We All Love Mad ScientistsWe all love Mad Scientists, right? They’re a huge part of our pop culture, going back at least as far as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in 1818. But why do we love Mad scientists? Why do we love SOME of them more than others? That’s what I aim to talk about today, in a little look at some of my favorites and less than favorites from fiction.
Chronologically speaking, our first Mad Scientist we’ll be talking about is Rotwang from the fantastic silent film Metropolis. Even though the Mad Scientist trope had been around for over 100 years when this movie came out, it certainly helped define it. Why, I don’t know if the trope would be as popular today if it wasn’t for this movie. There’s at least one Mad Scientist on this list who's even visually pretty similar to Rotwang. But other than being pretty early in the timeline of Mad Science, and being pretty influential, what’s so great about this guy? In a way, he sorta reminds me of my favorite mutie (that should be a sitcom, shouldn’t it?), Magneto. He is definitely not your “hero”, but his reason for doing what he does, at least initially, is understandable. Once upon a time, poor Rotwang was probably salvageable. But his sweetheart chose the King/President/Lord of the City over him. And I’m sure she wasn’t at all after his money when she made that decision. Everything Rotwang does in the movie is a reaction to this loss. At first, you feel sorry for him, much in the same way you feel sorry for Magneto for his tragedies he’s suffered. But then it’s like “I’m going to plunge the city into panic and kidnap this lovely lady who hasn’t done me any ill” and you’re like “whoa, dude, you took it too far.” But that’s why we love him, isn’t it? Even 90 years after this movie premiered, we remember Rotwang and Hel the most from this movie! Because he embodies this trope so perfectly! But he aint the only one. 
Rotwang. The only time you ever want to see the words "rot" and "wang" together.
While Rotwang has a pretty singular vision and doesn’t veer too much from what he wants to do, our next mad scientist is a little different. We’re talking about none other than Bruce Banner, the man who is sometimes called the Incredible Hulk. Now I’ll confess I’m not an expert on the Hulk. I’ve read the John Byrne run, the Bruce Jones run, the Jason Aaron run and some of the Mark Waid run. But from what I’ve read, I can say with confidence that this Banner guy is MESSED UP. This is a guy who, when he was fully separated from his Hulk persona in the 80s, was thrilled (but even on his wedding day, he still couldn’t stop thinking about the Hulk. Took it to a weird place, Bruce.), but then flash forward some 25 years later, and he’s once again separated from his Hulk persona, but now he’s actively trying to merge with his former inner-rage. Now admittedly, this isn’t so much because him being a control freak is actually built into his character. If you go back and read some of the Silver Age Hulk stories, Banner is a pretty normal dude who just happens to have a Hulk problem. No, the reason Banner’s characterization is always changed so radically every time a new creator comes onboard, is because Hulk never had a consistent status quo like every other pillar in the Marvel Universe. Even today, every new creator tries to find a new “twist” to work into the Hulk, and sometimes that means “let’s turn Bruce into a borderline psycho who feels lost without the Hulk being inside him.” What makes Bruce a little scarier than Rotwang (well, besides the fact that if he gets mad at you, he could gain a couple of tons and smash you), is that he is such a mish-mash of extremely different personalities, depending on who is writing him. It really does lend itself to the whole series, where Bruce can go from being a very mentally stable part of society to being a cackling lunatic. In a way, it makes Bruce just as scary and menacing as the Hulk. Maybe moreso. 
The Ever-Changing Bruce Banner.
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Our next Mad Scientist is going to be hard to talk about, boys and girls. It’s Doctor Emmet Brown of the Back to the Future Trilogy (and the cartoon series, I guess). This one hurts because we all love Doc, right? He sorta bumbles around, at least in the 1950s, while also managing to be a genius who is clearly ahead of his time. The movie wants us to like him because he’s like the fun cool uncle or grandpa who lets you do stuff that your parents don’t let you do. And you like that Uncle or Grandpa. But parents don’t let you do those things for a reason. And if you sit down and think about it, Doc Brown is a menace to society. I’m sure George and Lorraine weren’t too thrilled that Marty’s best (and as far as we can tell, only) friend was a dude around 50 years older than him. While Marty is hanging out with Doc, he almost gets shot by Libyan Terrorists. And that’s just in the first 20 minutes of the first film. And while trying to rescue Doc from getting shot in the old west, he almost gets hung (yeah, that one is on him, but there are significantly fewer people trying to hang him in the present day, where Doc Brown isn’t posing a threat to everyone else). And I think we all know that when Doc busted out his briefcase full of currencies from what appears to be every time period EVER in Back to the Future II, that Doc didn’t acquire this money legally. But despite almost every problem in the trilogy indirectly or directly coming from Doc’s actions (after all, Marty wouldn’t have almost destroyed the space time continuum twice if Doc hadn’t built the time machine in the first place), we still love him. Because even if the parents have a good reason for putting those rules in place, it’s sometimes fun to hang out with the uncle or grandpa who lets you break them. 
Great Scott!
If Rotwang is on this list because he is somewhat sympathetic, while still being recognized as a bad guy, then Walter Bishop is on this list for... more or less the same reason. Walter Bishop was a recurring character on FRINGE, where he and his son were part of an FBI Fringe Science division meant to investigate the weird and paranormal. Throughout all of Season 1, Walter is portrayed as just a wacky old man who is meant to alleviate the otherwise dramatic situations our characters find themselves in. We do get an occasional episode where he has to face the music for something he did in the past, before he was locked in the insane asylum. But it isn’t until the Season 1 finale that we find out just how far Walter is willing to go to do what he has to do. Spoilers for FRINGE ahead! Turns out Walter’s son, Peter, actually died as a child, and the Peter we came to know throughout Season 1 was actually an alternate reality Peter. This new information puts their already shaky relationship into a new light, and we now see that Walter is not the eccentric, but still loveable quirkball of the team, but a legitimate mad scientist guilty of kidnapping and possibly ruining a parallel Earth with his reckless abandon. But why do we love Walter? A lot like Rotwang, he did what he did out of love. Sick and twisted? Yeah, sure, but it’s understandable nonetheless. That might just be why he’s my favorite of the mad scientists on this list. He’s got the pathos of Rotwang, but watching him throughout FRINGE also tugs at your heartstrings much more than Rotwang. 
So what do you guys think? Obviously there are some mad scientists out there I didn’t talk about. Heck, there’s a whole bunch I don’t even know about. But are there any particular traits of mad scientists I didn’t cover in this list? List them off in the comments below! Tell me some other cool Mad Scientists that you love! There’s never enough love for these misunderstood members of society, right 
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