Hugo Strange is a supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. The character is one of Batman's first recurring villains and is also one of the first to discover his secret identity. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #36 (February 1940). A notorious enemy of Batman, the character has appeared in various forms of non-comics media, including animation, video games, and the live-action television series Gotham, where he is portrayed by BD Wong. Fictional character biography Pre-Crisis Earth-One Professor Hugo Strange first appears in Detective Comics #36 (February 1940) as a scientist and criminal mastermind who uses a stolen "concentrated lightning" machine to generate a dense fog every night so his gang can rob banks unseen, though he knows that Batman poses a threat to him. Batman, who already knows of Strange's experiments, begins investigating him after one of his henchmen commits a murder. When the robbers are apprehended, Strange vows to set a trap for Batman and deal with him personally. He has a dozen of his men ambush the vigilante, and one of them knocks him out with a blackjack. Batman wakes up in Strange's lair, where Strange hangs him from his wrists and lashes him with a whip. Batman breaks the ropes, gases the room, and defeats Strange, who is jailed but quickly begins planning his escape. In Batman #1 (spring 1940), he carries out his escape plan, recruits a new gang of criminals, then breaks out "five insane patients" from the local asylum and uses them as test subjects, turning them into hulking 15 ft. tall monsters by administering a powerful artificial growth hormone that acts on the pituitary gland. He outfits them with bulletproof clothing, and uses them to rampage through Gotham City and distract the police while his men commit robberies. Strange administers the serum to Batman after the giants capture him, saying it will work in 18 hours. Batman tricks two of the monsters into killing each other, and then formulates a drug that prevents any abnormal secretions from the pituitary gland, preventing the transformation. He is then able to kill all the other monsters, and sends Strange to his apparent death in a fall from a cliff, although he suspects that the mad scientist has survived. In Detective Comics #46 (December 1940), Strange returns and starts spreading a fear-inducing powder around