Doctor Poison

Publication history

The Princess Maru incarnation of Doctor Poison first appeared in Sensation Comics #2 and was created by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter.

The second Doctor Poison first appeared in Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #151 and was created by Eric Luke and Matthew Clark.

Princess Maru

In 1942 Princess Maru became Doctor Poison, who disguising her gender via a bulky hooded costume and mask, was the leader of a Nazi spy ring whose ultimate goal was to wreak havoc in the US Army by contaminating the army's water with "reverso", a drug that "confuses the brain centers… [making] soldiers do the exact opposite of what they are told". This affects tens of thousands of soldiers. She kidnapped Steve Trevor and Diana Prince in an attempt to learn spy secrets. Wonder Woman escapes, but does not alert the army as Steve is still held in the fortress.

This plan is foiled by the Amazon heroine Wonder Woman in the first appearance of the Holiday Girls, who pretend to just be a parade and gets the guards to dance for them before handcuffing them and Doctor Poison is imprisoned after her identity is revealed, but she later escapes and, in 1943, now working for Japan, grounds all US planes along the front of China via a "green gas" which "enters the carburetor and stops the engine." Wonder Woman halts this scheme as well, and Doctor Poison is imprisoned on Transformation Island, the Amazon penal colony where she pretends to be reformed. She is not seen again until 1948, when she and seven other female super-villains escape and pool their talents as Villainy Inc.; led by the Saturnian slaver Eviless, the evil eight are again defeated by Wonder Woman. Throughout most of her first appearance Doctor Poison was believed to be a male due to her disguise, and she retained this "drag king" garb in her later appearances; whether this guise was simply a necessity of assuming power within the male-dominated Axis governments or indicative of something else is difficult to say at this late date.

Granddaughter

In recent years, an unnamed grandchild of the original Doctor Poison appears in league with the demi-goddess Devastation. Doctor Poison's gender remains ambiguous, the only clues being long fingernails and a lipsticked grimace. She also joined the latest incarnation of Villainy Inc. and once again battled Wonder Woman. This incarnation of Doctor Poison confirmed that her grandmother did battle Queen Hippolyta as Wonder Woman during World War II. She also explains that her grandmother met her own demise by the creation of the drug called "Reverso". The original Doctor Poison accidentally reversed her own growth patterns and had forgotten the antidote by becoming too young too fast, eventually reverting to a fetus and then nothing.

Doctor Poison is one of the villains sent to retrieve the Get Out of Hell free card from the Secret Six.

Doctor Poison was later asked to be a part of the Secret Society of Super Villains, which she accepted. Joining the other scientists on the team, she was assigned to collect soil samples from Logor Jasenovac, Croatia. She added her samples with that of other areas on Earth where genocide took place and helped create the new Wonder Woman villain Genocide. Following the Final Crisis, she was with Cheetah's Secret Society of Super Villains.

The New 52

In The New 52, Doctor Maru is the daughter of a Russian pair of scientists renowned for their knowledge of poisons. American spies had approached her parents as they thought the doctors' expertise could lead to the United States' domination in biological weaponry. When they refused, the Russian government discovered their practices. Her parents were branded terrorists by Russia, and imprisoned near Siberia where they died during interrogations. Doctor Poison blamed the United States for her parents' deaths and planned to take revenge through chemical attacks.

Rebirth

After the events of DC Rebirth, Doctor Poison's history had been altered. In the current continuity, she is Colonel Marina Maru, a Japanese soldier working for the organization called Poison which had been founded by her family. During Wonder Woman's first few months in the United States, the amazon discovered a group of men infected with the Maru Virus, a poison that drives its victims to rage-induced murder. Ten years later, after Wonder Woman had discovered she had been living a lie for several years, Veronica Cale sent Poison to attack the amazon.

Powers and abilities

Doctor Poison is an expert in the use of poisons, toxins and plagues.

Wednesday Comics

Doctor Poison appears as a secondary antagonist in the Wonder Woman sections of anthology series Wednesday Comics.

DC Super Friends

Doctor Poison is among several scientist-themed super-villains who band together to fight the Super Friends in the story "Weird Science" from the series DC Super Friends.

Television

Film