The villain behind Batman: Arkham City is in the middle of bringing his video game world to the comic book DC Universe.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Harley Quinn #2 by Stephanie Phillips, Riley Rossmo, Ivan Plascencia and Deron Bennett, on sale now.
Gotham City has never been the brightest or most optimistic place, but it has always held together even through unimaginably dark times. Currently, it is still reeling from the horrors wrought on it by the Clowns, the colorful criminals inspired by the Joker’s all-out assault during last year’s “Joker War.” While Harley Quinn herself has taken to more heroic endeavors than usual, another of the city’s villains, Hugo Strange, is making a miraculous rise back to the top.
And as Harley Quinn #2 reveals, his plans for Gotham City follow a path laid out by one of the most stunning video games of the last decade.
Hugo Strange has enamored Gotham’s politicians with stories of his own reformation, and soon enough he is given a podium to espouse his message to the populace. With his new S.A.F.E. program, Strange is hoping that he will be able to bring the city’s struggles to heel. His words might instill some hope in those that are watching him speak, but for those that actually receive his special brand of care, things couldn’t possibly be worse. At his S.A.F.E. facility, an innocent man is bound by a straightjacket and seen pleading for anyone to listen to him. The man had previously had an argument with a neighbor, and in retaliation was accused of being a Clown. It is clear that the man is innocent of the crime he was accused of, but Hugo Strange isn’t concerned with innocence or guilt. Rather, Hugo Strange wants to cure the entire city, regardless of whether or not they are actually sick.
Much like his counterpart from the 2011 video game Arkham City by Rocksteady Studios, Hugo Strange is intent on turning the entire city into an asylum of sorts. In the game, Hugo Strange has Bruce Wayne imprisoned inside the titular stronghold inhabited by the former inmates of both Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison. It doesn’t take long for the situation to devolve into all-out chaos, with various Batman villains each carving out their own place within the mega-prison, all while Hugo Strange oversees the city.
This sort of total control that Hugo Strange is seeking is nothing new for the villain, though the likelihood of him acquiring it is not very high. Of course, Strange has never needed complete control to work his conspiratorial tendrils throughout Gotham, and it’s unlikely that anything is going to stop his endeavors at the S.A.F.E. facility anytime soon. Harley Quinn might see right through his ruse, but so far, everyone else with any sort of authority seems to be buying what Strange is selling.
If Strange is able to keep his facility running, the evidence of his misdeeds should become apparent to anyone paying attention. Then again, those in power seem far more concerned with locking up costumed criminals and vigilantes than doing much else. Considering the damage done to the city by the Clowns, it’s hard to imagine that anyone with the authority to step in and shut things actually will. This only means that someone else will have to take the situation into their own hands. Unfortunately, the best shot Gotham has at getting out from under Hugo Strange’s thumb looks to be one of the few vigilantes that it has a hard time accepting.
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