Hugo Strange

*Oh, it's a revolutionary device which will truly open doors to the criminally insane mind. A subject which I find endlessly fascinating, Bruce.*
―Strange explaining one of his machines to Wayne.[src]
**Hugo Strange** is the morally ambiguous former head chief of Psychiatry at Arkham Asylum, who was driven by his keen interest of the criminal mind.

## Hugo Strange

### Occupation

Chief of psychiatry at Arkham (formerly)Criminal mastermind

### Powers

Genius-level intelligencePsychology expertise
Computer programming
Chemistry intuitionManipulative charisma

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Frank Gorshin (English)Richard Green (*Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind* onwards)
Manzo Wowari (Japanese)
Jean Claude Sachot (French)
Cesare Rasini (Italian)
Andrzej Blumenfeld (Polish)
Gunnar Ernblad (Swedish)

## Physical Appearance

Strange has an overweight build. He has his hair in the form of a skullet and wears glasses. He typically wears a white suit with a brown shirt and tie underneath.

Strange wearing the Arkham inmate uniform.Strange wearing a labcoat.
## Personality

*Be careful what you say in front of him, Robin. Strange may be a madman,but he's also a brilliant psychiatrist. If he finds an opening,he'll mess with your head.*
―Batman about Strange.[src]
Professor Hugo Strange is a convincing psychiatrist as well as a calculating mastermind who gradually became Batman's greatest threat. His job as a psychiatrist ended after he toyed with his patients' well-being just out of curiosity, notably curing Arnold Wesker of his split personality Scarface - only to break his mind again. He cares nothing of innocent people as shown when he didn't look to find Detective Yin, instead focusing on finding out the Joker's past. He even made a robot to study Batman and bring him down. However, later on, he became so evil that he worked with The Joining to gain ultimate power and willingly sold out all of humanity to be destroyed by them, in return for all the knowledge in the universe. Even the Joker proved willing to help the police fight the Joining, whereas Strange helped the aliens incapacitate and capture the Justice League. This ultimately proved that Hugo comes off as the most dangerous and remorseless enemy that Batman has faced, even more so than the Joker at times. However, there are times when his curiousity overrides his own sense of self-preservation.

## History

Hugo Strange first appeared during Ethan Bennett's court trail, while he reviewed the sessions he has had with Ethan and claimed that he was perfectly sane again.

Prior to *Strange Minds*,Bagley was replaced by Hugo Strange as head chief of psychiatry at Arkham Asylum. Although he claimed to have wanted to help the inmates at Arkham Asylum, Strange seemed more bent on finding out how the criminal mind worked, rather than simply curing it causing him to do morally questionable actions that Batman was against.

Strange later invented a machine that could go into people's minds. When the Joker kidnapped Ellen Yin, he and Batman used the machine to go into the Joker's mind. However, Strange appeared more interested in figuring out Joker's past rather than saving Yin, learning that Joker got no attention from his parents. There, he met Batman who he gained an interest in since he wanted to save Yin and stop Joker. After the ordeal was over,Strange moved on from Joker to study the Batman.

After being "cured" of his affliction by Strange, Arnold Wesker (The Ventriloquist) was able to resume his life in the real world. Despite being successful in his new life, Strange wished to "test" his criminal therapy and gave the Scarface puppet back to Wesker, which caused him to fold and resume his criminal career. He even lied to Bruce that Wesker would be happy to perform at his opening night of the museum. Once Batman found out about Hugo putting Scarface in Wesker's apartment, he admonished Strange for further damaging the old man's mind, only to be mocked for his method of solving crime (costumes), showing Strange's clear lack of morality. Batman threatened that he would be watching him,then grappled away.

Strange then decided to make a robot to study Batman. After taking the profiles of the Joker, Penguin, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze,Clayface,and himself, he built D.A.V.E.. He told the most powerful people in Gotham City that D.A.V.E. would help stop criminals, to which Bruce had a hard time believing. After D.A.V.E. escaped, Strange lied and said that a glitch caused his escape. He let the robot run lose to observe Batman. Batman discovered Strange was behind the incident and paid him a visit in Arkham Asylum, where Strange tried to kill him. The hero ordered him to shut down D.A.V.E., which Strange said he could not, because D.A.V.E. was made to know all there is to know. Batman then barely managed to stop D.A.V.E.,thus foiling Strange's plan. When the police found out that Strange was behind D.A.V.E., Strange got incarcerated at Arkham, thus losing his job at the asylum. He promised,however,that he was not defeated yet and would get another chance to peek behind the Batman's cowl.

While in Arkham Asylum, Strange created a toxin which made Batman hallucinate that all Gotham citizens, including Gordon, Robin, and Batgirl, were actually zombies. Strange explained his plans when Batman arrived to confront him and lied saying he took an antidote. He nearly tricked Batman into infecting all Gotham with the same toxin by passing the toxin as its antidote when Batman arrived at Arkham. However, before Batman used the fake antidote, he realized Strange's manipulation and did not activate the bombs that would have spread out the toxin throughout Gotham,while Strange remained in Arkham with his scheme foiled.

Strange later got captured by Rumor, along with many other of his patients and members of Gotham City's criminal underworld. During his time captive, Strange desired to know more about Rumor's motivations, and he watched Bane try to break out of his cell. Additionally, Catwoman found him annoying. Rumor told him about his past, which Strange taunted him as he learnt that Mario was not a hero, but a man who wanted to save his boss. He ended up being freed by Batman and Robin and got taken back to Arkham Asylum once more when he tried to escape, instead of not joining the villains fight with Batman and Robin.

When The Joining attacked Gotham, Strange escaped Arkham and found some alien tech, which he used to contact them. He then made a deal, saying he would help them if they gave him all the knowledge in the universe, before leaving a robotic duplicate of himself behind to trick the guards and succeeding in contacting the aliens, offering them to capture the Justice League with their technology in exchange of the vast knowledge of the universe. A year later, after subduing Superman, Hawkman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern, Batman went along with Green Arrow and Robin to Strange's robotic duplicate at Arkham. Batman tried interrogating it,but it then revealed its true nature. The trio shut it down and took a transmitter from it to track down where it came from. They headed to a bunker, where Strange captured them before they could free themselves and their fellow heroes. It was revealed that Strange drained up their powers and has given them to android replicas of the super-powered members of the Justice League. They escaped,and The Joining berated Strange for his failure to restrain them, but Strange reminded them that he warned them about underestimating Batman and demanded his reward. The Joining did so, and unloaded all the vast universal knowledge on Strange, but this proved to be so vast that it broke Strange's brain cortex and rendered him permanently catatonic. After defeating the androids and regaining their powers, the Justice League found the catatonic Strange on his hideout, and Martian Manhunter read Strange's mind to find a way to defeat The Joining. In the end, The Joining was defeated, and the catatonic Strange got sent back to Arkham Asylum for the rest of his life.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Enhanced Intellect**: Strange was gifted with knowledge of the universe by Joining.

### Abilities

* **Genius Level Intellect**
	+ **Science**
		- **Psychology**
		- **Psychiatry**
		- **Chemistry**
	+ **Tactical Analysis**

### Other Characteristics

* **Catatonic State**: Although a genius,Strange was still a human. His brain couldn't comprehend all the information,and most of his mind was destroyed in the process. Martian Manhunter had a very big problem in scraping information from Hugo's brain after that.
* **Obsession**

## Relationships

### Allies

#### The Joining

Strange formed an alliance with the Joining in order to gain all the universe's knowledge. Despite him being another human being,it complied and gave him his wish.

### Enemies

#### The Batman

Strange developed a keen interest in the Batman. He found his righteous mission to save everyone amusing,and speculated it was due to past trauma of failing to save a particular individual. He kept studying him as time went on and wanted to discover who lied behind the mask. His measures would be as extreme as creating a villain emulator and infecting him with a hallucination gas. He likely got his wish after gaining all the knowledge of the universe from the Joining,though at the cost of his brain.

#### Joker

Strange was interested in Joker due to his randomness and bizarre history.

#### Catwoman

She found Strange annoying as when he would not stop talking when they were captured by Rumor.

## Appearances

### Season 2

* *Meltdown*
* *Strange Minds*

### Season 3

* *A Fistful of Felt*
* *Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind*

### Season 4

* *Strange New World*
* *Rumors*

### Season 5

* *Lost Heroes, Part One*
* *Lost Heroes, Part Two*

### *The Batman Strikes!*

* Issue 26 "Escape"
* Issue 39 " Hostile Takeover" (cameo)

## Trivia

* In *Strange New World*, Strange's role in the episode was originally going to be filled by the Scarecrow. This makes sense considering that Batman suffers hallucinations throughout the episode thanks to a toxin made by Strange, which resembles the Scarecrow's iconic fear gas. However, the Scarecrow was restricted from appearing in the show due to the version played by Cillian Murphy in *The Dark Knight Trilogy*. Although,Strange used hallucination gas in the Golden Age,so it is not too far fetched.
* In the comics and other adaptations, Hugo Strange is despicted as completely bald. This version has a skullet (bald on top, sides and back grown long). He also has no facial hair while most other versions do.
* Hugo Strange was voiced by Frank Gorshin - who played the Riddler in the 1960s Batman TV show. After Gorshin's death, Richard Green took over the role.
* Strange is one of the few characters to get recast,with the others being Angel Rojas,Bane,and Basil Karlo.
* In *Strange Minds*.when Batman catches up with Strange, one can barely see his eyes behind the glasses. The same happens when Strange tells Chad to start the machine. One of his eyes can also be fully seen in *Lost Heroes, Part Two* after he is left catatonic.