Hugo Strange (Gotham)

"And you, James Gordon, belong in the past. The world has moved on while you and people like you were living your sad, normal lifes. I was pushing the boundaries of evolution. The future belongs to my children and that future is here!"

- Professor Strange

"Death is not an ending. It's just a new beginning."

- Hugo Strange to Victor Fries

Professor Hugo Strange is the main antagonist in the Wrath of the Villains arc of the second season in the TV series Gotham. He made his debut appearance in the 12th episode Mr. Freeze. This is the first live-action incarnation of the Batman villain Hugo Strange and he is portrayed by B. D. Wong, who also plays Dr. Henry Wu in the Jurassic Park film series.

Overview
Professor Strange is the Chief of Psychiatry at Arkham Asylum and is also running experimentation on people in the underground research facility Indian Hill for Wayne Enterprises. He also answers to a secret organization called the Court of Owls, who gave him the task of reanimating the dead. In his search for a way to reanimate deceased humans he is eventually successful when he resurrects Theo Galavan. After realising that reanimated humans need a new identity in order to successfully 'live', Strange transforms Galavan into the vengeful fighter Azrael. Using this breakthrough in his research, Strange plans to revive many more of the villains delivered to his lab. Thus far, he is responsible for the creation of Mr. Freeze, Azrael, Firefly and Clayface as well as for the resurrection of Fish Mooney and various other experiments. It is also revealed he was the one who had hired an assassin to kill Thomas and Martha Wayne in order to cover up his experiments.

After the GCPD finds out about his experiments, Strange plans to blow up Indian Hill, as well as Arkham, with a bomb which is defused in time by Gordon and Lucius Fox. Strange is then arrested by the GCPD. He is brought to a secret government facility outside of Gotham, where he is supposed to reveal how exactly he managed to get the results of his experiments. This, however, gives Fish Mooney the chance to find him. Although the GCPD and Oswald Cobblepot try to intervene, Strange is taken by Mooney, who successfully escapes with him. After managing to save Fish, Strange is somehow delivered to the Court of Owls where he helps them in preparing their plan for cleaning Gotham City. However, he works with the Court against his will and when Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock appear in his secret lab he willingly hands them over his files and a sample of the virus he is weaponizing for the Court. He is not arrested because this would alert the Court. Gordon also realizes that Strange is playing both sides so that, no matter whether Gotham or the Court wins, Strange will come out on top.

Abilities

 * Genius-level intellect/Expert psychologist/Master tactician: Hugo's brilliance knows no bounds and he is a master tactician as well as a professional psychiatrist. He was able to resurrect the dead, create "monster" like creatures, and give several of his subjects special abilities.

Season 2

 * Wrath of the Villains: Mr. Freeze
 * Wrath of the Villains: A Dead Man Feels No Cold
 * Wrath of the Villains: This Ball of Mud and Meanness
 * Wrath of the Villains: Into the Woods
 * Wrath of the Villains: Pinewood
 * Wrath of the Villains: Azrael
 * Wrath of the Villains: Unleashed
 * Wrath of the Villains: A Legion of Horribles
 * Wrath of the Villains: Transference

Season 3

 * Mad City: Burn the Witch

Trivia

 * Professor Strange was first mentioned in the mid-season finale episode "Rise of the Villains: Worse Than a Crime", before making his debut in "Wrath of the Villains: Mr. Freeze".
 * Wong said about Strange: "We know that he's interested in reanimation. Why he's interested in that or what he's going to do with that ability isn't really clear, even to me [...] It does mean, if he's ever successful in reanimating someone, that all bets are off for anyone that's ever died."
 * Strange's reanimation techniques would be used by former Indian Hill scientist Dwight Pollard to resurrect Jerome Valeska during season 3. Although Jerome was in Strange's keeping during his work at Indian Hill he didn't have time to resurrect him himself.
 * Hugo Strange appears in the Gotham prequel tie-in book Gotham: Dawn of Darkness.
 * Not surprisingly, Strange is similar to Dr. Henry Wu from Jurassic World: They are mad scientists who sought to create monsters that they could control. Funnily enough, Strange attached a reptilian like claw to one of his test subjects Karen Jennings, which is ironic considering Henry Wu worked on bringing back dinosaurs.