Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex

Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex were a trio of villains created for the Mickey Mouse comic strip, appearing in the storyline Blaggard Castle.

Role in the story
After Mickey's adventure on Treasure Island, Professors Ecks and Doublex read about his heroics and decided he was perfect for their evil experiments. They send Mickey a letter telling him to come to their castle, Blaggard Mansion, that night. Horace Horsecollar, suspicious of the invite, went with Mickey. After they arrived at the mansion, Horace was captured by Ecks and Doublex, who tested out their mind-control ray on him. They then sent the brainwashed Horace to capture Mickey, but they turned off the ray before the job was done, and he was able to tell Mickey all about it. Mickey was able to make a helmet out of a pewter pot, which protected his own brain from the effects of the ray. When Ecks and Doublex saw that their ray couldn't affect Mickey, they seeked help from their leader, Professor Triplex, who assumed that the machine wasn't fully perfected and they needed to further experiment on Horace. However, before the three scientists could do that, Mickey took control of the mind-control ray and brainwashed the trio into being good scientists who would only work for the good of humanity.

Later appearances
Gottfredson never featured the three professors in another story after Blaggard Castle, but they were memorable enough to return to being mad scientists in stories under other authors in the 1970s. In the early 1990s, Ecks and Doublex appeared in a few issues of Mickey Mouse Adventures, now as a two-headed creature called Dr. Doublecross after an incident with a cloing ray. Professor Ecks was also originally considered for the role of the mad scientist in Runaway Brain, but it was later changed to a new character, Dr. Frankenollie.