Doctor Nefarious
Doctor Nefarious is a fictional character and the main antagonist from Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank video game series.
In the series, Dr. Nefarious is a robotic mad scientist and supervillain with deep distinct hatred for organic lifeforms. He is depicted as the archenemy of Captain Qwark and later the duo Ratchet and Clank. Throughout the series, Nefarious is always accompanied by his loyal robotic butler, Lawrence. He has a famous trademark gag whenever he loses his temper or under extreme stress, Nefarious instantly malfunctions and freezes up to pick up radio waves of soap opera episodes of Lance and Janice until he is whacked behind the head by Lawrence or anyone else
Appearances
Most of what is known about Doctor Nefarious' past comes from the much less-than-reliable Qwark comics featured in '. Originally an organic humanoid with an abnormally-large head, Dr. Nefarious first appeared when he created an army of Amoeboids to infest and destroy Blackwater City on planet Rilgar. After fending off the Amoeboids, Captain Qwark traced Nefarious to a robot factory on planet Magmos and confronted the villain. Upon meeting him, Qwark recognized Nefarious as one of the students he bullied and humiliated in high school. As Qwark tried to give him a wedgie "for old times' sake", Nefarious knocked off the catwalk and fell into the machinery below, which ultimately led to his transformation into a robot. The new Nefarious soon after unleashed a horde of robotic insects on Metropolis to get revenge on Qwark, who confronted and defeated him again, leaving the villain as a disembodied head which Qwark dumps in a trash can. Qwark was subsequently knocked out by Nefarious' butler Lawrence and taken to the former's ice planet lab. Qwark managed to escape while Nefarious began planning his vendetta after he was repaired; however, the repairs left Nefarious with a habit of malfunctioning in times of extreme stress until being whacked by Lawrence or any of his allies.While Nefarious is neither seen nor mentioned, his Amoeboids appear in Blackwater City on Rilgar in the original Ratchet & Clank. This suggests that he was involved in or aware of the plans of Chairman Drek, an idea that is later also hinted at in ' and ' when Lawrence and Nefarious both mention the Blarg. This would also explain his inclusion as the main antagonist in the Ratchet & Clank remake and tie-in film.
In ', Dr. Nefarious resurface to wage war on Solana after forming and alliance with the Tyhrranoids and famous robot Popstar sensation, Courtney Gears. He then started a campaign to rid the galaxy of organic lifeforms. Nefarious then creates and unleashes the Biobliterator, a Superweapon that turns all organic life into robots so that he can convert all under his "benevolent, iron-fisted rule" and usher the new "Age of Robots". He also attempts to convince Clank over to join his cause, being a big fan of the small robot's appearances in the "Secret Agent Clank" holovision show, having a n entire collections of episodes. When Clank refuses, Nefarious had captured and replaced him with a lookalike doppelgänger whom he names Klunk. Eventually, Ratchet defeats Klunk and rescues Clank. The two went to planet Koros and destroys the first Biobliterator with an Ion cannon. Nefarious created a secondary Biobliterator on planet Mylon, more powerful than the previous version which can transform into giant robot. Ratchet and Clank destroyed it with the aid of Captain Qwark, forcing Nefarious and Lawrence to teleport away to safety. In his haste to avoid getting blown up, however, Nefarious fails to specify a destination and they both end up stranded on drifting asteroid in deep space for between "5 or 10,000 years," as Lawrence put it until they can be in range of another planet.
He makes a cameo appearance in ' alongside Lawrence, both still stuck on the asteroid as they pass by the just-destroyed ruins of the DreadZone Station. Enraged at his dashed hopes of rescue, Nefarious takes his anger out on Lawrence only to freeze up again. In ', Nefarious's wallet, apparently, turns up in the Imperial Fight Festival on Mukow as lost property, hinting at his presence in Emperor Tachyon's audience. Apparently, Space Pirates spotted them once when Nefarious was infuriated by Lawrence again and was in the middle of screaming at his butler when his trademark malfunction occurred.
Dr. Nefarious later returns as the main antagonist in '. He and Lawrence have remained on the asteroid through space when it drifted to the Polaris Galaxy. Having crash-landed on the planet Zanifar and gained the trust of the local Fongoids, Nefarious explains that as he tried to comprehend how his past plans had always failed, he learned of the Great Clock and devised a plan to use it to alter history so that the villains always defeat the heroes. Nefarious uses his trust with the Fongoids to have them build a fortress for himself, then summons the creator of the Great Clock, Orvus, to extract information from him regarding the Clock's operation. Though Orvus remains defiant and escapes, Nefarious learns that Clank is the key to accessing the Clock.
Two years later, Nefarious has moved from his fortress to a large space station designed in the image of his head and is terrorizing the Polaris Galaxy with aid from Lord Vorselon and the Valkyries. His plans to harness the Great Clock have not abated, and he orders Lawrence to observe Clank in secret from within the Clock. After Clank opens the Orvus Chamber, Lawrence knocks him out and reports the news to Nefarious. The doctor then gleefully starts "Unnecessarily Evil Initiative Omega-91" by using Clank as bait to lure Ratchet into a Valkyrie ambush. With "help" from Captain Qwark, Ratchet and Clank infiltrate Nefarious's space station and destroy his fleet of ships, but are captured and brought before Nefarious. After explaining the full extent of his plans, Nefarious ejects the two heroes with his "Asteroid Flinger 5000". After surviving a crash landing on planet Morklon and going back in time to help the Fongoids win the Battle of Gimlick Valley, Ratchet and Clank commandeer a ship back to the space station and stop Nefarious from boarding his last remaining ship to the Great Clock. In the end, Dr. Nefarious is again defeated by Ratchet and Clank and falls screaming to his ship's surface. Upon landing, he suffers a complete system breakdown before his ship crashes into the space station and destroys it. Though Ratchet and Clank escape in time with aid from Azimuth, it is reported during the credits that Nefarious's body was not found in the wreckage. In the Ratchet & Clank comic series and All 4 One, Qwark confirms that Lawrence teleported Nefarious away in time and that he is still considered to be within the Polaris System.
Doctor Nefarious is a playable character in the game ', where he initially triggers the plot by tricking Qwark into fighting a giant Light-eating Z'Grute only to be attacked by his own creature. When Ratchet and Clank try to stop it, they, Qwark, and Nefarious are all captured by the Creature Collector Ephemeris, and the villainous robot is forced to work with the heroes to escape. Despite his dislike of his "partners", Nefarious slowly warms up to playing the hero, even going so far as to save Qwark on a few occasions. In the end, Nefarious reasserts his supervillain attitude and escapes, though a final scene hints that he may not have been completely ungrateful for his temporary friends. Nefarious appears as an downloadable skin in . Outside of the Ratchet and Clank series, Nefarious cameos in the San Francisco level of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and was originally planned as a playable character in the game alongside Ratchet and Clank. Nefarious also appeared as an unlockable Chibi-sized Minion in a patch for the game.
Reimagined Series
Nefarious appears in the Ratchet & Clank film and accompanying video game. Here, he is depicted in an organic form, having not yet undergone his robotic conversion, acting as Chairman Drek's chief scientist. Instead of appearing as he did in Up Your Arsenal before turning into a robot, Doctor Nefarious has green skin and uses glasses along with having a similar design to his robot form. It is stated in the film that he was a Galactic Ranger before he turned evil. He was the Rangers' support team before Elaris was a Ranger and turned bad as Qwark took all the credit for Nefarious' work and inventions along with the poor working conditions Nefarious had to deal with. It is also stated that he tried to atomize Aleero City but was stopped by Qwark and went to prison where he was presumably killed during a prison break. Instead of turning people into robots or changing time as he did in past games, Nefarious used Drek as a way to try to destroy the Solana Galaxy. This involved creating a superweapon known as the Deplanitizer with which Drek would destroy other planets and harvest suitable remains to create a replacement for his own overpolluted planet. Nefarious ensured that the target list included Umbris, an uninhabited planet with a core of pure moluvium that if it were to explode, it would destroy the system it is in. This was part of his plan to destroy the Solana Galaxy under the Rangers' watch for they would be the ones to be blamed. He turns Drek into a sheep by using the Sheepinator, one of his personal favorite weapons, and taking control of the Deplanetizer. Doctor Nefarious also created the RYNO, the most powerful weapon in the series, which causes him to be struck by an energy blast when Ratchet hits him near the end of the film where he plummets to his death. In a post-credit scene, Nefarious survives the fall where a few repairbots searching the Deplanetizer's wreckage fix him, turning him into his robot form. The game, meanwhile, is more concrete, apparently killing Nefarious by having him vaporized within a dwarf star. Although, since the story is narrated by Qwark, it is likely that he survived without his knowledge.Personality
Dr. Nefarious was an evil robotic scientist who despised all organic lifeforms and any treasonous robots who fought alongside them against the doctor, especially Clank. He is eccentric, very ill-tempered always treated his butler horribly, was egomaniacal, cheated, and was always full of himself. The doctor had a terrible temper, especially towards those who defied him.Evidently, judging from the not so reliable vid-comics, Qwark was the reason Nefarious came to hate all organic life.