Thinker

THINKER

Real Name: Unrevealed

Class: Human technology-user

Occupation: Professional criminal

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Gotham City, Earth-2

First Appearance: Batman I #52 (April, 1949)

Powers: Thinker was a brilliant criminal mastermind with an enlarged cranium. He used an early version of computers known as thinking machines to plan out his crimes and sort intel.

History: (Batman I #52) - The Thinker was a criminal mastermind who used electronic thinking machines to plan all his crimes. He kept his thinking machines in giant busts of other thinkers from history he admired, including Edgar Allan Poe and Lucrezia Poe. Batman and Robin started interfering in his gang’s activities, so he set his thinking machines to work to uncover Batman’s secret identity. Thinker shot one of his goons for committing a blunder the dying man wanted to speak to Batman, telling him about Thinker’s attempts to reveal his true identity. Batman decided to circumvent Thinker’s scheme by faking Bruce Wayne’s death. Bruce Wayne attended a yacht party aboard the Carolina, with his butler Alfred serving the guests and Vicki Vale taking pictures for her picture magazine. Alfred pushed a mannequin duplicate of Bruce overboard and Vicki snapped a picture of “Bruce” falling with Alfred in the frame. Detective Joe Mulligan suspected Alfred of murder and had him locked up. Batman and Robin made a number of public appearances to dissuade Thinker’s machines from connecting Batman to Bruce, and Batman disguised himself to visit Alfred in the guise of a lawyer, promising he’d get him free. Several of Thinker’s incarcerated gang members chatted up Alfred, impressed that he’d rubbed out his boss, and invited him into Thinker’s gang. Thinker broke his men out and Batman and Robin followed the breakout from the Batplane, discovering Thinker’s hidden mountain lair. Alfred threw a wrench into Thinker’s thinking machines, so their final calculation was that Alfred was Batman’s secret identity. Batman and Robin arrived to lay into Thinker and his gang, using the giant typewriter Thinker used to communicate with his thinking machines against the villains. With Thinker and his gang behind bars Bruce Wayne showed up alive on a remote island, clearing Alfred of his murder.

Comments: Created by Bill Finger & Bob Kane.

Batman fought a foe of similar appearance named the Thinker in Detective Comics I #125, but he is most likely not the same Thinker that appears in Batman I #52 because he was confined to a wheelchair and died at the end of the story. Could they be related in some way? Who knows, no one is going to write a story connecting obscure Earth-2 Batman villains in this day in age. I miss Roy Thomas.