Batman villains tend to have many different facets to their madness. Professor Pygfor example, in his pre-Flashpoint appearances, he walked hand-in-hand with his telegraph mother, inspired by a disturbing real-life experiment.
Professor Pyg’s obsession with enhancing people and turning them into doll-o-trons is well known, but over time it has become his main goal and protecting his disgusting wire mother is often forgotten. Pyg’s obsession with the wire mother experiment was explained by Pyg’s writer and co-author Grant Morrison. in the collection base Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn Morrison, Frank Quitely and Philip Tan.
Morrison explains more about why Pyg cares about the guide mother and the real explanation behind it. While the wiry mother may seem like a random addition to Pyg’s character, it’s another disturbing element that’s often forgotten, and it’s a shame because it adds a twisted vulnerability to Pyg’s character.
Professor Pyg’s only source of comfort is his wiry mother.
First appearance of Professor Pyg: Batman and Robin No. 1 from Morrison and Quitely
The experiments with the wire mother were actually carried out by the American psychologist Harry Harlow.. These experiments were based on giving a group of monkeys two “mothers”: a cloth mother and a wire mother. Essentially, both were just figurines, but one was covered with fabric and the other with wire. Tests showed that the monkeys overwhelmingly preferred the tissue mother, even if the tissue mother had nothing to offer them. The monkeys chose the wire mother only when she had food, and only when they were starving.
Professor Pyg prefers the disgusting and scary to the warm and loving.
It’s interesting to note that Professor Pyg doesn’t seem to have a cloth mother to go along with his wire mother. The monkeys in the original experiment overwhelmingly preferred cloth material in all situations, probably because it seemed softer and warmer. But Professor Pyg is shown using a wire mother twice, which shows how crazy Professor Pyg is – that he prefers the disgusting and scary to the warm and loving. Anyway, this is a wonderful character trait that hasn’t really been explored as much as it deserves, Pyg’s focus has shifted over the years to his obsession with perfection.
Professor Pyg is more complicated than most fans think
This Gotham villain has a lot to give
All of Batman’s greatest villains are more complex than they might seem at first glance. Riddler, for example, may seem like a guy throwing out riddles for some trick, but he’s actually a man with a deep inferiority complex who needs to prove himself right due to his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Likewise, Professor Pyg is more complex than he appears. While most creators simply use him as a typical serial killer obsessed with perfection, the few appearances of the Conductor Mother show that there is more to it. Batman villain Professor Pyg than it seems at first glance.
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