![](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhlpGQaH9rEIjD4U4_Csz88FGrqkQNB9CsvH2n_TTpA_oDOCZWMX1rIimJrhP-klsmQ5HLaWcV4gFA23o8rXEH-nQB_upvImIoIwl_10TRs5dUWntbu83UTqZ4kf0-L7D6EB8jV-LapDXMe2qrNaReRBZQo9wpW6d4KP5hcd6xJxU95krJZNCVxRUiHbQ\/w640-h450\/232.%20thought%20terror%20flash%204%201940%20a.JPG\" "\\"the")
<\/a><\/div>\nI have complicated feelings about the Thought Terror! He has both good and bad traits! <\/p>\n
Off the bat, the basics. His costume choice is pretty entry level for the Golden Age, but suitable for a guy who employs eye-based super-powers (which he does) and wants to project a certain aura of fear. <\/p>\n
His name, by contrast, is both unusual and bad, and made all the worse for the fact that it’s almost<\/i> good. Terror is usually a decent word to use in a name but it just doesn’t have the gravitas to work with a mealy word like Thought. The Thought Tyrant, the Thought Titan, the Thinking Terror… there had to be a better name.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But maybe a poorly thought-out name is appropriate for this guy, because he’s not a very good planner in general. See, he has these amazing hypnotic powers, and he uses them to convince a little cult of people that he has amazing precognitive<\/i> powers. He tells fortunes at a hundred bucks a pop and then fulfils them by planting hypnotic suggestions in his subjects’ minds, causing them to act out his predictions.<\/p>\n Ordinarily, I’d be cheering for this guy – the thing that thinking a lot about super-villains does is give you a lot of opinions about how they should all just stick to easy small-scale scores and that’s what this is – but TT must be getting bored, because he’s making predictions like “you’re going to get drunk and wander into traffic,” and if you’re running a cult <\/i>complete with costumed goons<\/i> in New York City<\/i> in a SUPER-HERO UNIVERSE<\/i> the thing you absolutely do not want to do is draw attention to yourself by, for instance, killing someone.<\/p>\n (this does of course happen – Hawkman shows up and ruins the whole operation, including the Thought Terror’s mind)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n