexLuthor is both a gifted scientist and extremely mad, going so far as to use the knowledge and resources of a Kryptonian ship downed during [[Film/ManOfSteel General Zod's attack on Metropolis]] and the corpse of [[spoiler: Zod himself]] to do a Dr. Frankenstein and create Doomsday, an almost unstoppable killing machine.

%%* ''Film/TheCityOfLostChildren'': Krank certainly counts. And he appears to be [[spoiler: the creation of another mad scientist]].

* ''Film/Ghostbusters2016'': Jillian Holtzmann, the one who builds all their gadgets, has no regard for safety procedures, habitually makes new weapons with no discernible purpose (what do they need a laser bear-trap that sends ghosts to Michigan for?), and when Patty shows up with a hearse is excited at the possibility of there being a dead body in the back ("do you know how many uses that could have?") and later paints said hearse white and bolts a siren and a nuclear reactor to the top. [[spoiler: While Rowan uses the other Ghostbusters' research to make devices that summon ghosts in an attempt to get revenge at the world.]]

** Mad Science is an arcane background, and the Mad Scientist a standard character archetype. It's caused by [[spoiler: demons whispering secrets of future technology into the ears of promising inventors]], which is as good a reason as any to go insane.
** Its sequel, ''Hell on Earth'', is set in a future where Mad Science brought about the {{Apocalypse|How}}. As a result ([[spoiler: this was the ultimate goal of the demons who caused mad science in the first place, so they stopped 'helping' when it was achieved]]), traditional mad science mostly stopped working (old devices still work, but no new ones can be created), and was replaced with [[TechnoWizard techno-shamanism]] and a more {{Anvilicious}} source of insanity: "gun spirits".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uNpjqH-mQQ Ed Currie]], Mad Horticulturist, created the world's hottest chili pepper of several magnitudes by carefully cross-breeding the hottest pepper plants he could get his hands on, just because he loves spicy foods that much. Like any good mad scientist Ed enjoys to pain his creation causes to others, and like any good mad scientist he has [[ProfessorGuineaPig repeatedly taste-tested his peppers]] to the point that he is immune to their effects.

* The great science writer/explainer (and grandmaster SF writer in his own right) Creator/IsaacAsimov once theorized that the concept of the Mad Scientist was born on April 22, 1915, during [[UsefulNotes/WorldWar1 the Battle of Ypres]]: the day and place that poison gas was first used in combat. In his 1971 essay "The Sin of the Scientist", Asimov built an argument that by turning ''the very air that you breathe'' into a weapon, poison gas achieved a new level of evil, beyond anything that science had ever produced before. Gas warfare was seen as being so monstrous that it was outlawed just ten years later as part of the 1925 Geneva Conventions - perhaps the fastest that any weapon has ever been the subject of such an action.

*** Galen Erso was forced in... And [[PapaWolf sabotaged the station so it's vulnerable to a fighter attack, knowing that almost two million people will die, to protect his daughter]] and [[CrusadingWidower avenge his wife]]. He's also quite giddy when Qwi Xux' team speeds up his job by years, and when Tarkin admits his true allegiances and declares that less than two million dead are a small revenge for being separated by their child he admits they were ''collateral damage'' to his real goals (Krennic and Tarkin himself).

* ''Film/BrideOfTheMonster'' has Professor Doctor Eric Vornoff who completely lives this trope. He has a MadScientistLaboratory, an [[TheIgor Igor]], [[HerrDoktor an eastern European accent]], he wants to prove [[TheyCalledMeMad people who called him mad]] wrong, he has an EvilLaugh and his plan is to [[ILoveNuclearPower create a race of atomic supermen]] [[TakeOverTheWorld to conquer the world]]. He's played by Creator/BelaLugosi after all [[ChewingTheScenery who chews the scenery a lot]].

* ColdBloodedTorture
* CreatingLife

* Invoked in the music video for ''Music/{{Sabaton}}''[='=]s "Father." Inventor of both chemical fertilizers (by isolating ammonia, which plants crave) and chemical weaponry (by isolating chlorine, which nothing craves, and [[CruelAndUnusualDeath not only kills whatever inhales it, but hurts like hell the entire time they die]]) Fritz Haber is depicted with ScaryShinyGlasses and lit by the SicklyGreenGlow of his lab equipment as he exults in triumph while brandishing a fume-spewing test-tube and laboratory flask.

* AbsentMindedProfessor

* MrExposition
* MrFixit

* SoleSurvivingScientist

* DeathRay
* DoomsdayDevice
* FrankensteinsMonster

* HumongousMecha
* KillerRobot
* KillSat
* MonsterOfTheWeek
* TimeMachine

* TechnoBabble: Mad scientists' explanations of their works often lapse into incompressible jargon.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':
** Most scientists working for the Wiki/SCPFoundation in the early years of the site, at least before their CharacterizationMarchesOn and they started behaving more like actual scientists. Nevertheless, most of the SCPF researchers can be described as being {{Morally Ambiguous Doctor|ate}}s, given their unethical practices of [[CannonFodder forcing prison inmates to test out a wide variety of dangerous paranormal objects]].
** Dr. Bright may be the maddest of all the SCPF's scientists, if [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-things-dr-bright-is-not-allowed-to-do-at-the-foundation this (joke) article]] is to be believed, which paints him as a CloudCuckooLander PsychopathicManchild who commits all kinds of crazy and evil antics for his own amusement.
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1760 SCP-1760 ("Casket Garden")]]. Pyotr was a mortician and scientist who carried out experiments regarding long term chemical preservation of human remains, as well as chemically induced reanimation and regeneration of such remains. This is the source of the animated remains that appear in the SCP-1760-16 coffin every six years.

* This is how LetsPlay/DuncanJones and LetsPlay/{{Sjin}} characterise themselves in the ''Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries''. Both are users of science and use it for somewhat unethical means, with the former using [[AppealToForce nukes]] to threaten LetsPlay/{{Rythian}} into complacency (it doesn't work, since Rythian is having something of a breakdown) and the latter kidnapping Teep for his own evil ends. Both also fought each other in the first ''Tekkit'' server, ending in a [[ApocalypseHow nuclear detonation that forced everyone to rebuild from scratch]].