Batman Arkham: Hugo Strange

I like these DC Arkham volumes (and Marvel does something similar with their MCU tie-in books) because they show the evolution of a villain through time. And when I say through time I mean a lot of time. The character of Hugo Strange first showed up in 1940 and the last comic collected here is from 2016. So it’s been a slow evolution.

In Dr. Strange’s debut Batman describes him as “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.” This makes him sound a bit like a DC version of Professor Moriarty, which may have been the original idea. As things went on, however, he turned into something a little more specific. I assume he’s still a great mind and polymath, but in his later iterations he seems more specifically to be a psychiatrist or psychologist. His appearance also became more distinct: coke-bottle glasses or goggles, bald and with a beard, and a grin that flashes both top and bottom rows of teeth. It’s also revealed that he’s quite buff, to the point where he can fill out a Batman suit well enough to pass as the caped crusader, only hairier. Or even go toe-to-toe with the champ in fisticuffs, if need be.

This made the data page provided as a bonus at the end of this volume all the more surprising when it gave his personal stats as 5’10 ½” and 170 pounds. Do you know anyone else who is 5’10 ½” and 170 pounds? Yes you do! The fellow writing this review! And I can tell you, I don’t have a superhero’s build.

Another quick aside: Why is he Professor Hugo Strange? I assume he has a Ph.D. from somewhere, and so could be called Dr. Strange (albeit not of the mystic arts), but the title of professor usually means someone who has a teaching position somewhere. I don’t see any evidence of that in these comics, and I’m not sure how it would work for Hugo, given his criminal record.

In any event, like a lot of shrinks (and yes, I’ve known a few), this Dr. Strange has lots of his own mental issues to work through. The chief being an obsession not just with defeating Batman but becoming Batman himself. Hence the way he keeps dressing himself up as Batman, which seems almost like a kink. When Robin asks him why he’s so into cosplay we get this explanation: “Batman is more than a person, child. Batman is a force, a power of archetypal potency! The Bat is in all of us! I am the Bat! He has no right to keep the mask to himself! No right!”

I don’t know if that makes any sense. It probably does to him, but as Robin realizes, he’s not someone who knows himself very well. I mentioned, for example, his thing for dressing up as Batman being a sort of kink, and there were a few points in these comics that reinforced that notion. In his debut for example, when Professor Strange captures Batman he ties him up and starts whipping him. Or, in his words, giving him “a taste of the lash!” This struck me as kind of weird. Then in a later comic there’s a two-page wrestling match between a totally nude Bruce Wayne (fresh out of the shower, you see) and a “mandroid” version of Robin. This made me think of Saturday Night Live’s Ambiguously Gay Duo. Is there some homoerotic fascination then that Strange has for Batman/Bruce Wayne? (For years Strange was the only villain that knew Batman’s real identity, which he discovered by the simple expedient of taking off his mask when he captured him.) As for his dating preferences, his data page gives his marital status as single and whatever else he envies about Bruce Wayne’s lifestyle, it’s not having hot girlfriends like Silver St. Cloud, who he finds to be a nuisance.

Leaving all that aside and just focusing on the comics, I thought the two-parter from 1977, and 1986’s “Down to the Bone” (that reads a lot like Frank Miller’s Daredevil: Born Again storyline, which came out the same year) were both very good. Do you know what elite status markers were in 1986? Yachts and . . . VCRs! Alas, “money is not just yachts and VCRs,” we’re also told. So I guess I wasn’t that rich after all. Moving along, the four-part “Transference” story from Gotham Knights though struck me as poor and the final story, the climax of the “Night of the Monster Men” arc, wasn’t worth including. In other words, the storytelling hit a peak in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has been in a trough since. That’s not really an issue with the evolution of the character of Hugo Strange though, but says more about the declining quality of writing everywhere.

Graphicalex