Supervillains abound in our beloved DC Comics. Some are scarier than others, and some may appear to be quite human at first glance, but they all have a pivotal moment in their life. There are also villains that have crossed paths with Batman at some point during his career as Batman. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Marvelous video DC Supervillain video. We have a really unusual supervillain for you in today’s film, from the early days of Batman. You are not prepared to hear what he has to say!
If you have been watching the live-action television series, Gotham, you might already be a fan. This villain is, indeed, part of that series. The origin tale of Professor Hugo Strange, Batman’s first recurring nemesis, is featured in today’s video. He is also one of the first villains to figure out Batman’s true identity: Bruce Wayne. The first appearance of this supervillain was in Detective Comics #36 in 1940.
Hugo Strange is Batman’s oldest foe and one of his most dangerous opponents. He is also known to be immensely fascinated with Batman’s identity, which comes as no surprise. So, let us jump straight into the video and learn more about Professor Hugo Strange’s backstory and who this villain is.
A Brilliant but Disturbed Psychologist Dr. Hugo Strange Origin
Well since looks are the first thing we ever see in a character, let us talk about his appearance. Hugo Strange has a bald uneven head, bushy eyebrows, coke-bottle eyeglasses, as well as a really thick beard. So, clearly, he can be spotted in a crowd. His story starts as a psychologist, but mind you, he is not a simple scientist. He is in fact a chemical genius and he knows about the real identity of Batman. As the evil person that he is, he actually wants to steal Batman’s identity.
Information certainly goes both ways because even Batman knew all about Hugo Strange and his experiments. Strange came to popularity in the area of psychology after claiming to have completely examined the Dark Knight from afar. Now, Strange’s claims will be validated once he discovered Batman’s actual identity, Bruce Wayne. His obsession with Batman had reached such a stage that he used his medical knowledge to create a series of twisted schemes based on genetics and mind-control only so that he can beat Batman and probably take his place.
Now, what Strange kind of specializes in, of course, other than psychology, is using a stolen concentrated lightning machine through which he can create dense fog so that he can easily rob banks without being caught. Of course, through these crimes, he made himself a target for batman. Although in physical combat, he could never beat Batman. So, a defeated Hugo Strange vowed to take his revenge on batman because he screwed up his plans.
Now, after a while, Strange did manage to escape the Arkham Asylum with five other inmates who he would, later on, use as test subjects. So, the chemical genius developed a potent artificial growth hormone that worked on the pituitary gland and turned all five of them into gigantic zombies.
Well, as a side effect these victims actually became mindless monsters. And now, as a result, he had a fifteen-foot monster with superhuman strength rampaging through the streets of Gotham. His goal was to drain the resources of the city on his giants so that Strange and his gang could steal freely.
In an attempt to stop him, when Batman came face to face with Professor Hugo Strange once again, unfortunately, Hugo injected him with the same poison that turned the madmen into mindless beasts. However, Batman did manage to throw Strange out the window of his headquarters at a seaside cliff. And leaving him to fate, Batman set his sights on avoiding the large group of monsters in order to discover a cure for himself before he became one of them.
We then have the return of Professor Hugo Strange in the 1970s in the Earth-One version, as a part of the “Strange Apparitions” adventure. Looks like he survived his last “death,” and now runs a private hospital for Gotham City’s richest people, where he holds them for ransom. Batman has no idea yet that he has returned, but we are going to have a reveal soon.
Now, when Bruce Wayne checks into that hospital to secretly heal from the radiation burns, he suffered as Batman, he unintentionally discovers the ongoing operation that transforms rich clients into monsters. So, our hero went to the hospital’s Chief of Staff, and when Doctor Todhunter removed his mask, Batman almost lost the ground beneath his feet. He revealed himself to be Professor Hugo Strange, clearly back from the dead.
Now, that he has a drugged Batman under his grip, Strange decided to take advantage of the opportunity and removed Batman’s hood, revealing his true identity as Bruce Wayne. And then Strange put his criminal mastermind to work in order to drain the Wayne Foundation’s money while also staging an auction for the Dark Knight’s real identity.
But when have you ever seen any villain wait for the information to be handed over to them, right! So, the organized crime boss Rupert Thorne kidnapped Strange, but no matter how much he tried, he could not get Strange to loosen his lips. Well, as a result of that, Thorne supposedly did end up murdering Strange before he could discover the secret he possessed.
Brownie points to Robin for rescuing Batman, who is totally unaware of Strange’s situation. Thorne, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. The criminal leader would be tortured by the ghost of Hugo Strange. This constant encounter with a ghost led Thorne towards insanity. So much so that he had dropped his guard and let himself be found by the police.
But it is not going to come as a surprise that Strange did not actually die. Instead, he had employed yoga techniques to decrease his heartbeat to an undetectable level. And everything that happened with Thorne, was all a part of Strange’s plan to take his revenge on Thorne. That is why he created a ‘ghost’ to drive Thorne into surrendering himself to the police.
Strange was now driven to take up the real identity of Batman. So, he devised a plan to weaken Bruce Wayne by using drugs, before he could steal his identity. However, his plans to push Bruce Wayne to insanity with lifelike mandroids, fail, Strange appears to die as he blasts up a fake Wayne Manor.
Well, it may have only appeared that way, but in reality, the Strange that died was in fact a mandroid and not the real person. The real Professor Hugo Strange wanted to frame Batman as a criminal and then use the advantages of the Batcave to reveal that Bruce Wayne is Batman. To his bad luck though, Batman was successful in catching Strange, but he made sure this time that he was a human being by conducting a blood test. And then, when they were on the way, Detective Harvey Bullock was able to manipulate Hugo into thinking that Bruce Wayne was the LAST person Batman could ever be.
But do not be relieved just yet, the story does not end here.
Strange Obsession In Post-Crisis
In an attempt to resolve the Pre and Post-Crisis versions of Strange, his history was reimagined including the creation of his Monster Men, which was published twenty years after we got Strange’s first post-crisis story, Prey.
Now, what is known about Professor Strange is that he was raised in Hell’s Crucible, an orphanage on Gotham’s east side. He was a gifted genius who went on to complete medical school and become a professor of psychiatry at Gotham University. he soon started to express his absurd ideas and theories regarding genetic manipulation.
Strange was personally interested in achieving genetic perfection. Hugo was fit and healthy, but he lacked height and walked with a bow. So, we can say Hugo Strange is very far from the ideal man he set out to create through genetic engineering.
In order to go ahead with his experiments, Strange needed subjects. When he offered to help out an Indian man named Sanjay, in return Sanjay became his loyal servant and right-hand man. Hugo Strange would perform illegal experiments on the people he illegally obtained from the Arkham Asylum. Now, since he needed funding to continue his bizarre experiments of creating physically strong men, he had to borrow money from Boss Maroni.
Strange soon became extremely stressed by Maroni’s strict repayment demands. Now, lucky for him, his experiments were able to transform the test subjects into huge, flesh-eating “Monster Men” so powerful that Strange and Sanjay could barely handle their creations. So, in order to get rid of Maroni’s constant threats, the doctor decided to let loose one of his Monster Men on Maroni’s minions to actually kill them.
Of course, if so many killings have taken place, it is impossible that Batman would not get suspicious. So, Bruce started to look into the matter and was able to extract some information from Maroni. When he started digging into Strange, he was able to find his location and discovered some of the men being kept in tanks, getting prepared for Hugo’s experiments. A lot of whom Batman knew because he was the one who put them in Arkham Asylum.
So, in order to save Strange from Batman, Sanjay tranquilized Batman and threw him inside the den of the Monster Men. It turns out this is where Strange’s obsession with Batman began because he was beyond impressed by Batman’s powers and weapons and how he was able to escape the Monsters den. The fact that Batman showed the kind of human genetic perfection that Strange lacked, made him even more curious about Batman.
Now, because Maroni’s top guy had started to threaten Strangely, he decided it was time for payback. His experiments with the Monster Men had reached the final stage. So basically, Sanjay had given himself completely to the mad doctor because he needed Strange’s help in saving his brother Rajan. Strange was shocked by how Rajan gained more muscle tone and how his lack of skin nodules made him less malformed than the other creatures.
Strange and Sanjay then arrive at the place where Maroni and his men are, and the battle begins. So, in the course of this battle, Rajan dies at the hands of Maroni’s top guy, even Sanjay ends up getting shot by Maroni himself.
A lot of monster men die, even while chasing Maroni but he is saved by Batman and Strange manages to escape. He abandons his interest in genetic manipulation. Strange appears as a guest on Kathy White’s late-night talk show several nights later and provides a short evaluation of who the Batman is.
He also appears later on Jud Fellow’s Nighttime Show along with Gordon and the mayor of Gotham. Strange’s deduction about Batman’s fascination with darkness and the concept of revenge, made people believe that Batman is probably a person who experienced the loss of someone close to him.
Through Strange’s psychoanalysis, he believes that Batman wants individual power as a utilitarian and does not trust others, which suggests that he has schizophrenia or a split personality. Strange believes that Batman is only attempting to help the police in their investigations so that his arrests will stand up in court. Batman truly wants to withhold the police’s attempts at arresting him so that he can gain Gotham’s approval as a symbolic hero.
The mayor now hires Strange as a consultant for Gordon’s police task force, which he constructed in order to capture Batman. Strange then tells the mayor that he is actually joining Gordon because he is impressed by Batman and expects to be able to carry out a full psychological examination of the vigilante.
But since Gordon is skeptical of Strange, he requests that the mayor grant him full access to government files that have recorded every previous case regarding Batman’s techniques, witness testimonies, and locations as well as times of the Batman’s recent stories.
Well, what the mayor does not know is that Hugo Strange has a secret reason for joining Gordon’s task force. He actually plans to overthrow and get rid of Batman and take on his role as the new hero of Gotham. Strange has successfully deduced that Batman most definitely hates Gotham PD because they failed to save his loved ones.
Strange didn’t have to look far enough to realize that Batman and Bruce Wayne were the same people, thanks to his extremely skilled knowledge in the area of behavior psychology. Strange’s first plan involved brainwashing the task force’s leader, Sgt Cort, into becoming a vigilante known as the Night Scourge. Strange took advantage of the opportunity and had Sgt Cort duplicate himself as Batman. That is when he kidnapped the mayor’s daughter. Of course, it would lead everyone to think that Batman did it.
Hugo Strange successfully framed Batman and had all police forces within Gotham City go after the hero with orders to kill him on sight. This obviously pressured Batman to go into hiding. And Strange thought that is how easily he successfully completed his goal of becoming the new Batman. But to his bad luck, Hugo’s plan, failed miserably when he was arrested by both the Batman and Commissioner Gordon.
Although in this process he ended up getting shot into the river when he was dressed as the Batman. Now, as the story comes to an end for a while, Batman was declared innocent after saving the Mayor’s daughter and all the charges against him were dropped. But as it turns out, Strange’s dead body was never discovered and so, there was no way to confirm his death.
So, what do you think, are we going to have a comeback from Professor Hugo Strange yet again? Comment down below what theories can you think of. Until then, let us talk about exactly are Hugo Strange’s powers and abilities are.
What Makes Hugo Strange So dangerous?
Strange, who holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, not only holds the expertise in behavior psychology, but he also developed a strong interest and expertise in genetics and science. Strange soon became capable of changing and growing the human body into a humongous mindless monster. He can also manipulate one’s own DNA strand and turn it into one of these giants. Have to hand it to him for mastering the genetic mutation among all the other things.
Well, he then soon moved away from his experiments on genetic mutation and dove deeper into the fields of psychology. He became so skilled that he was now capable of excellently profiling and analyzing any type of person or individual to the point where, as we witnessed, he was clearly able to predict Batman’s secret identity with ease. Most of the time, Strange is known for using drugs and hallucinogens in order to alter the victims’ behavior and reduce their self-control to cover up any kind of secret that they might be hiding.
Strange is also known for his unusual use of crazy schemes to achieve his own needs and goals. Strange, as a criminal mastermind and excellent strategist, has been able to gain an advantage not only over his victims but also over Batman. Although most of the time his planning and schemes end up going to waste only because of the obsession he has with Batman. It looks like no matter how many times Batman confronts him; he is never ready to actually back down. It is almost as if fighting with the batman gives him some sort of adrenaline rush.
However apart from his knowledge of psychology and strategic planning, Strange has also continued to hold his physical health at its high point. He is always focused on keeping himself in peak physical and mental condition only so that he can achieve his irrational ideas of absolute perfection. Strange is hardly ever seen taking part in a physical fight, but it is only a matter of challenging him. He is seen to have been sharing his knowledge of martial arts, athletics, and hand-to-hand combat.
Hugo Strange Is Playing A Big Role In Batman: The Knight
Among all the other villains we have ever come across in the DC Universe, Hugo Strange is the one who has been known for being the villain without a costume. Probably the reason why he is often overshadowed by some of the other villains with their fancy costumes like the Joker or the Riddler. Well, anyway Strange is certainly unique and unusual in a city overflowing with psychopaths whose USP is wearing masks, costumes, or probably having some type of facial or body disfiguration.
In the upcoming series, The Knight, Dr. Hugo Strange is going to have a really significant role as a well-mannered, spectacled villain. You will be surprised to know this, but he is going to play the role of the therapist who has been taking care of a young Bruce Wayne after the death of his parents. Batman: The Knight, written by Chip Zdarsky and illustrated by Carmine Di Giandomenico, will be a 10-issue miniseries that is going to take place between the deaths of Martha and Thomas Wayne, and the return of Bruce to Gotham City to start the legacy of the Dark Knight.
There have been many Batman stories in the past where we have seen glimpses of these formative years but nothing like what we are about to have now. At last, it is going to be told as a part of a much larger narrative where we will also witness the journey of Bruce Wayne into becoming the Batman with all of his training as well as mental and physical journey. Zdarsky revealed in an interview with CBR how much of an important role is going to be played by the oldest Batman villain in the series. He wanted the young Bruce to see a therapist, and that is exactly what you should expect.
And of course, as a therapist, Strange is going to be a major part of Bruce’s journey into transforming his childhood trauma and converting it into the guise of the Dark Knight. We have seen Batman question his sanity a lot of times over the past years, most notably in Alan Moore’s seminal story The Killing Joke.
It seems there could not have been a more perfect chance to explore Bruce’s obsession and vengeance than the years when he invented Batman. And without a doubt, there cannot be a more perfect character to explore the birth of the Dark Knight than the psychiatrist who had him in therapy just after the tragic event that led to it.
Batman: The Knight will explore new parts and add more valuable arguments to the relationship between Batman and Hugo Strange. Most probably this series will be able to throw more light on the obsession that the doctor has in explaining and reproducing the Dark Knight’s philosophy.
Insane Versions Of Hugo Strange In Various Forms Of Media
Let us start by exploring his roles in animation. In Batman: The Animated Series, Hugo Strange is voiced by Ray Buktinica. He is seen as a psychiatrist who runs a hospital where he blackmails Gotham’s rich and powerful secrets, he learns by using a machine that can read minds. When Bruce Wayne visits the hospital and undertakes the so-called “treatment,” it allows Strange to find out his true identity as Bruce Wayne.
Well, he then smartly tries to auction off the information to the Joker, two-face, and the Penguin. But they all laugh it off and no one ends up believing him. All three of them together then make an attempt to kill him by throwing him out of an airplane. But Batman comes to the rescue and saves Strange at the very last minute. He then has Robin appear at the crime scene as Bruce Wayne in order to disprove Strange’s statements about recognizing the Dark Knight’s secret identity.
Strange was later given a brand new backstory in the TAS tie-in comic series The Batman Adventures. It added a bit more to the origin of Strange, where apparently, he had a son named David Strange, who was brutally killed by the mobsters on Rupert Thorne’s orders.
It happened after Hugo denied to recreate the machine that could read minds from The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne. Strange was ultimately able to kill his son’s murderer, but by that time his mind had become so messed up that he would still see David everywhere. And Batman is the hero that he is, tried to convince Strange that they definitely will come up with a cure for it.
We once again have a silent cameo from Hugo Strange as a member of Project Cadmus in the Justice League Unlimited TV show. In it, he was the silent partner who notified Amanda Waller about the identity of the Batman.
In The Batman, Strange is voiced by the late Riddler actor Frank Gorshin. He appears as an Arkham Chief Psychiatrist who is impressed by criminal minds, once again obviously with Batman’s mind as well in particular. He later developed D.A.V.E. to continue his research on Batman. Eventually is arrested and put into prison, where later on he becomes a more active villain.
We then have Hugo Strange in Young Justice, voiced by Adrian Pasdar, who appears as the chief psychiatrist at Belle Reve Prison and reports to Amanda Waller who is the warden at the facility.
Bruce Timm created a short animated film for Batman’s 75th anniversary, Strange Days, where Hugo Strange is the antagonist. He has kidnapped a woman to use in an experiment with the help of one of his Monster Men. During the fight, Batman saves the woman, but Strange accidentally falls off a cliff. And as most Strange death goes, it is unclear whether he is dead or alive. Here, Brian George becomes his voice.
We also have a film where he appears as one of the many villains present but has no dialogue. That film is The Lego Batman Movie.
Batman vs Two-Face is an animated film, which is set in the universe of the ’66 TV series. Here, Hugo Strange and his assistant, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, develop an “evil extractor” in the hopes of turning villains “good.” Unfortunately, the machine is overridden by the Joker and many other villains, and it explodes. The explosion is what leads to the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face leaving him horribly scarred. Here he is voiced by Jim Ward.
In Gotham By Gaslight, which is the adaptation of the Elseworlds story, Hugo Strange comes as the head of Arkham Asylum. Now, there is something interesting. Here, he is voiced by William Salyers. Hugo informs Bruce Wayne that he knows the identity of Jack the Ripper and wants to meet with Batman. But before he could meet Batman, Hugo is attacked by Jack and murdered by his patients at Arkham before Batman could save him.
He then comes into the live-action TV series, Gotham, where Hugo is one of the villains and the head of Arkham Asylum. He secretly conducts experiments on superhuman inmates beneath Arkham, which are financially supported by the Court of Owls. Hugo is able to bring back from the dead both Fish Mooney and Theo Galavan, which led to the arrest of Fish Mooney along with the rest of the prisoners he experimented with being released into the city.
Now with that, guys, we have come to the end of another origin video with Marvelous Videos. We hope you enjoyed watching it, as much as we enjoyed making it for you. Make sure to drop a like and hit that subscribe button on your way out. Until then everyone, stay safe, take care, and see you in the next video. Have a great day ahead!