Doctor Thirteen
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Dr. Terrence Thirteen, known simply as Doctor Thirteen or Dr. 13, is a character set in the DC Universe. The character's first published appearance is in Star Spangled Comics #122, (November 1951).
Character biography
Dr. Thirteen is a parapsychologist who investigates reports of possible supernatural activity with the goal of proving them to be hoaxes.
Dr. Thirteen appeared in his own feature in Star Spangled Comics from issue #122 (November, 1951) through issue #130 (July, 1952). The character next appeared in Showcase #80 in 1969 as a supporting character in the Phantom Stranger story and then as a regular character in the Phantom Stranger series that began in 1969. Early issues feature a few new pages of story and art that frames reprints from the two characters' old stories.
Dr. Thirteen's stories are set in the DC Universe, in which many stories involving the supernatural also are set. In the limited series The Books of Magic, John Constantine explains to Timothy Hunter that because Dr. Thirteen does not believe, magic and the supernatural truly do not work for him. His daughter, Traci Thirteen, is a sorceress, a fact he finds most upsetting.[issue # needed]
In the first issue of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers limited series Zatanna, Dr. Thirteen is said to have been dating the title heroine. While exploring a mystical realm with Zatanna and others, he accepts what is happening but explains it in terms of physics, rather than magic. During this exploration, everyone else except Zatanna, including Dr. Thirteen are killed.
Post-Infinite Crisis, Dr. Thirteen lives with Traci in Doomsbury Mansion, still working as a paranormal investigator.[3] In the series Tales of the Unexpected, Dr. Thirteen unites with other characters from canceled series, including Genius Jones, I...Vampire, Anthro, the Primate Patrol, Infectious Lass, Captain Fear, and the Haunted Tank in a story that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall and comments on the then-current state of DC Comics and its continuity. Dr. Thirteen's group fights the Architects, the four writers who were heavily involved in the direction of the DC Universe titles — Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, and Mark Waid — to convince them to include them in the new Universe.
