Professor Hugo Strange

[MajorHoy]

Before Batman met The Joker . . . Catwoman . . . Two-Face . . . Riddler
. . . even before Dick Grayson became Robin . . . there was Professor Hugo Strange.

First appearance: Detective Comics #36 (February 1940).



To be continued . . .

[Alpha]

It's such a shame that Tom King picked Bane as the big villain of his run instead of Hugo Strange. It would've made the story after issue 50 so much better and would've been the perfect spotlight for this character.

I never really appreciated Hugo until I realized how he exploits a weakness in Bruce that nobody else ever goes for, his sense of reality. He is a literal doctor with the full qualifications to say that Bruce is an unstable human being with an abusive record and make this a legal evaluation.

He can shock Bruce to the core by the core with the objective reality outside of his own enviroment. Usually Bruce is the one that puts himself on that path through the challenges around him, but Hugo can have full control of it.

[godisawesome]

There’s basically three eras where you can see Hugo Strange actually had a pretty big profile for a villain in the comics: his initial run in the Golden Age where he was a Monster Man Maker, his Bronze Age resurrection Pre-Crisis where he first had the whole “I know who Batman is and I want to become him!” thing while still making Monster Men, then his Post-Crisis appearances as a foe of Batman in his early days who was mostly a psychologist who brainwashed people but also, yes, still made giant Monster Men.

...I’ll be honest and say I don’t think the gargantuan Monster Men stuff was as interesting as him being a clever Chessmaster or psychologist... but that’s partially because I think it was more interesting to have him drive people mad as his “monsters” instead.

There’s something more creepily nefarious about him selecting someone he can tell already has issues and poking and prodding at them with hypnosis and illusions to make them suffer a breakdown and become his henchman/woman. Honestly, you could use him as an explanation for why so many of Batman’s adversaries are supposed to have mental health issues, and as a sneaky way to make it clear that it’s not their mental health that’s the problem, it’s someone abusing the trust as a doctor to convince them to become evil.

...Plus, I always though it could be fun to resurrect some of the “redundant” Bat villains as Strange attempting to make “copies” of Batman’s rogues for his own amusement and to validate his whole “Batman creates these people” crackpot theories. Like, Magpie as his version of Catwoman, Cornelius Stirk as his version of Scarecrow, Preston Oayne as his own attempt to create Clayface...

[Alpha]

Interesting idea

[Restingvoice]

The first time I saw him was in the Golden Age Monster Men story
Then like a ghost haunting Rupert Thorne
That's it
Years after that I look up a list of Batman stories and there are Monster Men remade for Year One continuity
Since he never showed up in TV, movies, or games up until 2000-something I was actually surprised that modern age Batman stories remember him

[godisawesome]

The first time I saw him was in the Golden Age Monster Men story
Then like a ghost haunting Rupert Thorne
That's it
Years after that I look up a list of Batman stories and there are Monster Men remade for Year One continuity
Since he never showed up in TV, movies, or games up until 2000-something I was actually surprised that modern age Batman stories remember him

If you haven’t read “Prey” yet, from Legends of the Dark Knight, I would recommend it; it’s the best “Starnge as the vile psychologist gone wrong” story.

It’s also the epitome of Doug Moench’s “grind-house” style writing; it feels like the kind of grimy, sensationalistic storyline you’d expect out of a criminal thriller from the 70’s-80’s.

[Riv86672]

Hugo is my second favorite Dr. Strange.

He actually used to creep me out when i was a kid for some reason.
Not gonna lie i was glad back then he wasnt in more stories!

[Alpha]

Haha. I get why a psychiatrist would be scary to a kid.

[Spencermalley935]

This guy's long overdue for an appearance in a live-action Batman movie.

[Riv86672]

Haha. I get why a psychiatric would be scary to a kid.

^^^yeah, he wasn’t a villain I liked to see!

This guy's long overdue for an appearance in a live-action Batman movie.

^^^ BD Wong played him really well on GOTHAM. He was just so casually cruel and Indifferent to ppl’s suffering. Even when he was being threatened by other villains he managed to turn things around and use it as an opportunity to try some new evil experiment.

[Alpha]

This guy's long overdue for an appearance in a live-action Batman movie.

Totally agree. Seems like the Matt Reeves films could easily adapt him. That Bruce Wayne seems to be a bit more conacious of his instability than most incarnations.

[jb681131]

Here are Hugo's stories:

GOLDEN AGE
1940 - Batman Meets Professor Hugo Strange - Detective Comics #36
1940 - The Giants of Hugo Strange - Batman #1
1982 - Interlude on Earth-Two - The Brave and the Bold #182

BRONZE AGE
1977 - Batman: Strange Apparition - Detective Comics #469-479
1980 - Untold Legend of the Batman - Untold Legend of the Batman #1-3
1982 - Detective Comics #513, 516, 518, 520
1983 - The Double Life of Hugo Strange - Batman #356
1985 - Shadow of the Bat - Shadow of the Bat #1-5
1986 - Down to the Bone - Batman Annual #10

CRISIS
1990 - Batman: Prey - Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #11-15
1993 - Batman: Images - Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #50
2000 - Batman: Ego
2000 - Batman: Transference - Batman: Gotham Knights #8-11
2001 - Batman: Terror - Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #137-141
2005 - Catwoman: The One You Love - Catwoman #43-49
2006 - Batman and the Monster Men - Batman and the Monster Men #1-6
2008 - Gotham Underground - Gotham Underground #1-9
2008 - Salvation Run - Salvation Run #1-7
2009 - Battle for the Cowl: The Network
2010 - Batman: Life after Death - Batman #692-697
2010 - Batman: Beneath the mask - Detective Comics #864-865
2011 - Batman: Orphans - Batman: Orphans #1-2

FLASHPOINT
2013 - Red Hood and the Outlaws: Family Matters - Red Hood and the Outlaws #16
2013 - Red Hood and the Outlaws: League of Assassins - Red Hood and the Outlaws #19-26, annual #1
2012 - Batman Detective: Scare Tactics - Detective Comics #8
2015 - Gotham Academy: Calamity - Gotham Academy #7-12
2016 - Batman: I am Gotham - Batman #1-6
2016 - Night of the Monster Men - Batman #7-8 + Nightwing #5-6 + Detective Comics #941-942
2018 - The Wedding of Batman & Catwoman - Batman #50
2018 - Harley Quinn: Angry Bird - Harley Quinn #36-41
2018 - Plastic Man - Plastic Man #1-6
2019 - Deathstroke: Arkham - Deathstroke #36-40
2019 - Batman: The Fall and the Fallen - Batman #70-74
2019 - Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine - Batman Secret Files #2
2019 - Batman Detective: Mythology - Detective Comics #997-998
2019 - Batman Detective: Medieval - Detective Comics #1002-1003
2020 - Cognitive Radio - Batman: Gotham Nights #21

THOMAS HUGO STRANGE
- Tom Strong #11-12
- Terra Obscura #1-6
- Terra Obscura vol.2 #1-6
- Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril #1-6

SUPER FRIENDS
2010 - Weird Science - DC Super Friends #24

DC BOMBSHELLS
- The Batgirls Swing Again - DC Comics Bombshells #13
- Death of Illusion + War Stories - DC Comics Bombshells #28-33

ELSEWORLDS
2003 - Batman: Detective No. 27
2013 - Ame-Comi Girls: Featuring Duela Dent
2019 - Harleen

HERE YOU GO

[signalman112]

Awesome Splash page by Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala for DETECTIVE COMICS #520.

HugoThorne.jpg

[MajorHoy]

from Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol. XVIII (August 1986)

[godisawesome]

What do you guys think about the whole “Strange dressed as Batman!” thing?

I feel like sometimes it’s just a creepy extra touch... but I honestly think it offers an interesting counterpart to the idea of Hush wanting to be Bruce Wayne, and may be begging for a “Strange masquerades as the False Knight and gives Batman a headache” type of story.