Brainwashed And Crazy / The DCU

The DCU

Brainwashed and Crazy in this franchise.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • In World's Finest (1941) #145, in which Batman is lured by aliens to a prison in space and hypnotized into thinking he was a sadistic warden for Superman, has him reflect that hypnotism cannot make anyone do something against their nature, before the narration explains "But this is super-hypnotism, of a kind never before experienced by anyone on Earth!" (It's almost a shame that this was written in the days of simpler storytelling, as a modern telling of the story would have it revealed that Batman would certainly be a warder on Superman's prison if he thought Superman went rogue...)
  • In Death of the Family, Damian "Robin" Wayne finds himself facing...his father Batman?! Ultimately subverted: it's a martial-arts master in costume who fell behind on a debt to Joker. However, Joker does come dangerously close to pulling this on the entire Batfamily.
  • Batgirl Cassandra Cain turning a villain in the mid-00's was explained away like mind-control induced by Deathstroke.
  • In Gothtopia, The Scarecrow has all of Gotham in a gas-induced hallucination, making them think everything is wonderful while attacking anyone who thinks otherwise. This includes the heroes, they eventually break free of the hallucinations and try to figure out what's going on.
  • Jean-Paul Valley has what is known as The System, a deep brainwashing program used by the Order of St. Dumas for those chosen to be their Avenging Angel, Azrael. The trance is usually activated when the person dons the Azrael costume, turning them into an efficient, though very brutal, assassin. However, when Jean-Paul took over for Bruce Wayne, his first supervillain encounter happened to be the Scarecrow. When he got nailed by Crane's Fear Gas-coated barbs, the System kicked in to get him through it... and never shut off. This sent Jean-Paul over the edge as time passed, leading to him getting more and more brutal with his enemies, nearly killing Tim Drake when he tried to stop him and culminating in the death of Abattoir and Bruce Wayne needing to come back in order to fix things.
  • In Batgirl (2011), Gretel's lobotomized victims kill while chanting "338" and variations thereof (Including "$3.38").
• Blackhawk: During the the Silver Age in Blackhawk, Zinda Blake (Lady Blackhawk) was captured by villainous Nazi operative Killer Shark, who used a chemical potion to brainwash her, forcing her to take up the identity of the costumed Queen Killer Shark. She battles her former comrades several times before she was freed of the effects of the potion. Later in Birds of Prey, she was captured again by Killer Shark (who was revealed to be the grandson of the original), help beat and caught her teammate Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), lead Killer Shark to the original one treasure. Zinda was freed with some help from her teammate Helena Bertinelli, and Killer Shark was defeated. In Blackhawk, Zinda Blake Queen Killer Shark's personality was cold and ruthless to the point that she had no loyalty to Killer Shark, having abandoned him twice and even outright betrayed him. While in Birds of Prey, Zinda Blake Queen Killer Shark's personality is entirely loyal to Killer Shark, with her being completely in love and devoted to him, to the point that it's implied that she had a sexual relationship with the original Killer Shark and is more than willing to sleep with the current Killer Shark while thinking he his grandfather.
• Blue Beetle:
  • Blood Beetle is really Paco. The Scarab fragment inside him took control of his body to carry out its Scarab Replacement Protocol on Blue Beetle.
  • Scarab units in general take complete control over their hosts and their minds. The only exceptions are Blue Beetle, Sky Witness, and (later) Khaji-Kai.
• Green Lantern:
  • In Green Lantern: Rebirth the events of Hal Jordan's crimes depicted in Emerald Twilight were explained away as Jordan falling under the mind control of the evil entity, Parallax, who used Jordan's grief at the destruction of Coast City as his opportunity to do so.
  • Brightest Day: During the "Dark Things" JLA/JSA crossover arc, ANYONE on Earth possessing magical/elemental powers - hero, villain, or neutral, and no matter how minutely latent their powers may be - is in danger of being possessed by the Starheart's chaos. This naturally generates massive paranoia among the two teams working together to stop the madness.
• Jonah Hex: Jonah's girlfriend Stiletta was kidnapped and brainwashed into become a bloodthirsty competitor in the Gladiator Games. Jonah is later forced into the arena and Stiletta attempts to kill him.
• Justice: Most of the Second Generation of heroes — Supergirl, Batgirl, Robin, Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel... — were mind-controlled by the Brainiac's worms and forced to fight the Justice League.
• Secret Six: In Vol 2, the Riddler did something to Sue Dibny to convince her that she's in love with him and to attempt to blow up the Six.
• Superman:
  • In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Darkseid brainwashes Supergirl into becoming one of his Furies and attacking her cousin.
  • In Superman/Batman issue #77, Scarecrow's fear toxin makes Kara believe that Robin is her parents' killer Reactron so she fights him.
  • In Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, Lex Luthor kidnapped a Masai warrior and brainwashed him into guarding his secret lair's hidden door.
  • In A Mind-Switch in Time, Euphor transforms Lois Lane into a witch and mind-controls her into attacking Superman.
  • Downplayed in Superman vs. Shazam!. Black Adam and the Sand Superman expose Superman and Captain Marvel to the "Judgment Ray", a device which distorts their judgment and causes them to attack each other irrationally.
  • In The Leper from Krypton, Luthor's partner-in-crime Ventor hypnotizes Clark Kent -whose dual identity he is unaware of- into infecting Superman with a deadly alien disease.
  • In Masters of the Universe crossover "From Eternia— With Death!", Skeletor puts a mind-control spell on Superman and forces him to attack He-Man.
  • "Brainiac Rebirth": Brainiac mind-controls aliens of three different planets into becoming his invading army to attack Earth with.
  • In "The Super-Steed of Steel", villain Vostar uses a mind-control helmet to force Comet to go on a destructive rampage through the planet.
  • In "The Great Darkness Saga", Darkseid brainwashes three billions of Daxamites into becoming his conquering army.
• Teen Titans:
  • Superboy gets a heavy case of this in Teen Titans, courtesy of his genetic progenitor Lex Luthor. Highlights include shaving his head, cutting an 'L' into his T-shirt, and kicking the shit out of the entire team.
  • Originally Terra from The New Teen Titans arc "The Judas Contract" was a pure example of an unapologetically evil and antagonistic mole. A flashback from a 2000s comic decided to give her some more backstory and retconned it so that Deathstroke had injected Terra with drugs to make her psychopathic, much like he later did with his daughter Ravager.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Kobra decided to craft his own personal Cheetah. To this end he placed Debbi inside of a monitor station, suspended from the ceiling by electric cables. Using a brainwashing technique involving holographic projections, Kobra exposed her to a barrage of violent images of ecological disasters. With every flickering image she was forced to witness, an electric charge was sent coursing through her body. Within a short period of time, the process drove Debbi Domaine irrevocably insane.
  • Wonder Woman (1987):
    • While Cheetah is far from a hero and fully capable of acting as a bloodthirsty monster all on her own she was developing a sort of friendship with Diana and hated Thomas Randolph when he zapped her with magic to make her into a mindless monsterous version of herself that would attack whomever he directed her to, which included Diana and Artemis.
    • During "The Witch and the Warrior" Circe transforms pretty much all the top male heroes and villains into animal mash-ups to be hunted down for sport, save Superman whom she brainwashes into trying to kill Wonder Woman.
• Young Justice:
  • The team including Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl and Arrowette fall victim mind control that makes them fight Supergirl at one point, and she helps snap them out of it.
  • Darkseid himself takes an interest in Secret's vast powers and manipulates her mind to make her fight alongside him against her friends and allies.
  • At one point a cult worshiping the evil goddess Kali does this to a million children via a television show, and compels them to try and kill their parents.

Films

Films

• In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Joker and Harley Quinn brainwashed Robin/Tim Drake in into essentially becoming another Joker. However, this ended up backfiring when Tim broke through the brainwashing when ordered to kill Batman and instead killed the Joker.
  • Also, no hypnosis was involved here at all; Joker turned Tim into "Joker Junior" through Cold-Blooded Torture.
• In Batman: Soul of the Dragon it's revealed that, when O-Sensei is finally freed from the gate, he's been possessed by a demon and has no problem fighting his former students. The demon is eventually killed, but he also dies in the process.
• In Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, this is Slade's ultimate plan: using a powerful machine and Robin's movie, he wants to put the entire world under his control. He succeeds during the climax, and uses the newly-brainwashed superheroes (and Robin) to keep the Titans from destroying the machine.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• In an episode of Lois & Clark, Lois is one of a group in a medical facility who are brainwashed into being contract killers before being killed their selves by the doctor at the facility.
• In Smallville, Delete, Clark, Lana, Martha and Jonathan are brainwashed into attempting to murder Chloe violently.
• In Supergirl (2015), the second season finale has Superman brainwashed into fighting Supergirl. Specifically, he has been made to think Supergirl is General Zod.
• In Titans, the Nuclear Family are a group of brainwashed assassins, conditioned to perform horrific acts of torture and murder without question or remorse, all while acting like a cheerful, polite old-fashioned Nuclear Family.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Justice League:
  • Ancient sorceress Morgaine le Fey partially brainwashes Martian Manhunter to steal the powerful Philosophers Stone with promises of reuniting with his home and dead family. He almost hands her the stone, but the memories of Etrigan the Demon (who was one of her earlier victims) finally allow him to break control of the spell and shatter the stone, noting that the price would be too high.
  • In the Unlimited episode "Grudge Match", minor villainess Roulette uses Gorilla Grodd's mind control technology to "recruit" female heroes into fighting in gladiatorial combat games to fund Lex Luthor's machinations for reuniting with Brainiac. BC and Huntress have their work cut out for them trying to get the mind control devices off of their teammates, but once they do, the real fun begins as Roulette reveals the next contestant: Wonder Woman. It's all the four women can do to keep their heads attached as the League's number one warrior barrels into them like a female god of war. By the time Huntress and Black Canary shut down the mind control signal, Wonder Woman was a split second from smashing Vixen and Hawkgirl's skulls together.
• Super Friends: In "The Mind Maidens" Wonder Woman and Jayna end up brainwashed and fighting against the good guys.
• In Superman: The Animated Series, Superman is brainwashed by Granny Goodness and Darkseid. Once he comes to, he is not happy.
• Teen Titans (2003): Brother Blood brainwashed the Teen Titans East (Aqualad, Mas and Menos, Speedy and Bumblebee), and he plans on using them to destroy Cyborg and/or turn them into his new H.I.V.E. academy students. It was so well-done that they used to provide the picture above.
• In Young Justice (2010), this happens to the entire Justice League in the Season 1 finale. The Team assumes its brainwashing initially, until its revealed to be more like a puppet-master controlling them; giving an advantage to the heroes, because the mind-controlled have to wait for instructions to do anything.
  • A more traditional case would be Red Arrow who had specific subconscious commands plugged in. The same fate would have awaited Superboy if he hadn't been rescued in the first episode.
  • After being trapped in the Phantom Zone, Conner starts to suffer Zone Sickness, losing his memories and becoming a monotone, compliant follower of the House of Zod.

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