WONDER WOMAN VOL.1 #5 (1943)
by William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter
Dr. Psycho is often overlooked among Wonder Woman villains, to the point you can barely see him on the cover of his first story.
We begin with Ares being angry that women are doing their best during WWII. You’d think he’d have higher priorities during a world war.
And that’s what leads Deception to Dr. Psycho. Which, yes, is his actual name.
Dr. Psycho is a dwarf, but honestly it’s hard to tell his proportions are SUPPOSED to be unusual when everyone in this comic is drawn weirdly.
At first you can actually sympathize with the poor guy. Even his fiancée treats him like dirt!
Stealing radioactive materials, murdering his rival and forcing the girl to marry him by mind control is crossing a line, though.
This might shock you, but Dr. Psycho is not exactly sane.
Dr.Psycho’s plan involves using his wife to project the ghost of George Washington.
And that requires tying her up because this is Golden Age Wonder Woman, what did you expect?
William Moulton Marston has the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and while I don’t want to get political here, it’s kind of sad that this could probably still work in 2021.
Dr.Psycho is taken seriously once a prophecy George Washington made is proven correct.
I’m confused… the message from other Wonder Woman stories seemed to be that bondage was a good thing! Then again, Wonder Woman herself typically gives plenty of consent to that.
Dr.Psycho’s plan to discredit all women also requires him to trick the Army into believing all of its secretaries are secretly stealing papers.
In the only somewhat clever twist, this is because Dr.Psycho impersonated the colonel into giving fake orders.
Steve Trevor doesn’t get kidnapped as often as Lois Lane, but he’s up there.
Considering Dr. Psycho was shown to have the power to create his own minions made of ectoplasm, you might expect him to use one of those to fight Wonder Woman.
But nope! Instead he STEALS AND CHAINS HER SOUL TO A WALL.
However the trap only works if Psycho focuses on it… and he’s distracted by Etta Candy putting the moves on him while he’s in disguise!
Wonder Woman frees Psycho’s wife, which results in him losing his powers at the worst possible moment.
It’s amazing that Dr. Psycho survived the humiliation of being defeated by ETTA CANDY.
Historical significance: 0/10
Utterly forgotten when it comes to the influence on Dr. Psycho’s current status.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
It was pretty tame until Dr. Psycho chained Wonder Woman’s soul to a wall.
Does it stand the test of time? 1/10
This was embarrassing. There is SOME potential in Dr. Psycho, but nearly all of it is squandered here.
How close is this to the modern character? 5/10
Dr. Psycho has a grand total of THREE Golden Age stories. He does show up in the Silver Age for only nine issues, half of which are probably set during the Golden Age.
Despite being Wonder Woman’s oldest supervillain he remained a minor antagonist until the 80s.
In the post-Crisis continuity he was completely revamped: his looks remained the same, as did his misogynistic tendencies, but instead of a medium he was reimagined as a very powerful telepath.
There’s also a lot more emphasis on him being psychotic (because COME ON), plus his name isn’t actually “Dr. Psycho” as it used to be… his real name is now Edgar Cizko now.
No hints on how you’re supposed to pronounce “Cizko”.
I’m not a huge expert on the character, but I don’t mind seeing him around. He can be delightfully creepy, telepathy-based villains are somewhat rare at DC, and it’s nice to have some Wonder Woman villains unrelated to magic.
