Scarecrow (comics)
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The Scarecrow (a.k.a. Jonathan Crane) is a DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of Batman. He first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 (Fall 1941). He would make only one more appearance during the 1940s and would not turn into one of Batman's main adversaries until his appearances in the 1970s.
Origin
Jonathan Crane became obsessed with fear and revenge from being bullied throughout his entire childhood and adolescence for his lanky frame and bookish nature. He committed his first murder at the age of 18 by brandishing a gun in his high school parking lot during the senior prom. Dressed in the ghoulish scarecrow costume that would later display his identity, Crane caused the main bully and his girlfriend, who had earlier rejected Crane, to have an auto accident which paralyzed the bully and killed the girlfriend. Crane discovered a savage delight in frightening people literally to death.
He became a professor of psychology at Gotham University, specializing in the psychology of fear. After his dismissal for firing a bullet at a flower pot to get his point across, he killed the people responsible for his dismissal and became a career criminal. He took the moniker "the Scarecrow," the favorite taunt of the hated bullies, as part of his revenge.
Description
Using a variety of toxins that cause his victims to hallucinate that their phobias have come to life, the Scarecrow instills fear in all who see him. When forced to fight, he uses his own style called "violent dancing", which is based in part off the crane style of kung fu, and makes full use of his long arms and legs.</p>
A psychopathic sadist, the Scarecrow is one of the many criminals in Gotham City to be confined to Arkham Asylum whenever Batman apprehends him.
In other media
In the 1970s animated series Super Friends, the Scarecrow appeared as a member of Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom. In this series, he was voiced by Don Messick.
In the 1990s' Batman: The Animated Series, the Scarecrow was voiced by Henry Polic II and then by Jeffrey Combs.
He also appears in the live-action film Batman Begins (2005), portrayed by Cillian Murphy. This version of the Scarecrow was a corrupt psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist at Arkham Asylum who was secretly allied with Ra's al Ghul and Carmine Falcone, smuggling the former's hallucinogenic drugs into Gotham to create fear toxins and committing the latter's hired thugs so they could avoid prison. His costume was primarily a mask, seemingly a burlap sack, that acts as a gas mask and an enhancement for the fear hallucinations he projected upon the asylum's inmates in his cruel experiments.
After Batman Begins was released, there was an explosion of fanfiction based on the movie, and the Scarecrow became a more popular choice of topic than Batman himself.
The Scarecrow appears in two video games: Batman Begins (a tie-in to the feature film) and Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu. His role in the tie-in game is almost the same as the movie and is one of the game's only boss fights. In the game, extra information is given about the Scarecrow's various quirks; he uses his patients (called "gimps" by various NPCs) as a form of personal army who frequently attack Batman in various levels. It is also revealed that he calls his patients "my darlings"; interestingly, this began an increased usage of the term in Scarecrow and Cillian Murphy fan bases. In Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, he is dressed in rags and is the first major boss to fight in the game, spraying the player with fear gas.
Categories: Batman villains | Fictional psychopaths | Fictional psychiatrists | Fictional scientists
