Mad scientist dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental villains. The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenstein, is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book
The Post-Modern Prometheus played at the end of the episode when the agents take The Great Mutato to a Cher concert. In the episode, the character watches Cher's 1985 movie "Mask", and derives comfort from the loving relationship between Cher's character and her son, who has a disfiguring genetic bone disorder. At the end of the episode, Mulder and Scully take The Great Mutato from his small town to a Cher concert, where she picks him out of the crowd to dance. The episode contains several cultural references. First, the episode's title is a reference to both the subtitle for Shelley's original novel,