Hugo Strange (Arkhamverse)

Biography
First gaining fame as a psychiatrist who declared that he’d fully analyzed the Dark Knight from afar, Professor Hugo Strange lent credence to his own claims by deducing Batman’s true identity as Bruce Wayne. However, his interest in the Batman turned into a deranged obsession, and he’s used his medical expertise to hatch a series of bizarre plots based around genetics and mind control in order to defeat the Batman and possibly take his place. Strange’s fragile mental state has left him with intermittent knowledge of Batman’s true identity, a fact that hangs over Bruce Wayne’s head – for if Strange ever snaps completely, Batman’s greatest secret might be revealed…

Attributes

 * Trained to physical perfection
 * Extensive Knowledge of Genetics
 * Obsessed with Batman and Batman's secret identity
 * Plagued by schizophrenic episodes that leave him confused and dangerous

Background
Hugo Strange is an unknown and relatively new player to Gotham City. Although he is a licensed psychiatrist, little else is known about his origins and Strange has been shrouded in mystery for years. Early on in his career, he became obsessed with Batman and dedicated his life to finding out more about Gotham City's greatest protector.

Apparently spending years intensifying his studies on the one topic, Strange also became intrigued with Batman's perfect code of justice--no one dies by his hand. He also longed to become the Dark Knight himself, inherit the legend of such a crimefighter. With such an cunning mind being put to work, it wasn't long before the cunning doctor used his skills to discover his subject's secrets, including his alter ego as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Strange was later to exploit this knowledge by slowly setting the stage in Gotham for the ultimate challenge: To first destroy Batman in a one-on-one chess game with his city as the board along with friend and foe as pawns, then to take over as the Caped Crusader himself and use the identity for his own purposes.

One of Strange's psychiatric patients was Warden Quincy Sharp, administrator of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, where most of Batman's Rogues Gallery were kept. Strange soon found Sharp to be the best kind of puppet: Established, old-fashioned, affluent, and completely hollow. He was a blank easel, fit for someone else to manipulate. Over a period of three years the warden found himself programmed into becoming Strange's "face", being used to set the stage for a showdown with the Masked Manhunter. One of his first moves was to make Sharp run for mayor in Gotham, knowing that if the asylum director won the position it would give him almost unlimited influence over the city.

These plans were almost set back by a massive riot at Arkham Asylum carried out by The Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, who freed most of its deranged inmates and took over the institution for one night before his scheme was thwarted by Batman himself. With his security systems disabled, his private security force completely routed by the rampaging patients, and chaos spreading across the locked-down Arkham, Sharp's public image was nearly derailed for allowing such an incident to happen. However, quick-witted Strange was soon to exploit such an opportunity, declaring once the riot had been suppressed that the warden was solely responsible for stopping the Joker and thereby giving him enough public support to make his successful bid for mayor.

Now, with such a madman finally in control of the "board", the pieces of an ingenius plan to destroy a Dark Knight began to fall into place.

Prelude to Arkham City
Hugo Strange retreated further into the shadows once the now-Mayor Sharp was introduced to the public spotlight. He stayed in contact with his pawn mainly through the occasional phone counseling session, and directed his every word in public through a radio receiver implanted in Quincy's ear.



Sharp is able to keep a strong resolve with Strange's manipulation guiding him into declaring Gotham a war zone and instituting a new prison system for all criminals after several rogue members of Two Face's gang destroyed the city hall, killing more than three hundred citizens. It is implied that the psychiatrist had been planning this incident all along from his position behind the scenes, thereby coming up with a pretext to put Gotham City under martial law and begin running it like his own police state.

With Arkham Asylum and the local penitentiary now unfit to house criminals, a drastic new project is introduced with the broad mayoral powers at a villain's disposal: Arkham City. Arkham City, in fact, is a hellish anarchic nightmare: Dozens of the worst criminals are simply thrown into a walled-off lawless district where everyone can forget about them. Hugo Strange, of course, finally comes into the limelight when Mayor Sharp places him at the helm of the new project, delegating to him full authority over both the project and its staff. In addition to repeat-offenders and criminally insane mental patients, hundreds of innocent people are also rounded up and locked into the prison city, even those with only minor records. To prevent Arkham denizens from escaping, a new security force is formed out of professional mercenaries. The team, made up of well-paid former military and police operatives, is codenamed "TYGER" and is subsequently turned into Strange's personal squad of trained assassins.

Quincy Sharp's dictator-like stance soon compels the public to loath and fear him. None except Batman, however, suspect that Sharp is merely the front man for a much more insidious plot orchestrated by an outside power.