Batman, like many other superheroes, is known for dealing with various types of terrible adversaries. When the moment was perfect, though, the designers of Batman decided to present the world’s first scary, terrifying, and mentally ill enemy.
Professor Pyg, one of the craziest and most bizarre characters ever created by DC Comics, is one of the most iconic as well as undervalued masked villains capable of tormenting your subconscious mind. So, what distinguishes Professor Pyg, who wears a pig mask and a butcher’s apron, from the others? He does not simply kidnap and kill his victims. He is preoccupied with perfection and sees people as flawed and broken persons.
As a result, he employs chemicals and operations to permanently transform his victims into Dollotrons, mind-controlled automatons, or even human-animal hybrids. Professor Pyg was created by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert and first appeared in DC Comics’ Batman 666 tale in July 2007. Later in the DC Universe, he became a recurring villain.
Professor Pyg’s name has a fascinating backstory to it. You have got it! Morrison was inspired by the Scottish songwriter Momus’ song “Pygmalism,” which he wrote for the Japanese singer Kahimi Karie. Now, the character of Professor Pyg in the song was based on Professor Henry Higgins from George Bernard Shaw’s theatrical drama “Pygmalion.”
Professor Higgins was an overbearing perfectionist who taught Eliza Dolittle, a Cockney flower girl, how to be a perfect lady in fluency and mannerism. The finest part is still to come. Pygmalion is a character from Greek mythology and Ovid’s narrative poetry “Pygmalion”. Pygmalion was a Greek ruler and sculptor who created an ivory statue of a woman in Greek mythology. Pygmalion fell in love with the sculpture because it was so exquisite. That was a lengthy backstory.
I understand that equating Pygmalion’s sweet love story with the insane mind-controlling villain Professor Pyg is unfair, but the obsession with their own concept of perfection, creating or altering someone or something to match the level of perfection according to their satisfaction, is shared by all three characters. Pyg was exclusively interested in changing living humans into Dollotrons that resembled robots and were pain-resistant.
The Origin of One of The Weirdest Batman Villains
The actual name of Professor Pyg was Lazlo Valentin, who was a former agent of Spyral, a corrupt United Nations agency, and was engaged in designing neo-pharmaceutical products like mind-eroding gas compounds. While experimenting with his compounds, Lazlo became affected by his own created compound and was transformed into a violent, paranoid schizophrenic scientist.
With his mental breakdown, he developed a quest for perfection and started performing terrible operations on his confined victims, converting them to Dollotrons. Now let us see what Dollotrons are? Pyg attached doll masks to the faces of his victims, which began to transform their heads.
Then Pyg performed surgery on his victims, who were lobotomized into organic robots, without any thought and feelings, resembling red-haired Kewpie dolls. This process made the Dollotrons highly resistant to pain and mindlessly attacked their targets. Mellotron was Professor Pyg’s idea of ‘perfection.’
He was fond of his makeshift mother made of nails and boards. He seemed to have auditory hallucinations from this makeshift mother, who constantly monitored and commanded his work for improvement. Dollotrons had been suffering a fate that was even worse than death.
Pyg and his Dollotrons debuted in the 2007 story “Batman in Bethlehem,” published in DC Comics in Batman #666 series. There he was featured as a leading crime-lord of Gotham and was shown rather ugly without his iconic mask, using chemicals to torture people to create Dollotrons.
He was later murdered and crucified by the Bat-Devil. Later in 2009, the storyline of Batman and Robin reintroduced Lazlo Valentin as the boss of a gang called Circus of Strange, unless some experimental mishap transformed him into Professor Pyg.
Here he sold drugs to the underworld and generated the fund for carrying out his experiments of creating Dollotrons. By interrogating the gang members of Circus of Strange, Batman and Robin discovered Pyg’s plan to devastate Gotham City by spreading a mind-control drug through the infected Dollotrons. He even tried to hold the city for ransom. Pyg was arrested and taken to Blackgate Penitentiary.
Professor Pyg in Various Story Arcs
Later in July 2010, the character of Professor Pyg returned in the plot of “Batman and Robin Must Die.” In this story, Pyg was appointed under the supervillain Doctor Simon Hurt when the population of Gotham was affected by a virus.
As more and more people became affected, Pyg took advantage of the situation and escaped from Blackgate Penitentiary. With the increasing surge of infected people, more and more riots also occurred under the influence of Doctor Hurt, compelling Batman to confront Doctor Hurt and take control of the situation. The infected civilians were confined in quarantine while Professor Pyg was kept in Arkham Asylum.
There was a reboot in the Batman series by DC Comics under the New 52 banner. Professor Pyg’s backstory was further extended in the story of “Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes” in December 2011.
In addition to the backstory of Pyg, his son, Janosz Valentin, was introduced in the story, engaged with the criminal organization Leviathan. Jason claimed that he had learned to be immune to pain from his father. Pyg continued his cameo appearances as an Arkham Asylum inmate in the “Forever Evil” storyline.
In October 2013, Andy Kubert wrote a prequel of “Batman in Bethlehem,” titled “Damian: Son of Batman,” where Pyg and his Dollotrons appeared. Batman tried to control his experiments on kidnapped children, but the Dollotrons expelled Batman, while Pyg couldn’t be arrested.
In the first volume of “Batman Eternal,” which ran from April 2014, Pyg played a comparatively more significant role. The powerful mob boss Carmine Falcone was determined to rule the criminal underworld of Gotham City. He framed Batman for destroying Pyg’s laboratory.
Enraged, Pyg sent his remaining Dollotrons to attack Batman, but when Batman told him the truth, Pyg attacked and destroyed one of the labs run by Falcone. Eventually, Pyg converted many people into human-animal hybrids and confronted Falcone. Pyg captured Falcone and was about to operate on him when Batman stopped him from doing so. Pyg also appeared in the comic series featuring Wonder Woman and Robin, related publications where Pyg used an abandoned theatre for his criminal activities under supervillain Brother Blood.
Pyg also became a recurring villain in the animated series “Beware the Batman’, released in 2013. Here again, Pyg was featured as a deranged surgeon. Along with Mr. Toad, Professor Pyg targeted people in the fashion industry who were responsible for endangering animal life. They were stopped and defeated by Batman and Katana.
Later Pyg and Toad were released from the Blackgate Penitentiary by Ra’s al Ghul to conspire and kill Batman. After a few months, Pyg stole Kirk Langstorm’s formula, transforming the scientist into Man-Bat. Then they convinced him to steal chemicals that would create a controlled army of human-animal hybrids. Ultimately, they were defeated by Batman and Katana and taken to Blackgate.
A slightly different but fascinating story of Professor Pyg is noted when Pyg is seen in a side quest of the video game” Batman Arkham Knight,” released in 2015. In this video game, Professor Pyg conducted his surgeries to make Dollotrons in an operation theatre hidden under his Pretty Doll’s Parlor beauty salon. He used to wrap their heads and hands with bandages and dressed them in hospital robes before putting the doll mask on their faces.
Batman came across six mutilated bodies strung up and opera music being played in the speakers around the bodies while words like ‘failure’ and ‘defective’ were written beside them. The brutal process of converting people to Dollotrons corrupted the DNA and destroyed their fingerprints.
Hence, Batman had no option but to use Deep Tissue Scanner to look for unique marks to identify the bodies in the Missing Persons Database. After investigation, Batman traced out Lazlo Valentin, aka Professor Pyg, who took the lease of Pretty Doll’s Parlor. On reaching the parlor, Batman heard the same opera music which was played with the corpses, making him more suspicious.
Eventually, Batman found the entrance to the operation theatre and intervened in an ongoing operation. Batman ordered Pyg to release all the prisoners, but instead, Pyg and his Dollotrons initiated fierce combat with Batman.
Finally, Batman defeated Pyg and his Dollotrons and locked them in the Gotham City Police Department or the GCPD. DC Comics was still not happy yet. In May 2016, they relaunched their comic books under the DC Rebirth brand. Pyg had been such an influential character that he kept on appearing over and over again in Nightwing #18, Harley Quinn #43-44, even in Batwoman #11 and many others.
What Changed in the TV Adaptation
Lazlo Valentin sees his first on-screen presence in the fourth season of the television series “Gotham” starring Michael Cerveris. He was known to kill the cops and place a pig head over the corpse. In the comic version, Pyg was known to wear a pig mask, while in “Gotham,” he appeared genuinely creepy as actual pieces of a pig’s face were sewn together and worn as a mask, which made Cerveris extremely uncomfortable.
Unlike the original Pyg, who was obsessed with the perfection of human beings, Gotham Pyg was obsessed with corruption in GCPD. Thus, he was on a mission to slaughter every corrupt police officer and slap a pig head on them.
Instead of Dollotrons, the Gotham Pyg had a few low-level criminals working for him who procured pig’s head for him. He was also seen on a pig farm, implying that he intended to raise his own pigs. Why would he suddenly do that? That is because he needed a lot of pigs, which meant there would be a lot of murders in Gotham City.
Pyg made his film debut in the animated film “Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay,” where he was again featured as an underground surgeon who worked under the supervillains.
Pyg Standing Out from the Remaining Batman Villain
Lazlo Valentin stands out from the rest among the list of most acquainted villains that Batman faced like Joker, Ra’s Al Gul, Scarecrow, Bane, Riddler, and others. Batman was involved with the creepy, dark corners of life for the first time. Pyg was schizophrenic paranoid, having his unique concept of ‘perfection’ with no background or reason.
He felt extremely proud to be associated with the character of Pygmalion, as he believed that the Dollotrons were his work of art, a perfect form of human beings who had no feelings, no pain, no gender. That is why ‘Pyg’ is spelled as P-Y-G, being the short form of Pygmalion and not P-I-G associated with the pig’s mask that he wears.
Like the sculptor Pygmalion, he loved his creations too. He reminds me of the schizophrenic surgeon, Dr. Giggles, who giggled and murdered his victims. What Pyg does with his victims is even worse than being dead! Let us hear what Grant Morrison has to say about Pyg, “Professor Pyg isn’t from another world; he’s from here, but he’s very, very sick.”