  dr. terrance thirteen (his name sometimes became corrupted to the more common "terrence"), known simply as doctor thirteen or dr. 13, is a fictional character in comic books set in the dc universe. the character's first published appearance is in star spangled comics #122, (november 1951). ==fictional character biography== ===pre-crisis=== dr. thirteen is a parapsychologist who investigates reports of possible supernatural activity with the goal of proving them to be hoaxes. dr. thirteen's stories are set in the dc universe, where many stories involving the supernatural also are set. he was usually accompanied by his wife, maria, sometimes called marie. dr. thirteen debuted in his own feature within the pages of star spangled comics, from issue #122 (november, 1951) through issue #130 (july, 1952). the feature then moved to house of mystery and was canceled after issue #7.paul levitz. the golden age of dc comics taschen, 2012, pp. 374-375. in his origin story, as presented in showcase #80, terrence's [sic--the spelling varied, but was spelled with an e in the first story] father tries to hide his ancestry from him, but eventually went into a locked room showing the history of his ancestors, many of whom were executed for practicing magic, such as daniel, who was killed by the ancient romans for diagramming the solar system, and rebecca, who was executed during the salem witch trials when she was actually developing anesthesia. terry and his unnamed father enter into a pact to prove that the supernatural is false by determining things that mr. thirteen will say to terry by the grandfather clock on the year anniversary of his death. mr. thirteen is then killed in a road accident three months later. on the first anniversary of his father's death, terry asks the questions and gets no response, then remembers that he was supposed to set the clock before asking the questions. at this 
Comics_characters_introduced_in_1951 DC_Comics_characters DC_Comics_fantasy_characters DC_Comics_superheroes DC_Comics_titles Fictional_detectives Fictional_parapsychologists Fictional_scientists