Dr. Neo Periwinkle Cortex, also known as Dr. Neo Cortex, or Neo Cortex, or just simply as Cortex, is the main antagonist of the Crash Bandicoot series. Born in Peoria, Illinois, he is a professional evil scientist bent on world domination. He is best known as the arch-nemesis and creator of Crash Bandicoot. Cortex has tried to take over the world numerous times, but his plans were easily foiled by Crash and his friends.
Cortex spent his youth as the youngest son in a family of circus clowns. Unlike his family, which loved the spotlight and making people laugh, Cortex spent most of his time reading science books. He was always teased, and at the age of three, had an "N" tattooed on his head for "nerd" by a particularly evil group of drunk circus performers. But soon, the torment stopped, after a "freak" explosion wiped out his entire family, leaving Cortex to fend for himself - though a sibling may have possibly survived, as Cortex's niece, Nina, is well known to him; however, Cortex may have married (or at least been in a relationship) and been Nina's father himself, as in Crash Twinsanity, he says "My daught... err... NIECE!" - this was when Cortex decided that he would not rest until he ruled the world.
At some point, Cortex enrolled into Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil, a school for evil children. It was here that Cortex met up with his life-long associates, Nitrus Brio and N. Gin. It was also where Cortex tested the very first prototype of the Evolvo-Ray, using his pet parrots, Victor and Moritz, as its first test subjects. The experiment went wrong, sending the two twins into the Tenth Dimension, where they were lost for many years before their return in Twinsanity.
At another point in time, both Cortex and Brio enrolled in high school. But even here they were mocked by the cruel teenagers, a tradition that became the story of his life. They suffered through high school together until another "freak" explosion blew up the entire building, as well as most of the surrounding town. Supposedly by coincidence, they were far away from the detonation, two miles underground in an abandoned plutonium mine.
At some point, Cortex may have served in the Vietnam War.
The terrible twosome went on a world-smashing rampage, leaving in their wake a trail of charred earth so monumental that they became international criminals. Seeking sanctuary from the various forces against them, they found three deserted islands off of the coast of Australia and there began their experiments on local wildlife. In memory of his and Brio's "glory days", Cortex named them the "Cortex Commandos." Brio created the Evolvo-Ray, a machine capable of mutating common animals into intelligent super-beasts; meanwhile Cortex came up with the Cortex Vortex, which trained the mutated animals to obey their master. Cortex, however, did not see the problems with his machine.
Together, the doctors began experimenting with the animals and plants from the surrounding islands. Though some creations were more successful than others, none compare to possibly Cortex's greatest mistake ever - Crash Bandicoot. One quiet evening at Cortex Castle, Cortex had just captured two eastern barred bandicoots; one male and one female. Cortex planned to have the male be the general of his army. The male is the first to get zapped by the Evolvo-Ray. It is then raised into the Cortex Vortex, though Brio insists that the Vortex is not ready. It turns out he was right as the male, Crash, is rejected by the machine. Cortex is furious, as he gives chase trying to capture the freed bandicoot. Crash escapes by jumping out the window, but leaves his bandicoot girlfriend, Tawna, in the clutches of Cortex's henchmen. She is used as a lure by Cortex in order to get Crash back. After a time, Crash arrives at the castle, where Cortex confronts him on his hoverboard atop his airship. However, he is defeated when Crash destroys the hoverboard by lobbing Cortex's projectiles back at him, and apparently falls to his death. In the epilogue, it is stated that after Crash foiled his plans, Cortex simply "disappeared". The game, however, hints at his return, stating that "evil geniuses are harder to squash than cockroaches".
Cortex is first seen alongside Brio and Tawna in the first issue of the manga, observing Crash from his castle tower with a surveillance robot. Despite Crash's confidence, Cortex asserts that he will never even make it to the castle, as the island is full of traps.
Eventually, Crash and Aku Aku arrive anyway. Cortex sends spiked saucers to chase them out, though this fails. He has also prepared a trap in the observatory where Tawna is held, though it lands on his own head rather than trapping Crash. Cortex and Brio then team up against Crash. Cortex drinks a potion which causes him to become more feminine; he and Crash argue over who is more beautiful. Cortex also accidentally shoots Brio with his ray gun, then tearfully blames Crash. Promising to avenge Brio, he triggers a trap door underneath Crash, who recovers by bouncing back up on a jump crate. Eventually, Cortex is defeated by Crash's spin attack, causing Brio to initiate the castle's self-destruct sequence. The manga ends with Cortex and Crash popping out of the rubble unharmed, dressed as women and showering each other with compliments.
In the intro, it is shown that Cortex had survived the fall from his hoverboard and has landed in a cavern beneath Cortex Castle. After lighting a match, Cortex finds a well hidden crystal, causing him to laugh menacingly. The match he lighted then burns out.
One year later, Cortex is seen with his new partner, a cyborg named Doctor N. Gin, and has just finished building a new Cortex Vortex in space. The crystal that Cortex found in the cavern turned out to be a Master Crystal, but N. Gin informs him that they will need 25 slave crystals to harness the power of the "solar flux" which Cortex needs to enslave the human race. None of his former henchmen on Earth can help him now, so he locates Crash and warps him to a Warp Room where Cortex tricks Crash into getting the crystals for him with a promise that he is using it for good purposes to stop the planets aligning. He sometimes drops hints of his real plan as Coco Bandicoot starts hacking into the hologram and tries to tell Crash what's really going on. By the time Coco finally tells Crash, he has already given the crystals to Cortex. Crash then fights Cortex in space with jet packs, attempting to stop him from reaching the Cortex Vortex. The evil scientist loses once again and blasts off into outer space yelling "You haven't seen the last of me, Crash Bandicoot!". However, the Cortex Vortex is still in space, so after Crash collects all the gems, Dr. Nitrus Brio helps blow it up with a laser cannon. However, a part of it falls towards Earth and destroys a temple, freeing an evil mask.
Cortex appears as the main villain in Dansu! De Jump!, where he plans on turning everyone into his mindless slaves with his newly built Super Cortex Vortex. The Vortex requires Power Stones as an energy source, however. Cortex contacts Crash from space and tasks him with gathering the Power Stones, telling Crash that he will save the world and become irresistible. He even decides to tag along and help Crash find them when he grows tired of waiting, which leads the two into comical situations. He often appears and uses his inventions to either help search for power stones or to manipulate Crash into doing his bidding, which almost always backfires on him.
It turns out that the evil mask, Uka Uka, has been working with Cortex and is the younger twin brother of Aku Aku, who imprisoned him in the temple to protect the world from his wrath. Uka Uka is upset that Cortex lost the previous crystals and gems, meaning there is no power source. But, now that Cortex's bumbling actions have set Uka Uka free, he can continue to enslave the world, and with a time traveler named Nefarious Tropy by his side, he'll make sure Cortex succeeds. Together, they build the Time Twister Machine in order to retrieve the crystals and gems from their original places in time. However, Crash and Coco start retrieving them. Throughout the entire adventure, Cortex and Uka Uka talk to Crash and Coco via a warp vortex. Cortex is also seen watching the two battle with Tiny Tiger. By the end, he becomes mad and has his showdown with Crash under the Time Twister while Uka Uka battles Aku Aku. Cortex loses and falls down a hole onto a platform below, where he lets out his frustration: "Defeated again! This is not fair! Maybe I should retire to a nice big beach, with a nice big drink and a woman with nice big... bags of ice for my head." Uka Uka, however, still has high hopes, as Crash and Coco don't have all the gems. Eventually, though, they do get all the gems and fight Cortex and Uka Uka together. When the two villains lose again, the Time Twister Machine malfunctions, causing a warp sphere to engulf them, Tropy, and itself. Luckily, Crash, Coco, Aku Aku and the other animals escape. Meanwhile, in another time period where the humans have been reduced to infants, Cortex and Tropy are seen fighting over Uka Uka in a tug-of-war.
In Crash Team Racing, Cortex takes part in the race to beat the crabby alien, Nitrous Oxide, who threatens to turn the world into a parking lot if he wins and make its inhabitants his slaves. He doesn't share the more heroic characters' motives for taking on Oxide, but he still desires to stop the invader so that nobody else will be able to conquer the Earth before he does. Cortex is seen in the intro laughing evilly, while powering his kart with a device resembling the Evolvo-Ray. Cortex's garage resembles a dark and dingy laboratory, where he keeps his kart plugged into a large gas tank, with a giant ray gun aimed down at it. He can be seen typing something on a small handheld device while in this room. His kart's stats are the same as Crash, Komodo Joe and Fake Crash, having even acceleration, speed, and turn; his home track is Cortex Castle. In the epilogue, Cortex discovers a new element in the periodic table which lawsuits failed to change the name, so he chose element 117, Cortexrulestheworldium.
Cortex is later forced to participate on the bad side in a battle of good and evil by Uka Uka and Aku Aku. Cortex is also joined with old henchmen, N. Brio and Koala Kong, and newcomer Rilla Roo. In the minigames, both the doctors have great stats but also have their weaknesses. In the Crate Crush minigames, whilst Cortex has a terrific throw with the boxes his ray gun is very poor. In the Polar Push minigames, Cortex has a jetpack which pays off nicely but he can only use it once at a time and it takes a while for his boost meter to fill up again. He has the fastest weapon in the Tank Wars minigames which is a laser but is quite weak.
In Crash Bandicoot Carnival, the Japanese version of the game, Cortex's epilogue mentions his attempt to rule the world using a giant mech modeled after the Lab Assistants. He nearly succeeds in completing the robot, until Tiny unwittingly ruins his plans by removing one of its screws.
Sometime after Warped, Cortex had built a new space station. Uka Uka holds a meeting to discuss evil with Dr. Cortex, Dr. N. Gin, Dr. N. Tropy, Tiny, and Dingodile, and claims that their attempts at evil are pathetic, although they say that Crash is to blame for their failures. N. Tropy lets on that Cortex is working on something in his lab, which Cortex denies. N. Gin then foolishly tells Cortex that N. Tropy was probably referring to a super secret weapon he was making day and night since the last time Crash defeated him.
Cortex then admits he was and is almost finished making a super weapon of unbelievable strength. The power source is the final solution, at which point Uka Uka thinks of The Elementals. Cortex agrees that once he has the power of the Elementals, then he'll have a weapon that's stronger than Crash and will wipe him off the face of Earth. With an evil laugh, he declares "Get ready to face my wrath, Crash Bandicoot!". The only way to get rid of The Elementals is to gather 25 Crystals, which is what Crash and his friends set out to do. Like before, he talks to Crash, but this time via hologram. He also introduces his newest creation and super weapon: Crunch Bandicoot. However, even with the aid of The Elementals, Crunch keeps losing, and eventually Cortex's space station is destroyed and Crunch becomes a member of the Bandicoot family, while Cortex is being chased by an angry Uka Uka on a iceberg, declaring that he will get his revenge on Crash. Portraits of Cortex are seen on stained glass windows in Wizards and Lizards.
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 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. Seeing this, Crash was sent out to gather the Crystals in order to restore the Earth back to normal and stop Cortex.
After Dingodile, N. Gin, and Tiny have been dealt with, Cortex decides to take matters into his own hands by defeating Crash. Unfortunately for him, the marsupial has instead tricked the mad scientist into shrinking the colored gems, causing not only the Minimizer to malfunction, but also fusing Cortex and his minions into a monster known as Mega-Mix who then chases after Crash down the space station's hallway. Luckily, Crash manages to escape on a space motorcycle, and Coco uses the Crystals to return the Earth back to its original size. In the end, the space station had not only exploded, but Mega-Mix was also destroyed, with the villains still inside.
Cortex is playable in the multi-player mode in an Atlasphere. He is also seen on the game over screen, with Uka Uka obscuring his face.
Cortex appears as a playable character in Crash Nitro Kart, in which he drives for Team Cortex, in a well-rounded kart, with N. Gin, Tiny, and N Tropy. In the story, he is abducted (along with other characters) by Emperor Velo XXVII and is forced to compete in the Galaxy Circuit. In the end, the trio is stranded on Terra, but eventually return home.
Doctor Neo Cortex and Ripto from the Spyro the Dragon series had 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.
After the events of Wrath of Cortex, Dr. Cortex and Uka Uka wash onto N. Sanity Island frozen in an ice cube. After three years in hiding on an iceberg, Cortex rounds up several of Crash's old enemies to ambush him. After stunning Coco and disguising himself as her, he lures Crash to an arena for the "birthday party" and does battle with Crash. Upon being beaten once again, he orders N. Gin to send out the Mecha-Bandicoot to deal with Crash, only for the bandicoot to defeat it, causing it to explode and sending the two brawling into a mine in which they reluctantly agree to work together to escape. After escaping the mine, they encounter the Evil Twins, who claim they will destroy the Wumpa Islands. After Cortex doubts it, they take out his brain, causing him to flee in terror.
Crash later finds him and Cortex tells about his love of the Wumpa Islands, and envies the Tribesman, and after mentioning the bumblebee being humble, he is swarmed by bees, causing him to run blindly on a bridge full of traps, which Crash must protect him from. After being chased by bumblebees, a bee-hive falls on his head, later attracting a bear. Crash helps him escape all of these, but after escaping the bees, he ends up getting captured by Papu Papu, who hoists him high on a totem pole with intentions to cook him. Crash rescues him, but causes the totem pole he was on to fall down the nearby waterfall. He is later seen at Farmer Ernest's Farm, where he zaps Mr. Ernest with his ray gun and takes the crystal that was promised if they got rid of the worms infesting his land. Soon, they confront the Evil Twins once again, who reveal that they came from the Tenth Dimension and they proceed to bring to life a totem statue, Tikimon.
The Evil Twins leave after their defeat, and soon Cortex gets an idea. Insisting they go to his brand new base; the Iceberg Lab where he attempts to open the main entrance with a remote, which doesn't work. Then Cortex insists they take a different route. He is later seen talking with his penguin minions who are demanding the crystal Cortex found. Then he tries to bribe them with fish to let him keep his crystal. But, the bribing doesn't work and they growl at him until Cortex shoots one of the penguins. Then he and Crash continue their journey until they accidentally free Uka Uka, who was frozen in a cave. Uka Uka then tries killing both of them because of their history with each other, by making himself a body of ice. The duo defeat Uka Uka.
After revealing the Twins' plan, Uka Uka allies with him, saying that destroying the world is his job. Crash and Cortex eventually reach his Iceberg Lab where they confront the Evil Twins. They bring out Aku Aku and Uka Uka who end up paralyzed by the Twins. Armies of ants are then sent to kill them. Eventually, they destroy all of the ants and the Evil Twins then flee. After they leave, Aku Aku and Uka Uka question Cortex about the Evil Twins and how they said that he ruined their lives. Crash and Cortex team up to defeat the Twins. Then, Cortex shows Crash the Psychetron, a device capable of teleporting to different dimensions. Cortex then says that they need six crystals, but they have four. Cortex has the idea of going to N. Gin's battleship to get the remaining required crystals, so he leads Crash to a lookout in the mountain that the Lab is built on. Cortex leans over the railing as he desperately tries to think of a way to reach the ship before it sets sail, only for Crash to kick Cortex over the edge in order to use him as a sled and reach their destination in good time.
They eventually reach the Battleship where Cortex lies in the snow, humiliated, where Dingodile hears their intention of getting the Evil Twins' treasure. After Crash is launched back to the Iceberg Lab, Cortex is standing there, where he goes to the Psychetron room and gets attacked by Coco, who thinks Cortex has kidnapped Crash. After kicking him in the groin, she sends him into the Psychetron controls, screwing it up, and paralyzing Coco. Then the two go to Cortex's Airship and to the Academy of Evil to find Nina Cortex, the only one capable of fixing the Psychetron. While flying, they are ambushed by the Evil Twins and an army of ants. Cortex eventually defeats them and they reach the Academy of Evil where Cortex accidentally finds a hidden staircase to the boiler room under the central fountain. Crash later finds him in the boiler, where he gets stuck in a pipe. Crash and Cortex eventually find Dingodile in a large boiler room, where he threatens Cortex to give him his cut of the treasure that he thinks that they found in his Australian accent. Cortex then replies to him that he doesn't know what he said, then Dingodile shoots the platform he is on and it flies up.
He is later seen in the classrooms where he nearly gets hit by toxic spray coming out of the walls and quickly slides under it. He then orders Crash to attach the airship to a secure area while he goes to look for his niece, Nina. After going through many hallways and classrooms, he finds his niece, who scares him with a fake dummy of herself. Then, when he tries to shake hands with her, they clamp onto his hand. He then sends Nina out and he goes to the fountain area only to find that Crash had misunderstood his orders and detached the airship, then Nina later catches it. He later meets up with her in a room where they are ambushed by ants and Nina leaves. After defeating the ants, Cortex wanders into a large acid room, where he meets up with the founder of the Academy of Evil, Madame Amberly. She mocks Cortex and the two eventually get into a fight. Cortex later snaps all the ropes supporting Madame Amberly and she falls into the acid pit.
He later finds Crash and the three head to the airship, where Cortex remembers the origin of the Evil Twins, on how he was eight years old building an Evolvo-Ray prototype, which he used on his pets, Victor and Moritz, and how the machine messed up and the two parrots disappeared. Then, they land at the Iceberg Lab where they warp to the Tenth Dimension. When they arrive there, Evil Crash, Crash's counterpart, appears and kidnaps Nina. They go to a balcony pursuing Evil Crash, where Cortex thinks on how they are going to save Nina, when Crash once again pushes Cortex off the balcony and uses him as a makeshift sled. After pursuing Evil Crash to his house, Cortex attempts to save Nina but ends up getting chased by Evil Crash. Crash eventually saves him and they reach the Evil Twins' base, where Cortex and Nina go in, with Crash following them. They meet up in the Evil Twins' treasure room where they meet N. Tropy, N. Brio, and N. Gin there, when Cortex states that the treasure is stolen property. Spyro the Dragon then comes out and burns N. Tropy, N. Gin, and N. Brio.
They meet up with the Twins in their massive throne room, where they have a discussion. Cortex then orders them to go into their cage, which they obey out of habit. They then transform their cage into a large robot, the Deathbot, beginning the final battle. Nina takes out the shields, making it vulnerable, leaving Cortex to destroy the weapons. Later, the Mecha-Bandicoot hops in front of him, revealing to be Crash piloting it. After Crash destroys the Deathbot, they flee in terror, soon to be eaten by Evil Crash. After this, they all return to their dimension, where Cortex betrays Crash, activating the Psychetron, but it malfunctions and sends Cortex into Crash's brain, where he is surrounded by thousands of Crashes all doing the Crash dance. Cortex screams, Crash is unbothered, and the story ends.
He later escapes from Crash's brain and the two are sent to a psychiatrist, where they practice trust exercises, where Cortex will fall backwards and Crash will catch him. But Crash is distracted by a Wumpa Fruit that rolls up to his foot and Cortex falls backwards and sits up and replies "I hate bandicoots", then falls backwards again.
Cortex appears as a playable character in Crash Tag Team Racing. In the story, he and his minions, N. Gin, and Nina are chasing after Crash, Coco, and Crunch near a roadway when they stumble onto Von Clutch's MotorWorld. There, Ebenezer Von Clutch, the owner of the park requests his help in finding the missing Power Gems, as well as Von Clutch's Black Heart Power Gem in which Cortex agrees to do so, seeing that he can use the park for a new base in planning his schemes, hoping to get rid of the Bandicoots once and for all.
Later on, Cortex, covered with bandages on his head is upset that some sinister force has upstaged his plan. This turned out to be true when Willie Wumpa Cheeks, the park's mascot was the true thief, despite that everyone had thought that Crash was the one who stole the Power Gems and Von Clutch's Black Heart Power Gem. Just as Willie is about to be interrogated, Cortex shows up in a flying machine and shoots him, turning him into a blob before targeting the Bandicoots. Luckily, Crash manages to stop him by throwing a chicken into the motor of the machine, sending the evil scientist and his cronies flying out of the MotorWorld.
In Crash of the Titans, Cortex uses Mojo to mutate the island's residents into Titans using a method taught to him by Uka Uka called Mojo Mutation. He arrives at Crash's House and kidnaps Coco and Aku Aku, who Crash saves from a group of Ratnicians. He proceeds to The Temple of Zoom to drain it of all its mojo. He then challenges Crash atop the temple with his Yuktopus. After the Yuktopus had failed to kill Crash, Uka Uka replaces him with his niece, Nina Cortex, who continues his plan of creating a giant robot called The Doominator and use it to destroy all of Wumpa Island. Almost all the minions agree that Nina is a better leader than Cortex, except N. Gin. At the end, Nina is defeated in her Arachnina and Cortex "forgives" Nina for what she did. In this game and in Crash: Mind Over Mutant, he is much taller and has a different lab coat. He is also less intelligent and a sore loser.
In Crash: Mind Over Mutant, Cortex had sent Nina to Evil Public School 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. In this battle, he can burp or fart which stuns enemies, punch the ground, and perform a spin that will instantly defeat any enemy on contact.
Dr. Cortex appears in Skylanders: Imaginators as a playable character. He is a Tech Sensei of the Sorcerer Battle Class.
Cortex is also responsible for setting into motion the events of the Adventure Pack level Thumpin' Wumpa Islands. After 20 years of planning, Cortex intends to use the rhythmic nature of Wumpa Island to power his Cortex Matrix Chamber and build an unstoppable army. However, despite his belief that none of his henchmen will be around to spoil his plan, Fake Crash hi-jacks the robot and starts dancing poorly, causing terrible vibes to happen across the island that threaten to shatter it. Cortex, now working for the Skylanders, must make amends and stop Fake Crash.
Cortex's infant version, Baby Cortex, also was added as a playable character in the Post-Grand Prix update, and is available for purchase from the Pit Stop for 1,500 Wumpa Coins.
Following their defeat in Warped, Cortex, N. Tropy and Uka Uka have remained within their temporal prison for at least a decade as the latter pair made multiple attempts to create an opening; with Cortex being mostly dismissive and pessimistic. When Uka Uka finally creates a quantum rift for their escape, Cortex and N. Tropy leave their prison and begin making moves against Crash.
Cortex recruits both N. Gin and Brio back to his side and sends them to either retrieve the Quantum Masks, stop Crash and Coco or both. After both of them are defeated, Cortex takes matters into his own hands and sets up various traps against Crash and Coco at the 11th Dimension. His first attempt to destroy a makeshift bridge that his enemies were meant to travel on is foiled when he accidentally sneezes and hits his detonator too early.
Following this, he confronts Crash and Coco at the end of the dimension; promising that he would finally triumph over his adversaries in his fourth attempt. In spite of his new weapons, Cortex is ultimately beaten once more, but N. Tropy sends a transmission effectively ditching Cortex for a "new partner" and revealed his plan to destroy all the timelines and create a new one with himself at its helm. Seeing that N. Tropy was now a greater threat and wishing to put an end to their constant fighting, Cortex opts to ally with Crash and Coco.
The team moves to the Eggipus Dimension in order to find the last Quantum Mask, Ika-Ika. Once all four Quantum Masks are recruited, the team receives a transmission from N. Tropy and his partner, an alternate, female N. Tropy from the alternate Tawna's universe. The pair soon force Nitros Oxide into flying them to the Bermugula Orbit, but Cortex is able to stall them by firing a Tractor Beam before Oxide's ship can leave; allowing Crash and Coco to infiltrate the ship.
Following this, the group later confronts the Doctors N. Tropy after Tawna's defeat, and Cortex, like Tawna and Dingodile, are sent through the Dimensional Rifts by the Doctors. Nonetheless, they return once Crash and Coco prevail; with Cortex attempting to pour salt in the wound by telling N. Tropy that their alliance was no longer necessary though Dingodile knocks their foes into a Dimensional Rift before Cortex can complete his statement.
As a reward for their heroics, the Quantum Masks take the team to Neon City, the culinary capital of the Universe, before returning home. As the trip continues, Cortex realizes that, with Kupuna-Wa's time-traveling abilities, he can undo his mistake of creating Crash.
At the end of their trip, Cortex kidnaps Kupuna-Wa and forces her to take them back to 1996. Cortex soon attempts to warn his past self, who thinks that the present Cortex is an imposter and makes constant attempts to flee through the castle's traps and passages. The present Cortex is forced to eventually capture his past self and incapacitates him in a cage whilst also imprisoning the other Quantum Masks.
As he cannot kill his past self since it would erase him, the present Cortex uses his new machine, powered by the Quantum Masks, to finish off Crash and Coco. Despite his efforts, Cortex is beaten once again, and the Quantum Masks throw him into a dimensional rift as a punishment while the past Cortex makes the failed attempt to use the Cortex Vortex on Crash.
Upon landing from the rift, Cortex notices that he is left on a solitary desert. Despite his defeat, Cortex is finally free from the stress of having to fight the Bandicoots once again and begins relaxing. In the 106% ending, he is abruptly woken up from his relaxation by a re-energized Uka Uka.
During the flashback tapes, it is revealed Cortex had Crash undergo several trials before confirming that the Bandicoot was the ideal choice as the general. Initially, Cortex had placed crates as immovable obstacles; only for Crash to destroy said crates.
In the Legacy of Chris Thorndyke,
And he is reprised by Lex Lang in the English dub and his Japanese voice is unknown, due to the loss of Shozo Iizuka.