Doctor Albert W. Wily

**Doctor Albert W. Wily** is the main antagonist of the *Mega Man* franchise.

Dr. Wily is Dr. Light's former partner at Light Labs. Jealous of being overshadowed by Light's success, he reprogrammed the original Robot Masters and used them to take over the city, and would eventually attempt to conquer the world with them.

In the AWA fics, Dr. Wily is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

In Mega Man, Wily's character artwork depicts him as having a curly, balding hairstyle, as well as a curly thick moustache and being slightly pudgy with a white lab coat, a blue dress shirt and green tie, dark blue pants, and gray loafers. The design eventually evolved over time to have his hair stylized in his more trademark bat-wing-like style, as well as having a more lean appearance. However, his 8-bit sprites generally depicted him with his original design. In general, he is depicted in artwork, and to a certain extent his game sprite for Mega Man 7, as possessing gray hair and moustache, a cleft chin, as well as a white dress shirt, a red tie, blue pants, brown loafers, and a white lab coat.

In Mega Man 8, he wore a more elaborate outfit, with a purple knot tie, dark pants with a brown belt possessing a skull belt buckle, and his coat possessed pink inner linings as well as a raised collar and a cape. Likewise, in Super Adventure Rockman, he is depicted as wearing a beige coat, a green T-shirt and, very briefly, an explorer cap and a green backpack, mostly due to his travels in the Amazon during that time. His design in Mega Man Powered Up is largely similar to his default design, although the only notable difference besides the Chibi-style and angular design is that he wore a pink dress shirt instead of his usual white dress shirt and having dark blue pants instead of standard blue pants. In Mega Man 11, Wily wears a black dress shirt and red tie as well as dark pants with a belt buckle prominently displaying his logo, alongside his usual lab coat, which possessed purple inner linings similar to his outfit in Mega Man 8.

In Hitoshi Ariga's Megamix series, Wily appears much taller and lankier than his game design, with heavily wrinkled skin and wild jagged hair along with spiked sideburns. This version of Dr Wily often wears single-piece sunglasses to hide his eyes, and wears a tie covered with a skeleton motif.

His younger self varied between mediums. In Mega Man 11 and Mega Man Megamix, Wily was depicted with a full-head of spiked hair and sideburns (as well as being blonde in the former). In Archie Comics, Wily was depicted as largely similar to his current day appearance, only instead of his bat-wing like hairstyle, it is tied in the back into a large ponytail, as well as a slightly smaller moustache reminiscent in overall appearance to a bat wing.

## **Personality**

As the main antagonist of the classic series, Wily has many notable traits and characteristics of an archetypal villain, being cruel and yet incredibly cunning. Wily is well-versed in the art of manipulation, as shown in Mega Man 9 when he manages to convince Dr. Light’s own robots to let him "repair" them. He cleverly deduces that Mega Man would not dare shoot at him at the conclusion of Mega Man 7, and his prediction holds merit when Mega Man hesitates upon firing his buster when it is fully charged.

Wily, though a genius in his own right, has shown to be ignorant and opinionated at times. He has attacked the world many times, with his motives varying from world domination to revenge, only to see his plans foiled time and time again by his arch nemesis Mega Man. In addition, Wily is persistently hopeful that his creation Bass could one day dispose of his greatest enemy, despite knowing that Bass is disloyal and even goes as far to attack him, as shown in Mega Man: The Power Battle, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, Mega Man & Bass and Mega Man 10.

He has also shown himself to be very shameless in his manipulations. While his trademark action after being defeated is to grovel and beg for mercy, Mega Man 11 and his trophy description for Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS and Wii U indicate that this isn't true cowardice, as it's completely insincere and is more a last ditch attempt to manipulate Mega Man. In the former game he cynically states that he's been forced to resort to "Plan B" before taking his usual begging pose. When Mega Man makes it clear he's not fooled, Wily quickly drops the act and briefly monologues how he had ultimately still won, as Mega Man had been forced to utilize his own technology to defeat him. His willingness to utilize such tactics indicates that he's more than willing to briefly set aside his pride if it will give him an advantage.

Wily is also implied to have had some interest in continuing his work posthumously, as revealed in an interview with Keiji Inafune, when Wily attempted to be “brought back” after death by the original programming of Zero’s- programming that would later evolve into the Maverick Virus.

As diabolical as he may be, Wily has exhibited rare moments of decency and goodness in his character. In Super Adventure Rockman, Wily shows concern for his arch enemy when Mega Man chooses to use two Mega Busters to win a battle despite possibly expending all of his power. He also tells Ra Moon that he loves his creations. In Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, Wily speaks to Zero in the deep recess of the latter’s mind during his ending. Wily appears as a father figure to his last creation, giving him words of encouragement and going as far as to call him his “son” (though this could be argued that Wily was simply trying to cajole Zero into completing his yet unnamed “task”). In Mega Man 10, he even leaves a huge amount of medicine to cure the Roboenza virus, presumably out of gratitude that Mega Man saved his life. In Mega Man 11, it was also revealed that one of his earliest motives for acting as a robotics scientist was ultimately a desire to do good, and that his Double Gear System proposition was largely an attempt to allow even robots to be heroes, but the sting of rejection by Dr. Light as well as the scientific community led to him becoming very bitter and more extreme in his thinking, which ultimately made him a fairly tragic character. In addition, despite Wily's hatred for Dr. Light, he does not wish to injure him, never attempting to cause harm despite having the opportunity, like capturing him in Mega Man 5 and having Bass only steal his plans in Mega Man 7.

This also extends to other media. In the final part of Worlds Collide, Dr. Wily during the final battle even attempted to stop Dr. Eggman from trying to attack Sonic and Mega Man trying to save the universe from being destroyed via their misuse of the Super Genesis Wave, and was also noticeably horrified when he learned that Eggman was perfectly willing to destroy the universe with them simply because he was capable of it, indicating that even he wouldn't dare try to risk universal destruction for its own sake (although in that case, it also may have been due to a desire of self-preservation since he realized the implication it would have destroyed him as well). On a similar note, when learning Ra Moon's true goals of destroying the world and its inhabitants via shutting down all technology, he was genuinely horrified by this plan and even went to measures in an attempt to stop the mad alien AI. In Issue 54, although technically not an actual act of decency due to claiming otherwise in order to force him to kidnap Kalinka Cossack, Dr. Lalinde when revealing the truth about the nature of Dr. Wily's new, and malfunctioning, nuclear core in Break Man states that the core actually had a casing around it that was secure enough that the only danger to Break Man regarding it was if it burned out, implying that even he would not go as far as to ensure it would remotely detonate in a population area. In Issue 27 of Archie's Mega Man comic, Wily was angered at Dr. Eggman for trying to murder Dr. Light in Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 250, although Eggman rekindled their friendship in Worlds Unite. Similarly, in Issue 45, even after having thoroughly humiliated Dr. Light, he implies to Proto Man that he deliberately made sure Light was spared after obliterating the lab upon stealing Gamma, citing that, vengeful as he may be, he was still "not a monster." This may vary in different media, with the reverse being true in the Dreamwave Productions comic, where Dr. Wily attempted to kill Dr. Light, and he actually did it in the comic Novas Aventuras de Megaman by launching a nuke on his lab. Any desire to preserve Light's life may be more of a selfish desire to make sure Light sees him win, rather than actually caring about Light's well-being. The Mega Man Megamix version of Dr. Wily also shows a minor amount of sympathy towards robots, appearing genuinely depressed at the sight of discarded recycled robots in a junkyard, and taking pity on a toy robot whose brain still functioned, resulting in the Yellow Devil MK-II.

In Mega Man X4, Wily states that his rivalry with his nemesis (presumably Dr. Light and his creations) is what gives him motivation in life. It's assumed that as time passed, Wily became more and more interested in having Zero defeat X to prove that his last creation is superior to the one created by his rival rather than conquering the world.

In all, Wily is a dynamic character. Though he is usually shown as seemingly pure evil, even he is not without a few reputable traits. Indeed, prior to the first Mega Man, before his descent towards insanity, Wily was shown to be an ordinary, yet diligent scientist. In addition, he was shown to be genuinely helpful to Dr. Light, though he still harbored a tinge of jealousy towards his former friend and colleague.

## **Trivia**

* Wily's first name, Albert, is taken from "Albert Einstein", opposite to Dr. Light's first name, Thomas, taken from "Thomas Edison". However, unlike Dr. Light, Wily has somewhat of a resemblance to the person he is based on. Although Einstein was a good man, he was referenced as an antagonist because he created the formula that led to the development of the atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and inadvertently began the nuclear arms race, including the events of the Cold War and the fear of all out global nuclear war.
	+ On a similar note, several succeeding Capcom villains who acted as scientists/doctorates usually had the first name of "Albert", including Master Albert of Mega Man ZX Advent (who was himself an homage to Dr. Wily), Albert Wesker from the Resident Evil franchise, and Albert Contiello from Dead Rising.

* Dr. Wily's views towards robots are paradoxical at first glance.  On the one hand, he uses Robot Masters as tools to help him acheive world domination and prefers to replace Robot Masters that failed in the past with better and more advanced versions (examples: Metal Man is an improved version of Cut Man, Frost Man was designed to be the best ice Robot Master after the failures of Ice Man, Blizzard Man and Freeze Man, Wave Man was designed to be a better water Robot Master than Bubble Man and to replace him).  He also has no qualms about reprogramming Robot Masters to serve him, which is most obvious in Mega Man 11 and the original Mega Man. On the other hand, in Super Adventure Rockman Dr. Wily revives old creations of his and tells Ra Moon that he "loves" his robots, he does not alter Proto Man's programming after finding him prior to the events of Mega Man 3 (and even replaces Proto Man's damaged core), and in Mega Man 10 he leaves the cure to Roboenza in the hospital he was boarding in to save the world's remaining infected robots once it's clear that his plan for world domination has failed.  Other instances of Dr. Wily demonstrating compassion towards robots include giving all of his Robot Masters unique personalities, tolerating Bass despite his disobedience and aggression towards Wily, and "saving" several Robot Masters who were past their expiration date and therefore due to be scrapped in Mega Man 9. Fascinatingly, in a flashback to his youth in Mega Man 11 during which time Dr. Wily researched at Robot University, he expresses concern to a young Dr. Light that robots will never be treated as equals by humans in society even if robots become sentient. Taking all this information together, Dr. Wily's views about the proper relations between robots and humans, and whether robots having free will like humans do is a good thing or not, are interesting and complex.

* Wily possibly lied to Bass when he said that he created King to test Bass's abilities; the truth is that Wily may have created King to replace Bass (besides other reasons) because Wily became tired of his numerous defeats to Mega Man. This could be one of the reasons that Wily built his more advanced robot, Zero (to replace Bass), which Wily even claimed to be the case when confronted Bass on his betrayal in both Power Fighters titles.

* Although having no direct role in the Zero series, Dr. Weil is said to be his far off descendant.

* Master Albert of the Sage Trinity in Mega Man ZX Advent is named after Dr. Wily. Like his namesake, Master Albert is also villainous.

* Wily's name is misspelled as **Dr. Willy**, **Dr. Wiley**, **Dr. Wylie**, and **Dr. Waily** in some sources, such as early instruction manuals, the NES version of Mega Man 3, the SNES version of Mega Man 7 and in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS. In the English version of Mega Man 8, Dr. Light pronounced his name as "Dr. Wahwee".

* In the Ruby-Spears TV series, Wily claims to have been "always misunderstood" and ridiculed as a child by other children. He also laments that he had no toys as a child, implying he may have grown up in poverty. This is one of the few references made in any media to Wily's life before meeting Dr. Light.

* According to the American manual for the first Mega Man, Dr. Wily was Dr. Light's assistant and worked on his DRN series of robots. Though this story was reinforced by the Ruby-Spears cartoon and later the PAL version of Mega Man Powered Up, it is not canon to the Japanese version of Wily's backstory.

* In an article on PC World, Wily was voted as #39 of the top 47 "most diabolical video game villains of all time".

* Most of the time, Dr. Wily is seen wearing a simple white lab coat, a white collar shirt, red tie, sometimes a gold tie clip, blue jeans, and brown shoes. In instances like Mega Man 8, Mega Man & Bass, and Mega Man: Battle & Chase, Wily is seen wearing a more evil outfit, wearing a white cape instead of a lab coat, black trousers with a skull-shaped belt buckle, and a purple ribbon instead of a red tie. His hair has also changed somewhat, giving it a resemblance to bat wings, further emphasizing his evil. Ever since the release of Mega Man Powered Up, he is once more seen wearing his regular outfit, but his hair is still bat-wing-shaped. From Mega Man 9-onward, he has reverted to his pre-Mega Man 8 design, which changed to a black collar shirt and gray slacks in Mega Man 11.

* In Capcom's survival horror, Dead Rising 2, one of the stores in the game is a travel agency called "Wily Travels."
	+ In Dead Rising 2: Case West, there is a "Lab Coat" and a hat called the "Mad Scientist Hair" both paying homage to Dr. Wily.

* In the English version of Mega Man 8, Dr. Light humorously mispronounces Dr. Wily as Dr. Wahwee. This has become a famous Internet meme.

* Ironically, in his appearance in Captain N, Wily is voiced by Ian James Corlett, who voiced Mega Man in the Ruby-Spears cartoon (where Wily was voiced by Scott McNeil, who also voiced Proto Man in the same series).

* Pro wrestler Kenny Omega has a finishing maneuver called The Dr. Wily Bomb.