In addition to the archetypical mad scientist, there are a lesser number of heroic scientists and engineers depicted in western culture who go above and beyond the regular demands of their professions to use their skills and knowledge for the betterment of others, often at great personal risk. In this list of heroic fictional scientists and engineers, an annotated alphabetical overview is given of some of the best-known beings in this category.
It should be noted that Heroic Scientists CAN be mad scientists as well
Contents
1Individual scientist/engineer heroes
2Heroic scientists and engineers in anime and Japanese video games
3Heroic scientists and engineers in comics
4Heroic scientists and engineers in Star Trek
5Teams of scientist/engineer heroes
6See also
Individual scientist/engineer heroes
Hal Emmerich/ Otacon (Metal Gear) - creater of the first nuclear bi-pedal tank named: Metal Gear REX.
Eleanor Arroway (Contact) – A scientist who searches for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Professor Barnhardt (The Day the Earth Stood Still) — American scientist who organizes a scientific reception for Klaatu's message of peace.
Dr. Glenn Barton (The Man and the Challenge) — human-factors scientist and star of the 1958-1959 TV series.
Dr. Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) - Nobel-prizewinning quantum physicist (with multiple doctorates) caught in his own time-travel experiment; "leaping" into many lives along the span of his own lifetime, he must change the histories of those around him for the better before he can return home.
Blankman (Blankman) – Science wiz-nerd who believes he is a superhero, and becomes one.
Professor Cuthbert Calculus (The Adventures of Tintin) – A brilliant, if distracted, scientist. He is responsible for developing numerous potions and devices, but is most notably known as the leader of the first manned lunar mission.
Leonid Gorbovsky (Noon Universe), a genius scientist, a progressor and a spaceship captain who is known for his ability to land on even the most dangerous planets, to survive planetwide catastrophes and easily making contact with any non-human civilization.
Artemus Gordon (The Wild Wild West) The brainy complement to James West's brawn.
Leo Graf (Falling Free) Space engineer who leads a group of genetically engineered four-armed humans known as "quaddies" to freedom.
Professor Roy Hinkley, aka The Professor (Gilligan's Island) – He is the respected de facto leader of the Castaways and usually represents the only real continual hope of rescue.
Franz Hopper, (Code Lyoko) - Genius in Quantum Physics and Computer Programming responsible for the creation of the virtual reality Lyoko, Malevolent AI XANA and the advanced hardware that support both.
Dr. Daniel Jackson (Stargate and Stargate SG-1) – Archaeologist and linguist who figures out how to open the Stargate; his understanding of cultures and languages typically comes in handy when dealing with the bewildering array of cultures in the Stargate universe.
Professor Eddie Jessup (Altered States) — heroic at the end
Gennady Komov (Noon Universe), a xenopsychologist whose main occupation is engaging contact with and studying alien (especially, non-human) civilizations, e.g. Headies and Ark Megaforms
David Levinson (Independence Day) — Cable-TV engineer who devises the trick that blocks the alien invasion.
Angus "Mac" MacGyver (MacGyver) – A secret agent who fights the forces of evil using his scientific and engineering knowledge to his advantage.
Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park) – Mathematician and chaotician who perishes in the Michael Crichton novel and yet survives two Spielberg films, including numerous encounters with dinosaurs and other hazards. His mathematical prowess does not help so much as allow him to predict his own fate, and that of the park's inhabitants.
Quinn Mallory (Sliders) — Graduate student who invents the transdimensional gateway.
Dr. Rodney McKay (Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) – Brilliant-but-whiny astrophysicist who manages to save the lost city of Atlantis on a regular basis (and never lets anyone forget it).
Dr. Cal Meacham (This Island Earth — Earth scientist (a radio engineer in the novel) kidnapped to solve the problem of defending the planet Metaluna.
Dr. Harold Medford (Them!) — led team that wiped out the giant ants.
Professor Nebulous (Nebulous) – Leader of an eco-troubleshooting team.
Dr. Juliet Parrish (V) – A scientist who becomes the principal leader of the resistance against the genocidal alien Visitors.
Q (James Bond) – Makes all the gadgets 007 uses. Q is most often portrayed using the conventional literary trappings of a scientist (white lab coat etc), even though his activities are closer to engineering.
Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (Gojira/Godzilla) - Scientist who invents the Oxygen Destroyer, uses it to destroy Godzilla, then destroys his notes and sacrifices his own life so his creation can never be misused.
Dr. Emil Lang (Robotech) – Responsible for much of the Earth based Robotechnology. Briefly seen in the original series, he played a much larger role in the aborted series Robotech II: The Sentinels which was adapted as a comic book series.
Lucca (Chrono Trigger) – Fighter and inventor, who, among other things, builds a time-machine and repairs a robot from over a millennium in the future.
Tochiro Oyama (Captain Harlock) – He is the designer and some say the soul of Harlock's spaceship Arcadia.
Bulma (Dragon Ball) - Creator of the Dragon Radar and a time machine allowing Trunks to avert the conquest of the world by evil androids.
Dr. Gero (Dragon Ball) - Super-genius scientist of the Red Ribbon army. Father of the Android saga.
Cid (Final Fantasy) - Although there are many different individuals with the name of Cid in many different Final Fantasy games, most of them are some sort of heroic scientist, with few exceptions. His existence is a tradition on par with the Chocobo in the series.
Prof. Membrane(Invader Zim) - Super-scientist "known for keeping our world from collapsing into chaos and the inventor of Super Toast".
Heroic scientists and engineers in comics
The universes created by DC Comics and Marvel Comics abound with scientists who became superheroes. They include:
Bruce Wayne, aka Batman (Detective Comics, Batman) - The World's Greatest Detective (reputedly) with incredible scientific knowledge and forensic and memory skills that are second to none.
Barry Allen, aka The Flash (The Flash) – Police scientist and superhero.
Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) – The most intelligent of the four Turtles, he builds a lot of advanced devices, often in the heat of battle.
Dr. Jon Osterman aka Dr. Manhattan (Watchmen) nuclear physicist transformed by accident into a godlike super-being. While publicized as a superhero, he functions as the ultimate weapon for the United States military.
Reed Richards, aka Mister Fantastic (Fantastic Four) – Scientist and inventor, regarded as one of the most intelligent people on Earth, leader of the Fantastic Four.
Ted Sallis, duplicator of the serum that created Captain America, transformed into The Man-Thing. Although he had serious problems with his personal ethics when it came to women and girls, he abandoned Operation Sulfer on moral grounds, and elected to remain as Man-Thing rather than allow innocents to be killed by the demon Thog.
Dr. Bruce Banner, aka The Incredible Hulk (Hulk) – Scientist who developed the "Gamma Bomb" for the US Government. An accident at the site of a test led to his becoming the Hulk. For a long period after, while in the form of Bruce Banner, he would look for scientific ways to rid himself of the transformation.
Dilbert - Star engineer of the comic strip series, "Dilbert" in the Dilbert universe.
Wally - Lazy and disillusioned engineer of the comic strip series in the Dilbert universe.
Heroic scientists and engineers in Star Trek
The Star Trek universe abounds with scientific and engineering heroes. Thanks to the fact that the Starfleet Academy's curriculum includes a large portion of scientific and engineering training, pretty much all Starfleet officers on the various ST series can be considered to fit in the current category. More specifically, Starfleet has several specialised scientific branches. The Starfleet Engineering Corps produced its share of heroic engineers, and the doctors of Starfleet Medical are responsible for discovering the cures of several diseases and developing a number of groundbreaking medical procedures. Starfleet Science Officers are responsible for all kinds of scientific research not covered by the two other branches. Thus, a list of scientific and engineering heroes in Star Trek might be as long as the list of Star Trek characters.
However, by narrowing the search to the set of main characters from each of the five series whose primary duty was science officer, chief medical officer or chief engineer, and adding the handful of scientists who've invented the technologies crucial to the stories, we can come up with a more manageable list:
Reginald Barclay (TNG and VOY) - An engineer originally assigned to the USS Enterprise-D and later played a key role in a later project which enabled regular contact with the missing Starfleet ship, USS Voyager.
Phlox (ENT) – Chief Medical Officer on the Enterprise-NX.
Seven of Nine (VOY) – Borg drone with no official rank or post, but due to her access to advanced Borg knowledge, she was used as an acting science officer on Voyager.
T'Pol (ENT) – Second-in-command of the Enterprise-NX, though the crew relied on her as an acting science officer as well.
The Baltimore Gun Club (From the Earth to the Moon) — Three of its wealthy members (Victor Barbicane, Stuyvesant Nicholl, Ben Sharpe) build a giant gun which launches an occupied capsule to the Moon.
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