User blog:Dual89 Proxima/PE Proposal: Hugo Strange (Gotham)

Hello everyone. This is a proposal to have Hugo Strange from Gotham who already have the pure evil category to be officially approved.

What's the work?
Gotham is a live-action television show that takes place before Bruce Wayne becomes the Batman. The show is about the origins of Batman, Gotham, and many of Batman's allies and enemies that are known in the comics.

Who is he?
Hugo Strange was the head of Arkham Asylum and was once friends with Bruce's father, Thomas Wayne. Strange is a mad scientist who enjoys performing unethical experiments on people. Hugo Strange is also a professor and a genius who is self-serving.

What did he do?
In the past, Strange was friends with Thomas Wayne and once worked together in Wayne Enterprises under a project known as Pinewoods Farm. As Wayne started up the project to help people, Strange takes advantage of it to use it perform gruesome experiments on his patients like turning people into monsters and torturing his patients. One of his victims was Karen Jennings, who had her hand turned mutated. As Wayne was against Strange's unethical experiments, Strange decides to side with the Court of Owls. Strange contacts The Lady for a contract killing by hiring Matches Malone to assassinate Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne. Unbeknownst to Strange, Malone murdered Thomas and Martha in front of their son, Bruce Wayne.

A few years later, Strange became in charge of the Arkham Asylum. While on the surface it was a place where criminals and the mentally ill are being treated and reformed to be productive citizens of society. Strange was using his men to torture all the inmates at the asylum by putting them through electric shock therapy. Other inmates were gathered up and experimented on by Strange to be transformed into monsters against their will. On top of torturing people and ruining their lives, Strange took interest in Karen Jennings when he finds out that she is not hiding anymore. Strange sends Mr. Freeze to murder her to keep the information she has against him silent. When James Gordon began investigating him, Strange managed to revive Theo Galavan from the dead. Since Galavan's psyche is broken and cannot comprehend being alive, Strange manipulates him by telling him he is Azrael. Despite many of his men losing their lives being around Galavan, Strange was interested in making a story behind Galavan and at one point Strange had Galavan kill one of the Arkham Inmates by telling him he was a demon. Strange released Galavan aka Azrael upon Gotham in an attempt to kill James Gordon. At the end of Azrael's rampage at least four GCPD officers are dead along with other individuals. When Selina gets into Arkham, Strange and Peabody watches in amusement as Firefly (Selina's friend) nearly tries to kill her after Strange brainwashed her.

When James Gordon, Bruce Wayne, and Lucius Fox, appeared in Arkham to gather damning evidence on Strange, Strange meets with Bruce. Strange tells Bruce that it was ultimately his father's fault that he got killed. Strange tries to tell Bruce to leave Arkham but when he refused, Strange had his men imprison him alongside Fox. Strange also took James Gordon and made a clone of him to send the GCPD so the GCPD would not have to focus on him. Kathryn Monroe from the Court of Owls tells Strange that he was reckless in releasing Galavan on Gotham and wanted to know the extent of his experiments. When Strange tells her that he mastered the ability to bring people back from the dead, the Court orders him to move everything to a new facility and blow up Arkham to hide evidence. Strange agrees. As he attempts to escape, he is cornered by Fish Mooney whom he revived. As he sets of the bomb and run he orders Mr. Freeze and Firefly to kill Bruce and the others and when Selina annoyed him ordered Freeze to kill her. However, Strange accidentally got stuck by both Freeze and Firefly's weapons. Gordon then wanted Strange to deactivate the bomb but the latter refused stating he would rather not have his monsters escape. This despite knowing the bomb to destroy a large part of the city and potentially kill tens of thousands of people. When he realize his plans were not working, he cries. When the bomb was deactivated, Strange was arrested by the GCPD.

Strange was taken to secret location where he would help other people with his scientific knowledge. However, he was taken by Fish Mooney after the latter makes a deal James Gordon in an exchange to save Harvey Bullock. Fish needed Strange to help her as she was dying from using her powers. Strange was reluctant until Fish threatened him and they both escaped. Later on, Strange was brought in by the Court of Owls to take a blood sample from Nathaniel Barnes and use the Tetch Virus within him to create a more powerful and deadlier version of the virus. As Gordon and Bullock was investigating the Court, they encountered Strange who saved Gordon from an individual infected with the virus. As Strange tells them the situation, Gordon deduces that Strange was not loyal to the Courts and was using both the Court and GCPD to his own advantage.. not caring about anyone but himself. Later on, Strange delivers the weapon that contains the virus to the Sensei. However, Strange was arrested on the spot when the GCPD was trying to find Bruce. After being interrogated by Alfred and released if he provides good information, Strange attempts to leave Gotham as the virus infects thousands of people and many of the infected people go on a killing spree. But, Strange was cornered by Fish and her men and was forced to join her side again. Fish wanted Strange to provide her with a cure. However, as soon as their alliance began Fish was accidentally killed by Gordon when he was infected by the virus. Strange was taken by the GCPD where he was ordered to make the cure to the virus on a condition that Strange can benefit from his work.

Months later, Strange was hired by the Penguin to cure Butch after the latter fell into the Slaughter Swamp. Later on, Strange was ordered by the Penguin to fix up and save the lives of Edward Nygma and Leslie Thompkins. Unknown to the Penguin, Strange implants chips in their brains turning them into pawns to Nyssa al Ghul. As a result of Strange's actions, Nygma made Ed into a mass murderer when he killed over 300 people. As Strange was about to be arrested by Gordon, Eduardo Dorrance had his men escort him away. Strange also helps Nyssa turn Eduardo who was on the verge of death into Bane. Strange also implanted a chip in the brain of the general who was in charge of Delta Force and attempts to do the same to Gordon until the latter escape his imprisonment. Strange was last seen setting off an alarm as Gordon and Bruce escaped.

Heinous Standards
He is on a level of his own. In a show like this were every episode someone is murdered or killed off, I have to say that Strange goes beyond the rest of the other villains in terms of his resources and the impact of his crimes on Gotham. First, Strange is different from most other villains like Jerome Valeska and Eduardo Flamingo. Unlike villains like those who are overtly bloodthirsty and extremely vicious, Strange is equally vicious but is cool, calm, and collected getting pleasure out of torturing people around him and manipulating those around him.

Like Francis Dulmacher, Strange has similar resources where they are both in charge of running a facility, illegally, and subjecting dozens upon dozens of people to cruel and inhuman treatments. Unlike the Dollmaker, Strange subjects more people to horrific and prolonged torture. Arkham has hundreds of inmates many of whom are mentally ill. Instead of trying to treat and reform them, Strange subjects many of them to torture like what happened to the Penguin. Other inmates were removed from the facility where they were placed in the basement and experimented on to turn into monsters (who were also mentally insane). Strange did this to pretty much every inmate in Arkham before he was removed from position. He was also behing the many deaths that Galavan committed since he released him to go after Jim. He was also responsible for intentionally releasing dangerous people out the public like Penguin and Barbara knowing that they were not rehabilitated and that they are very dangerous.

Although it was the Court of Owls idea to release a bomb, Strange attempt to set it off anyways. Knowing that the bomb could unleash toxic material upon the city, Strange did not care. Knowing how big Gotham is, the bomb would have possibly killed at least a couple thousand people before destroying the rest of the city. He sought mass destruction on that scale that would have killed many people. And, his reason for this is to try and cover up his activity at Arkham.

Strange was the one behind the Wayne murders putting him in a unique spot among the villains in the story. This had major traumatic effects on Bruce Wayne to the point where at one point he would physically hurt himself and harbor intense emotional pain. Strange like Kathryn and the Sensei intended to unleash the virus upon the city. They were successful in this goal since it ended up infecting thousands of people. This resulted in many people going berserk with dozens of murders and property damages all across the city. Also, this event nearly destroyed the city. Later on, Strange sided with Nyssa al Ghul in her attempts of destroying Gotham. Strange played a role like he did with the Court of Owls, by implanting a chip in Nygma and Lee’s brain. The most destructive result of this is as that Nyssa used Nygma to kill off hundreds of people in Haven.

Okay, going over all the things that puts him beyond the heinous standards: turned a mental health facility into his own torture camp and laboratory, attempting to set off a bomb that would have killed thousands, behind a mass murder by releasing Galavan, created and was complicit in releasing a virus upon the city to drive thousands of people insane, setting up the Wayne murders, and siding with Nyssa who attempted to destroy Gotham. He clears the Heinous Standards since most of his crimes impacted people on a large scale.

Mitigating Factors
He has none. And some of the mitigating he had he showed that it meant nothing. Strange is faux affably evil and charismatic, in an instant he can feign sympathy and surprise among people like James Gordon and Bruce Wayne and go back to his sadistic personality when he is not around them.

Strange tells Peabody that he likes Bruce. But, Strange tolerates Bruce. Strange tried to manipulate Bruce into thinking his father caused his own death. He wanted Bruce to leave Arkham, not out of his own safety, but because Bruce knew the truth behind the murders and his experiments in Arkham. This was a situation where Strange pleaded with Bruce to leave him alone so he could go back to doing his evil activities without anyone investigating him. When Bruce refused, he had no problem having him killed. In Season 3, he sided with the Shaman in having Bruce brainwashed to become his heir. In Season 5, Strange sided with Nyssa al Ghul where she attempted to mentally torture and later kill off Bruce. Overall, Strange does not care about Bruce.

His relationship with Peabody was purely business. Strange never hinted at having any genuine care for her. When the bomb was about to go off, Strange left Peabody behind when the bomb was about to go off after realizing she is useless to him for becoming a pawn to Fish Mooney. No, Strange really does not care about Peabody.

When the monsters escaped from his facility, he wanted to gather them up. But that was not out of the safety of the civilians, that was out of protecting himself against the Court since he already provoked them by releasing Galavan upon the city.

The Court of Owls? In a conversation with Gordon and Bullock, Strange admits that he is not loyal to them and that which ever side (the Court or the GCPD) was having the upperhand, he would side with them out of his own safety and benefit.

His relationship with Fish Mooney, is pretty much like a creator’s relationship with their creation. He was fascinated by the work he made and given his comments about her, he has a possessive personality over Fish Mooney since he views her as ‘’his’’ creation after reviving her. It is not a benevolent fatherly relationship, it is another one of those mad scientist and creation relationships where they objectify their creations because they are fascinated by the result of their own work. He threatened to kill her when she got out her cell in Arkham. Also, when she came to him to help him cure her since she was dying, Strange was reluctant to help her until she threatened him and took him along with her. Plus when she was killed by Gordon, Strange express surprise. But, Penguin was tearful and emotional when Fish died while Strange was reserved and cold. Strange’s first thought was to side with the GCPD in that situation for his own safety.

He also helped cure Butch Gilzean. But, that was for profit. He was hired by Penguin when the latter got the money to get use his expensive services. He did not do it out of his heart, he did it for business. He also did the same for Ed and Lee but he went behind Penguin’s back to insert chips into their brains for his own benefits with Nyssa al Ghul. And Nyssa? The same like everything else, another business relationship.

Strange is cold and self-serving. He does not have empathy to connect to people around him and is only interested in surviving and serving himself. Overall, he has nothing mitigating his villainy.

Verdict
He is different from most of the villains in the show. But like the Dollmaker, he utilizes his resources and is completely self-serving. Overall, I say yes.