Doctor Starline is an antagonist that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by IDW Publishing. He was an anthropomorphic platypus and a shadowy scientist who is highly interested in Dr. Eggman and his work. After the Eggman War, Starline found an amnesiac Eggman and helped restore his memories. He then served as his apprentice during the Zombot apocalypse, but got fired after seeing Eggman's flaws. Assuming a new career path, Starline decided to conquer the world for Eggman in order to perfect his technique and earn his recognition. However, Starline soon realized he could do better than Eggman and so sought to rule the world himself as Eggman's superior replacement. He would then go on to modify two individuals into Surge the Tenrec and Kit the Fennec, cyborgs built in the image of Sonic and Tails, with whom he intends to replace the world's heroes, thus allowing him to control the "hero-versus-villain" dynamic from behind the scenes. In the process, he briefly seized the Eggman Empire as his own, renaming it the "Starline Empire", before he was utterly defeated in battle by Dr. Eggman and crushed by falling debris.