Doctor Wily

Doctor Wily
Mega Man character
Classification	Human
Weapon	Various
Loyalty	Himself
First Appearance	Mega Man
Voice actor (English)	Ian James Corlett ( The Game Master) Scott McNeil (Ruby-Spears cartoon) Dean Galloway (Powered Up)
Voice actor (Japanese)	Takeshi Aono (Rockman 8, Rockman X4)

Doctor Albert W. Wily is the fictional main antagonist of the character Mega Man in the Capcom Mega Man video game series. His goal is usually world domination and he constructs robots to carry out his plans. His character is designed by Keiji Inafune.

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, though in some artistic renditions (especially in 8-bit graphics) he resembles first and third Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion with a moustache. There are other, mostly coincidental similarities to other people.^*

History

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 US 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 (plus Time Man and Oil Man, who appear in Mega Man: Powered Up).

Doctor Wily became jealous of his rival, Dr. Light for creating the eight/ten robots mentioned above, when Dr. Light won the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the committee gave no credit to Wily for his contributions to the robots. He reprogrammed six (eight, according to the PSP remake) of the robots to do his bidding. Though they were originally robots made to help humanity - land reclamation, efficient demolition and construction, and the like - they were soon modified for battle and destruction. (however, his mistake was that he didn't take Rock and Roll as he saw the two helper robots as useless, although he did try to seduce Roll into joining him in her story). Doctor Wily used their power 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 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.

It should be noted in the upcoming remake of the original NES Mega Man game known as Powered Up, Capcom has retconned the original story and added Time Man and Oil Man, thus changing the total that Dr. Light created from eight robots to ten.

Megaman Battle Network

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 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.

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-armoured humanoid warrior with long blond 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 virus (possibly the other project Wily mentions in the ending to Power Fighters). 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. Evidently, this is where the virus was contained, and after it was struck, the virus, in its entirety, transferred into Sigma. Zero, lifeless without the virus, was recovered and reprogrammed, ironically making the once-destructive Zero brave and good, fighting against Sigma for freedom and peace. But Zero still seems to need the virus on some level, and it has been foreshadowed that something will force X to destroy him to save humanity...

Sigma strangely knows about Doctor Wily (presumably because he possesses Wily's virus 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 "commrade" 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 reunite 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).

Trivia

Wily's saucer was originally red.

Wily's name has had a few variants over the years due to localisation 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.

Albert W. Wily's middle name is supposedly William, but this mostly originates from fandom.

Another piece of fanon has it that Dr. Wily was driven crazy by the effects of teleportation, which (according to the theory) only robots could do safely. This is disproven, however, by Kalinka Cossack being teleported by Proto Man in Mega Man 4, with no apparent ill effects.

Wily was a semi-regular on the animated series 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 apparently American, 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: Powered Up, he exclaimed "Ach!" in two occasions; once right before the battle with the Proto Eye, and once after destroying the Wily Machine's first form.

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 PlayStation (Mega Man 64 for 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).

In Mega Man: Powered Up, Dr. Wily is voiced by Dean Galloway, who also provided the voice for Chill Penguin in 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 Vile/Vava).

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 Rockman X6. This could be further evidence about Dr. Wily's involvement in the X series.

Fictional mad scientists | Mega Man villains