Real Name: Hugo Strange
Occupation: Criminal
Marital Status: Single
Base of Operations: Gotham City
Height: 5ft 10in
Weight: 170lbs
Eyes: Gray
Hair: None
First Appearance: Detective Comics #36 (Winter 1940)
Created By: Bill Finger, Bob Kane

GOLDEN AGE:
Hugo Strange appeared during the Golden Age as a scientist who turned homeless test subjects into hulking zombies by administering a powerful artificial growth hormone (that acted on the pituitary gland); a side effect caused the victim to become almost mindless and brute - as if from the strain of the unnatural growth. Strange administered it to The Batman, but he saved himself by creating a drug that prevented any abnormal secretions from the pituitary gland (the Earth-Two Batman had biochemical training equal to a Ph. D). Like the Joker, he appeared to die several times before a punch from Batman sent him tumbling off of a cliff, and he was seen falling to his supposed death

Having survived his earlier "death," Strange was running a private hospital for Gotham's wealthy where he held them hostage for ransom. When Bruce Wayne checked into the hospital to recover discreetly from radiation burns he received as Batman, Strange discovered Batman's dual identity and attempted to auction the knowledge off to Gotham's top villains. Mob boss Rupert Thorne tried to torture the information out of him, but apparently ended up killing Strange (who'd actually survived) before he could learn that Wayne was Batman.

Strange's "ghost" haunted Thorne until he turned himself in to authorities.

The Earth-Two version of Strange also survived the fall he himself experienced; however, he was paralyzed. After years of physical therapy, he regained enough movement to write out the surgical techniques needed to repair the damage to his body - and bribe a surgeon to perform the operation. However, the surgeon lacked Strange's skill, leaving him physically deformed (the surgeon died for his failure). Frustrated at his inability to take revenge on the long-dead Batman, he used one of his devices to capture Starman's cosmic rod, to use it's power to attack The Batmans friends and items, trophies, etc. During the storm he generated in Gotham to obtain the device (simultaneously, another electrical storm was raging on Earth-One, al la Star Trek's Mirror Universe Story), he created a dimensional doorway to Earth-One, which brought that universe's Batman (mysteriously, the rift opened right in front of the original Batman's tombstone) over to Earth-Two and allowed him and that world's Robin to join with the original Batwoman in defeating Strange, overcoming his attempts to defeat them with their own Bat-gadgets. Batman caused Strange to realize he wasn't angry at Batman - he was angry at his own wasted life and deformed body. Strange then used the Cosmic Rod to commit suicide.

Batman's time among them allowed the Earth-Two Robin (his old partner) and Batwoman (who had loved him for years) to come to terms with their Batman's death. Starman sent the Batman of Earth-One home; he was grateful to have met Batwoman (the Batwoman of Earth-One died several years earlier - he had forgotten how much he liked her). After he left, the remaining heroes wondered what force had drawn Batman to an empty graveyard in the middle of the night during an electrical storm...

CURRENT AGE:
As he exercised, the Professor's features were obscured, leaving the reader to conclude that Batman himself was the speaker. Strange was then revealed to be the true speaker as he lamented the genetic hurdles that prevented him from reaching perfection. The theme of Strange being a dark counterpart to Batman recurred throughout the work. Short, bowlegged, near-sighted, and bald, Strange was acutely aware of the genetic limitations that no amount of hard work could overcome, and singularly driven to find a way to improve humanity at a genetic level. According to Commissioner Gordon, Strange was "abandoned as a child, grew up in state homes. A bright kid, but he apparently had a hell of a temper. Nobody knows how he put himself through college and medical school." (Batman and the Mad Monk) He was raised in an orphanage on the lower East Side of Gotham, not far from the infamous "Crime Alley", in the heart of a part of Gotham known as "Hell's Crucible". Strange became professor of Psychiatry at Gotham State University, but had his tenure suspended due to his increasingly bizarre theories in genetic engineering. At some point, he was approached by the gigantic and multi-talented Sanjay, an orphaned native of India who sought Strange's aid in curing his sick brother. Strange agreed to help, and Sanjay worked loyally by his side from that point onward. Borrowing money from mobsters in the employ of Gotham's criminal kingpin Carmine Falcone, Strange set up a lab, and by bribing a corrupt orderly was able to find test subjects from Arkham Asylum - people that had been institutionalized so long that they would not be missed.

Far from yielding the genetically superior men he had hoped for, Strange's experiments had literally monsterous results, with his test subjects turning into gigantic superstrong "Monster Men", possessing almost no human intelligence and cannibalistic instincts. Strange began to use these Monster Men in order to raise the money he needed to pay back his mafia connections. Batman became involved after discovering some of the gruesome remains of the Monster's Men's cannibalistic rampages. When Strange set his creations free at an illegal poker game, helping himself to the victim's money after the slaughter, his mafia connections began to grow suspicious. Batman tracked Strange down, confronting the mad scientist (who Batman immediately noted was far stronger than he pretended to be), but was captured by Sanjay and thrown to the Monster Men as an intended meal. To Strange's astonishment and delight, Batman was able to not only hold off the creatures, but use them in part of an inventive escape. Strange was enthralled and thrilled by Batman, believing that he had found a genetically perfect man. He created one final Monster Man using a drop of Batman's blood, and while his creation still had many of the flaws of its "brothers", including the lack of intelligence and cannibalistic instincts, it seemed physically far superior, lacking most of the grotesque disfigurements that had plagued Strange's earlier work. However, Strange was forced to destroy his lab in order to evade capture. Soon after, he turned the Monster Men loose, including Sanjay's brother (who had been mutated in a failed attempt to cure him), at the estate of Carmine Falcone, where Strange's mafia connections were staying. Strange wanted a fresh start, and realized that the mafia was still a link to his experiments. In the battle that followed, all of the Monster Men were killed, along with a large number of Mafia and Sanjay (who was attempting to avenge his fallen brother). Strange escaped in the chaos, only to brazenly appear on TV shortly afterwards. He had succeeded in eradicating all links between himself and the Monster Men experiments, and was so sure that he could not be linked to them that he began to appear on TV as a psychological expert on the mysterious "Batman" the city was increasingly curious about.

His greatest desire is to become Batman. To that end, he has tried several times to kill Batman in elaborate or peculiar ways, and then take his place, but all have met with failure. At one point in his career, he was shot twice and dumped into a river; it was then assumed he had died. However, in Doug Moench's storyline "Terror" he mysteriously came back. He decided to work with another of Batman's enemies, the Scarecrow, and use him as a tool to help him capture Batman. Scarecrow turned on Strange, however, impaling him on a weathervane and throwing him in the cellar of his own mansion. The Scarecrow then made a plan of his own to use against Batman, and subsequently trapped him, injected him with his fear toxin and placed him in Strange's abandoned mansion, where he would have to get past a series of deadly traps in order to escape.

Finally, Batman was caught in one of Scarecrow's traps and fell into the cellar, but he grabbed Scarecrow and dragged him down with him. Scarecrow's trap was rigged to have the cellar slowly flooded, and now, as the water level rose, Scarecrow furiously tried to kill Batman. Strange, who had mysteriously returned to life, stopped him. Suddenly, the water pressure caused the cellar walls to crack, and the three of them were swept into a nearby river. In the ensuing chaos, Batman caught Scarecrow, but lost sight of Strange.

Both "Prey" and "Terror" were set during Batman's early years. In the modern timeline, he returned in a five part arc that ran through Gotham Knights #8-12. He was posing as a psychiatrist doing standard stress evaluations at Wayne Enterprises. While Bruce Wayne was on his couch, Strange drugged him with a powerful hallucinogen in order to coax Wayne into admitting that he was Batman. Batman escaped and triggered a post-hypnotic suggestion in himself, forcing him to completely repress the Batman aspect of his mind until Robin and Nightwing could thwart Strange and take him to Arkham Asylum.

Following that, Strange reappeared as the head of a gang of super-criminals attempting to take control of Gotham's East Side, then controlled by Catwoman. Catwoman joined Strange's gang, then allowed its members to "find out" that she was intending to betray them, faking her death when they attempted to eliminate her for her betrayal. Although she was able to defeat and imprison most of the gang, and even convinced Strange to give up and leave the East Side alone, the Professor still mocked her by pointing out that he had faked his own death far more often than she had.