Upgrade the Scarecrow

[Claude]

Sure you can do that. However making him a killer just to make him edgy, dark and cool is making him a killer for all the wrong reason. It isn't in the Scarecrow's MO to kill people but to make them experience the ultimately fear to see what it does to them psychological.

Yeah, Scarecrow should be as interested in fear and scared people as Mad Hatter is with hats and Riddler is with riddles. A good Batman villain is an *enthusiast* beyond all reason. Making them all Gruesome Killer Monsters is missing the point.

We've lost that recently. Joker seems to have no opinion on or appreciation of comedy - and we're meant to take Mad Hatter more seriously when he kills hundreds of civilians whilst dropping Batman's girlfriend out of a helicopter.

[Tupiaz]

Yeah, Scarecrow should be as interested in fear and scared people as Mad Hatter is with hats and Riddler is with riddles. A good Batman villain is an *enthusiast* beyond all reason. Making them all Gruesome Killer Monsters is missing the point.

We've lost that recently. Joker seems to have no opinion on or appreciation of comedy - and we're meant to take Mad Hatter more seriously when he kills hundreds of civilians whilst dropping Batman's girlfriend out of a helicopter.

I agree with most of the post except that the Mad Hatter is not about hats. A hat is just an object it is not something you do or have as a personal trait. He is more fascinated with mind control and Alice in Wonder Land.

[Greg]

I love the general conception and character of Scarecrow. He was my favorite thing about Batman Begins and I absolutely loved him in the second volume of BTAS. Man was he horrifying! I'd love to see a solid mini-series or OGN focusing on Scarecrow as a villain of a horror book. Have David Hine write it, he's great when it comes to psychological horror.

[byrd156]

From "Batman: The Animated Series" (Fox TV), Season 1, Episode 19: 'While investigating a mysterious series of athlete panic attacks during games, Robin is exposed to the fear toxin of the culprit, The Scarecrow' (source of summary: Internet Movie Database [IMDb]).

Athlete behavior is so symbolic in our age of media. The care and concern for them reflects social attitudes towards traffic.

Here, Scarecrow is seen affecting the lives of athletes with a strange fear toxin. Scarecrow is obviously a character we can draw on to talk about unusual subversion.

If we take such stories about specific plots, we might be able to raise him up to the level of the Riddler.

Fear of Victory is one of my favorite BTAS episodes.

Scarecrow is one of my favorite villains and I would like an Arkhamverse style redesign to the character.
TheScarecrow-Arkham_Knight.jpg

[jules]

http://www.comicvine.com/detective-c...2/4000-112669/
THIS. This story should have been what people based Scarecrow's depiction on going forward, as it really elevated him and showed just why he can be so formidable. If you never read it, basically when in Arkham, the regular cons push him around and mock him for being useless without fear toxin. His response is to later whisper something to one of them in his cell that causes the guy to commit suicide. He escapes, and then decides to use psychology and his actual knowledge of fear to create a panic in the city by picking off random victims and leaving their bodies to be discovered in terrifying ways, while Batman grows increasingly unnerved by the fact that he can no longer predict what a truly cerebral Scarecrow will do next. This was just a fill-in story, but it was pretty praised at the time for doing something new with the character, but somehow people just went back to the Fear Toxin schtick soon after. Such a waste.

I'm working my way through a re-read of post-Crisis to Flashpoint in the main Batman titles, and by a happy coincidence I got to this story yesterday. It's really an excellent twist on Scarecrow, that it's his study of fear that is his key characteristic, and that he can do it without the toxin.

Because at times it feels like half of the Batman villains have toxins in their armory, and better mayhem through chemistry gets a bit tired at times. The psychological aspect is something Batman and Gotham can't innoculate against.

(It does occur to me to wonder why we haven't yet had any aspiring new vigilantes turn up waving their chemstry diplomas though. Batman would probably welcome a specialist in that field with open arms.)

[Metamorphosis]

I was watching Night Breed and noticed the similarity to the film's villain, Dr. Decker, and Dr. Crane.



Decker is an icy psychiatrist that moonlights as a masked slasher serial killer. I also can't help but conjecture that Christopher Nolan drew on this character and his look for his version of Crane / Scarecrow in Batman Begins (their mannerisms in and out of the mask are very similar).

It could be a new take on Scarecrow, where he's a psychologist that stalks his patients, and even works with the police out of costume to deflect suspicion. Either way, I say they should get away from the literal visual motif of a lanky Scarecrow and make Crane a bit more physically imposing.

[MrStatham]

Decker/Buttonface is pretty fascinating as a parallel; In the 'Cabal' novel Nightbreed was based on, there are even inkblot-style drawings, although those are admittedly not much use in terms of their ability to help generate a psychological profile of someone. But David Cronenberg - who I think plays Decker in the movie - would have been a good fit for Crane back in the day, especially with the big milk-bottle glasses and the slightly off haircut.

But something like that could be awesome. You could even throw in a nod and have him basically convincing his patients to kill others, using his patients as covers for his own activity by making them believe they're responsible for what he's doing, and so on. I think a redesign might be in order, though I'm a big fan of TNBA's redesign.

[Metamorphosis]

Decker/Buttonface is pretty fascinating as a parallel; In the 'Cabal' novel Nightbreed was based on, there are even inkblot-style drawings, although those are admittedly not much use in terms of their ability to help generate a psychological profile of someone. But David Cronenberg - who I think plays Decker in the movie - would have been a good fit for Crane back in the day, especially with the big milk-bottle glasses and the slightly off haircut.

But something like that could be awesome. You could even throw in a nod and have him basically convincing his patients to kill others, using his patients as covers for his own activity by making them believe they're responsible for what he's doing, and so on. I think a redesign might be in order, though I'm a big fan of TNBA's redesign.

Nice--since seeing the movie, I really want to read Cabal. Decker was an interesting bad guy, and Cronenberg played him well.

It's a bit like having Jeffrey (Reanimator) Combs do the voice for him in TNBA--not cartoonish at all, but creepy, calm and detached.

Scarecrow having others do his killing reminds me a bit of the Scarecrow story set during Christmas during the Grant / Breyfogle run, Batman #455 -457. If I remember correctly (and it's been a few years since I've read these issues), Scarecrow mails out masks to people that cause them to go nuts and butcher other citizens of Gotham. One of the better Scarecrow arcs, IMO.

[MajorHoy]

The Joker may be the most iconic Batman villain.

Nevertheless, I was wondering if instead of the Joker, it was Johnathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow, who got the monstrous serial killer status. You know, killing his victims with fear venom or something like that.

"When criminals want to scare each other, they tell each other Scarecrow stories."

If something like that HAS occured, please let me know.

Maybe the new Batman: Kings of Fear will be of interest?


https://www.dccomics.com/comics/batm...ings-of-fear-1

By the way, does Scarecrow have his own Appreciation Thread?

[Godlike13]

Scarecrow is one of those characters that seems to always be cooler in other media.

[WonderScott]

I'd like to see a little interaction or rivalry between Jonathan and Harley, psychiatrist to psychiatrist.

[byrd156]

Scarecrow is one of those characters that seems to always be cooler in other media.

He's got some pretty good stories, his year one is great.

Also the Scarecrow (villains) one shot is a very under rated story.

[MajorHoy]

He's got some pretty good stories, his year one is great.

Also the Scarecrow (villains) one shot is a very under rated story.

Never read that one.

[byrd156]

Never read that one.

It's really good, it dives into Crane's psychology and you really feel for the crazy guy. Also the Blues Brothers make a cameo.

[Mistah K88]

I remember reading one comic, where Scarecrow hijacked the airwaves and told Gotham that he has been gassing the entire city with far gas. This naturally causes people to panic, riots and everything. It's revealed after Batman catches Crane that the city wasn't gassed at all. Scarecrow just said that to cause paranoia and study the city from the rooftops. The reverse placebo effect of telling people that they were sick to see how they would react. You have to play with his psychology degree a bit more.