Doctor Psycho
Doctor Psycho is a male comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Pre-Crisis
It was noted that his brilliant mind saw him receiving rewards in medical mind. During this time, he came to have a fiancée Marva where she admired his brilliant mind but there was no physical love between them. One day, he came to witness Marva having an affair with the college idol who was the athletic and handsome Ben Bradley. For a time, he considered separating from her so that she could marry Bradley as he was someone she loved. Afterwards, a break-in happened at the radium laboratory where $125,000 worth of radium was stolen. Marva had spotted a figure that appeared to had been psycho with this testimony leading to his arrest and imprisonment. Whilst in prison, he found out that Marva had married Ben Bradley and he believed that she had betrayed him so that she could marry him. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
First however, Psycho confronted Ben Bradley, who confessed that he had conspired with Marva to frame Psycho for the radium theft, which was true, but adding that Marva had planned the crime, which was false. After hearing this confession, Psycho forced Bradley to eat a radium tablet, which killed him, but not quickly. Doctor Psycho then tracked down Marva and, with his broad, deep knowledge of science and the occult, Psycho hypnotized Marva, and compelled her to marry him. Marva became Psycho's slave, and he reinforced his power over her through daily hypnosis treatments. As this practice continued, Psycho learned that Marva could bridge the conduit between the physical world and the afterlife. Using her body as a channel, Doctor Psycho extracted ectoplasm from the spirit world, and molded it to disguise his features. With this unique new gift, he could make himself look like anybody he wished. Doctor Psycho undertook an elaborate scheme, involving real and fake seances, and an ectoplasmic replica of George Washington's Ghost, to influence the U.S. military into not recruiting women into its various branches. Three U.S. Intelligence Officers, Major Trevor, Colonel Darnell and Lieutenant Prince, uncovered and disrupted this scheme, but not before dozens of other officers were killed in a factory bombing. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
Whilst in prison, he awaited execution when he hatched upon a plan to escape. He claimed that he wanted to confess his crimes to his former accomplice Joan White but during the meeting he used her as a medium to fashion matter for himself. After wiping her mind, he crafted a psychic body double of himself to be placed in his cell that would appear dead on examination whilst Doctor Psycho himself crafted the guise of a guard allowing him to leave the prison. Thus, the world came to consider him dead whilst Psycho enacted his plan to get revenge against Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
Doctor Psycho undertook an elaborate scheme, involving real and fake seances, and an ectoplasmic replica of George Washington's Ghost, to influence the U.S. military into not recruiting women into its various branches. Three U.S. Intelligence Officers, Major Trevor, Colonel Darnell and Lieutenant Diana Prince, uncovered and disrupted this scheme, but not before dozens of other officers were killed in a factory bombing. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
Doctor Psycho then used his powers over ectoplasm to take on the shape of Colonel Darnell, and thus disguised, he removed some top secret documents from the military base's safe, and gave them out to three female staff members with instructions to hide them in a secure location. When the documents turned up missing, the three staff members were accused of espionage and questioned. Major Trevor grew suspicious and believed that Doctor Psycho was responsible for all of the recent trouble. He took it upon himself to investigate Psycho's laboratory, but was captured and caged by Psycho. Wonder Woman learned of Trevor's plight, and broke into Psycho's laboratory, where the Doctor used one of his inventions, an Electo-Atomizer, to separate Wonder Woman's spirit from her body. With no conscious mind to guide it, Wonder Woman's body fell into a state of torpor. Her mind was still active however, and she sent a mental summons to her friend Etta Candy, who brought a squad of her sorority sisters the Holliday Girls, to help. They distracted Doctor Psycho long enough for Wonder Woman to gain her strength back and merge her spirit back into her body. Wonder Woman rescued Major Trevor, who then disarmed Doctor Psycho and returned him to prison. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
After some time in prison, Doctor Psycho obtained a supply of ectoplasm and used it to fake his own death, and to disguise himself as he escaped from the prison. He then took on the fake identity of a stage magician, calling himself Buenos Noches, and attempted to assassinate Major Trevor, with a planted bomb. Wonder Woman intervened, but the bomb still exploded, killing Trevor's secretary, Lila Brown. Doctor Psycho escaped again. Major Trevor now suspected the late Doctor Psycho, so strongly that he flew his plane to the prison, to inspect Psycho's grave himself. Wonder Woman and Etta Candy accompanied him. They encountered Doctor Psycho, who tried to murder them, but failed, then failed more completely as his medium, a young woman named Joan White, was awakened from her trance by Etta Candy, which disrupted Doctor Psycho's control over ectoplasm, and dissipated the ectoplasm itself. Wonder Woman captured Doctor Psycho. She ensnared him with her magic lasso and brought him back to his cell. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
He was later contacted by the mysterious Monitor who was testing various heroes and villains on Earth. The Monitor then set up Doctor Psycho to retrieve ectoplasmic machinery from military intelligence and to fight with several of Wonder Woman's other rogues, but they were defeated by the combined might of Wonder Woman and Etta Candy, who used the ectoplasm machine to create a superpowered version of herself patterned after Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman v1 #323)
Post-Crisis
Following the Crisis of Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
He began impersonating a child psychologist named Dr. Charles Stanton at the Adams Junior High School in Boston, Massachusetts by mentally forcing students to improve their grades, while secretly instigating conflict by controlling the minds of Wonder Woman and Hermes to force them to fight and destroy all the people in Boston as his criminal masterpiece. His control was interrupted after being discovered by Helen Andersen who was trying to investigate the secret to the recent success in student grades, before knocking her out and holding her hostage. (Wonder Woman v2 #54) He used his mental powers to torture Helen by putting nightmares into the mind of her unborn child to drive her insane and kill her along with her baby, but was stopped by Wonder Woman who managed to find Doctor Psycho by reading the memories of Vanessa Kapatelis, a close friend of Wonder Woman who had been affected by Dr. Psycho's mind control. He was knocked out after trying to hypnotize Wonder Woman by pretending to be Dr. Stanton. (Wonder Woman v2 #55)
Psycho terrorized sorority sisters at Barnard College with ectoplasmic dinosaurs until he was confronted by Atom and the Teen Lanterns. The heroes had incorrectly believed that the villain Oblivion was one of Psycho's ectoplasmic creations. Hunter of the Teen Lanterns created power ring duplicates of the cast of Little Women, who beat up Psycho until, in utter humiliation, he surrendered and admitted he had nothing to do with Oblivion. (Green Lantern/Atom v1 #1)
Afterwards, he came to be one of the senior members of the Society that was headed by Lex Luthor. (Villains United v1 #6) Psycho and the Society welcomed Black Adam into their inner circle after joining their group. (JSA v1 #70) Dr. Psycho worked with Talia al Ghul, to recruit criminals for the Society with Catman the only one to reject their offer. Dr. Psycho does not take the rejection well and threatens to have Catman kill himself. However the pack of lions under his command convinces him he might be eaten if he has Catman hurt himself and leaves peacefully. He also spends time working with Deathstroke to capture one of the Marvel Family of superheroes. The other members of the Society eventually realize that he is trying to mentally influence them. Unaffected, they brush it off as something to be expected. Psycho is later seen at the end in the assault against the Secret Six, but retreated on orders from Luthor after the fighting had been concluded. (Villains United v1 #6)
When Batgirl foiled Penguin’s arms deal with the Brotherhood of Evil she damaged his standing in The Society. Penguin met with Luthor, Dr. Psycho and Calculator demanding they help him take down Batgirl once and for all. He said Deathstroke was clearly the man for the job, and Deathstroke considered his proposal. (Batgirl v1 #63)
Psycho and the Society inner circle watched the trial of Atom-Smasher, who was being tried for breaking international law in the invasion of Khandaq. Calculator sent a video conference call to inform them of a rumor that would make the Justice Leagues brainwashing of Dr. Light pale in comparison to what he had learned. (JSA v1 #76)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
Overview
Personality and attributes
Much of his past was said to had been a mystery. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
It was shown that his appearance often led to him being bullied by his classmates in university. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
The long years in prison had left him bitter which left his soul seething with a hot hatred for humankind and especially women. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
For a time, he had a fiancée by the name of Marva who appreciated his brilliant mind but there was no love there. In fact, she came to have an affair with an athletic idol at college. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
Powers and abilities
He was noted for having a brilliant mind. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
One of his abilities was the power of hypnotism where he was able to force others to follow his commands. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
It was noted that even gods were vulnerable to his abilities. (Wonder Woman v2 #54)
He came to be the master of psychic creation where he claimed he could make human bodies of the substance. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
With his powers, he was able to create simulacrums of other individuals such as George Washington, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. (Wonder Woman v1 #5)
Notes
- Doctor Psycho was created by William Moulton Marston where he made his first appearance in Wonder Woman v1 #5 (July 1943).
- As noted in The Last Amazon (2014), the character was partly inspired by actor Lon Chaney ("Man of a thousand faces") and partly by Marston's undergraduate advisor Hugo Münsterberg, who was opposed to women's suffrage and feminism, and was into metaphysics.
Alternate Versions
- In Justice League: Gods and Monsters v1 #3 (2015), an alternate parallel Earth was shown where on this world Doctor Psycho was a scientist named Jackson Alpert. He had a brilliant mind where he headed the Eternity Institute where he developed Forevertech that allowed him to re-engineer individuals into superhuman beings. Through this means, he created his worlds version of the Forever People and intended to spread the technology around the world. However, he suffered from a genetic condition that crippled him leaving him in a wheelchair and prevented himself from being transformed by Forevertech.
In other media
Television
- In Harley Quinn, Doctor Psycho appeared in the setting of the animated comedy television series where he was voiced by actor Tony Hale.
Video games
- In DC Universe Online, the character appeared in the MMORPG as an antagonist where he was voiced by actor Robert Matney.
Appearances
- Wonder Woman v1: (1943)
- Wonder Woman v2:
- Superboy:
External Links
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