The most modern villain to terrorize Batwoman’s Gotham City is Laszlo Valentin, better known as Professor Pig. He takes Ryan Wilder and his family hostage while wearing his iconic pig mask. Still, his story and motifs in the series are very different from the comic version.
In the comics, Professor Pyg is a troubled scientist who leads a Circus of Strange team. After being recruited by the Black Glove team, he and his team arrive in Gotham City and begin kidnapping people for surgery. Pyg’s final goal is to build an army of “perfect” disabled minions called Dollotrons.
The Batwoman version of Professor Pyg is first introduced as a chef coming from Metropolis to make dinner for Ryan, Jada, and the Marquis. Although he looks like a regular chef at first, his madness shows up when he starts talking to a pig’s head he is cooking. Later in the evening, Pyg revealed after killing the Marquis’ date and poisoning Ryan and the Jets.
Pyg takes off his mask and reveals his story: a former Igeturian boss who was fired without warning, triggering a spiral in his life that included the divorce from his wife and the kidnapping of their children. Since then, he has developed an obsession with Jada and has organized events to kill her and her family.
Ryan stabs Professor Pyg in the leg, and the family manages to escape into one of Jada’s safes, but the mad batman begins to build a bomb to blow up the house. He later manages to catch Ryan after leaving the safe to get some insulin for the Marquis. This leads to a confrontation between Pyg and the Jets, which brutally stab evil with the awning.
Pyg’s death in that episode seems to disprove theories that he was a member of Batwoman’s Black Glove. However, the ending of “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” reveals that Flamingo, a member of Pigs Circus of Strange, has started a wave of murders, making it look like Pigs madness will continue despite his brutal death.
