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in: Characters, Villains, Echidnas, Created by Nigel Kitching

Doctor Zachary

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Doctor Zachary is an elderly, white-furred male echidna, and an enemy of Knuckles the Echidna. He first appeared in Issue 65. Zachary is one of only three Echidnas known to still be alive. He has secret knowledge of the Echidna people, and may even know where they went.

History[]

When he first returned to the Floating Island, he claimed he was being hunted by a dangerous robot (in actuality an Echidna Guardian Robot he had reprogrammed). The surprised Knuckles was tricked into taking him to the Emerald Chamber. Zachary then had the robot invade the Chamber and destroy the Master Emerald, absorbing its Chaos Energy into itself. He then boarded the super-charged robot and set off to devastate Mobius and get an unknown revenge on the other Echidnas, leaving the Floating Island to crash. However, Knuckles caught him before he could escape and decapitated Zachary's robot.

STC65-Zachary

Don't worry guys, it's just a sociopathic echidna bent on world destruction.

However, before Knuckles could take him prisoner, an inopportune quake threw Zachary from the island, sending him plummeting towards Mobius. While airborne, Zachary was able to use the robot's body to soften his landing, but the impact left him horribly injured. He would have died if not found by a Badnik patrol.

Dr. Robotnik took a special interest in Zachary, previously believing that Knuckles was the only Echidna on Mobius, and saved Zachary's life by integrating him with Badnik technology, replacing his right arm with a laser cannon and the entire right side of his head and face. In return, Zachary was able to provide Robotnik with important information, namely that the Emerald Hill folk were hiding out on the Floating Island. The pair attacked and successfully took control of the Island, using a gang of reprogrammed Guardian Robots and planning to use the Emerald Hill folk as organic components in a vast supercomputer. However, an electromagnetic pulse caused by Super Sonic surged across the planet shutting down all of Robtonik's computer networks and Badniks. The Guardian Robots, products of ancient echidna science, were unaffected, but the software that Zachary used to control them was destroyed and they ceased obeying him. Knuckles fought Zachary one-on-one, though halfway through Sonic the Hedgehog suddenly intervened and knocked the villain away. In the ensuing confusion over arresting Robotnik, Zachary burrowed into the heart of the Floating Island to escape. Due to STC's cancellation, his fate remained a mystery.

Sonic the Comic Online[]

In Sonic the Comic Online, Zachary resurfaced and attempted to take control of Super Sonic. When that failed, he assembled a gang of supervillains called The Syndicate and brought to life a dormant Shadow the Hedgehog, with the intent of using the Chaos Emeralds to ignite all of Mobius' residual Chaos Energy and literally blow up the planet. The plan failed and Zachary's mysterious ally Vichama betrayed him; Knuckles was able to capture him and took him to the Floating Island for questioning. This has not gone well, with Zachary refusing to answer questions and instead taunting Knuckles over the death of the Special Zone.

After Vichama's rampage and subsequent defeat Knuckles was dead intent on getting some answers from his aged enemy. Returning to Zachary's cell the guardian claimed he was running out of secrets to taunt him with. After yet another useless session Knuckles turned to leave when the doctor taunted him about his people abandoning him. In anger the guardian smashed open the cell wall only to have Zachary blast him away. Activating a hidden command sequence in the present Guardian Robot, leaping into the control compartment and making his way out. Attacking Porker Lewis, stealing the Master Emerald and kidnapping Tikal. Tormenting the guardian once he arrived with an impossible choice. Either he would destroy the Master Emerald and send the island plummeting down from the sky. Or he would kill Tikal, the only friendly member of his race. Before the dreaded doctor could go through with either of his sinister suggestions Tikal used voice command to eject the albino out of the robot. Left with little to defend himself with as Knuckles charged him, firing his arm cannon at the agile guardian. Forced to the ground by his archenemy, arm cannon kept in a tight grip by Knuckles who proceeded to beat Zachary. Disconnecting his arm and engaging a hidden jetpack he made it off, throwing taunts over his shoulder as he flew, unknowing that this had all been a ruse by Knuckles and his friends to find out more about the fate of the echidna race. A Guardian Robot modification had now implanted a scanner in Zachary`s bionic eye to monitor his movement.

Personality[]

At first look Zachary seems like an well educated and intelligent person, this serves to hide his sociopathic tendencies. Beneath his calm exterior lies a mad mind with zero empathy for others. He showed no qualms nor regret for the destruction of the Special Zone, an act that killed thousands, maybe even millions of innocent lives. Combined with sadistic mocking of others and you got yourself a real genuine, first-class sociopath.

Powers & Abilities[]

A (mad) genius in his own right, capable of advanced computer programing and engineering. Before his fall from the island Zachary seemed quite frail and weak, after Dr. Robotnik implanted badnik technology onto him he gained increased stamina and strength. His arm cannon grants great firepower to the aged echidna.

Production Background[]

The concept of Doctor Zachary and the story in which he first appeared ("The Homecoming") was created by artist Richard Elson. Elson also did a design for the character. The plan was that Elson would draw the strip, which would be written by Nigel Kitching, but because of Elson's other work commitments, it was drawn by Nigel Dobbyn instead. Elson did not show Dobbyn his original sketches, but did specify that Zachary should have white fur, because of his great age. In Elson's original design, he looked a lot older, more wrinkled and evil.

Dobbyn thought the character looked "really boring" and got Nigel Kitching to have him fall off the island and get "mashed up"; the cyborg look was based on the 70s Marvel comic Deathlok.

There were plans to bring him back but they kept falling through. On the sonicthecomic E-group, Nigel Kitching revealed that an unused plan for Zachary was that he was still on the Island when it sunk (during the last storyline), and was trying to release a gang of Echidna criminals that had been placed in suspended animations. Kitching admitted elsewhere that he hadn't taken Zachary into consideration when he wrote the island's submergence.

Trivia[]

  • Archie comics echidna villain Dr. Finitevus, introduced almost a decade later, has a similar look to Zachary. Certain characters from Archie's Dark Legion also resemble Zachary, as cyborg Echidnas that are skilled in programming and dedicated to Mobius' subjugation.
    • Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood later introduced Imperator Ix of the Nocturnus Tribe; another technophilic albino echidna, suspected by fans to be partially based on Zachary and / or Finitevus.
  • In Sonic the Comic: Online, Zachary was able to paralyze Super Sonic in hopes of controlling him for his own needs, but lost when Sonic changed back (possibly out of boredom), making Dr. Zachary the only character to defeat Super Sonic.
  • Nigel Kitching actually forgot about Doctor Zachary when Angel Island sunk.
  • Doctor Zachary was named after the character Doctor Zachary Smith, from the TV series Lost in Space. Though both have villainous tendencies, they are otherwise dissimilar.

Appearances[]

Covers[]

Posters[]

Cover Heads[]

External links[]

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