Professor Carter Nichols

Professor Carter Nichols is a fictional character, a comic book scientist published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Batman #24 (August 1944), and was created by Joe Samachson and Dick Sprang.

Fictional character biography
His appearances nearly always involved some form of time travel, based around his particular specialty referred to as "time travel hypnosis", a process that simulated time travel; the stories themselves are less than clear on this respect. At some point, he develops a "Time-Ray Machine" which he used to both displace and track objects through time.

Professor Nichols was a useful character to lend some sci-fi "color" to Batman stories from the late 1940s to the 1960s where he made numerous appearances in the pages of both Batman and World's Finest Comics, when more conventional superhero tales were out of favor and most remaining books of the genre drifted into sci-fi and related genres.

In the mid-1970s the character was reintroduced in the comic book Superfriends continuity as a mentor for the Wonder Twins, who lived with him in their civil identities of John and Joanna Flemming.

He was depicted as an older man still assisting Bruce Wayne with his "time travel hypnosis" in The Brave and the Bold #171 (Feb. 1981), featuring Batman and Scalphunter in a team-up story written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by José Luis García-López.

In 2010, the character reappeared in Batman #700 and in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5, where the Black Glove (lead by the mysterious Doctor Simon Hurt) attempted to convince Carter to help aid them in a sacrifice to the bat-god Barbatos in exchange for funding for his time-travel experiments, only for Nichols to reject the offer when he refused to participate in the sacrifice.

Television

 * Professor Carter Nichols appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Last Bat on Earth!" voiced by Richard McGonagle. Gorilla Grodd forces him to transport him to Kamandi's time using a Time-Ray Machine. Carter later uses it to transport Batman there in order to stop him.