Get out of my operating room, MISTER Fate!

[Beowulf]

#46 Doctor Davis

Another criminal scientist who fought the Justice League; he never had a supervillain name. Or a first name, for that matter. He fought the Justice League in the 60s and hasn’t reappeared, but as we generally assume that consistent use of the title with a civilian name implies it’s earned, we’ll do so here.

 

[Beowulf]

#47 Doctor Seven

Also styled as Doctor-7, this DC character was a sorcerer and self-proclaimed King of the Supernatural who fought Mark Merlin in the 60s. I’m pretty sure the “doctor” part was just him trying to pump himself up, especially since his “science” was all just magic.

The character reappeared in 1999, but still as a sorcerer and with no more useful backstory.

 

[Beowulf]

#48 Doctor Arkham

A mashup of Batman and Jeremiah Arkham from the Dark Multiverse. While his backstory isn’t fully elaborated on, it’s implied that he is, in fact, his universe’s Dr. Jeremiah Arkham and has a degree in either medicine or biology.

 

[Beowulf]

#49 Doctor Moon

We mentioned Dr. Moon when we talk about Dr. Cyber; he’s the neurosurgeon who did brain transplants for her. He also worked for the League of Assassins, Dr. Angst, and Tobias Whale. While his real name was never explicitly stated, it’s pretty safe to say Moon was his last name and he was, in fact, a doctor.

 

[Beowulf]

#50 Doctor Double X

Doctor Simon Ecks was obviously a Batman villain: You can tell because he’s a doctor (he had an unspecified PhD) and because his real name is a pun on his villain name. He actually could split himself into two bodies, and the characters were distinguished as “Doctor X” and “Doctor Double X”, but they shared a mind and therefore the doctorate.

 

[Beowulf]

#51 Doctor Poison

Originally the WW2 incredibly racist caricature Japanese Imperial Princess Maru, she disguised herself to help the Germans poison American soldiers but was stopped by Wonder Woman. The first Japanese college accepted a female student in 1913 and Tsuruko Haraguchi was the first Japanese woman to earn a PhD (from Columbia University) in 1912; so it was entirely possible for Maru to have a doctorate during WW2…except that she was a member of the Imperial family and would have been required to attend Gakushuin Women's College, which did not issue doctorate degrees. It’s also very unlikely that she’d have been permitted to study abroad, for the same reason. Summing up: The first Dr. Poison was probably not a doctor.

A second Dr. Poison, Marina Maru, was introduced as the granddaughter of the original. She’s a toxicologist, a role that generally requires a doctorate degree.

(In the Wonder Woman film Dr. Poison is a Turkish chemist named Dr. Isabel Maru, and definitely a doctor.)

 

[Beowulf]

#52 Doctor Crocodile

Marvel character Joshua N'Dingi worked for the Resources Control Executive, and was scarred and rebuilt with cybernetic parts before he returned home and became King of Mbangawi. Though he was, in fact, transformed into a crocodile for a while, the “crocodile” part of his name came from his scarred skin. And according to Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1, he did earn a doctorate degree from a university in the UK. So Doc Croc, like Doc Ock, is a doctor.

 

[Beowulf]

#53 Doctor Danger

Jules Bergen was a ventriloquist and expert in magnets, a combination of skills he used to make Kid Colt think he had a partner called the Invisible Gunman. He’s a consummate con man who never demonstrates any medical skills and is never shown to have an academic backstory, so I’m going to guess the “doctor” part was there for alliteration and Dr. Danger was not a doctor.

 

[Beowulf]

#54 Doctor Demonicus

Dr. Douglas Birely had a PhD in genetics and was studying the correlation between radioactivity and mutation when he was contaminated by a radioactive spill which, unsurprisingly, mutated him. He continued to use his scientific genius (and some alien technology) to mutate animals and humans and get them to do his bidding.

 

[Beowulf]

#55 Doctor Dorcas

Doctor Lemuel Dorcas was a marine biologist, genetic engineer, inventor, and would-be conqueror. His PhD is in marine biology. (There are many benefits to being a marine biologist.) He worked with Krang for a while (the blue Atlantean guy, not the evil brain from Dimension X) and gave himself fish powers with genetic engineering.

There really isn’t much else to the character, but my inner 12-year-old just keeps giggling that his name is dork-ass.

 

[Kirin]

Man, if random research projects actually led to super powers this often it'd be a lot more tempting to actually get a PhD in the pure sciences.

 

[Octopus Prime]

On the other hand, looking at Dorcus, maybe thats less of an incentive

 

[Rascally Badger]

He needs to see a doctor about the pit rash

 

[Torzelbaum]

But he is Pagliacci a doctor...

 

[Octopus Prime]

My only previous exposure to Dr. Dorcus was through an episode of Marvel By the Month where he’d teamed up with Orca to kidnap Dorma.

It rapidly devolved into complete gibberish

 

[Beowulf]

#56 Doctor Glitternight

Glitternight was one of the Five-Who-Are-All, an alliance of unimaginably powerful mystical beings in the Region Beyond Reality. He rebelled, absorbed one of his compatriots, but was defeated by the remaining Three-Who-Are-All, who turned him into a human-sized sorcerer dude. He then used magic to cause problems for the Werewolf By Night for a while, but eventually Brother Voodoo defeated him. At no point did this magical creature from Beyond ever earn a doctorate, or degree of any kind.

 

[Beowulf]

#57 Doctor Macabre

Dr. Macabre showed up in a single issue of Sub-Mariner Comics in 1948 and was never given a real name, but was apparently a licensed psychologist and professional hypnotist…who then decided that hypnotizing people to commit crimes for him was much more lucrative than actually practicing medicine. (Spoilers: Namor caught him, and said he was sentenced to the electric chair. Given that he never appeared again, it seems liked he was actually executed.)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Glitternight was one of the Five-Who-Are-All, an alliance of unimaginably powerful mystical beings in the Region Beyond Reality

If you were to have me guess who this dude antagonized, I would have never guessed Werewolf by Night.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Manwolf *maybe*

 

[Beowulf]

#58 Doctor Mindbubble

Horace Littleton was a scientist for S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 60s who developed a hybrid of super-soldier serum and LSD. And, of course, experimented on himself with it. That sounds like a particularly terrible series of ideas in a universe full of terrible ideas, but hey, apparently it gives you the ability to trap people in virtual reality dream bubbles.

Dr. Mindbubble has to remain a “maybe” in the doctorate department—it seems likely that he’d need a doctorate to get hired by the government to experiment with super-soldier serum on human subjects, but I can’t find any references to him as “Dr. Littleton” in the half-dozen comics he appeared in.

 

[Beowulf]

#59 Doctor Minerva

As I noted about “Doc” a while ago, I’d argue that aliens with substantially similar training and education to an Earth doctorate should be able to call themselves “Doctor” when translated into English. Minn-Erva is Kree, and studied bio-genetics at Kree Science Academy in Vartanos. She’s known for her expertise as a bio-geneticist knowledgeable and with genetic engineering. If the Kree have a concept similar to a doctorate, she definitely has one; so translating her name to “Dr. Minerva” seems perfectly appropriate.

 

[gogglebob]

Worth noting that Dr. Minerva is one of the few featured characters on this list to not be a "headliner", but still be playable in a videogame.

Thank you, Avengers: Galactic Storm.

 

[Beowulf]

#60 Doctor Mynde

Dr. Leonard Mynde got fired from his job making weapons for the US military when he went delving for secrets; then transplanted his head onto a robot body to save himself from radiation poisoning. He teamed up with Madame Synn to steal a whole bunch of secret military weapons, botched the entire operation when Captain Marvel showed up, accidentally killed his partner and then killed himself. Lot of backstory for a dude that showed up in one comic ever, but enough to know that he did have a doctorate.

 

[Beowulf]

#61 Doctor Yagyu

Irving Yagyu was a recurring character in Nth Man. He’s a ninja, but more importantly, he’s a dentist. In order to be a dentist, you need to earn either a Doctor of Dental Surgery or Doctor of Dental Medicine degree. So Doc Yagyu absolutely has a right to his title. (He’s a minor character, but also the only dentist I’ve seen this entire project!)

 

[Beowulf]

#62 The Doctor

A series of characters from DC’s Wildstorm imprint, “The Doctor” is a title given to Planetary Shamans who have been chosen by the Earth to care for the planet. Of the doctors given a name and backstory in the comics (the first wasn’t), NONE have actually been doctors: Jeroen Thornedike was a dot-com billionaire; Habib Bin Hassan was a freedom fighter and attempted suicide bomber; Shen Li-Men was the superhero Swift. It’s possible that some Doctor back in history earned a doctorate degree, but advanced education doesn’t seem high on the Earth’s priority list for her defenders.

 

[Beowulf]

And Others…

There are a bunch of minor DC characters like Dr. Aesop, Dr. Chaos. Dr. Noon, Dr. Dome, Dr. Cyclops and others who made so few appearances or have so little backstory that I can’t even hypothesize if they were really doctors. Similarly, on the Marvel side we had minor characters like Dr. Drearr, Dr. Friday, Dr. Headless, Dr. Injectable, Dr. Meatball, Dr. Mime, Dr. Nasty, Dr. Nosexy and Docteur Q.

I've probably missed a couple, if anyone wants to volunteer them, but I've exhausted both my memory and three different wikis, so I think I'm in pretty good shape.

On the whole, my takeaways are: Most heroes named doctor have a right to the title, villains are more likely to use an unearned title—particularly con-men and wizards. Unless they’re Batman villains, in which case they’ll have a doctorate whether they advertise it or not. The most decorated doctors are more likely to use Mister.

LIKE THAT WITLESS FOOL, RICHARDS!

Thanks for reading, folks!

 

[Falselogic]

This was a fun diversion Beowulf. Thank you for sharing!

 

[Octopus Prime]

RICHARDS doesn't have a doctorate because HE IS AN INSUFFERABLE DOLT!

 

[Kirin]

Indeed, this was a delightful diversion!

Dr. Nosexy

... doctor whatnow?

 

[Becksworth]

Dr. Nose XY