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Doctor Psycho
Cover to Wonder Woman (v2) #55 Art by George Perez
Publisher DC Comics First appearance Wonder Woman #5 Created by William Moulton Marston
Characteristics Alter ego Edgar Cizko Team affiliations Secret Society of Super Villains Injustice League Notable aliases Carlo Montez, handsome assistant Captain Wonder Abilities Telepathy, mind control, ability to create illusions

Doctor Psycho is a fictional comic book supervillain. He is a telepathic little person appearing in DC Comics publications, usually as an enemy of Wonder Woman. He was first introduced to comics readers in the 1940s by Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston, Doctor Psycho has undergone several minor updates over the years as comics continuity has shifted and evolved. Through this process, the character has retained several key features, such as a misogynistic obsession with a hatred of beautiful women, a psychiatric instability ranging from mild paranoia to full-on schizophrenia, and a diminutive stature.

Contents 1 Background 2 Fictional character history 2.1 Pre-Crisis 2.2 Post-Crisis 2.2.1 One Year Later 2.2.1.1 Trials of Manhunter 2.2.1.2 Secret Six 2.2.1.3 Return of Wonder Woman 3 Powers and abilities 4 See also

The character of Doctor Psycho was created by William Moulton Marston, creator of the character Wonder Woman and author of her original adventures. Marston, a psychologist, created Doctor Psycho as a murderous psychopath with an intense hatred of women. The character of Doctor Psycho was also one of several villains created for Wonder Woman who were deceptive occultists beguiling the masses for their own self-enriching purposes.

As Wonder Woman's rogues and supporting cast were largely jettisoned during the period that Robert Kanigher wrote and edited the Wonder Woman comics, Doctor Psycho was one of the few villains to appear in the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age adventures. The character was also one of the few such villains to be modernized in the early issues of the post-Crisis Wonder Woman comic.

Doctor Psycho first appears as a colleague of the Duke of Deception. The God of War, enraged that women were gaining power in Earth society and potentially threatening his ability to engulf the world in war, ordered Deception to discredit women. Deception called upon Doctor Psycho to set about eliminating women from the war effort.

Doctor Psycho was revealed in flashback to have been a medical student who was frequently humiliated by his peers. He discovered that his fiancee Marva Jane Gray was in love with college athletic champion Ben Bradley. Bradley removed his rival for Marva's affections by staging a robbery of $125,000 worth of radium from the college lab and hunching down in disguise so that Marva would think she saw her diminutive fiance as the culprit.

Convicted on the basis of Marva's testimony, Psycho seethed behind bars for years, planning his revenge while developing a psychopathic hatred of all women. Upon his release, he tortured and killed Bradley, who falsely confessed that Marva was his willing accomplice. Psycho then kidnapped and tortured Marva, hypnotically compelling her to marry him, and then subjecting her to daily occult experiments.

Learning that he could use Marva as a medium for summoning ectoplasm he could use at will to fashion and animate human forms around his own misshapen body, he created a new career for himself as an occultist and sham psychic who developed a following of millions.

At Deception's urging, he used his fame as an occultist to campaign for eliminating women from the war effort by creating an ectoplasmic form purporting to be the spirit of George Washington, claiming that women were hindering the war effort. He also disguised himself as Colonel Darnell of military intelligence to frame female staff of military intelligence for espionage.

With the aid of Steve Trevor and the Holliday College girls, Wonder Woman disrupted his plot but was forced to let him go, unable to prove any of his crimes in a court of law. (Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #5.) Psycho fixated his pathological hatred of women into fantasies of revenge against Wonder Woman.

Freed from Psycho's influence, Marva joined the WAACs and helped Wonder Woman expose Nazi saboteur Stoffer, who had disguised himself as General Scott (Sensation Comics #20).

Psycho was eventually imprisoned but escaped by faking his own death, kidnapping Marva and then his former secretary, Joan White, to use as mediums for his ectoplasmic power. He attempted to court Etta Candy in a disguise, but his cover was blown by Etta's suitor Oscar Sweetgulper and he was returned to prison (Wonder Woman #18).

In the Golden Age, Psycho's brother Ironsides was a brilliant geologist who was also a villain.

Psycho eventually realized that he could use Steve Trevor as a medium. Kidnapping Trevor, he fashioned an ectoplasmic dream of power from Trevor's unconscious mind and became the powerful Captain Wonder, who teamed up with the Silver Swan to destroy Wonder Woman. His powerful form was destroyed when Trevor awakened from his slumber.

When the Monitor was testing heroes and villains in the run-up to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he set up Doctor Psycho to retrieve an 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 superpowerful version of herself patterned after Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #323.)

He is a telepath with the ability to enter and sometimes shape other people's dreams. Psycho was enlisted by Circe to create disturbing dreams for Wonder Woman's close friend, Vanessa Kapatelis with the result that Wonder Woman would be forced to separate herself from her closest allies. This was part of a plot intended to leave Wonder Woman isolated and create widespread public fear of her fellow Amazons.

Dr. Psycho spends some time as a patient in a mental facillity, confined to a padded room and a straitjacket. Several members of the time-lost Legion of Super-Heroes were in telepathic range. When Saturn Girl mentally shouts for a lost member, this awakened Dr. Psycho enough for him to attack several staff members and flee. The call brought him to the Legion, whom he also attacks.

In the Villains United miniseries leading up to Infinite Crisis, Psycho has surfaced as a core member of Lex Luthor's Secret Society of Super Villains. He spent time working with Deathstroke in order to capture one of the 'Marvel family' of superheroes.

After the events of the sixth issue of Infinite Crisis, Psycho travelled with Warp to free Doomsday from captivity near the center of the Earth. He then took control of Doomsday, and used him to spearhead a supervillain assault on Metropolis. The villains lost this battle.

After the One Year Later gap, Psycho was arrested and put on trial with Kate Spencer (Manhunter) as his defense attorney. Following his arrest, he was abandoned by the Society. During the trial, he used his mind controlling abilities to make Spencer dream of herself dressed as Wonder Woman in a scene reminiscent of a Roman Colosseum. Before the trial verdict could be revealed, his powers were returned to him as a result of his ties to the Society who had constructed the machine that was blocking them. As soon as his powers returned, he used them to hold everyone in the courtroom hostage.

This forced Spencer to try and put on her uniform but she instead revealed herself to Doctor Psycho as Manhunter. Psycho then made Kate put on her suit, but dropped his guard to sneak a kiss with her, resulting in him being stabbed in the stomach and head. This caused him to forget about Kate's alter-ego and lose his powers.

Doctor Psycho has lately been shown still in a position of authority with the Society in the Secret Six mini-series. He has been working with former enemy Cheshire for Vandal Savage and hiring various villains to put out hits on other Secret Six members. In the final issue of Secret Six (December, 2006), he was stabbed repeatedly and seriously injured by the Mad Hatter.

He has recently resurfaced with his powers restored and amplified by Circe in the current Wonder Woman series, where he has been assisting Cheetah and Giganta. He also is part of the new Injustice League

Psycho is a skilled telepath, and uses psionic powers to traumatize and terrify those who stand in his way. In his Pre-Crisis appearances, he was a hypnotist who used his victims to draw ectoplasm into the physical world, which he shaped into various beings and disguises.

• List of Wonder Woman enemies