King Tut

Origin

King Tut used to be a mild mannered professor before he got a concussion and believed himself to be the Egyptian ruler, King Tut. He believes Gotham to be the 'Great Nile' and wants to rule it . King Tut normally uses Egyptian styled henchmen to do his bidding. He has ways of torturing his prisoners including the "pebble torture" . This is a torture were he has his victims trapped in Egyptian vases and makes them count pebbles for hours till the point it drives them insane.

Major Story Arcs

King Tut's Tomb

Victor Goodman was an Egyptologist who wanted King Tut’s Tomb to be an exhibit at the Gotham City Museum. However the Museum's Board felt it was too dangerous to have the exhibit at the museum because the Riddler has robbed the museum on several occasions. Goodman did not take this decision well because he felt the board was denying Gotham the chance to be educated as well as enlightened.

It was Victor's theory that King Tut did indeed believe in Aten but his advisers put pressure on him to disband the worship of Aten. Victor believes King Tut was murdered by his own advisers and priests because they feared the king would retaliate. Most scholars have discredited Victor’s theory because they agree that King Tut died of natural causes and he abolished the worship of Aten.

This presented the perfect opportunity for Leigh Carson, the museum’s curator, to embezzle the museums operating budget with Aaron Hayes, a board trustee in charge of acquisitions. Carson intended for the embezzlement to have a paper trail that will lead back to Victor. Victor was fired on the implication of embezzlement but Hayes’ reputation was tarnished because the museum director Earl Rondeau started to investigate Hayes' supposed involvement with Goodman.

After being let go from the Museum, Goodman suffered a psychotic break which caused him to believe in Tut's devotion to Aten thus transforming him into the embodiment of King Tut. As the avatar of King Tut, Goodman took his revenge on Rondeau, the man who fired him. Rondeau was trying to analyze the paper trail that implicated Goodman in the embezzlement until he was confronted by Goodman who was dressed as King Tut. Goodman is forced to recite a riddle from king Tut’s hymn to Aten. The riddle describes something that allows you to see yet you cannot gaze upon it and even when you cannot see its presence is always felt. After telling the riddle, Goodman assaults Rondeau by gouging out his eyes.

The police respond after receiving a call from Rondeau’s neighbor. Rondeau recites the riddle to Commissioner Gordon. Automatically, Batman and Gordon assume that the Riddler is involved with the attack on Rondeau. Batman and Gordon go to Arkham to interrogate Edward Nygma. The Riddler quickly pointed out that their riddling villain would have called himself The Sphinx instead of the boy-pharaoh. Riddler also exclaimed that King Tut had no interest in riddles which clued Batman in that Tut's riddle motif is just a smokescreen to camouflage his motivations.

Meanwhile, Hayes overhears what happened to Rondeau and drives to Carson's home to warn her.

Bizarro

In the first "solo"* series of supermans twisted clone, Tut is an unsuccessful used car salesman, who is given the Staff of Ra, by aliens posing as his Egyptian Deities. It allows him to force people to buy his cars and his daughter to do his bidding.

*Jimmy Olsen is the co-star.

Other Media

Batman 1960 TV Series

King Tut first made his appearance in Batman lore as one of the many guest star villains that appeared in the 1960s Adam West Batman series. Portrayed by portly comedic actor Victor Buono, King Tut was billed as a gentle, much-beloved professor of Egyptology at Yale University named William Omaha McElroy. Considering that Yale continued to employ Professor McElroy regardless of how many times he turned into the villain King Tut, he must have been an extraordinary teacher and researcher. On the other hand, despite the fact he was a professor at Yale, he always confined his arch-criminal activities as King Tut to Gotham City instead and never once endangered Yale itself nor his home state of Connecticut. Although he lacked conventional good looks, he was said to inspire crushes from a number of his students, something which befuddled him when he was Professor McElroy and alternately delighted him and annoyed him when he was King Tut.

After suffering a blow to the head during a peace rally turned violent, the professor would take on the moniker of the famous Egyptian king. Most episodes would resolve themselves by Tut receiving another blow to the head and him reverting back to his meek professorial self. No matter what precautions his meek self would take, he always would get a bonk on the head, and he would always revert to normal at the end deeply ashamed of what just happened. Of all the villains in the 60's show, King Tut was the only one who was genuinely not responsible for his actions and therefore one of the few that one could sympathize with.

In several episodes, King Tut would also be one of the few villains over the course of the series to uncover Batman and Robin's secret identity, but would be foiled again by being hit in the head and forgetting his time as King Tut, or by one of the convenient deus ex machinas the series was famous for, usually involving Batman and Robin dummies, Alfred in a Batman costume, or a remote controlled Batmobile. This made King Tut arguably the most formidable foe the Dynamic Duo faced over the course of the 120 episode run of the series.

King Tut was featured as the primary villain in eight episodes including the series' 100th episode "The Unkindest Tut of All". This made Tut the most featured villain of the series who was not considered part of the "main four" ( Catwoman, Penguin, Joker, and Riddler) starring in the 1966 full-length feature film. The Joker was featured the most with 18 (all played by Cesar Romero), followed by Penguin at 17 (Burgess Meredith), Catwoman at 15 (12 by Julie Newmar, 3 by Eartha Kitt), and the Riddler at 11 (9 by Frank Gorshin, 2 by John Astin). The famous "Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel" dual episode storylines were scrapped in the third season for more traditional one shots (hence odd numbers for Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman). King Tut was featured in two episodes in Season 1, four in Season 2, and then two more one-shot episodes in Season 3 before the series cancellation by ABC at the end of Season 3.

Batman: the Brave and the Bold

A TV series version of King Tut, appears in Batman the Brave and the Bold voiced by John DiMaggio. Due to FOX holding the rights to the King Tut name, the character was renamed Pharaoh. He first appearance in episode ''Day of the Dark Knight!'' as an inmate at Iron Heights Penitentiary. He along with other Batman-villains were defeated by Batman and Green Arrow. He later makes cameo appearances in "Night of Huntress" as an inmate at Blackgate Penitentiary and "Mayhem Of The Music Meister". He later appears in "Battle of the Superheroes!", where Batman and Robin wear special mummified suits in order to fight Pharaoh when he uses a special staff to turn people into zombies that obey his every command. The wrappings are coated in buttermilk, another reference to the live-action Batman series.