| Hugo Strange | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Name |
Hugo Strange |
|
First Appearance |
Batman: Arkham City Detective Comics #38, 1940 |
|
Affiliations |
Quincy Sharp |
|
Alignement |
Evil |
Biography[]
Hugo's appearance in Batman: Arkham Asylum
First gaining fame as a psychiatrist who declared that he'd fully analyzed the Dark Knight from afar, Professor Hugo Strange lent credence to his own claims by deducing Batman's true identity as Bruce Wayne. However, his interest in the Batman turned into a deranged obsession and he's used his medical expertise to hatch a series of bizarre plots based around genetics and mind control in order to defeat Batman and possible take his place. Strange's fragile mental state has left him with intermittent knowledge of Batman's true identity a fact that hangs over Bruce Wayne's head--for if Strange ever snaps completely, Batman's greatest secret might be revealed.
Attributes[]
- Trained to physical perfection.
- Brilliant psychological analyst.
- Extensive knowledge of genetics.
- Obsessed with Batman and Batman's Secret identity.
- Plagued by schizophrenic episodes that leave him confused and dangerous
Batman: Arkham Asylum[]
Hugo Strange is an unknown and relatively new player to Gotham City. Although he is a licensed psychiatrist, little else is known about his origins and Strange has been shrouded in mystery for years. Working at Arkham Asylum, Strange was a power-hungry madman with disillusions of godhood, using the facility to perform experiments on everyone residing there; patients, nurses, professors, and security personnel in order to unlock the inner workings of the mind to ultimately control it. Early on in his career, he became obsessed with Batman after learning that almost every one of his patients of Arkham were either brought in by Batman or were obsessed with him themselves, and dedicated his life to finding out more about Gotham City's greatest protector. The more Strange researched Batman, the more he believed that the Dark Knight was a plague on the city rather than a savior, believing that his very presence is the cause of all the criminal escalation over the years. He began to believe that he himself could be a more worthy mantle to the legend that Batman has acquired over the years and eliminate all the criminals plaguing the city to obtain absolute fame and prestige.
Apparently spending years intensifying his studies on Batman, Strange also became intrigued with Batman's perfect code of justice-no one dies by his hand. His longing to become the Dark Knight became an obsession, desiring to inherit the legend of such a crime-fighter and use to obtain his own lusts and desires. To this end, Strange, working alone, used a series of complicated psychological profiling techniques to identify the man behind the cowl of Gotham's Dark Knight; billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. After successfully deducing the identity of Batman, Strange planned to become both rich and famous from his deduction by selling the secret identity to the highest bidder in the criminal underworld. While word spread throughout the criminal underworld about this "auction", Strange eventually saw a much bigger opportunity awaiting him, one that could promise him ultimate power, control, and immortality itself. Strange then had the auction cancelled and disappeared from the criminal underworld spotlight before anyone could act on his proposition.
Rather than simply using his secret deduction for money and fame, Strange planned to exploit this knowledge by slowly setting the stage in Gotham for the ultimate challenge: To first destroy Batman in a one-on-one chess game with his city as the board along with friend and foe as pawns, then to take over as the Caped Crusader himself and use the identity for his own purposes. The first item on Strange's agenda was to find benefactors for his plans and the person who held all the treasures and luxuries he desired. He would find both in one man; Ra's al Ghul, one of Batman oldest and greatest enemies who also knew of his identity.
Through extensive research, Strange was able to locate Ra's and told him all that he knew of Batman and how he wished to help in his plans and operations to rid the world of those that they saw as undesirable. Ra's, highly impressed with Strange's brilliant mind and fortitude, gives him the chance to prove himself a worthy successor to his mantle. If Strange could find the means to eliminate all crime in Gotham and defeat Batman, than Ra's would make him his successor, giving him complete control over the League of Assassins, his wealth, his business empires, and even the the powers of immortality itself through unlimited use of the Lazarus Pit. Strange gleefully agreed and immediately began making his plans to wipe out all crime in Gotham by staging an insidious conspiracy that would not only wipe out all criminals in Gotham, but hundreds and thousands of innocents as well. This conspiracy would later be known as Arkham City, which would lay out the foundations of Strange's ultimate desire for power and authority.
One of Strange's most pivotal pawns would eventually be chosen as none other than Warden Quincy Sharp, administrator of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, where most of Batman's Rogues Gallery were kept. Strange soon found Sharp to be the best kind of puppet: Established, old-fashioned, affluent, completely hollow, a blank easel fit for someone else to manipulate, and, perhaps best of all, was planning on running for mayor of Gotham City. Knowing of these aspirations to become Mayor, Strange approached Sharp and informed him that he had friends in high places that could benefit his mayoral campaign for years on end and ensure of his victory in the elections. After Strange showed proof of his claims, Sharp, blinded by his own political desires, accepted Strange's bribes and allowed the mad professor to carry out inhuman experiments on the patients of Arkham Asylum. While Sharp allowed Strange to do as he pleased, the professor knew that the warden needed to come around to his way of thinking completely to serve as the perfect pawn and, over the next several months, Strange saw to it that he would.
If Strange's plans and operations for power were to succeed, he knew that he needed Quincy Sharp under his complete control to carry out his grand designs through the political arena. Using the resources in behavioral control and looking through all the patient files, Strange became fascinated by Jervis Tetch's, aka Mad Hatter's, mind control experiments, concluding that Tetch's brilliant mind was the perfect component needed to find the means to control Sharp's feeble mind. Manipulating security procedures behind Sharp's back, Strange enlisted the help of Jervis through deception and manipulation, preying on Jervis's love of hats, tea, and Alice to have him perform mind control experiments on the oldest and most forgettable patients of Arkham. Eventually, Jervis succeeded in preparing an amazing mind control drug that made anyone who ingested it much more malleable to suggestion. In order to cover his tracks, Sharp had Jervis locked back up, giving him another "Alice" to keep him quiet, and proceeded to have all the victims in the experiments lobotomized, locked away in extreme isolation, and never allowed them to the see the light of day again.
Using the completed formula, Strange mass produced large quantities of the drug and immediately invited Warden Sharp to his office in the Arkham Mansion for some tea. Unknown to the blissful Sharp, Strange drugged his tea with those same mind control serums and immediately began programming Sharp as his puppet, starting off by "suggesting" that he should begin to murder several patients at Arkham. Sharp's unstable mental state then snapped completely as he diluted himself into thinking that he was the spirit of Amadeus Arkham and proceeded to murder countless patients under Strange's influence. Strange eventually used these atrocities of murder to blackmail Sharp to ensure that he remains loyal to him and him alone.
Sharp, shocked at his unstable personality, agreed and let Strange become his private psychiatrist to become better, though Strange would do nothing of the sort and would continue to supply him with his mind control drugs, disguised as medical pills, to ensure that Sharp remains in his strangled hold. With Sharp now nothing more than one of his pawns, Strange has the warden hire him as his secret collaborator during his mayoral campaign, allowing him to easily twist and turn Sharp's actions and influence throughout Arkham and Gotham to serve his own ends. However, word soon got out that Strange was both involved with patient abuse and unethical experiments, forcing Strange to put in a transfer request and disappear from society all together. With the help of Ra's agents throughout Gotham's infrastructure, Strange's record and all information related to his crimes were completely wiped clean, allowing the professor to continue in his plans from the shadows without the worry of the authorities.
Over a period of three years the warden found himself programmed into becoming Strange's "face", being used to set the stage for a showdown with the Masked Man-hunter. Over these three years, Strange also had Sharp implement numerous security and research measures at the asylum to boaster his approval ratings to ensure he wins his election, while also influencing him into murdering several more patients who knew too much about Strange or might serve as an obstacle in his plans. However, one of Strange's most critical moves was to make Sharp present the City Council with the "Arkham City" plan; to wall off an entire district of Gotham and fill with it with every criminal as a fail-safe should Gotham's criminals became too chaotic to control.
The City Council approved of the plan, impressed with Sharp's layouts, but also never thought that such a plan would have to be put into effect. These plans were of the creation of Hugo Strange however, who would see to it that Sharp became mayor and made his Arkham City project a reality. Strange would have Sharp store their most valuable plans, files, and layouts for their grand projects and operations within a room in his office that would eventually be sealed off so that no one knows of Arkham City's existence, especially Batman, until the appropriate moment.
As Strange used Sharp to remove any possible hindrances to his plans, he saw The Joker as a major, potential obstacle in his designs, as his murderous breakouts from Arkham and exploits throughout Gotham may cost Sharp's approval ratings. He then has Sharp attempt to kill the villain in his cell with a knife, but Joker is able to easily gain control of the situation and escape the asylum. The Joker would later reveal his own plans, which included the manipulation of the research staff at the asylum to create a chemical known as Titan, to build a massive and twisted force to destroy Gotham. To this end, Joker destroyed Blackgate Prison to have hundreds of his crew moved to Arkham Asylum in order to orchestrate a massive riot at the institution that would take the lives of hundreds of security personnel, doctors, and inmates alike as Joker released the most derange criminals and attempted to create his army through the use of Titan. However, thanks to Batman, the Joker's plans were spoiled at the last moment, all inmates and super criminals were recaptured, and the Gotham City Police retook control of the asylum.
With his security systems disabled, his private security force completely routed by the rampaging patients, and chaos spreading across the locked-down Arkham, Sharp's public image was nearly derailed for allowing such an incident to happen. However, quick-witted Strange was soon to exploit such an opportunity, declaring once the riot had been suppressed that the warden was solely responsible for stopping the Joker and thereby giving him enough public support to make his successful bid for mayor. Strange was able to further exploit the situation by having Sharp use the event as evidence that both Arkham and Blackgate are unfit facilities to hold Gotham's criminal element and that a new institution should be built. Most of City Hall agreed, but were still hesitant to put the Arkham City project into effect. Regardless, now that the city counselors were coming around to his way of thinking, all Strange had to do was push that mind set further in the appropriate direction and Arkham City would become a reality.
Now, with such a madman finally in control of the "board" and all the pawns lined up, the pieces of an ingenious plan to destroy the Dark Knight began to fall into place.sign by Walter Harrison Beene
Batman: Arkham City[]
Hugo Strange is the main antagonist in Batman: Arkham City. Hugo Strange is appointed to oversee the city, by Mayor Quincy Sharp. He has his
Batman: Arkham City footage
own plans to the city, which involves Batman, and he is very secretive about what goes on inside the city. In the first trailer, Strange reveals that he knows Batman true identity.