Emil Eagle is a criminal inventor that has served as an opponent to several characters. He debuted in "The Evil Inventor" (May, 1966) where he served as a villainous counterpart to Gyro Gearloose. He was created by Jack Bradbury, Steve Steere and Vic Lockman.
He first appeared as an industrial spy who wanted to acquire Gyro's inventions, particularly his hair growing formula as Emil was bald. He was soon established as a competent inventor in his own right with robots being his seeming expertise. In "The Goofs of Super Goof" (February, 1970), Emil was introduced as an new opponent for Super Goof. Unable to compete with the physical powers of his opponent, Emil pointed real and perceived short-comings of the naive superhero to discourage him from taking action. In effect Emil used his intellect and some psychology tricks to incapacitate his more powerful opponent. The contrast of a supremely powerful but rather dull-witted superhero against a brainy but physically weak supervillain was played for laughs in several later stories. If Super Goof acted as a parody of Superman (same powers but the Good could even move planets at times), Emil was his Lex Luthor. Like Luthor, Emil usually landed in jail but was free by the next appearance.
Super Goof and his supporting cast remained popular in Brazil but were mostly dropped by American and European stories in the early 1990s. When Super Goof was reintroduced in Italian stories, Emil was not far behind. He returned in "Super Pippo e il ritorno di Spennacchiotto" (Super Goody and the Return of Emil Eagle", 23 November, 1999). Continuing the theme of being a Luthor counterpart, Emil had shifted from an evil scientist to a businessman. His hiatus was explained as the time it took it to build a financial empire and a crime syndicate attached to it. He was powerful and respected but found himself with little actual challenge by that point. He was happy to see Super Goof return for he reportedly missed the adventures of his youth. Already financially secure, Emil's "evil" schemes are currently carried out for his own amusement.
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