Doctor Psycho
38 years ago - Edgar Cizko is born.
20 years ago - 18-year-old Edgar begins studying pre-med.
16 years ago - 22-year-old Edgar goes to med school, where he begins experimenting with his own latent metagene.
15 years ago - 23-year-old Edgar is rejected by Marva Jane Gray. He uses his mental powers to manipulate her to becoming his fiance.
14 years ago - 24-year-old Edgar finishes med school. He becomes an ocultist & mentalist, using his powers to victimize women.
11 years ago - 27-year-old Edgar attempts to use how powers to control Wonder Woman. She defeats him and he is imprisoned with his powers restrained.
3 years ago - 35-year-old Edgar escapes from prison, his powers dangerously enhanced. He torments Wonder Woman until he is stopped by Wonder Girl.
1 year ago - 37-year-old Edgar is freed from prison by Gorilla Grodd to bring him into the Legion of Doom.
Certain classic, Golden Age villains can be really weird. They sometimes reflect old, outdated ideas and concepts that don't hold up especially well. Sometimes, however, you have characters that actually work better as time goes on. Psycho was built as a representation of certain ideas that have become way more relevant to moden audiences. This character deserves a much larger roll in the modern DC Universe.
Doctor Psycho's Comic HistoryDoctor Psycho first appeared in 1943 during William Moulton Marston's original run with the character. He was introduced as a minion of the Duke of Deception, who was a regular villain and himself a minion of Ares. He was an ocultust and medium who had an intense hatred of women who used hypnotism to manipulate and control his victims.
After the Crisis of Infinite Earths, Psycho was reintroduced as a telepath that could alter and effect his victims dreams. He saw a major resurgance in popularity in the mid aughts leading up to the Infinite Crisis as a major member of the Society of Super Villains. As the story of Wonder Woman has been reimagined a few times since then, he is brought back into the story over and over as a particularly dangerous psychic threat. |
Our Doctor Psycho StoryThere's actually quite a bit to work with with Doctor Psycho. He's generally considered to be among the most dangerous telepaths in DC's pantheon of villains, essentially DC's version of Marvel's the Purple Man. While this by itself is a very interesting character traight, the fact that he is motivated entirely by his hatred of women suddenly makes him a fascinating addition to the Wonder Woman mythology.
Marsten always had something to say with all of his creations. Most of his characters were intended to reflect the things that he and his wife and mistress percieved as challenges to the natural strength of women. Doctor Psycho is actually his take on the whole concept of mysogeny; he's physically weak and impotent, unable to actually effect women himself and can only manipulate them to hurt themselves. There is so much to unpack there, and obviously the character has a lot more to offer to the world of Wonder Woman, and needs to be given quite a bit more screentime if only so we get the pleasure of watching Diana and her sisters defeat him over and over again. |
Doctor Psycho's Look & FutureWhile he was introduced as a impish presence Psycho's post crisis appearance leaned more into making him look unhinged and crazy. His appearances in the lead-up to Infinite Crisis depicted him as more of a schemer by virtue of a classic evil-guy goatee. This look actually goes a long way to normalize the character. He shouldn't be an insane monster, he should just be a guy with evil beliefs and a lot of power. It's actually very easy to imagine a certain extremely popular little person actor with a couple of emmys under his belt portraying this classic Wonder Woman villain.
Moving forward... we've left his timeline with him becoming a member of the Legion of Doom. He's a major power-player among the DC villains and absolutely needs to be there. As we move into a future with Donna and Cassie stepping up into larger roles, Classic Wonder Woman enemies like Psycho are going to be an absolute requirement to tell their stories properly. |