By Graeme McMillan. Although, as fans should be used to by now, his Gotham debut sees him far from costumed and villain-y just yet. Such experiments leave their mark on the young Jonathan, teases Sands. But in this noble pursuit, he creates a great deal of suffering and ultimately visits this unto his own son.
Clearly, there are some family issues to work out. As the Guardian of Gotham, Batman strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies—utilizing terror itself as a weapon in his crusade against the villains that plague his city.
However, there is another denizen of Gotham that knows how to use fear to his advantage. One that turns Batman's own weapon against him and revels in terror and dread: the Scarecrow. As a young child, Jonathan Crane was subjected to sick and twisted experiments on fear conducted by his own father.
Emotionally scarred and mentally unstable from the ordeal, Crane spent his childhood living in fear until he made an important realization—if he could control fear, it would never again control him. Over time, this interest in fear become an obsession. Graduating from college with a doctorate in psychology and specialty in phobias, Jonathan began experimenting on others, subjecting them to a hallucinogenic fear toxin he developed that brought out their worst nightmares. Although Batman has developed a number of remedies to counteract these toxins, Crane is constantly improving upon his formula, creating more potent and deadlier versions.
The Scarecrow constantly proves to be a dangerous threat to the Dark Knight not due to physical strength, but to the emotional and psychological damage his toxins can cause.
In fact, Scarecrow tends to shy away from physical confrontations and instead lets his victims fall prey to their own waking nightmares. A doctor of the deadliest caliber, the Scarecrow's horrific acts don't stem from a villainous desire for power or money, but from an unbreakable urge to learn and hone his craft—mastery over fear itself. His father takes off before he is even born, and his mother does not show any love or affection towards her son at all. He develops a taste for fear and an affinity for crows when his grandmother locks him in a dilapidated church full of birds.
The story also shows Crane murdering his grandmother, and learning that his mother gave birth to a baby girl, causing him to feel great jealousy and grief, reasoning why he is very cold.
During a Batman Confidential story arc, he is shown out of costume at Arkham Asylum still working as a psychiatrist, while planning the renovation of Arkham, and he briefly comes face to face with the criminal who will one day become The Joker.
In the Knightfall storyline, Scarecrow is one of the prisoners that escaped from Arkham after Bane blows it up. He first attacks one of The Joker's henchmen, who tells Scarecrow that his boss is after the commissioner. Scarecrow goes to the Joker and decides to become partners in terrorizing the mayor. Soon they go to the sewers with the mayor, where Batman arrives.
Scarecrow gasses him with fear toxin, but instead Batman gets angry. Panicked, Scarecrow floods the sewers. Batman escapes with the mayor but Joker and Scarecrow escape as well. Later, at Scarecrow and Joker's hideout, the Joker savagely beats Scarecrow with a chair after he tries to poison him.
He is then sent to Arkham. In the Shadow of the Bat storyline, Scarecrow escapes and brings together a small group of college students to terrorize the city while he enjoys the chaos. Soon, Batman's successor, Jean-Paul Valley, and Anarky arrive and together they defeat the Scarecrow and save the boys.
While working with The Penguin , he is mutated into a monster. He turns into this "Scarebeast" during times of great strain or when it is necessary to defend himself. He is caught in an explosion caused by Parademon. He is later seen in Villains United Special 1, alive and well. Recently, the Scarecrow has decided to stop using his typical fear gas, as he feared that other Arkham inmates were right that he was nothing without them. Instead relying on his training as a psychologist, he drives two inmates to suicide using only his words, also apparently terrifying the rest of Arkham's inmates.
After manipulating the guards into freeing him, Crane embarks upon a string of vicious serial murders, terrifying Gotham without using his trademark gimmicks. On Green Lantern vol. On the cover of Justice League of America 13 Vol.
Jonathan Crane, alias the Scarecrow, was once a respected professor but is now simply another inmate at Arkham Asylum. He later assists the crime lord in manufacturing a new recreational drug called "Thrill," which caught the attentions of Oracle and Batgirl. The Scarecrow uses his fear gas on Batgirl but she shows enough will to break through it eventually he is defeated by Batgirl and once again arrested.
Scarecrow briefly appears in the fourth issue of the Blackest Night storyline. His immunity to fear brought about by frequent exposure to his own fear gas renders him practically invincible to the invading Black Lanterns. However, his current status of fearlessness has taken a further toll on his sanity, exacerbated by the long disappearance of Batman: he craves for fear, exposing himself deliberately to the revenant army, but knowing that only Batman could scare him again.
Scarecrow appears again in Blackest Night 6. When Ganthet creates duplicates of the seven Lantern Corps rings, Scarecrow is chosen by the yellow ring because of his ability to instill great fear, and becomes a temporary member of the Sinestro Corps.
He was soon elected to be the Sinestro of Sector Overjoyed at finally being able to feel fear, Scarecrow gleefully and without question follows the commands of Sinestro. For a time, he willingly did his duty, and even assisted against the Black Lanterns, personally attacking Black Hand. His joy is cut short, however, when Lex Luthor, overwhelmed by the orange light of greed, steals his yellow power ring.
Some time later during the events of Brightest Day , Scarecrow begins kidnapping and murdering college interns working for LexCorp as a way of getting back at Luthor for stealing his ring. When Robin and Supergirl attempt to stop his plans, Scarecrow unleashes a new fear toxin that is powerful enough to affect a Kryptonian.
The toxin forces Supergirl to see visions of a Black Lantern Reactron, but she is able to snap out of the illusion and help Robin defeat Scarecrow. He is eventually freed from Arkham when Deathstroke and the Titans break into the asylum in order to capture one of the inmates. Scarecrow briefly appears in Batman and Robin 25, he was going to gas Gotham with his Fear Toxin but Batman stopped him before he was able to fulfill his plans.
His targets have become more specific as he is after the jocks who used to torment him in school. He is about to kill a former football player when vampire Batman appears, brutally noting that Scarecrow is almost worse than him; he now has no choice but to kill, but Scarecrow has a choice and yet he chose to prey on innocents. Scarecrow blubbers that his victims were not innocent and that they tormented him and scared him. Batman grabs Scarecrow's vial of fear gas, crushing it along with Crane's hand, stating that Crane has no idea what fear is as he uses Crane's own sickle to cut off his head.
Crane's fate in the DC animated universe is revealed in the Batman Beyond comic storyline where it is mentioned that Scarecrow actually retired from a life of crime and spent the last ten years of his life writing out experiments before dying of illness.
He was also featured in the DC vs. Marvel crossover where he temporarily allies with his Marvel universe equivalent to capture Lois Lane before they are both defeated by Ben Reilly.
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