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This is it. The big one.

It arrives at a moment where's it's suddenly relevant and topical to fan interests.With the release of the awesome new Arkham City trailer, the internet is ablaze with the question, "Who the hell is Hugo Strange?"

Hopefully, some people looking for answers will stumble upon these posts. It seems I've coincidentally been ahead of the game with these posts, perhaps even more so if the (unlikely) rumors turn out to be true, and The Dark Knight Rises will be based upon Batman: Prey.

Which, in either case, is the story I bring you today. In some ways, my entire Hugo Strange project has been building up to this: one of his two stories which defined his character for their generations. But while it's a different interpretation for a rebooted continuity, the threads to the original Hugo can be seen throughout. This Hugo is more perverse, more deranged, but just as brilliant and dangerous.





But like the best Hugo stories, Prey is ultimately about the heart and soul of Batman himself. What makes Hugo so great is how he pushes Bruce to the limits of what he can overcome, and by the end, Batman's triumph is always more than a physical one. Maybe that's why Hugo's the villain of choice for a handful of discerning, hardcore, old-school Batman comic fans.

If you can, I urge you to track down Prey either as a trade paperback or in the original issues of Legends of the Dark Knight #11-15, which I've seen in dollar bins. While Prey is a beloved story and a hot rumor du jour, it's also out of print. Again, WTF, DC?


( Until then, I present this inadequate edit of a great, rich Batman tale behind the cut... )

And with that last line, my thoughts once again turn to how perfectly this story would fit in the Nolanverse for The Dark Knight Rises. I still don't see it happening because most people just don't think of Hugo Strange as main villain material. Obviously, I disagree, but I don't represent your average film goer, nor even your average comic fan.

But either way, hey, maybe this'll finally encourage DC to put Prey back into print, along with Strange Apparitions. If I were an editor of collected editions at DC, I'd even throw in a bonus to the Prey TPB and include Moench's own Down to the Bone, because that one too deserves to be read and treasured.

This is Hugo's last appearance for about ten years, until Devin Grayson and Doug Monech decided to write their own sequels to Prey. Weirdly, I greatly prefer the former version to the latter, wherein Moench and Gulacy fail to recapture the lighting in a bottle. But we'll certainly be looking at both in the next couple posts.

First off, did anyone else notice in the DC Solicits that the MANHUNTER co-feature in STREETS OF GOTHAM is going to be replaced by a TWO-FACE co-feature? It's going to be written by Ivan Brandon, who wrote via Twitter, "I've made two-face's life decidedly worse."

This... could be very, very interesting. Particularly considering that I've been hating the use of Harv in MANHUNTER thus far. But it appears that I may have been too hasty. All in all, very interesting indeed!



Now, back to more Grayson-y goodness!

When Dick upgraded to Batman status like everybody bloody well knew he would in the wake of Bruce's "death," it felt strangely like both the writers and the fans had forgotten that this is actually the second time that he'd donned the cape and cowl. For instance, Winick's five-issue BATMAN run went out of its way to have Dick complain about how he'd never realized just how heavy Bruce's cape was.

The Continuity Cop in me was appalled. "What?! How could these people forget the 1994 multi-Bat-issue crossover storyline 'Prodigal?!'"

And then I actually reread "Prodigal," for the purposes of this post. It's... well, it's not bad, per se, it's just... so very of its era: the time of Chuck Dixon on DETECTIVE COMICS (and ROBIN), Doug Moench on BATMAN, and Alan Grant on SHADOW OF THE BAT. And even though I still consider Dixon the best of the trio, his Two-Face even back then was... well...





... with anger? (ten points if you get that reference)

Even though this came out eight years before ROBIN: YEAR ONE, consider 1994's "Prodigal" to be the official sequel, if that makes any sense. Oh, and the puns get a bit worse from here too (two? Just getting into the spirit of things).


( Two-Face and Dick Grayson rematch behind the cut! )