Professor Hugo Strange

Few villains can claim they were there at the very beginning — Professor Hugo Strange made his sinister debut in Detective Comics #36 in 1940, conjured by the legendary Golden Age trio of Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson in the earliest days of the Batman mythos. Sharing pages with Bruce Wayne, Batman, Dick Grayson, Robin, and Commissioner James Gordon, Strange has haunted the darkest corners of Gotham across an extraordinary 85-year span, appearing in Batman, Detective Comics, and even Batman '66. That kind of longevity — from the Golden Age straight through to today — speaks to a character who has genuinely earned his place among Batman's most enduring adversaries, with at least one collector-recognized key issue to his name. For anyone tracing the deep roots of the Batman universe, Professor Hugo Strange is essential reading.