Doctor Destiny
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Doctor Destiny is a fictional supervillain published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Justice League of America #5 (June 1961), and was created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Doctor Destiny was once a petty criminal scientist who used his genius to create astounding devices for crime. He first encountered the Justice League of America shortly after he invented an anti-gravity device that allowed him to capture Green Lantern, impersonate him, and infiltrate the JLA. Before Doctor Destiny could further his criminal ends, however, the Leaguers discovered his treachery and promptly imprisoned him.
[edit] Morpheus
He then created the Materioptikon, a device which allowed him to create reality from the fabric of dreams. In a later retcon, his mother, Ethel (the former mistress of Roderick Burgess), gave him Morpheus' Dreamstone, which powered the device. He manipulated the Dreamstone, forcing flaws and adding circuitry, until it was attuned to him and not the Dream King. Morpheus was imprisoned by the Burgess at the time, unaware of what Dr. Destiny was doing and unable to stop or prevent it.
Doctor Destiny's power was so great that the Justice League resorted to drastic measures to stop him. They hypnotized him and manipulated his psyche to prevent him from dreaming; this kept him from using the Materioptikon for criminal purposes but caused him to lose his mind and shrivel to a skeletal wreck of a man. He was then sent to Arkham Asylum, where his sanity eroded further.
[edit] Arkham Asylum
When his mother died, Doctor Destiny escaped Arkham, reclaimed the Ruby, and used it to initiate a rampage where he killed dozens of people. The Sandman, recently freed and searching for his stolen tokens of power, could not stop Doctor Destiny until the villain decided to leech all of the Sandman's power into the Ruby and destroy the gem. The destruction of the Dreamstone returned all of its power back to the Sandman, including power the Lord of Dreams had been without for millennia. Morpheus then returned Dr. Destiny to Arkham and returned his ability to dream. Although he is able to dream once again, Doctor Destiny's sanity is still extremely shaky.
In Grant Morrison's 1989 Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Dr. Destiny is referenced to by the Joker, and later makes a brief appearance in which he seems to have been severely injured by Batman. Physically he is portrayed as being atrophied and feeble, restricted to a wheelchair, until he is pushed off a staircase by Batman.
Doctor Destiny later learnt that continued use of the Materioptikon meant he still had some dream manipulation powers even without the Dreamstone. He warped the Atom's dreams of the original Justice League into a world where the superheroes were fascist bullies, as part of a plan to trap the then-current Justice League there. He was defeated when the comatose Blue Beetle was able to enter the dream world. Later, Dr. Destiny threatened the JLA once again by bringing his "dream self" into the real world and attacking them with bizarre and irrational dream-logic. He was defeated and returned to his cell in Arkham.
Over the years, Doctor Destiny has proven one of the Justice League's most persistent foes. In his earliest appearances, before he lost his sanity, his goals were more rational: to acquire wealth and personal power, to eliminate all his enemies, and so on. All of these schemes revolved around the creative and liberal use of the Materioptikon, a strategy which often caught his opponents off-guard. One can assume that Doctor Destiny is still interested in attaining all of his former goals: the elimination of the Justice League, the restoration of his human appearance, and the reconstruction of the Materioptikon.
[edit] 4th Parallel
During the 4th Parallel storyline in JLA Classified, Doctor Destiny's control over the Materioptikon is usurped by Darrin Profitt the Red King.
[edit] Justice Society of America
In the previews for future issues of Justice Society of America (vol.3), Starman mentioned "It's the doctor. The one with no face!", which would alude to future appearances by Doctor Destiny (i.e. his skeletal face). He finally appeared in Justice Society of America #4, back in his old costume, with the captured Legionnaire Dream Girl chained in his cell in Arkham Asylum. He uses Dream Girl's nightmares to deal with the Asylum guards.
[edit] Other media
In the Justice League episode "Only a Dream", John Dee (voiced by William Atherton) was a man imprisoned in Stryker's Prison for guarding a supply of smuggled weaponry in a LexCorp storehouse. He kept in regular contact with his wife, Penny, and volunteered to be a guinea pig for a doctor's experiments with the Materioptikon, a machine that gave people ESP abilities; during the sessions, he dreamt of single-handedly defeating the Justice League and being a member of the Injustice Gang. When he found out that his parole request didn't go through, John was saddened. His wife divorced him soon after, making a bad situation worse.
- During a prison riot, John snuck into the doctor's lab and exposed himself to an intensified burst from the Materioptikon. The experience gave him the ability to not only read people's minds, but to get inside them as well, wreaking havoc in their dreams and even forcing them to go insane and die. Despite his love for his wife, when he found out she had found another man, John used his abilities to mentally torture his ex-wife, in the process taking the new name "Dr. Destiny."
- Dr. Destiny later trapped Superman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and the Flash in their dreams, playing out their deepest fears: Hawkgirl was trapped inside a coffin (claustrophobia); Flash was trapped inside a world where he moved so fast, nobody else could see or hear him; Superman became so strong and out of control that he killed all those he loved (possibly a reference to Larry Niven's satirical essay Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex); and Green Lantern wasn't accepted back in his old neighborhood because of his status as a Green Lantern.
- While the Martian Manhunter telepathically entered his teammates' dream to try to get them to realize that what they were experiencing was not real, Batman eventually took down Dr. Destiny (keeping himself awake by humming Frère Jacques) and the rest of the Justice League woke up from their dreams, but not without memories of what it felt like to be trapped in those situations. Dr. Destiny was last seen in a comatose condition, back at Stryker's, after having accidentally injected himself with a massive overdose of a powerful sedative. He, however, is confirmed to be a member of Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom shown on Justice League Unlimited, making a cameo in "I Am Legion" and very briefly seen in a shot on Luthor's side in "Alive!"
- This version of Dr. Destiny is the second character on Justice League to actually commit murder (Darkseid was the first, killing Dan Turpin and Desaad); his ex-wife eventually dies from the torture he inflicts on her. The episode also featured some of the most graphic deaths of Justice League (such as Superman hugging Jimmy Olsen in his dream and breaking his spine). In the show's continuation, Justice League Unlimited, however, deaths and murders are much more common (although most are, admittedly, implied and off-screen).
[edit] Trivia
- It is believed that the design of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe villain Skeletor was based on the original design of Dr. Destiny. Because of the relative obscurity of Dr. Destiny, however, many fans incorrectly believe that Dr. Destiny is a rip-off of Skeletor, despite his predating Skeletor by nearly 20 years.
- John Dee is also the name of a noted Elizabethan occultist, astrologer, and Hermetic philosopher.
- Doctor Destiny's ability to cause pain in a person's dream is similar to the powers of Freddy Krueger.
