Toyman

The Toyman is a villain of the DC Universe and is primarily an enemy of the superhero Superman. Though there have been many incarnations of the character, a common thread between them all is that they possess a genius intellect for creating all sorts of inventions (most of which are dangerous) and an obsession with toys. One version even briefly became an ally of Superman, building him a robot to fly into space to destroy a meteor heading for Earth.

Winslow Schott

Toyman
Real Name	Winslow Schott
First Appearance	Action Comics (Vol. 1) #64 (September, 1943)
Creators	Don Cameron, Ed Dobrotka
Team Affliations	The Superman Revenge Squad, The Society, the Injustice League, Super Foes
Aliases	None
Base of Operations	Metropolis
Powers	None
Skills and Abilities	Brilliant Inventor and Engineer, Scientific Genius
Tools and Weapons	Countless Lethal or Dangerous Toys

Toyman (Winslow P. Schott) was a supervillain and thief who used super-powered toys to commit robberies and is an enemy of Superman.

Origin

A toymaker who turned to a life of crime, Winslow Schott learned to use his innovative toy designs to make deadly weapons.

Golden/Silver Age

Even as a child, Winslow was a talented toymaker, creating a red and blue balsa-wood airplane that he was very proud of. Unfortunately for Winslow, the neighborhood bully Chester Y. Dunholtz stole the plane from him, which had a big effect on Schott and seeing the advantages of theft combined with the pain of being bullied, may have been what inspired him to take on the identity of the Toyman. When he grew up, he demonstrated his talent for toymaking, even being able to develop a Superman toy capable of flying, which caught the eye of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

The Toyman first encountered Superman while going on a crime spree with his custom designed toys. He sent letters to reporter Lois Lane so that she would be present for each crime. In his first job, he robbed a bank with toy soldiers and a super-powered pogo stick and on his second, he created a toy firetruck that sent a millionaire's penhouse on fire, which allowed him to rob it in the chaos he created. Though the Toyman was able to outwit the authorities for the first two jobs, he found himself thwarted by Superman on his third robbery. Shortly afterwards, the Toyman kidnapped Lois Lane and was about to murder her with poisoned dolls when Superman arrives, saves Lois and gets Toyman sent to prison.

He became a recurring and tenacious enemy of Superman, often teaming up with the Prankster and even Lex Luthor in order to get the best of Superman, but always failed. Eventually, he decided to go straight and give up on crime. After a new Toyman named Jack Nimball emerged, Schott decided to help Superman fight this new villain who was using his old identity to commit crime, due to the fact that he was angered that someone was stealing his old modus operandi. Later, Bizarro ruined an inventor's exhibition that he was participating in and believing it was Superman who ruined the affair, he vowed revenge, even killing Jack Nimball with a toy bird.

Later, Schott plotted against his own childhood bully, Chester Dunholtz, in an effort to regain his favorite childhood toy. However, after his defeat, he learned his beloved childhood toy was long destroyed by time and poor care. His last caper prior involved trying to kill a man named H. H. Harmon, who had purchased all the rights to his toys. He spent the rest of his time in jail until the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, at which point his history was rewritten.

Post-Crisis

The Toyman after the Crisis on Infinite Earths

Like in the last incarnation, Winslow, as a young boy living in Britain, had a knack for inventing toys, first making a small red and blue toy airplane, which was quickly stolen by another boy. This action stuck with Schott and made him realize that crime could pay. When he grew up he became the owner and founder of the Schott's Toys toy company. Winslow's only goal was to make the best mechanical toys he could with his wife, whom he loved very much. He was later approached by a man named Walter Dunhill (who worked for LexCorps, a company owned by the billionaire Lex Luthor) who had a business proposition that promised to make "bring happiness to millions of children all over the world" that his wife convinced him to decline. Three weeks after Schott turned down the offer, his wife was killed in a car accident, prompting Schott to accept Dunhill's offer. He later learned that his toy designs were being repurposed and weaponized and that his company has been taken over. Dunhill told Schott that legally who couldn't undo the deal and to simply accept a generous retirement package. Soon after, Schott murdered Dunhill with an exploding teddy bear.

Winslow then took on the identity of The Toyman and attempted to assassinate Lex Luthor with lethal toys, until he was defeated by Superman. Toyman was arrested, but later freed by Intergang, a group of Metropolis' most technologically advanced criminals, in order to build traps into their lair.

Toyman was soon arrested and some time later, escaped prison and prompted by a voice in his head (that he identified as his mother) he began abducting children, including Adam Grant, the son of Cat Grant, a colleague of Clark Kent. Superman eventually caught him and brought him to justice, but not before he murdered the children he kidnapped and dumped their bodies in an alley in Suicide Slum. Cat Grant considered murdering him in retaliation but in the end decided against it. She did, at a later date, attempt to gain some into why Schott became a child murderer, and Schott claimed that it was the children's fault.

Following his arrest when working with Intergang again, Schott was approached by a toy company who wanted to make a Superman toy line and wanted his permission to make a Toyman toy. However, Schott is enraged to find his toys are extremely unpopular and escaped from prison to kill to the head of the toy company, which he did. Afterwards, he began to hear the voice of his mother telling him to take revenge on the children.

Toyman would go onto team up with the villainous Cyborg Superman, which resulted in Superman being split into two energy based entities for a time. After Toyman was defeated once more, Superman worked toward getting the Toyman rehabilitated, and even began making toys for disadvantaged children.

Hoping to help with his sanity, the superheroine Zatanna visited the Toyman and used her magic powers in an attempt to heal his mind. Unfortunately, it made his madness worse, resulting in him kidnapping a number of children. Zatanna was able to clear his mind with Superman's help, but unfortunately the building they were in collapsed, seemingly killing the Toyman, though no body was found.

The Toyman reappeared later, kidnapping Jimmy Olsen in an attempt to convince him and the world that the killing of children was not, in fact, done by him but rather a perfect robot duplicate he created to take his place in jail. However, the Toyman also shows evidence that he might not have all his mental faculties (identifying Jimmy Olsen as 16 years old when he's 22 years old) and is promptly arrested by Batman and Superman and sent to Arkham Asylum, leaving his claims that he never killed children uncertain.

A villain named Anton Schott, who called himself the Dollmaker, claimed to be Winslow Schott's illegitimate child, though this claim has yet to be proven.

Rebirth

The Toyman returned to attack Coast City but was defeated by Superman once again and when pressed as to why he committed his crime, he sheepishly claimed that it seemed like a "good idea at the time."  Toyman is also seen having joined Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom.

Personality

In different eras, the Toyman's personality seems to alter and change.

Golden Age

In the Golden Age, Winslow was initially seen as being completely immoral and had no hesitation to murder those who stood in his way. However, it wasn't long before the Toyman was more of a nuisance than a threat, coming up with crimes and toys with little focus on actually hurting his victims.

Silver Age (Earth-One)

Like the Golden Age incarnation, Winslow in the Silver Age is also immoral and murderous, and though many of his plots involved theft, others involved getting revenge on those he felt wronged him.

Post-Crisis

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Toyman re-emerged much like his previous personality, looking for revenge against those who wronged him.  He was also interested in the welfare of children and despite his criminal tendencies, sincerely wanted to bring joy to them, such as when he was tricked into making a theme park for a villain under the auspices of making something children would enjoy.  For reasons unknown, he later went mad and became a child killer, and developed a much more deranged, sinister personality.

Skills and Abilities

Genius Level Intellect - Winslow Schott is super-intelligent, which he's put towards becoming an expert with machines of all kinds.

Mechanical Aptitude - Schott's particular genius is in constructing brilliant mechanical toys, most of which are dangerous and deadly or very useful in completing whatever plot he is involved with.

Robotic Engineering - Later incarnations of the character present Schott as being capable to create robots so sophisticated that they look and act human. Some robots have even appeared to be sentient in some later cases.

Media

• Appears in DC Animated Universe.

• The Winslow Schott Toyman appeared in Supergirl, portrayed by Henry Czerny. He makes his first appearance in the episode "Childish Things". More than a decade prior to the series, Winslow Schott tried to kill his boss, Chester Dunholz, with a bomb disguised as a gift for supposedly stealing his projects. Dunholz survived, but six innocents were killed instead. After learning what happened, his son Winslow "Winn" Schott Jr. (portrayed by Jeremy Jordan) never forgave him for giving in to his rage. After Schott escaped from prison in the present, he attempted to kill Dunholz again, with Winn by his side after he forced him to join, before ultimately being apprehended by Supergirl. In the episode "Schott Through the Heart," Schott passed away, but his funeral is disrupted by a bomb in his casket. In the episode "Back from the Future" Pt. 2, Winn encountered a digital conscious of his father, who begged his son to let him help stop a villainous doppelganger of Winn. He reluctantly allowed him to help. Once Winn entered the code to stop his evil counterpart, both Schott and the alternate Winn's consciousnesses are deleted.
• The two-part episode "Back from the Future" featured an alternate version of Winn Schott Jr. (also portrayed by Jordan) from an unnamed alternative reality who took on the mantle of Toyman following his father's death and shared his vendetta with Dunholz. After he was freed from a prison transport by Brainiac 5 on Lex Luthor's behalf, this Toyman attempted to frame Winn for terrorism in the future by killing Andrea Rojas with robotic white tigers. While Supergirl and the DEO fought off the tigers, Winn confronted his villainous counterpart. Toyman was killed when he activated the dead man switch to a bomb he made, but he used Obsidian Tech lenses to upload himself into the D.E.O.'s computers at the last minute in order to invade the internet. With help from a digital copy of his dad's conscious, Winn hacked the system and deleted both of the Toymen's consciousnesses. As he had joined the Legion by this time, Winn changed his legionnaire codename from "Computer Boy" to "Toyman" in his father's memory and to do good in "Toyman's" name.

Hiro Okamura

Hiro Okamura is a teenage mechanical genius from Japan first appearing as Toyman in Superman vol. 2, #177 (February 2002) by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. He shows up in Metropolis in a giant Super Robot fighting Metallo, claiming the cyborg's equally-giant body was based on material stolen from his grandfather.

He later becomes an ally to Superman and Batman. In the Superman/Batman series, he aids the two in destroying a kryptonite meteor that threatens the Earth. He strikes a deal with Batman to provide him with various technological implements (Superman/Batman #7). Okamura uses more technologically advanced devices than the traditionally-constructed contrivances Schott uses and his work is largely whimsical in nature. Many of his inventions are inspired by anime and manga, including giant mecha (notably his giant Composite Batman-Superman robot).

Okamura appears only a few times in the Superman/Batman comic book, and his activities are limited to Japan. Winslow Schott remains active as the Toyman in the United States. In the Sam Loeb-penned memorial issue Superman/Batman #26, Okamura fakes his own kidnapping at the hands of Schott, forcing Superboy and Robin to search through his complex to save his life. Realizing his loneliness, Superboy and Robin extend their friendship to the boy. Okamura joins Robin and the other Teen Titans at Titans Tower for Superboy's funeral, clutching a Superboy action figure.

In Superman/Batman #45, he offers to assist the duo in their quest to rid the world of Kryptonite, using spider-like nanobots to collect Kryptonite molecules in the air. His offer becomes a necessity as Lana Lang, in a last-ditch effort to get rid of Kryptonians and keep LexCorp afloat, turns a set of Kryptonite caches into "dirty bombs", which irradiate the entire planet. Hiro comes to the rescue, settling for a Power Girl-bot to "date". Instead, he gets his dream date, a dinner in Paris with the real Karen, and the status of honorary member of the Justice League.

Media

Appears in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.