If Batman is recognized as one of DC’s most popular characters, it is because of Batman’s exploits that he has been so popular for so long. And where would our heroes – and readers – get all their adrenaline thrill if adversaries did not play a part? With that in mind, we will travel back to the Golden Age of comic books in 1939, when the cunning Karl Helfern first appeared.
Helfern was a scientist…or, more accurately, a scientist whose lunacy was let loose, earning him the moniker Doctor Death. Gotham City and Batman were always up against this villain’s passion for and aptitude for chemicals, as well as his preoccupation with turning them into biological weapons. On Oolong Island, this member of the Science Squad is brilliant…and a genius…but his immorality has transformed him into a monster.
In the ‘New 52,’ the character received a big reboot, although not too far from science, as we will soon see. Let us start at the beginning, shall we? One of Batman’s very first supervillain adversaries.
DOCTOR DEATH: First Comic Book Appearance
A Bob Kane and Gardner Fox creation, DC introduced Dr. Death in 1939 via Issue 29. A mad scientist – genius, nonetheless – who went by the name of Karl Helfern had a breakthrough while experimenting. He had managed to discover the deadliness of a pollen extract and wanted to make use of it for no good at all. The breakthrough was bad news for Gotham City, as the plans included bullying and extorting the rich people of the city. Anyone who tried to go up against those moves would, of course, be killed.
Jabah pondered over the fact that Batman could be a threat, only to have Dr. Death point out that, that won’t be an issue if they managed to kill the superhero even before he got a hint of what was coming. They had to get his attention for their plan to work through, so they left him a letter and advertised in The Daily Globe, exhibiting the crime they intended to commit.
Batman did get the message put across, but his intelligent self knew it could be a trap; so when he went ahead to meet these two, he went prepared. Armed with gas pellets that had been developed recently then, he reached the penthouse designated for the meeting. Oh, and it must be pointed out that he truly entered true Batman-style – silk cord and climbing equipment with attachments that had strong suction.
As soon as he entered the building, he was attacked by goons that Dr. Death had hired. He had barely defeated them when Jabah came onto the scene and attempted to shoot him, after which he had to escape immediately with the aid of the gas capsule creating the distraction needed.
The action that follows is truly goosebump-inducing, to say the least. Batman changes to his Bruce Wayne avatar, and plays some savage tactic game, by using The Daily Globe to let Dr. Death know of his escape, and survival. The message had Dr. Death shook, and enraged. Purely out of retribution, Helfern decided to go for what he thought would be a sure-shot kill.
Jabah was instructed to slip some poison to one John P. Van Smith, who the evil duo had tried to threaten and get money from, but he had flatly refused to meet their demands. Unfortunately for Jabah – and Helfern – Bruce not only recognized Jabah and saved Smith from his deeds, he even followed Jabah back to the hideout he co-lived in with Helfern.
In the hideout, Batman breaks in during the night and attacks them while they are working in their laboratory. Jabah is an easy opponent for Batman, but Dr. Death comes upon him quite strongly as Death attempts to get out of the scene. There are toxic chemicals galore, and Dr. Death throws one of those vials at Batman, who dodges it with….a whole fire extinguisher projectile-thrown.
Got to give it to Batman though, one of us would have also thrown something, anything at that kind of an enemy. A fire starts in their presence, and Dr. Death is soon engulfed in flames. Batman practically flees from the site, hoping that Dr. Death has met his namesake of a fate.
All this jazz happens before the ‘New 52’ comes into the picture, where Dr. Death is an all-new scientist, but a monster in behavior AND appearance. This time around, he developed a serum that helped his bones grow, making him disfigured but a strong villain nonetheless. He remained – in both versions – one of the first foes of Batman, by and large.
DOCTOR DEATH: The Most Exciting Story Arc!
Greg Capullo and Scott Snyder, well within Issues 21 to 24 of the ‘Batman: Zero Year’ arc, gave the readers a fantastic overview of how Gotham came to be as it was in the hands of Batman. It was quite anticipated that an antagonistic presence would cause chaos soon. And once again, Dr. Death delivered!
The scene of the crime is where the plot unravels at the start – continuing where the previous issue left off – even if the first panel is not a graphic representation which comes a tad bit later. Then at that point, the police department at Gotham City wanted one thing – Batman in their captivity. When he entered the 5th Avenue roadway, they assumed they finally had him cornered, only to discover that he was coming straight at them on his new Batmobile.
As the vehicle quite literally projected itself up in the air and latched onto the tunnel’s roof, it drove past the officer’s heads. For the entire set of officers out there, the only thing that could be as frustratingly annoying as Batman getting away from under the department’s noses is when Batman got away over them all just then! The Police Commissioner was left exasperated, hoping that the crime scene Batman just left wasn’t too ruined for them to get evidence from.
The crime scene was marked by a disfigured body with the victim’s bones twisted and even broken to an extent. It so seemed that an external force was at play there. A poison theory was raised because this body was the second victim to have been found in conditions like these, not the first. Batman being who he was, was reported as seen at both of these places, but “only to look”.
These claims of faith came from several people including Lieutenant Jim Gordon, who maintained this stance throughout despite strong opposition. Terrorist actions and the news of an approaching super-storm had already affected Gotham a great deal, and Batman was their silver lining on the cloud of issues, simply because he was noble and he had helped. As little as he may have been able to do, the citizens were grateful. Back at the crime scene, Jim re-emphasized that the sole witness Pamela Isley, a research assistant and co-worker of the victim had already clarified what she had seen right before the body was discovered.
A skeletal-looking individual not known to her had entered the building with a valid pass. Jim also pointed out that the victim was Doctor Paji, a botanist who had been under the service of Wayne Enterprises. It was a safe bet to make, that Paji was the unfortunately successful target of some sort of injection with its contents causing bones to grow wildly and out of the body, splitting it apart from the inside.
Bruce, after quite a bit of hard work on biochemistry that he did not understand fully, was able to at least decipher that the formula of what had killed the two victims was true, an extraordinary and dangerous bone-growing mix. He also learnt that the measures to develop it were first taken by Dr. Karl Helfern, another former employee of Wayne Enterprises. This theory was in Bruce’s opinion, well-backed by evidence of experiments on animals that had gone wrong, leaving them torn apart by their skeletons growing. They had never gotten hold of the accused but he had been appropriately renamed Dr. Death.
Instead of informing the police because he simply doesn’t trust them and thought they are awfully corrupt, Bruce made his way to an acquaintance at Gotham University School of Engineering. He met Lucius Fox as he had intended to – found him pulling some late hours at work.
After a polite chat, Bruce slowly turned the topic to Dr. Helfern. Fox revealed that he himself had hired three individuals – Kelver, Paji, and Helfern together when Bruce’s uncle Philip had taken over Wayne Enterprises’ business. While Kelver and Paji were the two victims whose names were on every tongue at Gotham, Helfern was out and about.
Lucius opined that Helfern seemed to be a genius beyond expectations, immediately presenting ideas backed by foundational sources – all related to complex biochemistry and nano-medicine. He sought to invent a chemical agent that could power through one’s bloodstream, making bone fibers react to it and alter bones at cellular levels. Bones would harden when impacted, causing near-to-nil breakages, and be potentially bulletproof.
However, if anything was as unstable, uncontrollable, and unstoppable as the serum, it was Dr. Helfern himself. Last that anyone had apparently heard of Dr. Helfern after he had been fired from Wayne Enterprises was all about his shenanigans with illegal, privately-funded laboratories, testing his serum out.
Right as one would expect things to rest, things spring into action.
A lot of things.
In one swift move, Lucius jammed a syringe into Bruce’s neck – a syringe filled with you-know-what – actually, no one knows what except that we do because Lucius says that the serum was his dream project as well. In that evil, calm, aura of his, Fox tells Bruce that he should start counting his moments as he would meet Dr. Death soon enough.
Dr. Death is unstoppable as ever.
DOCTOR DEATH: The Powers He Holds
If cunning minds and an ability to turn people to your side of the game were considered an Olympic sport, our super-villain here would win gold medals. Multiple times, at that. This evil genius of a man explored a subject like biochemistry to the extent where he was able to make something that affected human beings – and animals – manipulating them at their cellular levels.
As disgusting as his wounds may be and as much as they affected his appearance – even to the extent that he was labeled a monster instead of just a mad scientist – he feeds and thrives on chaos. His purpose of recovering quicker or not being affected by bone-breaking instances and events is absolutely fulfilled. That affects, of course, his stamina too. He was bold enough to use himself as a specimen and had no regard or respect for life, in general, that way, including his own. Whether or not this seemingly insuperable super-villain meets his death is something we will reserve comments on because come on, we don’t give spoilers here!
DOCTOR DEATH: Closing In
The Caped Crusader strode out of the shadows and seized the pop-culture world by storm in what seems like an era ago, during the Golden Age of Comics. But what good is a superhero without a super-villain, and damn all the goosebumps if that villain can’t give the superhero a hard time to prove his worth? As little as is known about the origins of the first recurring villain up against Batman, his character arc is pretty impressive and engaging.
After being supposedly “blown-up” alongside his henchman Jabah, by Batman in his own laboratory, he did return for a small stint in Issue 30 of the same series. Following that, Doctor Death was considered ‘missing’ for several decades until being revived in Issue 345 of ‘Batman’ and Issue 512 of ‘Detective Comics’, thanks to writer Gerry Conway.
Doctor Death is presented as a paraplegic in this modified version of the original story from 1939, and he is supported by an attendant named Togo. Overall, if other media are considered, in the Harley Quinn episode ‘A Fight Worth Fighting For’ Doctor Death’s name shows on Doctor Psycho’s phone.
As significant a character as it sounds, it so seems that the DC Universe simply hasn’t given us enough of Dr. Death against Batman, or any other DC Superhero for that matter. Honestly, how many times can one actually claim that they have battled Death – death quite literally and figuratively because rest assured, he looked and did everything like his name! It would be a glorious, GLORIOUS read (or watch!)