Grimer Wormtongue

Grimer is Robotnik's chief scientist and lab assistant in the UK's Sonic the Comic, published by Fleetway. He is a green-skinned red-eyed Igor-type character who bears the brunt of much of his master's wrath. He wears a white lab suit and has a metal pack of unknown purpose on his back. Grimer is shown to be the main technical genius in Robotnik's organization (comparable to Robotnik himself), and in this universe was the main force behind creating the Metallix robots. Indeed, the Metallix robots were created by Grimer, even in an alternate reality in which Robotnik had never existed.

Grimer was pathologically loyal to Robotnik, willingly taking all the abuse meted out to him and staying at his side throughout. When he was briefly left in charge of the Metropolis Zone, he was as draconian as possible in order arrest many citizens (for crimes such as being outside during the 5 o'clock curfew that was announced at 5:10 and having 'longer than regulation' ears) so Robotnik would be pleased (although this in fact led the citizens to revolt, contributing to Robotnik's downfall as dictator of Mobius). When driven to help Robotnik, he has proven to be a very competent and dangerous enemy: when imprisoned, he secretly took over the jail and used it as a base of operations to launch multiple assaults on Sonic and to hack the Kintobor Computer.

Several times he was in positions where he could have become an independent villain but he always remained loyal to Robotnik - when Robotnik was overthrown (and Grimer was still free), he rescued his master from his trial; he pretended to defect to the Drakon Empire as part of Robotnik's grand plan when he could've just as easily genuinely defected; and when Robotnik was shrunk to the size of an atom, Grimer plotted tirelessly from behind the scenes to retrieve him. His only act of weakness occurred when Robotnik attempted to destroy the entire planet; realising this included him, Grimer helped the Freedom Fighters. However, he returned to his master's side immediately afterwards.

Trying to cheer up Robotnik, who was left depressed after his plan to kill Mobius had failed, Grimer released Chaos. In the following story, Grimer realised his master had gone suicidally insane when he found out Robotnik's new plan consisted of summoning the Chaos creature to the Chaos Emeralds and watching Mobius die in the process. Grimer finally snapped, calling his old boss crazy and quitting his service.

Sonic the Comic Online
In the online continuation of Sonic the Comic, it is revealed Grimer, feeling guilty and depressed, has built a Robotnik robot and spends his days pretending his master is still sane.

Grimer, desiring revenge on Sonic for driving his master insane, concocts an elaborate plan: he helps the Family escape from the Special Zone just as Shadow destroys it, and then, with the help of the Kane Broadcasting Company, hits Sonic with a media smear campaign, claiming that Sonic was responsible for turning Kintobor into Robotnik and that Sonic was actually a front for a dangerous villain. In addition, he builds a new shapeshifting model of Metallix (resembling the Neo Metal Sonic from Sonic Heroes) and has it take Sonic's form and go on a crime spree.

Grimer's plan has now completely destroyed Sonic's reputation; the hero is now hated and feared worldwide, and his friends no longer trust him. His vengeance fulfilled, Grimer appears as a hologram to taunt Sonic, declaring that he will never be trusted again.

Trivia

 * He is named after Gríma Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings, and an editorial error in #178 gave "Grimer Wormtongue" as his full name.
 * On the sonicthecomic Yahoo mailing list, Nigel Kitching has revealed that originally Snively was going to be Robotnik's assistant as he thought that he was required to use the character (as the television cartoon was debuting); when Kitching discovered he didn't have to (and, indeed, was not allowed to because Fleetway did not have rights to the character), he created Grimer instead. The script for "Girl Trouble, Part 1" (from Sonic the Comic #21, Grimer's first appearance) has all his lines attributed to Snively. Unlike Snively, Grimer is not personally ambitious, but actually aspires to being Robotnik's servant.
 * Grimer has a cousin named Slimy.
 * Grimer is also the name of a Pokemon; however, the Sonic the Comic character debuted first.