Syndrome

**Syndrome** is .

## Background

### Development

Originally, in the early drafts of the film's script, Syndrome was originally going to be featured as a minor villain, like Bomb Voyage in the prologue of the film. The film's main antagonist was originally supposed to be Xerek, who was to fulfill what became Syndrome's role in the finished version of the film: He was to call retired superheroes back to action to battle to death the Omnidroids and was the boss of Mirage. Syndrome's appearance in the film was to be fast as he was to be the main antagonist of the film's original opening sequence.

## Personality

Buddy was a technical genius and, even at an early age, could create wondrous gadgets to circumvent his lack of "super" powers. After his dismissal at the hands of Mr. Incredible, and the dissolution of classical superheroes, the young man turned his gifts towards evil, eventually killing several superheroes with his Omnidroids and various superweapons. He was a classical sociopath, caring not at all for the rules of society, and seeing it as his mission to make himself the world's ultimate hero through trickery and technology, and when he grew tired of that, to make superheroes entirely obsolete by selling his weapons to the highest bidder. Because "when everyone's super... no one will be."

Syndrome appeared to be driven at an early age for recognition and ego nourishment, which are normal traits for that of a child prodigy as seen by him trying to overcompensate for his lack of super abilities with his brainpower and technology. Perhaps even if Mr. Incredible had not rejected Buddy, he would have still descended into villainy (or simply become an anti-hero) as he proved of having no grasp on the terms of what it means to be a hero, which was shown when he still considered himself one despite having killed real heroes. To put it simply, Syndrome, having never been told he was special or could do great things, wished to remove the world of *its* specialties (specifically supers) by either eradicating them or turning them redundant with his technology, which made him a bit of a complex character as well.

Despite his evil personality, he had assured Mirage he does care about her since he explained he was calling Mr. Incredible's previous bluff to crush her. When she storms off anyhow, Syndrome expresses shock and confusion. Syndrome is shown to have a comedic side, as he says that Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl "got busy" when he sees their children and he accidentally throws Mr. Incredible away while he reveals himself to his former idol.

Aside from being bitter and sociopathic, Syndrome was intensely sadistic as shown by how he taunted Mr. Incredible with his family's supposed death and a second time when he gloated to the family on how he would steal away Jack-Jack and turn him into a sidekick in a last-ditch attempt to spite Mr. Incredible.

Though it was years and his vindictiveness had completely absolved him, Syndrome did have a memory of why he respected Mr. Incredible and was visibly impressed when he tricked the probe by hiding behind the corpse of Gazerbeam while claiming "he truly was Mr. Incredible" and was "still geeking out about it."

Syndrome had many fatal flaws as a supervillain as a result of his megalomania, desire to make superheroes obsolete, his pathological desire for attention, and his ego. Chief among these, he failed to account for his enemy's abilities and intelligence, such as Mr. Incredible's ability to improvise while evading his probe, and Violet's force fields, which allowed them to escape his grasp. Furthermore, Syndrome was so obsessed with becoming a hero himself after wreaking his vengeance that he failed to account for the fact superheroes were banned by society. Even if he had succeeded, he would have endured constant scrutiny from the government, and it is possible that the government could have eventually discovered his unscrupulous dealings with weapons and his murder of various superheroes. In addition, Syndrome's use of technology would have resulted in his eventual destruction if it was hacked or malfunctioned, or in the event he had succeeded in his goals as his technology would eventually become obsolete. His oversights of this were such that he failed to account for his Omnidroid realizing it was being controlled as a result of its ability to adapt. As a result, Syndrome had no contingency plans in place for when his robot turned against him after it realized he was controlling it. If his plan had succeeded, Syndrome's weapons and inventions would have possibly also resulted in more terrible wars and arms races, making the world far more dangerous, though this probably would've been what he wanted in any case. His desire to wear capes was also a dangerous inconvenience, and it nearly led to his death as a boy by Bomb Voyage, and later to his actual death when his cape became snagged in his jet's turbines. Suffice to say, for all his genius, Syndrome was very short-sighted and had no thought about the consequences of what he would unleash if he achieved his goals. In an ironic twist, not only did his plans inevitably fail but he ended up getting the opposite of what he wanted as the Incredibles and Frozone defeating the Omnidroid caused a shift in public opinion which lead to the supers being re-legalized a few months after his death.

## Biography

### Becoming a Supervillain

After Buddy was sent home and probably even scolded and sent to his room by his mother (which was shown in a flashback with a grown-up Buddy {as Syndrome} telling it to an older Mr. Incredible), he believed that he could not trust anyone and that he realized that his lifelong dreams had been crushed, which gradually drove him to anger and hatred for Mr. Incredible and the other supers for not giving him the opportunity to become a superhero. Finally, Buddy decided to let it drive him to revenge, becoming a supervillain to get his revenge on Mr. Incredible for refusing him to be his sidekick, as well as possibly getting him in trouble with his mother. Therefore, he started plotting, not acknowledging that it was his arrogance and reckless actions that caused him to be rejected in the first place. Shortly Mr. Incredible was later sued by Oliver Sansweet who he have saved his life before confronting Bomb Voyage for ruining his suicide attempt, which ignites the Supers to become illegal.

For the next 15 years, Buddy worked his way into becoming a weapons designer and became rich selling his weapons (possibly through the black market). His wealth became accumulated, that he was able to buy a remote island called Nomanisan, where he built up his operation base and hired thugs to serve as security guards.

Operating through his agent Mirage, Buddy (now known by his new super-villain name Syndrome) contacted several retired superheroes, tasking them with the defeating of various prototypes of the enormous Omnidroid battle robots, with the explicit order to not completely destroy them. This was secretly a plan to test the robots against the supers. If the super died, Syndrome would recruit another and repeat the process. If the super survived and disabled the robot, then the data accumulated from the battle would be used to improve the Omnidroid's design, and the victorious super would then be sent to disable the new model; no super ever survived the second encounter. This led to the Omnidroids becoming more difficult to defeat every time, with Syndrome's eventual goal being to make the Omnidroid powerful enough to defeat Mr. Incredible.

### Formulating a Plot for Glory

Deciding that his Omnidroid was now good enough to fight Mr. Incredible, Syndrome had Mirage recruit his old idol, who was able to defeat the Omnidroid.

After repairing and improving the machine, Syndrome sent it to fight Mr. Incredible. When the hero was outmatched rather quickly, Syndrome revealed himself (also saying that all he wanted was to help Mr. Incredible, but what made him snap was when he told him to fly home and that he works alone) and he declared that he would be Mr. Incredible's new nemesis. Syndrome cruelly scolds Mr. Incredible for not letting him be his sidekick and ruin everything for him. Mr. Incredible sadly admitted that he didn't mean to treat Syndrome that way and apologized for it. Syndrome assumed that since he now had power over him he was bluffing, and he goes on a monologue with Mr. Incredible. After Mr. Incredible takes advantage of the moment to throw a log at Syndrome (who dodges it), Syndrome immobilizes Mr. Incredible with his zero-point energy ray, which is shot from the pointer finger of Syndrome's glove. Syndrome's zero-point energy ray causes a person (or superhero, in this case) hit by the ray to immediately become immobilized, lose all velocity, and levitate off of the ground, making them unable to speak or move. If their skin is exposed, then their facial movements are reduced to only being able to move their eyeballs, giving Syndrome complete control of their motion in all three dimensions. After using the ray to throw Mr. Incredible around several times to show his power over the superhero, Syndrome accidentally uses his zero-point energy ray to throw Mr. Incredible over a waterfall, much to Syndrome's irritation. Not wanting to take any chances, he then tried to finish him off with an explosive device to ensure his demise.

Mr. Incredible is now scared and sees the explosion in the water, but Syndrome sends his life-detector to see if Mr. Incredible survived the explosion. Mr. Incredible used Gazerbeam's skeletal remains (who had been presumably killed by Syndrome for knowing too much about his schemes) to make Syndrome think that he was killed by the bomb, which works.

Unfortunately, Syndrome was able to capture Mr. Incredible when he tried to infiltrate his base later on (during which Mr. Incredible discovered Syndrome's computer and found out that Syndrome had killed former superheroes before him with his Omnidroids, and had tracked down other retired superheroes as well), also realizing that he used Gazerbeam's remains to trick the probe into thinking that he was dead to being with. He admitted that he was right to idolize Mr. Incredible despite his grudge against him, though he is disappointed that he decided to call for help and that it was lame.

Due to the fact that Elastigirl had activated the tracking device on his supersuit in an attempt to find where Mr. Incredible was, Syndrome and Mirage believed that he had made contact for reinforcements and began to interrogate him. Despite Mr. Incredible's intents that he never knew about the homing device and that he wasn't contacting anyone, he inadvertently recognize Elastigirl's voice on the transmission line as she's flying a government plane (borrowed by her old friend Snug Porter) to the island, making Syndrome believe that he had in fact been lying to him. With this knowledge, Syndrome decide to send a little "greeting" by having missiles to take down Elastigirl's plane.

Mr. Incredible begs Syndrome by telling him to call off the missiles and that he'll do anything, but Syndrome refuses, by saying in revenge that it's "15 years too late". The shock became intensified when Elastgirl announced that there are children on-board (as they stowed away to follow her), much to Mr. Incredible's horror and Mirage's shock, as she starts to question Syndrome's ways. As the last missile finally destroys the plane, Syndrome took great pleasure in killing the occupants (not knowing that they actually evaded the crash alive and are now using the powers to swim to the island), recalling how Mr. Incredible had told him that he worked alone after he offered to be his sidekick. Mr. Incredible then retaliated by threatening to kill Mirage by crushing her; but Syndrome refused to release him and goads him to crush Mirage.

Mr. Incredible decided to let her go, realizing that that wouldn't make things better and Syndrome teased that he knew Mr. Incredible couldn't do it, even when he's got nothing to lose because he says that Mr. Incredible's weak and that he's outgrown him. Mirage (feeling sorry for Mr. Incredible, who is crying over loss of his family) gets mad at Syndrome for being cruel to Mr. Incredible and murdering heroes, especially when hers was threatened by Mr. Incredible, instead of valuing Syndrome attempts to appease Mirage that he just called Mr. Incredible's bluff and that he knew that he wasn't planning to hurt her, but a disgusted Mirage tells her former boss, "Next time you gamble... bet your *own* life!" and quits.

Mirage later learns that Mr. Incredible's family survived the crash and are on the island. She then frees Mr. Incredible from captivity, informs him of his family's survival, and helps him escape and reunite with his family. However, Syndrome (being unaware of Mirage's recent actions) was able to recapture Mr. Incredible along with his family by immobilizing them with his zero-point energy rays, and finally deduces that Mr. Incredible had married Elastigirl and had two children with her.

Believing that he had hit the jackpot by capturing an entire family of superheroes, Syndrome imprisons the Incredibles in one of his multi-prisoner containment units. He takes the opportunity to brag about how he had beaten them, even without having any superpowers for himself. As such, Syndrome reveals his true plan to the Incredibles: he intends to set the Omnidroid on Metroville to go on a rampage, and then stop it himself, therefore taking the credit and setting himself up as the city's new hero for years until he retires. Syndrome also announces that after his retirement, he will sell his inventions to the world so that others could be super, thus destroying the concept of supers and making the term meaningless.

Believing that he finally beat the best superheroes as well as the Incredibles, Syndrome heads off to Metroville to finalize his plan, putting up a show 'fighting' against the Omnidroid-stopping it from nearly killing a woman and her baby. However, Syndrome realized too late that the Omnidroid's ability to learn allowed it to identify Syndrome as a threat, blasting his remote control wristband from his wrist. Panicking, Syndrome attempted to flee the area, pushing several bystanders out of his way, before the Omnidroid destroyed one of his rocket boots, sending him flying out of control into a building, knocking him out cold.

He remained unconscious during the Incredibles' escape and return back to Metroville, where they teamed up with a fellow superhero Frozone to destroy the Omnidroid by taking out its brainpan, causing it to shut down and explode. As soon as Syndrome regains consciousness, he is angry to see that the Incredibles have foiled his plan.

### Death

With Syndrome's plot now exposed to the public, his assets are frozen by the government, and a warrant is put out for his arrest (as stated by Rick Dicker), Buddy now must find a way to continue his operations and his revenge. Angry to see what was happening to him, Syndrome made one final attempt at revenge by breaking into the Incredibles' house and abducting Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl's infant son Jack-Jack. He persuaded his current babysitter that he was a replacement, telling her that the S on his shirt stood for Sitter and that he could not run around with a "BS" on his shirt in public. Kari believes him without question, wanting to get away from Jack-Jack as she was having a lot of trouble with the superpowered baby. When the Incredibles arrived to rescue Jack-Jack, Syndrome zapped them with his zero-point energy ray with his finger and reassured them that he'll be a good mentor to Jack-Jack, and probably even raised him as his sidekick in time. He then threw the Incredibles out of the home and crashed through the ceiling and up to his jet plane while holding a crying Jack-Jack.

But unfortunately for Syndrome, this plan also failed when Jack-Jack's transforming superpower manifested and allowed him to beat Syndrome up. Elastigirl was then thrown into the air by Mr. Incredible to rescue her infant (who fell out of Syndrome's arms when he hit the wing of his plane) and then she used her body as a parachute to glide back down to safety. Finally realizing that he lost, Syndrome leaned from the side door of his jet plane, vowing revenge on the Incredible family, and yells at them that he will get Jack-Jack one day before proceeding to cackle evilly.

Not wanting to let Syndrome get away and finally pushed to his limit, Mr. Incredible started looking around for something to throw at Syndrome, spotting the car that he had bought with the money he had given him earlier. Mr. Incredible threw the car at him, knocking Syndrome off-balance inches away from the plane's air turbine. Syndrome attempted to escape but was killed for good when his cape snagged him in the turbine (echoing an earlier scene in the movie regarding the dangers of wearing a cape by Edna) causing the aircraft to explode, putting an end to Syndrome's menace and reign of terror on the Incredibles and finally avenging Gazerbeam and all those supers he killed but most of all preventing Jack-Jack from potentially becoming a supervillain.

## *Mentioned On-Incredibles 2*

Due to his death, Syndrome obviously doesn't appear in the film in person, but he is briefly indirectly mentioned by Bob when he references that the jet blew up and took his suits and their old house with it, which was caused by Syndrome's death in the jet turbine. Therefore, Buddy's actions left a major impact considering that he ended up indirectly forcing the family to move which serves as a huge source of tension throughout the film.

It's shown later on that despite all the supers killed by the Omnidroids, Syndrome was unable to trick new supers, like those gathered by Winston Deavor, into going to the Nomanisan Island, as they were forced to hide their powers due to their unavailability to be heroes legally. Once the Screenslaver is defeated and the supers are made legal again (thus undoing Oliver Sansweet's actions), these new supers, along with the Incredibles and Frozone, are able to fill up the places of all those fallen supers, so the world can be safe once again in good hands despite Syndrome's efforts to eradicate superheroes.

Syndrome also appears in the end storyboard that shows Gazerbeam being killed by one of the Omnidroids.

## Physical Appearance

Syndrome stood 5 feet and 7 inches tall, excluding the height of his hair. He was barrel-chested and weighed 185 lb. His red hair extended straight up in a manner reminiscent of flames. Syndrome supposedly was "not a super", but he demonstrated exceptional ingenuity, technical knowledge, and planning skill far beyond the science of his time. His gadgets also let him perform superhuman feats or at least get past those more powerful than him.

## Powers With Eqipments

### Abilities

* **Genius-level Intellect**: While not having superpowers, Syndrome's high intellect made him a fierce opponent, his tactical skills and inventions proving to be more than enough to allow him to compete with the likes of Mr. Incredible. He was also a former child prodigy - when Syndrome was still at a young age, he was a gifted boy who specialized in technology engineering, as he was able to create jet boots at a young age.
	+ **Child-Prodigy:** .
	+ **Technology Engineering:** Syndrome was a formidable foe when it came to building numerous advanced technologies and weapons, as he was also capable of becoming a successful weapons designer.

### Weapons

* **Utility Gauntlets:** Using zero-point energy, Syndrome can create a field of quantum energy that inhibits the majority of a victim's body movement. If the victim's skin is exposed, the range of motion of the victim's face is also taken to the minimum (only their eyes can move), and the ability to speak is also inhibited. The field is moved by his fingers and can be fired in the forms of energy blasts and concentrated beams. Similar to Spider-Man's web-shooters, the trigger for these weapons is located high on the palm of each hand to prevent misfires, but it does not shoot webs from the trigger. The left-hand gauntlet also holds the remote control for the Omnidroid. A communicator is likely built into the right-hand gauntlet.
	+ **Bio-Probe:** Used to locate temperature, atmosphere and life signals in various locations. Worn in the left-hand gauntlet.
	+ **Miniature "I"-bomb:** Small, but exceedingly powerful explosive. Worn in the right-hand gauntlet.
* **Aero Boots:** As Syndrome, his rocket boots were modified to project flames of blue fire.
* **Omnidroids:** To date, there have been ten known versions of this battle robot. The first nine were prototypes designed to fight and kill supers. The tenth was used in the foiled Operation Kronos. All of them were artificially intelligent, enabling them to solve any problem that they encounter; Omnidroid v.10 figured out that Syndrome used a remote device to control it and knocked him unconscious. Another feature of the Omnidroids is that they have different colored eyes (e.g., v.8 has a blue eye, v.10 has red-eye). The Omnidroid's only weakness is itself: in the film, Mr. Incredible scrambles into Omnidroid 08's inner workings, making the machine pierce its hull in a vain attempt to pry the hero free from inside, and later on, with help from his family and friends, Mr. Incredible launches Omnidroid v.10's claw at it and tears right through it, ripping out its power core.
* **Viper:** Helicopter-like, VTOL vehicles with ducted fans attached that twist and turn to control the vehicle's altitude and movement. The ducted fans tend to decrease lift when changing the independent blade pitch.
* **Velocipod:** Round open cars with four surrounding blades that spin at exceedingly high speeds to keep them airborne.
* **Manta Jets:** Specially designed transporters resembling manta rays that have a translucent holographic monitor inside, and can travel underwater.
* **Energy Prisons:** Prisons in which the victim is suspended inside a powerful electric field and unable to escape due to large metal balls attached to their limbs. Violet Parr is the only known superhero who manages to escape the device, using her force field to counteract its effects.

## Weapons and Inventions

Syndrome's list of super weapons that he made was extensive, but several notable ones included:

* Rocket boots
* Zero-point energy ray (traps and paralyzes target{s} in an energy beam)
* Omnidroid models
* Tracking/Scanning devices
* Miniature explosives
* Velocipods
* Containment units (in which the prisoner has mine balls on their hand and feet and is held up in a field of zero-point energy, causing the prisoner to be unable to escape)

## TV-Tropes

 **That Man-Is Dead:** | Buddy Pine says as much to his former childhood idol, Mr. Incredible:
**Syndrome:** My name is not....***BUDDY!!!!!*** And it’s not IncrediBoy either! That ship has sailed.

## Syndrome's Known Victims

Once Syndrome-Killed•Off-All Supers and Take Entirely-Their Place on The Glory Days-- His Glory Days

## Trivia

* Syndrome was the second Pixar antagonist to die after/during/before Charles F Muntz in *Up*.
* According to official sources, Syndrome is 25 years old, is 5'7", and weighs 185 lbs (83 kg).
* Joaquin Phoenix was originally considered for the role, before the producers settled on Jason Lee.
* When Edna Mode refuses to design a cape for Mr. Incredible, deeming capes as hazardous to superheroes, she recalls several past accidents that involved their interference. This foreshadows Syndrome's ultimate fate.
* However, as an adult, it is red. He could have either dyed it red or his hair could have naturally turned said color.
* In *Jack-Jack Attack*, his mask is not on and he still has his cape.
* Syndrome is a rare instance where a character's voice actor also played their younger self in a Disney film, another being Terk from Disney's *Tarzan*.
* When Buddy sneaks into Mr. Incredible's car, Mr. Incredible goes through several names trying to remember Buddy's name. One of the names he says is Brodie, a reference to Syndrome's voice actor Jason Lee's breakout character from *Mallrats*.
* In some novelizations, Syndrome's fate is not fully explained. Instead of being sucked by the propellers, it's described that after Mr. Incredible launched his car against the plane, Syndrome was left without his getaway vehicle. Then it is said that after that "anyone never heard anything about Syndrome again".
* As mentioned before, Syndrome was to be a minor antagonist in the original version of the film when Xerek was to be the main antagonist. In the original proposed opening sequence, Syndrome was to attack the Incredibles after learning from an agent of his that Mr. Incredible had recently moved into [the agent's] neighborhood (after an incident where Mr. Incredible accidentally cleaved his hand with a butcher knife and, due to his superhuman durability, dented it in the process without injury to himself, and was forced to fake injury and hide the incriminating knife), break into the Incredible Family's home (the Incredibles used the last name "Smith" instead of "Parr" in these earlier drafts), disguise himself as a burglar and make enough noise to lure Bob to him, and then use Bob as a battering ram to wreck the home. He also tried to capture Violet while she was still in her infancy, but she, in her invisible state, regurgitated saliva onto his eyes (apparently, the baby Violet had a problem with this, as earlier in the scene, she regurgitated saliva onto her mother's shirt, much to the disgust of one of their neighbors), making him drop the parents. In response, Syndrome immobilized both Helen and Violet but became immobilized when Bob rolled a mirror between them and lodged him into the ceiling of Violet's room. Syndrome was ultimately killed when the family's home was totaled in a gas main explosion sparked by a flame in the fireplace (the Incredibles, however, managed to escape in time). In the same scene, Syndrome, upon discovering Violet, also hinted that Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl essentially broke the law by marrying and having children, although this concept was cut in the final version, as when a similarly scripted revelation occurred, he does not mention the legality of whether Supers should breed or not. It should be noted that in the proposed original prologue sequence of the film, it is clear that Syndrome and Mr. Incredible had already met and by their conversation, it is understood that they had already fought in the past on several occasions. Also, as a curiosity, Syndrome did not carry a layer, though it carries one in the finished film.
* His villain origin story is similar to the Silver Age version of Lex Luthor from DC Comics. Both characters were once lifelong fans of their respective superheroes (Mr. Incredible and Superman, respectively), until an incident caused them to resent their idols from then on.
* The manner of his death is similar to the character Gustav Graves from the film *Die Another Day*.
* Syndrome’s name and what he was doing (making himself seem like a superhero) is quite the same as hero syndrome, the act of causing emergencies and then getting involved in helping deal with them so as to gain attention.