Cyril Psycho

CHARACTER
Doctor Psycho
Real name	Cyril Psycho
Debut	Wonder Woman v1 #5 (July 1943)
Created by	William Moulton Marston
Abilities	Ectokinesis, Enhanced Intellect

Cyril Psycho is the first enemy of Wonder Woman to go by Doctor Psycho.

History

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. 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.

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.

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

Powers and Abilities

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