How they compare: Dr. Neo Cortex (Crash Bandicoot)

 

Neo Periwether Cortex was born to a group of funloving circus folk. Born with an abnormally large intellect, and not wanting to perform in a circus, just wanting to read his science books, caused him to be an outcast among his people, leading to a group of evil circus performers tattooning an "N" on his forehead for "Nerd"....at the age of 3. Sometime after this event during his childhood, Cortex's family died in a "mysterious" explosion and he enrolled himself in Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil where he began to develop his skills as a mad scientist.

The mad Dr. Cortex was motivated primarily by fear and an inferiority complex derived from his constant outcasting and being made fun of during his early youth. When even his other evil colleagues laughed at his ideas he engaged in a mad attempt to take over the world to prove his ideas' superiority.

This led him to create a secluded base in secluded islands off Australia where he would attempt to create an army of mutant animals to act as his army. Unfortunately the one who was meant to be the general of his army turned out to be not so bright and furthermore totally chaotic and unpredictable. This was Crash Bandicoot and the start of a long rivalry of Crash foiling Dr. Cortex's schemes for global domination.

In terms of physical capacity, Dr. Cortex is....well he's usually treated as a complete joke. He is, and always will be, a science nerd and can be physically beaten by almost any member of the Crash Bandicoot cast. That said he's not so drastically below he would not be able to scale. When he's gotten very angry he's been able to physically equal Crash Bandicoot. And while he can be beaten up fairly easily, he's hard to keep down. He can take a lot of abuse from even the stronger fighters of the verse showing his durability should definitely scale.

Now the scaling everyone tends to do is that Crash was able to fight Crunch using the power of the Elemental Masks which can do things like create large storms and volcanic eruptions and thus scale to city level. This is fine as a low ball, although there's a lot of evidence suggesting the verse's fighters could be higher. Not only have the elemental masks been stated to demolish mountains and be able to ravage the globe but one caused an ice age across the Earth, the water Mask Wa-Wa's mission is to flush the world clean, and the Earth Mask Rok-Ko is stated in the guide to have created a tremor that knocked the Earth off it's axis, which would take planetoid levels of force. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but this may be a consistent high end when taking into account the fact that 5 crystals are needed to equal the power of each Mask, and the 25 power crystals together powered a machine, the Minimizer, that effected and massively shrunk the Earth.

In terms of speed, Cortex again scales to Crash who not only has numerous lightning-timing feats but was able to react to the Minimizer whose power quickly engulfed the Earth, suggesting high end massively hypersonic speeds.

Dr. Neo Cortex is a supergenius able to create advanced robots and machines, mutant animals for his army, and created inter-dimensional technology since he was 8. His intelligence is advanced to the point that he is aware of the fact that he is in a game and has broken the fourth wall at a few points. While it has doesn't much good, he's also trained in ninja martial arts.

Cortex's intellect is best judged by his advanced technology. Some equipment is fairly standard for Cortex. This includes his standard death ray which depending on what setting is in on can be a standard energy ray or palaysis beam, but can also induce happiness, set someone on fire, or induce instant death. He also has various forms of mobility machines including a hoverboard, a jetpack and a short range teleporter. He has an energy shield passively surrounding him and tends to use various forms of explosives like mines, bombs, or TNT. 

He has shown other devices that are likely not standard but probably wouldn't take too long for him to remake. This includes cloning devices, sound and energy attacks, inter-dimensional technology, gravity machines, various power suits, and more.

His crowning invention is probably the minimizer, though this is something that took signifigant prep to make and is not standard equipment. By harnessing the power of the 25 power crystals, the minimizer shrunk the Earth small enough to fit in Cortex's hand. When it malfuncted it also showed the ability to fuse entities together creating a much stronger entity.

Cortex also invented a formula to mutate him into a massive mutant form, increasing his stats to make him much stronger then those he is normally comparable or weaker too. This form was so strong that he emanated energy and created shockwaves with his attacks.

Finally, Cortex's greatest strength is probably his own endurance. He regularly takes beating from people vastly stronger then him for comedic purposes. He can survive being in space, having his brain taken out (he simply put it back in), and being flattened completely. 

In terms of weaknesses, Cortex is a basket case, plagued by neurosis and is a bit of a comical figure, reckless and short-tempered. Also he relies heavily on his technology which can have their own weaknesses, like his ray gun having limited ammo.

Name: Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex

Origin: Crash Bandicoot

Classification: Mad Scientist, Nerd

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Supergenius Intellect, Fourth Wall Breaking, Regeneration/Superhuman Endurance, Ray Gun (Energy Manipulation, Paralysis, Mind Manipulation, Fire Manipulation, Death Inducement), various explosives, hoverboard and jetpack, teleportation, energy shield, mutant formula, various non-standard equipment

Weaknesses: Neurotic, Impulsive, Short-Tempered, Reliant on technology, Lacks common sense

Destructive Capacity: City Level, possibly Planetoid Level, higher in mutant form, likely planetary with prep (can harnass the energy of the Power Crystals, created a device that shrunk the Earth to being able to fit in his hand)

Range: Planetary at maximum

Speed: MHS+ Reactions, MHS Flight with tech or in mutant form

Durability: City Level, possibly Planetoid Level, higher in mutant form

Stamina: Unknown

Standard Equipment: Ray Gun, Explosives, Hoverboard, Energy Shield, Teleporter, Jetpack

Intelligence: Mid, possibly High Tier 3/Metahuman (Can with time create technology similar to that of a type 2, possibly a type 3 civilization like a machine that can shrink the entire Earth and inter-dimensional travel)

So how would he do in other verses?

In the Marvel Universe, assuming he's at city level, Neo would be essentially a high Street Level character. His stats are on par with a very high street leveler and his scientific abilities would actually fit the verse much. He would be at a disadvantage against basically any supergenius in the verse as they usually have intelligence feats above even his, though he would obviously be much smarter then the none supergeniuses of the verse. His powerset would be humble but decent in the MCU, particularly his ray gun's death setting (it's happy setting may not be too dangerous as low level psychics and psychics resistance is very common in the verse).

He'd overall be a fairly decent high street level supervillain that would generally require one mid+ metahuman to stop his schemes or a team of high street levelers to low metahumans. A single high street leveler to low metahuman might be able to stop him but it would be very difficult and not consistent. If he has the higher stat range he would be a more difficult but his lack of massive speed for his tier would make it so that any decently high metahuman should be able to take him on, unless he gets the jump on them with his ray gun. The big threat however is if he got his hands on some of the advanced tech the verse already has.

In the DCU, Doctor Cortex would place oddly as his stat range doesn't really fit neatly against anyone already in the verse. He would be above most local/city defenders but well below the range of any of the more brick-ish heroes in terms of physical stats. More notably is that he would be a decent supergenius in the verse, and could do pretty well joining up with any nefarious organization that exists, supplying technology in exchange for defense and resources.

His ray gun would be hypothetically more dangerous in the DC-verse as the low level of psychic resistance doesn't seem to be as common and there aren't as many technopaths that could quickly shut it off. As said it would be a more reliable one hit win condition against anyone that can't blitz. On the other hand being able to break the fourth wall may be able to give him hypertime abilities and make him way stronger then normal.

In the Sonic the Hedgehog-verse, Cortex would actually fit in well into a lot of alternate Sonic continuities many of whom have Sonic between town to island level and MHS to Sub-Relativistic which is a level of raw stats that Cortex can easily fit in with as well as having hax level that is about right for him. He would be essentially a rival mad scientist to Eggman, with perhaps less resources and not quite as intelligent or competent though hard to get rid off. 

Howevewr in the main continuity he would really struggle even if you highball him. Sonic characters scale to single chaos emeralds which can move continents as well as to black holes that can threaten the Earth, which would require a lot of prep for Cortex to even match, and Sonic has stated that lightspeed isn't even a challenge for him. In terms of stats and haxes, Cortex would be outgunned by main universe Sonic. 

In the Jimmy Neutron-verse, Cortex would fit fairly well. What's interesting about this is if you take the lower estimate, Cortex would be lower but not hugely lower then the first tier which contains most characters in the verse scaling off Jimmy's tornado feat and if you use the higher estimate or you consider Cortex's prepped tech it would be slightly below or equal to the power of the higher tier of Jimmy's tech or Meldar Prime. His level of regenerative properties defensively and his ray gun should allow him to make up the gap to the tier if you take the lower end estimate. Both also scale to similar speed range from lightning-timing. 

Intellect-wise, Cortex would be a mid tier level intellect in the JN-verse, above civilians who can get up to level 1 technology, akin to most genius characters who can invent type 2 technology, but below the high tier supergeniuses who can invent type 3 technology of greater variety then Cortex's arguable type 3.  However while he does have some ninja training Cortex would be a fodder in terms of skill as even civilians in the verse have shown superhuman levels of skill. His hax level is as far as I can tell decent but not overwhelming to the verse. He'd be a fairly decent minor villain in the series, being able to fight most villains in the series somewhat fairly with or without prep, and with prep being able to fight an unprepped Jimmy.

To make an analogy to another cartoon, I think Cortex would have roughly the place in JN that Jack Spicer has in Xiaolin Showdown. The comedic evil genius would be seen as a physically inept nerd, although wouldn't die in one hit or anything, and have an overrated ego and sense of his place, however if he allied with someone else it would be a notable shift in the balance of power and if the cast got complacent and lazy, not taking his plans serious, Cortex could be a serious threat to the world. 

In Classic-continuity Spyro, Cortex is both by feats and canonically by scaling about equal to the verse's fighters. In the crossover he and Crash were treated as comparable to Classic Spyro and his enemies. This would be true even without that assuming you take Cortex at city+ as Spyro and cast scales to very similar feats of lightning-timing and large storm creation. Spyro canonically Cortex with some difficulty. If Cortex remained longer in Classic Spyro world, he would be kind of an outside context problem. The Crash Bandicoot world powers come from science and toonforce while Spyro's worlds abilities come from mystical sources. His powers coudl be very strange and hard to fight for the verse as they would be unlike anything they've seen and be a power source they don't know, but the same could be said in reverse, their mystical abilities defying Cortex's knowledge of science. 

In the Legends continuity, Cortex would not do very well due to the massive power jump. He would be above obviously fodder, but elemental master dragons and the destroyer get into the planetary range scaling from Destroyer having the ability to destroy the planet and into the relativistic range, which would require prep for Cortex to even possibly fight. The Top Tiers scale to large planet or low star level based on Malefor's feat of planetary destruction which Cortex would have no way of damaging.

In the Skylanders continuity, it depends whether one scales to the Legends continuity as it is suggested that similar events occured. If so, it is a similar scenario. If not, the Skylanders, guardians of the realm would be an interesting fight for Cortex. They are faster, scaling into the relativistic range from light-timing, but they also scale to kiloton range from various feats in this range such as surviving a volcanic eruption or breaking a small moon. Especially with prep and his more haxy inventions, Cortex would likely be a large threat to the verse but he could get swarmed by the massive numbers of the verse especially given their speed advantage.