Neo Cortex

Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex is the main antagonist in the Crash Bandicoot series. In Crash Bandicoot, he is voiced by Brendan O'Brien, along with all the other characters. From Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back to Crash Nitro Kart, he is voiced by Clancy Brown. As of Crash Twinsanity, he has been voiced by Lex Lang. Contrary to popular belief, the "N" on his forehead stands for "Nerd", not "Neo".

Crash Bandicoot
Making his debut in Crash Bandicoot, Cortex planned to take over the world (and make the people who mocked him shut up) using superanimals evolved using his Evolvo-Ray a mutagenic weapon initially of his original, but faulty design and subsequently overhauled into a functional weapon by Dr N Brio His plans were thwarted when a failed experiment defeated him and destroyed his castle. Falling into the castle's basement (Or more likely, through the castle to it) he discovers a larger purple crystal...

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Afterwards, he recreated the Cortex Vortex into a space station, with his new assistant Dr N.Gin, Brio having long ditched him to serve drinks at a bar. His new Super Cortex Vortex requires the power of the Master Crystal, which he has, and 25 "slave crystals", and having no more friends left on Earth to find them, he resorts to an enemy. He lies to Crash, telling him the fate of the world is in peril and Cortex needs the crystals to put everything right. Luckily, Brio jumps in at the right time, and Crash gathers the gems instead of the crystals. Using a laser built by Brio, the gem power destroys the Cortex Vortex space station. In this appearance, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, his skin is notably less yellow than other games.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
The Cortex Vortex hurtles towards Earth and destroys a temple. It is revealed that Cortex was working on the orders of Uka Uka, a legendary powerful witchdoctor whose soul was placed in a mask much alike his brother Aku Aku. Cortex is joined by Dr N. Tropy who bends time in order to gather ancient crystals. Crash and Coco Bandicoot intervene however, and destroy the Time Twister machine in the process.

Crash Team Racing
Cortex later joins the good guys to fend off Nitros Oxide, a racer who plans to turn the Earth into a giant parking lot. Oxide is defeated, and Cortex returns to working for Uka Uka. As told in the credits, he returned to scientific research and he found the 117. element "Cortexrulestheworldium". Not long afterwards, he is summoned to partake in a battle between good and evil. Lasergun in hand, and old buddies on his side (including oddly enough N Brio, who is supposed to have gone to the good side), the games commence. These events happen in Crash Bash, and are not to be considered as canon for the series.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex
Straight after the events of Warped (Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash do not count), he is seen at a meeting for the villains in the series, it is decided that Crash Bandicoot must be eliminated. Cortex unveils his perfect bandicoot warrior, Crunch Bandicoot. However, Crunch is defeated by Crash at every turn, even with the assistance of The Elementals on the evil side. Crunch is taken to the good side after Cortex's defeat.

Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
In a space station orbiting the Earth, Uka Uka is upset with Doctor Neo Cortex for failing him once again, but Cortex promises a plan that will bring the Earth's inhabitants down to size. Cortex then introduces his Planetary Minimizer, which he immediately uses to shrink the Earth down to the size of a grapefruit. The situation is brought to Aku Aku's attention when Cortex taunts the now-microscopic people of Earth. Crash eventually manages to return Earth to its normal size, foiling Cortex's plans once again.

Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage
Doctor Neo Cortex and Ripto from the Spyro the Dragon series joined forces to rid themselves of their respective nemeses Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, by genetically modifying Ripto's "Riptoc" minions and disguising them as Crash and Spyro, leading the two protagonists to believe they are against each other. The two heroes eventually discover this and work together to defeat the two evil-doers. Spyro eventually ends up tagging Cortex with a transmitter which leads both Crash and Spyro to Cortex and Ripto's headquarters in outer space where they are defeated.

Crash Twinsanity
Cortex teamed up with Crash once again to help stop his demented former pets Evil Twins: Victor and Moritz (two parakeets he tested his early Evolvo-Ray on, which not only hyper-evolved them into criminal masterminds, but dimensionally displaces them). He often ends up in embarrassing situations, cross-dressing as Coco (and apparently enjoying it), having his brain forcibly removed from his head (while still alive), being captured by Papu Papu, used as a snowboard (and later a skateboard), getting into a pay dispute with former henchmen, trapped in a pipe (before farting in it), being chased by bees and a bear to name a few.

Crash Of The Titans
In Crash of the Titans, Cortex uses Mojo to mutate the island's residents into Titans. After the Yuktopus failed to kill Crash after the first boss fight, Uka Uka replaces him with Nina. At the end of the game, Nina is defeated and Cortex "forgives" Nina for what she did.

Crash: Mind Over Mutant
In Crash: Mind over Mutant, Cortex has sent Nina to Evil Public School as punishment for betraying him, then reconciles with his old colleague Dr. Nitrus Brio to invent the NV, a personal digital assistant that controls whoever uses it by transmitting bad Mojo, unwillingly supplied by Uka Uka through the use of a milking machine. He later engages in a fight with Crash inside his new Space Head space station, empowering himself with the use of a mutagen formula stolen from N. Brio. Upon losing the fight, Cortex throws a tantrum, causing the Space Head to plummet towards Earth. Returning to normal, he escapes the Space Head in a smaller shuttle with an unnamed Znu.

Personality
Cortex is very impulsive and obviously wants to get rid of Crash Bandicoot. He is also cruel to N. Gin, as shown in Crash of the Titans when Cortex spits scalding tea in N. Gin's eyes. He seems to be very grumpy and grouchy in his mutant form in Crash: Mind Over Mutant. At the beginning of the Crash series, he was a pure evil genius, but slowly turned into a clumsy failure. He seems to be easily startled, as seen in Crash Tag Team Racing when Willie Wumpa Cheeks pops out for the first time and Cortex hides behind N. Gin.

Appearance
Unlike normal humans in the real world, Cortex has yellow skin. His head is also jar-like in shape, maybe showing how intelligent he is. On his forehead is a large N, possibly standing for "Neo". Cortex also apparently has green eyes. He wears a lab coat through out the series, but the designs seems to change each game. He is also really short, as seen in one of the Twinsanity Gem scenes, Cortex is shorter than Crash.

Alignment

 * In all Games he has been evil except for Crash Twinsanity.
 * After the player defeats him in TwinSanity, he appears to become good but, as expected, given his past, this is only temporary.
 * The N on his forehead could possibly stand as the first letter of his name which is Neo.

Trivia

 * Crash Bandicoot: N-Tranced is the only game not to feature Cortex because he failed to stop Crash again.
 * Cortex appeared in all Crash games as a final boss except Crash Bandicoot: N-Tranced, Crash Twinsanity, and Crash of the Titans.
 * Cortex has been voiced in "Crash of the Titans", "Crash Twinsanity", "Crash Tag Team Racing" and "Mind Over Mutant" by veteran voice actor Lex Lang. Lang's previous credits include being the person with the deep voice in many movie trailers such as The Matrix, numerous other games and cartoons. He has even voiced in [[wikipedia:Sesame Street|Sesame Street.
 * His name is a pun on the neocortex, a part of the brain
 * Cortex's middle name has been revealed to be Periwinkle.
 * Despite being a genius, he can be stupid sometimes. A good example is seen in Crash Twinsanity where he said they need 6 Power Crystals but they only got 4. He input the number of their crystals on the computer and then realized it is not enough after the computer tells him.
 * His initials are NPC, which also stands for Non-Playable Character, but he is a playable character in the racing games, Twinsanity, Crash Bash and Crash Boom Bang!.

Gallery
Neo Cortex