It's a well known fact that using a scientist in a comic who's not really that smart is a winning combination. Let's talk about the most notable mad scientists from the comicbook pages.
I'll start with perhaps the most famous of them all.
Professor Cuthbert Calculus of
the adventures of Tintin.
Calculus is hard of hearing (well actually he's nearly completely deaf) and that often leads to hillarious conversations when Calculus repeats what he though he'd heard. He actually uses his deafness to his asvantage because it enables him to work on his inventions without any distractions. Although the exact origin of his title is never stated, Calculus demonstrates himself throughout the series to be an expert in many fields of science making achievements in multiple areas, including nuclear physics, Chemistry, mechanics and biology. Many of his inventions precede or mirror similar technological developments in the real world (most notably the moon rocket, but also his failed attempt at creating a color television set). He seeks to benefit mankind through his inventions, developing a pill that cures alcoholism by making alcohol unpalatable to the patient, and refusing under great duress to yield his talents to producing weapons of Mass destruction. Much of Calculus's more dangerous work is criticized by Captian Haddock. although Calculus usually interprets this the other way round: his deafness often leads him to misinterpret Haddock's words, preventing him from hearing his real opinion.
Then we have the friendly neighborhood Mad Scientist, Disney's
Gyro Gearloose.
Gyro Gearloose is most often employed if Scrooge McDuck needs to have a problem solved allthough much of Gearloose' inventions actually create more problems in themselves certainly when crooks like the Beagleboys get a hold of them. Still Gearloose' genius cannot be denied, having invented his little robot helper (seen in the picture), a machine that stops time (in one episode of Ducktales Huey, Dewey and Louis used that device in a baseball match to change the location of the players of their favorite team in order to make them win) and several time shifting devices. Gearloose was based on his creator, Carl Barks who always would have liked to be a crazy scientist himself, through Gearloose he at least made the world a better place.
From
Transformers there's
Wheeljack
"That guy can build a neutron bomb out of a wristwatch and a rusty can," according to fellow Autobot Blue Streak, and that's not far from the truth. As well as the Ark fashioned the Autobots, Wheeljack is always coming up with ways to improve them, particularly their weaponry. His knack for creating wild new gadgets has earned him a "mad scientist" reputation and their deadly effectiveness has earned him the respect of friends and enemies alike. Wheeljack is his own worst enemy. He frequently injures himself while experimenting with new weaponry. But I guess the best known and most succesfull invention of Wheeljack are the Dinobots, built from scratch when he and Spike (Sam, for those who only know Transformers from the movie) came across the skeletal remains of Dinosaurs and inspiration struck.
Finally there's
Skuld from the anime series
"Ah! My Goddess"
With Wheeljack I already showed that a Mad scientist doesn't need to be a sixties-something man, with Skuld I'll show that a mad scientist doesn't need to be a man. The youngest of the triad of Goddesses living with Lead character Keiichi Morisato, Skuld (Pronounced "Skull-doh") has the appearence of a nomral girl in her early teens but given her devine origine she's probably much older. Skuld is an engineering genius, capable of building just about anything out of the most mundane parts under most limited resources. Sample gadgets have included: explosives, a neutrino detector, glasses that allow user to see invisible "computer bugs," and even a device for removing a miniature black hole from Keiichi's body. She can compute equations and redesign even the most complex engineering blueprints in no time. All too frequently, though, she forgets to include instructions with her devices, which can create havoc if someone unsuspecting of their true power (such as Keiichi) interferes with them. Other times, she will concentrate too much on one aspect of a device (usually power) and forgets to compensate by boosting other aspects of the same device, making many of her inventions rather unstable. Skuld herself acts rather bratty and childish, offering a nice contrast with how mature she is when lost in work.
