Quote1 Professor Hugo Strange. The most dangerous man in the world! Scientist, philosopher and a criminal genius... little is known of him, yet this man is undoubtedly the greatest organizer of crime in the world. Quote2
-- Bruce Wayne src

Hugo Strange is a demented criminal scientist and genius infamous for committing and organizing crimes all over the world, known as an international mastermind.

Professor Strange met the Batman when he came to Gotham City. Using a stolen weather-altering machine, he organized a crime spree where his men would escape from daring robberies through impossibly thick fog. Batman tracked him down through a murdered FBI agent and defeated most of his henchmen before getting captured by them, then taken back to their hideout and tortured by Strange while chained to a wall. Breaking free of his bonds, the vigilante subdued the professor and ended his rampage. Imprisoned in Blackgate Penitentiary, Hugo Strange swore to devote the rest of his life to taking revenge on Batman.[1]
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Swearing his revenge

Escaping during a prison-break shoot-out, Strange regained his freedom and kidnapped several patients from a local insane asylum. These lunatics were transformed through a serum into deformed Monster Men of incredible size and strength, who commited crimes at Strange's bidding. Batman was captured again and injected with the serum, although he managed to defenestrate the professor with a punch that sent him off a cliff to his seeming death in the waters below. Defeating the monstrosities in combat and leaving them dead, Batman then saved himself by creating an antidote in the five minutes remaining before the transformation would occur.[2] Having lived through the fall, Strange returned with new plans, to take over the city through a fear gas of his own invention. Several robberies were attempted, with criminals using the gas on policemen, although Batman and Robin were able to thwart them. Hugo attempted to escape on his plane in the countryside, but Batman appeared and, after fighting him with a hammer, Strange fell off the edge of a cliff, to his apparent demise.[3]


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Suicide by Cosmic Rod

The Batman of Earth-Two eventually grew older and died.[4] Having barely survived his last fall, Professor Strange had been left crippled for life and spent years knowing how to perform the necessary surgery, without being able to communicate it to a doctor. Over twenty years later he finally convinced a corrupt doctor to fix his body, and then killed the man for botching the job. Finally able to take his revenge, he tried to use the weather machine to destroy Gotham City once and for all. Robin and the Batman of Earth-One teamed up together with Batwoman to take him down, although this was made more difficult when Strange stole Starman's Cosmic Rod and used it to send artifacts from their earliest adventures after them. They tracked him down to the Batcave and Strange again swore he would kill them all, but Batman explained he believed that the professor had brought them there, hoping they would kill him. Hugo Strange realized that they were right, as he had nothing to live for, and used the Cosmic Rod to commit suicide.[5]



  • Hugo Strange's second scheme had been attempted before, in an earlier issue of Detective Comics, and been foiled by a Chinese-American detective.



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