Since his inception during Grant Morrison’s run on Batman in 2007, the insane Professor Pyg has been one of the more odious members of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. A delusional sadist with a penchant for performing unnecessary surgeries and body modifications, the premise of Pyg’s pathological pursuit has been in search of the “perfect” man, a pursuit which often leads him to abducting and brainwashing hapless innocents in order to turn them into his mindless slaves, or “Dollotrons.” In the upcoming second issue of the two-parter Future State: Batman/Superman, Pyg has finally turned his fetish for medical manipulations upon himself, and the result is not pretty.
Future State is an Age of Apocalypse-like company-wide crossover which takes a look at one of many possible futures for the DC Universe, one in which a mysterious, tyrannical despot known only as The Magistrate has taken over Gotham and forced Bruce Wayne into hiding. This story serves as a sort of prequel to the main timeframe, and gives a bit of history as to how The Magistrate managed to conquer Gotham City, and how Batman and Superman became at odds in this dark future. In the first issue, Superman is revealed to be trapped in caverns of kryptonite underneath Gotham, in the clutches of a kryptonite scalpel-wielding Pyg, with Batman off to the rescue. And while this rescue does assuredly take place, as Superman is alive and well, there seems to be some hint of a rift developing between DC’s World’s Finest.
The most recent cover for Future State: Batman/Superman #2, reveals another horrifying detail about this mounting dystopia, as Professor Pyg appears to have genetically modified himself into a monstrous pig-man, somewhat reminiscent of the videogame villain Ganon from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda. This is the first time Pyg has been portrayed as more closely resembling the animal from which he takes inspiration, however his ally in the villainous Circus of Strange, Mr. Toad, does resemble a humanoid toad and may have proved to be the inspiration for this newest debauchery. Never known for his brawn in a fight, instead relying upon his armies of mind-controlled slaves, this new, horrifying form of Pyg will no doubt prove to even the odds against his perennial foe, Batman.
- FUTURE STATE: BATMAN/SUPERMAN #2
- Written by GENE LUEN YANG
- Art by BEN OLIVER, SCOTT McDANIEL, and others
- Cover by DAVID MARQUEZ
- Card stock variant cover by ARTHUR ADAMS
- ON SALE 2/23/21
- $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 |
- Superman has fallen deep into the Magistrate’s Kryptonite caverns, and now he’s at the mercy of a gruesomely transformed Professor Pyg! So what do animalistic body modification and caves of Kryptonite have to do with the Magistrate’s growing fascist state in Gotham City? That’s what Batman needs to find out as the race against time to save the Man of Steel nears its end! All we know for sure is that during this battle, something happened that drove a wedge between Bruce and Clark…Discover the answers in the conclusion that will rock the World’s Finest to their core!
Professor Pyg was originally based upon the mythical Pygmalion, a king who believed himself to be so perfect that no woman was worthy of him, and subsequently fell in love with a statue he carved. Now far removed from his vision of perfection, or perhaps closer to it now due to some kind of belief that changing himself into a giant humanoid boar is perfection, Professor Pyg has proven at least smart enough to trap Superman. Can Batman save the day?
Find out in Future State: Batman/Superman #2, written by Gene Luen Yang, with art by Ben Oliver, Scott McDaniel, and others and a cover by David Marquez, available February 23 wherever comic books are sold.
