Lady Cortexia – Doctor Neo Periwinkle Cortex from the Crash Bandicoot series
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Lady_Cortexia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Neo_Cortex
Thank you to Dylan J. for pointing me in the right direction.
Lady Cortexia needs help. Her crystals and gems have been stolen by someone who left a weird Tiki Mask in their place. She has found that stolen items are often taken to a fence. Coincidentally, there is a fence at the Collie Ranch. She sends your Wizard to recover her crystals and gems.
Gem Pickett, purveyor of Gem Pickett’s Illegal Good Surplus has what you need. She just procured some crystals and gems from her old buddy, Crash the Bandit Coot. She won’t mention Crash’s calling card of leaving Tiki Masks at his crime scenes and she certainly isn’t going to tell you that Crash is hiding in the Woebegone Territory.
After defeating Crash and his minion, Misbehaving Mutt, Lady Cortexia is less than pleased that your Wizard does not bring the crystals and gems to her. She brushes you off stating that you would probably just feed the crystals and gems to your pet.
Crash Bandicoot is a video game franchise originally developed by Naughty Dog as an exclusive for Sony’s PlayStation console. It has seen numerous installments created by various developers and published on multiple platforms. The series consists predominantly of platform games, but also includes spin-offs in the kart racing and party game genres. The series was originally produced by Universal Interactive, which later became known as Vivendi Games; in 2008, Vivendi merged with Activision, which currently owns and publishes the franchise.
The games are mostly set on the fictitious Wumpa Islands, an archipelago situated to the south of Australia where humans and mutant animals co-exist, although other locations are common. The protagonists of the series are a pair of genetically enhanced bandicoots named Crash and Coco, whose quiet lives on the Wumpa Islands are often interrupted by their creator and the games’ main antagonist, Doctor Neo Cortex, who attempts to eliminate Crash as a constant hindrance to his plots for world domination.
Doctor Neo Periwinkle Cortex is a character and the main antagonist of the Crash Bandicoot video game series. He has appeared in every mainline game in the series as Crash Bandicoot’s archenemy, as well as a playable character in several spin-off titles. Cortex is an egomaniacal mad scientist who seeks to achieve world domination with the use of the Evolvo-Ray, a machine capable of creating genetically enhanced soldiers from ordinary animals. Crash was one such subject but thwarted the scientist’s plot; Cortex is subsequently determined to eliminate Crash as an obstacle to world domination.
Cortex was created by Naughty Dog founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin, and was originally designed by Joe Pearson and Charles Zembillas. Voice actors who have portrayed Cortex include Brendan O’Brien, Clancy Brown and Lex Lang. Cortex has been positively received by reviewers, with much of the praise going to Brown’s and Lang’s vocal performances as well as the character’s portrayal in Crash Twinsanity.
During the development of Crash Bandicoot, Naughty Dog founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin conceived the idea of Cortex while eating near Universal Interactive Studios. Gavin came up with the idea of an “evil genius villain with a big head” who was “all about his attitude and his minions”. Rubin, having become fond of the animated television series Pinky and the Brain, imagined a more malevolent version of the Brain with minions resembling the weasel characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After Gavin put on a voice depicting the attitude in mind for the character, he and Rubin instantly came up with the name “Doctor Neo Cortex”. Gavin and Rubin described Cortex to character designer Charles Zembillas as “[having] a huge head but a tiny body, he’s a mad scientist, and he dresses a bit like a Nazi from The Jetsons”.
Cortex’s basic characterization was conceived by Gavin and Rubin as “A villain, all full of himself, unable to conceive of ever doing anything the simple way, but constantly (in his eyes) betrayed by the incompetence of his henchmen”. Cortex is depicted as a mad scientist who is ruthlessly and obsessively motivated to dominate the world by the desire to exact vengeance upon a humanity that spurned and humiliated him. He possesses an outrageously high intelligence quotient, which he believes makes him the logical choice to control the world, and he is frequently frustrated by the inferior mentality and failures of his underlings. In awareness of his diminutive build, Cortex avoids physical combat and rationalizes his cowardice by claiming that such engagement is beneath him. Cortex is exceptionally skilled in the fields of engineering and mechanics, which allows him to create a wide variety of devices and machines. Although he is prone to wild mood swings, his single-minded determination keeps him functional. He is highly self-confident and views himself as perfect, which convinces him not to subject himself to the Evolvo-Ray. Cortex is a lifelong loner whose sole friend has been his assistant and childhood associate Doctor Nitrus Brio, whom he treats with contemptuous affection. As a result of his traumatic childhood experiences, Cortex flies into an hysterical rage at imagery of clowns, laugh tracks, seltzer bottles and bananas. Crash Twinsanity artist Daniel Tonkin observed that Cortex is “massively egotistical” and has “a real insecurity complex”, while voice actor Lex Lang summarized Cortex’s character as a “maniacal narcissist”.
The current list of all the (known) Wallaru references are located here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Lady Cortexia image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
Crash Bandicoot game cover compilation is borrowed this Reddit thread. It appears to be the work of @EsconditeRetro
Dr. Neo Cortex image is borrowed from the Crash Bandicoot wiki. Images are copyright Activision.
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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