Doctor Psycho

Doctor Psycho
Cover to Wonder Woman (v2) #55 Art by George Pérez
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Wonder Woman #5 (July 1943)
Created by	William Moulton Marston Harry G. Peter
In-story information
Alter ego	Edgar Cizko
Team affiliations	Secret Society of Super Villains
Notable aliases	Carlo Montez, Captain Wonder
Abilities	Telepathy, mind control, ability to create illusions

Doctor Psycho is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media. Traditionally presented as an adversary of Wonder Woman, he was first introduced to comics readers in the 1940s by Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston. He has since undergone several minor updates over the years as comics continuities have shifted and evolved. In his original appearances, Doctor Psycho demonstrated a command over the occult and was able to harness supernatural energies. Since 1987, he has been presented as a powerful telepath. Despite these changes, Doctor Psycho has consistently been portrayed as suffering from mental illness (ranging from obsessiveness to full-blown insanity), possessing a diminutive stature, and harboring a misogynistic hatred of women.

The character of Doctor Psycho was created by William Moulton Marston, creator of 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 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. Doctor Psycho was also one of several villains created for Wonder Woman who were 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 issues, Doctor Psycho remained 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 on Infinite Earths issues.