This Villainous Benchmark was Headlined on June 2025.
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“
Bad... bad... bad... Pyg is like clay! Pyg is like God! Pyg is here to fix us all.
„
~ Professor Pyg
Lazlo Valentin, also known as Professor Pyg, is a minor antagonist of the 2015 videogame Batman: Arkham Knight, being the main antagonist of the Most Wanted mission The Perfect Crime.
He is the deranged leader of the Circus of Strange, who is responsible for the kidnapping of several people who went where the circus performed. He then experimented on the captured victims, turning them in mindless and borderline undead beings known as "dollotrons". Pyg only changed those who he considered "perfect", killing everyone else and leaving their lifeless bodies all around Gotham, who were eventually discovered and investigated by Batman.
For years, he became the ringmaster of the Circus of Strange, touring across the world and abducting many people for torturing, mutilating, and killing them, as a mean to make them "perfect". Those he "perfected" would become dollotrons, undead and mindless creatures. He'd remove their organs to prevent from feeling or thinking, putting them into permanent states worse than death. What makes it even worse is that he was targeting people of all ages, which means he did the same process to children.
Those he failed to perfect would be simply killed and left behind.
After arriving in Gotham, he kidnapped a young child named Janosz and either killed him or turned him into a dollotron.
Turned the son of a rich man named O'Neil into a dollotron, and when the latter offered him money, he sent his dollotrons (including O'Neil's son) to attack and prep him for surgery.
He killed 6 people throughout Arkham Knight, exposing their corpses with loud opera music, because he was unable to "perfect" them.
When Batman confronted and tried to stop him, he sent his dollotrons to attack him and then tried to kill Batman himself by throwing surgery knives at him.
Pyg's psychosis is so severe that he genuinely sees himself as God when he "fixed" his victims.
He's kidnapped dozens of people across Gotham and locked them up into cages, and planned on "perfecting" them as well hadn't Batman stopped him.
He is by far the creepiest and most disturbing serial-killer in the Arkham series, even disgusting Joker, a Pure Evil villain (although he was probably just being hypocritical), saying he's "sicker than him and Harley's honeymoon tapes". Batman even states that Pyg is too insane to ever rehabilitate, wanting to throw him in jail for the rest of his life. Even the other Rogues are annoyed and disturbed by his actions and personality, with Two-Face’s evil personality calling him a sick freak, and a religious fanatic like Joseph Blackfire thinking that Pyg emerged from the pits of hell itself. Riddler states how insane he is, and he's Pure Evil. (Although this was just him being hypocritical and egotistical since he feels that his ego is hurt by being locked up with people like Pyg).
His exhibit in the Batman museum in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League proves that despite being locked away for five years, Pyg is still remembered for all the disturbing and horrifying crimes that he's committed.
Why He Doesn’t Stand Out?[]
While his actions of maiming dozens and knowingly killing at least 6 people easily made him pass the baseline, he didn't seem to know he was killing people and believed he was "fixing" them, lessening the heinousness of the actions.
His moral agency is far too messed up for him to be qualify as NPE, as he seems to have strong mental disorder and schizophrenia, thinking of himself as no one but "Pyg" and also wants to "fix" everyone for delusional reasons of his mother being proud of him. He also compares himself to clay and God and constantly groans and acts like a pig.
He genuinely loves his mother despite her abuse and wants to make her proud of him by "fixing" everyone.
He is tragic, as he was severely abused and berated by his parents which lead to him wanting to make everyone "perfect".
He is a well-intentioned extremist, as he thinks that by turning people into dollotrons he is saving them and making them "perfect".
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