Charles Halstead is a supervillain and an enemy of the Justice Society of America. He is also a major character in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Physical Appearance[]
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Biography[]
Early Life[]
He was born to two rich British parents in 1912, he had a fascination of pirates and had the power to feel other emotions. This caused him distraught when his parents quarrel or when dealing with other children.
One day, they sent him away to a boarding school in Bavaria where he orchastrised and bullied by his peers and teachers. However, his time in the boarding school made him discover his emotional powers where he manipulate a classmate to kill another and to humiliate a student to take off his pants. Using the powers, he took control of the entire boarding school where he killed all the teachers and brainwash the students. The police was sent to investigate only to be horrified by Charles' actions.
Manipulating Aquaman[]
He later escape captivity and manipulate the Kriegsmarine so he become his life long dream, a pirate. He had raided and destroyed many allied ship by disguising as a merchant ship. He uses his powers on the enemy crew to cheer for Germany to boost morale. However, his ship was caught in the storm and sank to the ocean. He uses his powers to drown the remaining survivors in the rescue boat, leaving him as the sole survivor.
Charles Halstead was once a pirate and smuggler operating on the oceans until a storm came down that destroyed his ship. Luckily for him, he was saved from drowning by Aquaman and the Atlanteans. Halstead decided to exploit this opportunity by using his powers of mind control to brainwash Aquaman and become his advisor.
World War II[]
Halstead would proceed to ally with the Nazis during World War II and discovered that the U.S.A had a superpowered team known as the Justice Society that could tip the scales of the war in the Allies favor. Therefore, he sent an encoded message detailing the location of Atlantis as a trap to bait the Justice Society into retrieving the message from German forces and decoding it to travel to Atlantis. Upon their arrival, he put up a facade long enough for him to have Aquaman lead the Justice Society into a trap, imprisoning them all within a shield of Atlantean magic. Halstead revealed his true backstory to the Justice Society before leaving. He quickly reinforced his control on Aquaman when he was trying to break free and unveiled his true motives of helping the Nazis win the war only to exterminate both sides once they were weak from all the fighting, sending an Atlantean force with the Nazis to launch a surprise attack on the East Coast of the United States while going with Aquaman to unlock the deadly creature of the Trench.
Just as he was about to make Aquaman unlock the Trench, however, Earth-1 Flash and Wonder Woman arrived to stop them. Wonder Woman attacked him, but he brainwashed her into going into a violent frenzy. He then successfully made Aquaman open the Trench and escaped with the monster that was released from it.
As the first wave of the Atlantean attack on the East Coast was eventually foiled by Hawkman, Black Canary, and Earth-2 Flash, Halstead and Aquaman appeared with the gigantic Trench monster with Halstead goading Aquaman into using the monster to destroy America before they supposedly destroyed Atlantis and sending smaller monsters further into the coast. Hawkman was killed by one of Halstead’s monsters while saving Black Canary. Shortly after, Wonder Woman swiftly knocked Aquaman off the Trench monster. After Wonder Woman destroyed Aquaman’s trident, knocking him out of Halstead’s control, and he departed with the Trench monster back to the sea, Halstead appeared to mock Steve Trevor for thinking this meant they had won, revealing he had brought a Nazi bombing squadron that would do the job instead and while Steve was distracted in horror at the sight, Halstead stabbed him through the chest with the upper portion of Aquaman’s staff, mortally wounding him.
Although Superman is able to stop the bombings, Halstead disappeared in the chaos without a trace and is still currently at large.
Attempts Around the Multiverse[]
Using Doctor Fate's powers, he has been using to attempt to conquer Earth multiple realities. One of which where he disguised himself as Doctor Spectro. He uses his power to manipulate the Squids to bolster their performance to steal a diamond for his machine to make the world sad so he conquer the world. He also spike the Zortz soda to easily manipulate the citizen who drink them which also made two heroes, Nightshade and Captain Atom under his spell. Blue Bettle and the Question managed to solve the mystery and confront Doctor Spectro. Although his machine works, the Question (by denying emotions is real) punch him and destroy the machine. However, he escape to another universe once more.
Crisis on Infinite Earths[]
In the latest reality as he look his upcoming doom, the Harbinger came and warn him on the infinite realities destroyed and Psycho Pirate is important in the Monitor task to stop the crisis. He arrived along with the other people and used the costume device to create his 'Psycho Pirate' costume.
He is tasked to use his power in order to calm the minds of the Earths' people of the crisis, he have been offered additional power from the Monitor for sufficient task. He believe that he serve the Monitor as the sole solution. He was briefly confronted by Blue Beatle on his true nature, although Psycho Pirate manages to dissolve the situation by using his power. However, he was taken by an unknown being which Pirate dubbed him as 'Anti-Monitor' (upon enraged on compared to Monitor). The Anti-Monitor offered an alternative to Psycho Pirate, instead of helping Monitor to preserve the realities, he help Anti-Monitor to destroy the realities, in exchange of a new universe to rule over.
Psycho Pirate uses his boosted powers to sabotage the heroes' defenses by manipulating their dark emotions, he even manipulate Supergirl's emotions by suggesting that Monitor is responsible for her homeworld destruction along with her deep resentment on Monitor. This led to destruction of several Earths and death of Monitor at the hands of Supergirl. However, Monitor's death had transported the remaining Earths to the a dimension between realities, The Bleed.
Psycho Pirate is later captured by Luthor of Earth 10 and tortured for information. He was forced to act as an communicator to Anti-Monitor for Luthor, giving the coordinates of the Bleed for the Anti-Monitor to enter and supposed deal to spare Earth-10. He was later asked by Martian Manhunter (possessing the interrogator) to link the minds of everyone on reality of hope to power up Warworld's cannon. As the remaining realities are destroyed with Earth-10 next, Psycho Pirate is left broken in his cell, enjoying the peace of mind as he is eradicated by the antimatter.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Emotion Detection: The ability to sense emotions in one's vicinity. Charles describes himself as an emotion reader, a hyper empath. [1]
- Emotion Augmentation: The power to augment the emotions of others. Charles can augment any emotions of others, increasing the existing emotions (no matter how small), and affecting others' control over their actions. However this seems to work better on negative emotions, like anger and hatred, as he says compassion and caring are too complex to amplify. [2]
- Mind Control: Charles can control the minds of others. His control seems a trance-like state very similar to hypnosis, to the target being completely subject to his control. [3]
- Interdimensional Travel (Doctor Fate given): The ability to travel between realities. Invoking Fate's ankh, he can can travel to alternate universe/other earths. [4]
Appearances[]
| Appearances | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
Justice Society: World War II | Appears |
| Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 1 | Appears | |
| Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 2 | Appears | |
Gallery[]
.webp "Advisor (Earth-2).webp (31 KB)")
Trivia[]
- He is the only one who didn't have a choice to be reborn in the Mono-universe; due to being turned into a drooling vegetable by Lex Luthor.