Doctor Ovi Kintobor


 * ''Kintobor redirects here. For characters by that name in other continuities, see Robotnik (disambiguation)

Doctor Ovi Kintobor was a kind human scientist on Mobius who was transformed into Doctor Ivo Robotnik during a laboratory accident. Before this, he was a good friend of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Before the accident
Working from an underground laboratory, Kintobor attempted to rid planet Mobius of all evil, by using a machine known as the Retro-Orbital Chaos Compressor (the ROCC) to absorb all the negative energy on the planet. Searching for a suitable vessel for this energy, Kintobor happened upon the six Chaos Emeralds, which proved highly suited to the task (unbeknownst to Kintobor, this was because they had been used in the past by the Drakon Empire to contain an experimental energy source they had created known as "chaos" ). Six emeralds was not enough, however: Kintobor required the seventh Grey Emerald to stabilize the process and safely purge Mobius of all evil.

While in the process of searching for the Grey Emerald, Kintobor crossed paths with Sonic the Hedgehog when the spiny young hero accidentally burrowed his way into Kintobor's lab. The two quickly became friends, and Sonic used his impressive speed to help Kintobor search Mobius for the seventh emerald. However, their search was ultimately fruitless, as the Grey Emerald was at this time on the Floating Island in the possession of Knuckles the Echidna.



Intrigued by his new friend's speed, Kintobor conducted some experiments by having Somic run on his Kinetic Gyratoscope, helping the hedgehog to run even faster. When Kintobor invented the friction-less Power Sneakers, Sonic was able to run faster than the speed of sound. The resultant sonic boom shattered the Gyratoscope, fused Sonic's spines and turned him from brown to his more famous blue form.

One day later, Sonic was hanging out in the lab and Kintobor went to fix them some food. Finding only a rotten egg in the fridge (apparently six months old), he went to find some salt only to trip on a cable and slam his hand against the ROCC's control panel. The ROCC which exploded, bathing Kintobor and the egg in chaos energy, transforming the kindly scientist into the megalomaniacal Ivo Robotnik.

It was later revealed that Kintobor's accident had in fact been caused by a time-travelling Sonic, who both placed the rotten egg in the fridge and pulled up the cables causing Kintobor to trip into the machine. He did this in order to save the future from the Brotherhood of Metallix, who could only be stopped by Robotnik.

After the accident, Sonic discovered that the explosion had somehow "burned" Kintobor's brainwaves onto one of Golden Rings from which the ROCC had been built. This ring was later used to construct the Kintobor Computer, which became an important part of the Freedom Fighters' resistance against Robotnik's rule.

Reappearances
Kintobor reappeared twice during the series.

The first time, Kintobor appeared in an alternate timeline, in which the ROCC accident had never occurred and Mobius had been conquered by the Brotherhood of Metallix. In this timeline, Kintobor was the leader of an underground rebellion against the Metallixes, and he had a helper named Rob. He vanished after Sonic travelled back in time in order to initiate the accident that created Robotnik, allowing the despot to help defeat the Brotherhood.

Kintobor appeared again after Robotnik had been transported to the sub-atomic world of Shanazar. His energy had been drained, apparently reversing the effects of the original accident. He became the Grand Vizier of Princess Kupacious, and started using his scientific talents to implement many improvements to her kingdom. Unfortunately, he discovered that his reversion to Kintobor was only temporary. Although he developed an elixir in an attempt to stave off the transformation into Robotnik, it eventually proved ineffective and he became Robotnik again.

Early Sonic canon
Doctor Kintobor was created by Sega of America for their version of the Sonic backstory, and was included in the Sonic the Hedgehog promotional comic from 1991. In this comic, Kintobor's hair is white, and he appears to be loosely modelled on Albert Einstein. He also wears a brown blazer instead of a lab coat.

Following this, the Kintobor backstory was largely ignored by American media, but was used as the basis for the British Stay Sonic guidebook, and from there made it way into the pages of Sonic the Comic and the Virgin Publishing novels by Martin Adams.

Sonic the Comic differed by having Kintobor trip and hit the ROCC. In the books, the cause of the malfunction was not made explicit, but indicated to be the result of Kintobor mis-keying a command into the machine while he was distracted by the egg in his hand; the promotional comic depicts Kintobor spilling soda on the machine before it explodes. In Stay Sonic, it is also exlained that Kintobor looked for the Chaos Emeralds with a device called the Cogwinder Retractable Partulent Corer.