Nefarious

Dr. Nefarious is the primary antagonist of Up Your Arsenal and A Crack in Time, an antagonist in both Ratchet & Clank (2016 game) and the tie-in Ratchet & Clank movie, one of the four main protagonists of All 4 One, and has appearances in other titles. A robotic scientist and self-proclaimed supervillain, he is the nemesis of Captain Qwark, and has a distinct hatred for organic life forms.

Dr. Nefarious originally plotted to conquer the Solana Galaxy with his robot and Tyhrranoid armies, transform its population into robots, and lead them as a "benevolent, iron-fisted" ruler. After being thwarted by Ratchet, Clank, and Qwark, Nefarious returned and plotted to take over the Great Clock, in order to control time itself and rewrite history to ensure villains always win, taking on the Zoni themselves, but once again being thwarted by his nemeses. He was required to team up with his three nemeses later on planet Magnus in order to stop the Loki Master from destryoing the universe.

Dr. Nefarious is a psychotic and sadistic mad scientist. He acted mostly out of vengeance, though not his sole motive, and has formed partnerships, with many whom he would quickly betray. He has created entire armies of soldiers to invade planets, such as the amoeboids, the Tyhrranoids, and his various robotic forces. Of his allies, the only one who has stuck with him throughout his career is his butler, Lawrence, who has a disdain for the scientist but sticks with his job regardless. Nefarious is an extremely powerful robot that is deadly in combat, though he is prone to malfunctioning, during which he will freeze up and play an episode of Lance and Janice before being whacked.

Early history
Nefarious' early history is detailed in the Qwark vid-comic series, though referenced later. Nefarious began as an organic life form and attended the same school as Qwark, with them meeting in Mr. Bozell's ninth grade biology class. Nefarious hated this class, in no part due to how frequently Qwark, who was three times Nefarious' size and twenty-six years old at the time, had bullied him. Nefarious nonetheless considered him a friend.

At some point later, Nefarious, with his new butler Lawrence, created a biological menace known as the amoeboids, which he unleashed upon Blackwater City on planet Rilgar. Qwark was sent to stop the amoeboids on the city, and chased Nefarious and Lawrence back to their base on Magmos by stowing away on their ship. Qwark initially attempted to infiltrate by disguising himself as a pizza delivery woman, which failed, but Nefarious allowed him to infiltrate claiming he had a "surprise" in store for Qwark. Qwark instead infiltrated the base and confronted Nefarious, throwing him into the machinery, which caused him to transform into a robot.

Following his transformation, Nefarious invaded Metropolis on planet Kerwan with an army of insectoid swarms that would wreak havoc across the city. Qwark took a break from his exercise, confronted the robotic Nefarious, and defeated him, breaking his head from his body. Lawrence incapacitated Qwark and repaired Nefarious, initially screwing his head on backwards, before screwing it back on properly, but leaving it with a malfunction that would cause Nefarious to occasionally freeze up and play Lance and Janice episodes, a malfunction Lawrence opted to not fix. Nefarious took Qwark to be imprisoned on an ice world, but Qwark escaped, hid away in his Thran Asteroid hideout in fear for his life, but assumed that Nefarious was gone for good.

At some point, Nefarious entered the show Galactic Idol with a song titled "Crushin' on Squishies", was eliminated on the first round and sold a single copy of his song. This song was later used to torture prisoners in Zordoom Prison and on planet Ebaro.

Ratchet & Clank re-imagined
In Qwark's retelling and the holo-film based on the events of Ratchet & Clank, Nefarious has an entirely different backstory. In these events, Nefarious was a member of the Galactic Rangers, a team led by Captain Qwark and commissioned by President Phyronix. He designed and invented most of the weapons used by the other Rangers, though his budget was frequently cut. Due to his mistreatment by Captain Qwark, Nefarious betrayed the team, and attempted to atomize Kerwan's Aleero City. Qwark stopped him, and he was promptly imprisoned. He was assumed to have then died in a subsequent prison escape, though he had survived.

Nefarious began working with Chairman Drek and the blarg, having a key role in designing much of the weaponry and equipment for Drek Industries, including the XK-81 Jetpack, R.Y.N.O., and Sheepinator. Chairman Drek had begun work on creating a new planet, New Quartu, built using the parts of planets he destroyed. Nefarious helped Drek's quest, constructing the Deplanetizer, which used an artificial supernova to power its laser, an idea Nefarious had in jail. He also created an army of warbots on Quartu's Skorg City, used to invade planets, of which one of the warbots created in Nefarious' factory was a defect, Clank. Nefarious was nonetheless using Drek for his revenge against Qwark and the Galactic Rangers: by helping Drek destroy planets, Nefarious was ruining the reputation of the Rangers in a bid to destroy as many planets as possible.

Drek sent Nefarious' warbots to invade Quartu, though Ratchet and Clank destroyed the warship and ended the attack, leading to their recruitment as Galactic Rangers. Nefarious then suggested that in order to defeat the Rangers, Drek persuade Qwark to come to his side instead. After attacking Quartu, Drek managed to persuade Qwark to betray the Rangers, without revealing that he was working with Nefarious. Nefarious then convinced Drek that his next target would be planet Umbris, a planet with an unstable core, meaning that its destruction at the right moment could destroy a nearby dwarf star, and thus an entire system, with it.

Before Drek destroyed Umbris, Qwark confronted Drek about the destruction of Novalis and the attack on the Rangers, which Drek had promised would not happen. Nefarious then revealed himself to Qwark to still be alive, mocked him for betraying his friends, and ushered him away. He then used the Sheepinator to morph Drek into a sheep, thrust him into a shuttle to New Quartu, and blasted him away, effectively betraying him and taking control of the Deplanetizer himself, using it to destroy Umbris. While the Galactic Rangers used the Mag Booster to throw the Deplanetizer off, Ratchet and Clank infiltrated the station. After beating Qwark to his senses, Nefarious fought the three of them, using an Alpha Disruptor, and tried to fire the Deplanetizer laser without them. He successfully fired the laser, but it destroyed New Quartu instead of Umbris.

Nefarious' story here has two different endings. In Qwark's retelling of events, Nefarious then fought Ratchet and Clank with an ultra-mech, which Ratchet and Clank destroyed, leading him to fall into the Deplanetizer's artificial supernova, presumably killing him. In the holo-film, Ratchet knocked him into the Deplanetizer with an OmniWrench, leading him to crash on Umbris, where several repair bots, mistaking him for a robot, replaced his body with a robotic one.

Up Your Arsenal
"Robotic citizens of the Solana Galaxy… the hour of your liberation is at hand! Too long have we robots suffered under the bigotry, the stupidity, the squishiness, and foul stench of organic life forms! Soon, all robots will bask in the liberty and equality of my benevolent, iron-fisted rule! And, as for you filthy organic life forms… You can look forward to being disintegrated! That's all for now..."

- Dr. Nefarious's message to the Solana Galaxy

Working with his new army, the Tyhrranoids, Dr. Nefarious launched an attack on planet Veldin, which was stopped by the Galactic Rangers with the help of Ratchet and Clank. Sending another Tyhrranoid attack to Galactic President Phyronix' palace on Marcadia, Nefarious issued a transmission across the Solana Galaxy, in which he addressed robots claiming the "hour of your liberation" was at hand, promising to conquer the galaxy and disintegrate organic life forms. In retaliation, Ratchet and Clank recovered Captain Qwark as ordered by the President, the only man who had confronted Nefarious and lived, as Qwark formed the Q-Force to combat him. Nefarious learned of the Q-Force after Lawrence informed him that they had penetrated his "impenetrable" fortress on Aquatos, while watching Secret Agent Clank episodes.

While the Q-Force and the Galactic Rangers fought against Nefarious' Tyhrranoid armies, dealing a massive blow to them on Tyhrranosis, Nefarious began work on a new superweapon, the Biobliterator, which would transform organic life forms into robots. He appeared on an episode of the show Supervillain Weekly with Lawrence to briefly discuss this weapon, with research plans being developed on planet Daxx.

Nefarious worked with his accomplice, Courtney Gears, a robot pop star sensation and an ally who had produced propaganda for him in the form of pop music, to kidnap Clank after she fooled him into believing she could help him find Nefarious. After failing to convert Clank to the cause, Nefarious imprisoned Clank, and sent a replica known as Klunk, to spy on Ratchet. Meanwhile, he also had Courtney Gears test the Biobliterator in her testing facility on Obani Draco, which she tested on kidnapped Q-Force member Skidd McMarx. Ratchet was able to defeat Courtney Gears, though by this point she had fulfilled her use to Nefarious.

Klunk directed Ratchet and Qwark to Nefarious' flagship, the Leviathan, boarded in Zeldrin Starport, which was revealed to be a trap. The Leviathan self-destructed with Qwark still aboard, while Ratchet and Klunk retreated. With the Biobliterator now complete, Nefarious launched another Tyhrranoid attack on planet Kerwan to attack Metropolis once again, gaining vengeance for his failed attack years before. The Biobliterator transformed everyone in Metropolis, including the Tyhrranoids, into robots. Ratchet caught up to Nefarious, who laughed as he revealed that he was holding the real Clank prisoner, and had Klunk attack Ratchet. Ratchet defeated Klunk and was reunited with the real Clank.

By this point, it appeared that Nefarious had won the war, with the Galactic President claiming robots would make "100% of the galaxy's population" soon and wore a mask pretending to be half-robot to appeal to the new demographics. The Q-Force did not give up the fight, however, and Q-Force member Al decoded the Biobliterator's plans. Nefarious launched an attack on the Starship Phoenix to try and defeat them, though this attack was thwarted by Ratchet and Clank. The Q-Force then sent the duo to destroy the Biobliterator on planet Koros where it was regenerating, only to learn that a second Biobliterator was still operational on Nefarious' base of Mylon.

Ratchet and Clank confronted Nefarious on Mylon, and almost defeated him until he called Lawrence in to engage the second Biobliterator's weapons and almost destroy them. Captain Qwark then saved the two with his ship, and Ratchet, Clank and Qwark destroyed the second Biobliterator. Humiliated at his defeat by "squishies", Nefarious demanded Lawrence teleport them away from the Biobliterator before it exploded without specifying a destination. Lawrence then teleported them to an asteroid that was out of range of any planet or space station.

Between Up Your Arsenal and A Crack in Time
"Thanks to you, and your dimwitted friend here, I found myself drifting through the cosmos! Have you ever spent time on an asteroid? It's surprisingly boring! Nothing for a villain to do but dwell on his failure!"

- Dr. Nefarious to Ratchet and Clank

Nefarious and Lawrence continued to float on this asteroid. During Deadlocked, they floated through the Shadow Sector and it appeared that they were coming within range of DreadZone Station. However, when Ratchet destroyed the station, they could no longer teleport to it.

The asteroid floated towards the Polaris Galaxy, spotted by space pirates in the Breegus Nebula. The rock eventually picked up speed and turned into a ball while drifting to planet Zanifar, and Nefarious and Lawrence sought refuge with a fongoid tribe, arriving in the middle of their spring break celebration.

While living with the fongoids, Nefarious tried to decipher how he had failed despite his efforts, and went on a spiritual, soul searching journey with the fongoids to learn the answers. He studied fongoid meditation, attended anger management class and yoga, but while on a spirit walk on planet Quantos, he discovered a fongoid cave from which he learned through wall paintings about a race known as the Zoni, in charge of protecting the universe and keeping time in balance. He then learned of their ultimate creation, the Great Clock, located in the center of the universe (give or take fifty feet). From this point, he plotted to take over the Clock for himself and rewrite history, so that the heroes always lose.

Nefarious fooled the fongoids into believing he had good intentions, and gained their assistance in creating his Tombli Outpost base on Zanifar, which would be used as a base to manufacture his army of Nefarious troopers and new starships. He also worked with terraklon mercenary Lord Vorselon to assist him and serve as the enforcer for his new army, whom he promised to return to his original body upon taking over the Great Clock (though he later noted to his computer he would actually betray him once controlling the Great Clock). Nefarious also formed an alliance with Pollyx, the terachnoid CEO of Pollyx Industries, who signed a contract that had many terachnoids, who had exclusive access to Zoni information and technology, work for Nefarious. With the assistance of the fongoids, whom he had betrayed and imprisoned in work camps, he constructed his Nefarious Space Station, and with the help of the terachnoids, began to contact the Zoni leader, Orvus.

Orvus met with Nefarious and Pollyx, though Nefarious imprisoned him and interrogated him about accessing the Orvus Chamber within the Great Clock. Orvus refused, and Nefarious used his Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler to try and destroy Orvus, though Orvus escaped and revealed that the only one able to access the chamber was safe, far from him. This would be Orvus' heir, Clank, prompting Nefarious to find Clank once again to access the chamber.

Nefarious' new robotic army had managed to take control over much of the Breegus System. He at one point fought the lombax Alister Azimuth. Despite his history with Orvus, Nefarious managed to nonetheless form a partnership with the Zoni, who would contact Clank upon arrival in Polaris, and bring back to the Great Clock to understand his purpose.

Clank's logic and memory appeared to be dysfunctional upon returning to the Great Clock, with Nefarious promising the Zoni he would fix it. Ratchet had learned about this from the Obsidian Eye on planet Merdegraw, and chased down to the Breegus Nebula.

A Crack in Time
"Things to do once the clock is under my control. Number 1: Double-cross remaining Valkyries and retire Lord Vorselon. Number 2: Reestablish vendetta against organic life forms! And number 3: Iron socks."

- Dr. Nefarious to his computer

Nefarious, under the guise of repairing Clank, attempted to access Clank's subconscious to access the Orvus Chamber. The Zoni locked him out, and when it became clear that he would not be able to access the chamber this way, Nefarious ended his partnership with the Zoni and used the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler and summoning his Nefarious troopers to deal huge damage to the Great Clock.

Clank was freed by Nefarious' damage to the station, and awakened fleeing the damage done. He tried to escape Nefarious, but reached a dead end, as Lawrence used his orb of gratuitous immobilization to incapacitate Clank. Nefarious left Clank with Sigmund to learn more about the Great Clock, but had Lawrence spy on Clank's progress. Meanwhile, he returned to his space station, rehearsing for his original "epic romantic action comedy space opera" play, titled Night of the Living Squishies.

Nefarious learned that Ratchet and Qwark had arrived through Vorselon. Nefarious sent Ratchet and his new ally, Alister Azimuth, a transmission while at Pollyx Industries headquarters at Axiom City. Ratchet questioned if Nefarious still wished to turn everyone into robots, which he denied, claiming instead that Ratchet would soon see Nefarious' "greatest triumph" before sending the VX-99 machine to destroy them both, which they defeated. Furious at Vorselon's failure to defeat them, Nefarious instead brought in the Valkyries, Cassiopeia, Carina and Libra, who would assist in trying to stop Ratchet, Qwark and Azimuth.

When Clank led Lawrence to the Orvus Chamber, Lawrence incapacitated Clank and informed Nefarious, who initiated the next stage of their plans (known as "Unnecessarily Evil Initiative Omega-91"), in which Lawrence would take Clank to Vapedia to lure Ratchet and Azimuth there and have Cassiopeia defeat them. Qwark infiltrated Nefarious' base in a poor disguise, which Nefarious recognized but played along with the ruse regardless, while Ratchet successfully defeated Cassiopeia and was reunited with Clank, though Alister Azimuth left them both over disagreements about the Great Clock's use.

Ratchet applied a holo-guise of Nefarious and infiltrated Nefarious' base, though Nefarious caught Ratchet, Clank and Qwark in the act and cornered them. He revealed to them his plan to rewrite history so that every "protagonist's triumph will be reversed". Nefarious attached Ratchet and Clank to an asteroid, using his Asteroid Flinger 5000 that he installed in the event of needing a "super ironic death scenario", which flung them away to planet Morklon, though the Zoni helped them both survive the crash.

Ratchet and Clank returned to the station and confronted Nefarious before he made his way towards the Great Clock. Nefarious ordered Lawrence to fall back to the outer perimeter to avoid damage done to the ship, as a fierce battle ensued between Ratchet and Nefarious, with Lawrence assisting Nefarious with the station's weaponry. Ratchet was able to defeat Nefarious, who malfunctioned heavily and fell unconscious. Ratchet and Clank were able to escape when saved by Alister Azimuth, while Lawrence used the ship's escape pod to leave. Lawrence teleported Nefarious' unconscious body away, which reporters revealed they could not find.

The Polaris government became aware of Nefarious' teleportation out, but was unable to find them.

All 4 One
Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence' threat level in Polaris had increased from "unknown" to "alive and at large", to which the newly elected President Qwark assured the galaxy there was no danger. Ratchet and Clank, while interviewed by Kip Darling and Pepper Fairbanks via satellite, stated they had full confidence in Qwark's ability to handle Nefarious again.

Nefarious, having escaped, had obtained the remains of a Light-Eating Z'Grute, and set up a false award ceremony for Qwark in the depths of Igliak, for the award of "Intergalactic Tool of Justice" for allegedly defeating a Light-Eating Z'Grute. Qwark attended this ceremony, while Ratchet and Clank followed closely behind, suspicious. Nefarious there resurrected the Z'Grute's remains and announced he would unleash it on the city, though the Z'Grute raged uncontrollably and Lawrence simply walked away, announcing his registration. Nefarious was then forced to team up with Ratchet, Clank and Qwark to defeat the beast, which had attracted the attention of a vast and powerful machine known as Ephemeris the Creature Collector, which transported the four to a testing laboratory on planet Magnus.

Cronk and Zephyr attempted to retrieve the four, but were stuck in an asteroid field and could not reach them. Therefore, the four would have to escape the world themselves and stop the Ephemeris. A small girl named Susie took the four to the tharpods, native to the planet, that explained the Ephemeris in detail to them. Eventually, the four worked to destroy the machine and defeat the Loki Master, who had planned to use it to destroy the universe. Nefarious worked with the four, though he expressed annoyance with Qwark and even tried to kill Qwark, before Qwark at one point saved Nefarious from falling off a cliff.

Nefarious dealt the final blow to the Loki Master in the final battle. Following this, Cronk and Zephyr were finally able to retrieve the four. Nefarious was instead saved by Lawrence, who vowed to return to Nefarious as the "market for evil sidekicks was rather thin" and the two escaped in their ship while Ratchet, Clank and Qwark were not looking, contemplating how best to avoid the Polaris Defense Force patrols. Nefarious was then seen looking at a picture of Ratchet, Clank and Qwark with a sad expression, sad to leave his new friends.

Nefarious' location was unknown, but though he remained at the very top of the Galaxy's Most Wanted list.

Appearance
As an organic life form, Dr. Nefarious is a humanoid, with a large, egg-shaped head, grey/yellow-ish skin, a hunchback and a large mouth bearing his teeth. Little is seen from the vid-comics to make out his attire as an organic life form, but it appears that he wore a grey bodysuit with matching gloves and boots. These features would roughly carry over into his robotic form.

Dr. Nefarious' typical robotic form is a tall, humanoid robotic, with a green, transparent, egg-shaped head-dome featuring gears and cogs inside, brightly colored red eyes, several red highlights, a pair of mechanical wings attached to his pauldrons, hydrolic pipes on his chest and back, and diamond-shaped guards on his legs and arms.

His appearance has changed slightly in different appearances however. In Up Your Arsenal, his body is more realistically proportioned, and palette-wise appears primarily blue with a green dome on his head and red highlights adorning his eyes, chest, groin, forearms and shins. In A Crack in Time, he retains this color scheme, but features a larger head, more sunken-in eyes allowing for more facial expression, a broader upper torso and exaggerated proportions. In All 4 One, his color scheme has changed entirely, with a purple body (to distinguish from Clank's slot), and appears much shorter with a larger head proportional to the rest of his body, and a more exaggerated torso with ganglier limbs.

Personality
Dr. Nefarious is characterized as a deranged, eccentric, egomanical scientist, sadistically showing no remorse for his actions and pleasure in villainy. He is also very conceited, with his inventions often being made in his own image, and many of his robotic servants resembling him or sharing his mannerisms. He has an extreme hatred for organic life, referring to organic life forms as "squishies" and seeking to exterminate them or transform them into robots. Even when putting aside his hatred towards them in order to further his goals, he vowed to eventually destroy them again once he was finished.

Nefarious has proven to be cunning, able to manipulate many to work for him. He was able to fool the fongoids, the terachnoids, the Valkyries, and the Zoni to ally with him, before betraying them all. While working with them, however, he has often shown a complete impatience towards them when they fail him. While he normally betrays his allies once he has obtained his goal, when it seems clear that they will no longer be useful or co-operate with him, he will betray them prematurely.

Towards the end of All 4 One, Nefarious' companionship with Ratchet, Clank and Qwark appears to have changed him, being close to tears when looking at a photograph of the four of them.

Abilities
Dr. Nefarious, a self-proclaimed genius, is incredibly intelligent, demonstrating his engineering abilities when he designed and built the Nefarious Space Station (a weapon with a superlaser powered by a hypernova), the Biobliterator (a superweapon that converts organic matter into robotic material), and legions of robotic soldiers. Nefarious was even able to create weapons that could combat the Zoni, a godlike race with manipulation over space and time, notably the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler that could defeat them and destroy their equipment, and a Zoni vessel that kept Orvus captive. Nefarious also demonstrates his intellect as a strategist, coming very close to winning a galactic win in Solana with the President practically surrendering, cunningly manipulating many races to help him achieve his goals, and successfully tricking Clank and Sigmund into opening the Orvus Chamber for him.

In combat, Dr. Nefarious has a vast array of powers and abilities. To attack opponents, Nefarious is able to control and release forms of energy from his hands, which among other things, can rain down rainbow-like streams of energy to hit targeted areas, raise walls of energy from the ground, project holograms of himself that slash his foes with a claw, and lob explosive balls of energy creating shockwaves when hitting the ground. Nefarious also has great agility, able to perform flips powerful jumps (most notably with his Cloak & Dagger technique in All 4 One), and fly with booster jets in his feet and using wings on his back to keep balance (and also fire at opponents mid air).

Nefarious is extremely resilient, able to take large amounts of damage before being incapacitated. Despite the strength of Ratchet's weapons, Nefarious has never been heavily damaged beyond repair, and has always been able to escape with the help of Lawrence.

Equipment
While Nefarious rarely used equipment himself as his robotic form already capable of dealing damage, many of his minions wielded powerful weaponry. He still made use of some weapons himself, often invented by him. A notable weapon is the Biobliterator, which doubled up as a vehicle that he at one point piloted to fight Ratchet, Clank and Qwark. The Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler was used by him throughout the Great Clock, as it was able to damage Zoni and their equipment. He also possessed a blaster with ricocheting bullets that could take a Nefarious Trooper down with one shot.

During All 4 One, Nefarious used a large arsenal of weapons, including his own RYNO VI Protosuit. Nefarious equipped himself with the Annihilator Blades as his regular melee weapon; which he would use to attack with a slash from each claw, followed by a third strike with both. Nefarious also used it for his Comet-strike, where he would detach it from his arm and launch it an opponent. . His special weapon was the Cloaker, which allowed him to turn invisible, and while attacking with it he would execute the "Cloak & Dagger" maneuver whereupon he jump incredibly high and slam his Annihilator Blades into a foe.

Lawrence
Lawrence is Nefarious' loyal butler, who is almost always seen working with Nefarious. The two can be involved often in heated arguments, and Lawrence will several times insult Nefarious with snarky remarks which Nefarious often does not pick up on. Nonetheless, Lawrence remains loyal to Nefarious and has rescued him on numerous occasions, aside from during All 4 One in which he resigned before returning to Nefarious' employ shortly afterwards.

Archenemies
Ratchet, Clank, and Qwark are Nefarious' avowed archenemies.

According to the Qwark vid-comics, Qwark bullied Nefarious in ninth grade Biology class, and thwarted many of his later plans, as well as being responsible for transforming Nefarious into a robot. Qwark was also heavily involved in defeating Nefarious in Up Your Arsenal, assembling the Q-Force. Nefarious attempted to kill Qwark in All 4 One, though they later bonded as friends, particularly after Qwark saved Nefarious from a fall.

Nefarious was a long-time fan of the Secret Agent Clank series, and collected every episode in his base in Aquatos. When meeting Clank, he mistook Clank for the fictional Secret Agent Clank character, dismissing the idea that the real Clank was not the fictional character as "squishy lies". When it became clear Clank would not join Nefarious, Nefarious created Klunk as a replacement to spy on Ratchet and imprisoned Clank. Later, when requiring Clank to access the Orvus Chamber, Nefarious referred to Clank as his nemesis, and mocked him while in coma, only wishing to use Clank to access the Chamber and otherwise wanting to destroy him.

Unlike Clank and Qwark, Nefarious has no particular relation to Ratchet, and throughout Up Your Arsenal rarely even referred to Ratchet by name. This changed in A Crack in Time.

Romantic relationships
Courtney Gears appears to be romantically involved with Nefarious during Up Your Arsenal, as she refers to him as "snooky-wookums" and "darling", and serves him loyally, while he appears offended when Qwark claims to have had an intimate relationship with her. However, when she is defeated by Ratchet, Nefarious' subordinate Klunk refers to her as "disposable" and he shows no particular remorse for her. Nonetheless, she is mentioned by Cassiopeia, suggesting she continued to work for him afterwards.

Nefarious later appeared to have a relationship with Valkyrie leader, Cassiopeia, with the two dating aboard the Nefarious Space Station. After her death, he was outraged, even dedicating some attacks to her during the battle with him aboard the space station.

Development
Dr. Nefarious was conceptualized as a new galactic calamity for the heroes to overcome when creating Up Your Arsenal. The character of a mad scientist that wanted to destroy the galaxy was a nod to villains from old radio shows and vintage science fiction films.

His character was very popular as a villain among the developers, as stated in uselesspodcasts by former Insomniac Games developers.

Early concept art of Nefarious reveals he was going to have a different design, with a cape in place of wings.

Dr. Nefarious was originally going to be permanently killed at the end of A Crack in Time, thought to be the last game in the series, with his crashing into the Nefarious Space Station being thought of as a fitting end for the character. However, Sony executives requested that he be kept alive and the series was set to continue after A Crack in Time, leading to him be retconned to still be alive within the comic series and returning later.

Height
Interestingly, Nefarious's height varies greatly between his appearances. In the vid-comics in Up Your Arsenal, organic Nefarious is shorter than Qwark, though robotic Nefarious is twice Qwark's height during fights. During both Up Your Arsenal and A Crack in Time cutscenes, Nefarious is a little taller than Qwark, though in All 4 One, Nefarious is listed as 6' and is shorter than Qwark.

Series cameos

 * In Size Matters, Nefarious can be seen during Ratchet's dreamtime.
 * In Secret Agent Clank Klunk created a clone of Nefarious which shared his abilities and was programmed to obey him.
 * During Tools of Destruction, Qwark, while working as the announcer at the Imperial Fight Festival, could be heard saying "Will a 'Dr. Nefarious's please report to the concession stand; we recovered your wallet" over the arena's loudspeaker.
 * In the comic series, newspapers can be seen written about Nefarious.
 * Like many characters, a skin of Nefarious can be used in Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault.
 * In Into the Nexus, Nefarious is found in planet Igliak's museum in a center of the room containing the universe's greatest criminals, with a working replica of the Biobliterator in the Solana Galaxy section.

Non-Ratchet & Clank appearances
Nefarious appears in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale in San Francisco where his Nefarious Space Station is located, after some time he will move the players onto the station and begin attacking them with help from the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler. In this game he is allied with the Chimera, a species from Insomniac Games's Resistance series. He also appears as a Minion that is unlocked by reaching Level 80 with 3 characters.

Nefarious appears in the Firing Range in PlayStation Home (future).

Nefarious appears in 8-bit Mini-Mayhem.

Reception
IGN listed Dr. Nefarious as 65th in a list of Top 100 Videogame Villains, noting he was an example of a series villain who is "evil in the most loveable way", and praising his malfunction in which he blows a fuse only to be whacked later. Game Revolution praised Nefarious' "psychotic babbling", stating that it "strikes the right balance between threatening and comical". GameInformer listed Dr. Nefarious as their seventh best in their list of top ten A.I. characters of the decade, claiming his plots "are too ridiculous to take seriously, and just the right challenge for the dynamic duo", calling him a "great villain" who "hits all the right notes to fit the franchise". GamesRadar listed Nefarious as one of "Gaming's maddest mad doctors".