Scarecrow

A man of true intellect, Dr. **Jonathan Crane** fell from grace when he became absorbed by his own experiments that dwelled into fear and the incredible effects that it could have on a person's psychological condition. Abandoned by his parents to an abusively religious grandmother and bullied throughout his youth for his lanky appearance, Crane seemed to conquer his own fears and became a master at such a natural and primal feeling throughout his research.

After he developed an incredible panicogenic that amplified a person's worst fears and brought it to life in a horrifying fashion in his or her mental state, Crane murdered his grandmother and went on to become a professor, and used his students, medical patients, and even the Blackgate Prison and Arkham Asylum Inmates in his inhumane experiments. After he perfected his fear toxin, Crane renounced his previous identity and guised himself into the terrifying image of **The Scarecrow**, a name that was once a favorite taunt of the man's former bullies and using his toxin to fulfill many of his personal desires, while he also developed immunity towards that same toxin.

After Crane was ultimately exposed and captured by Batman and sent to the same institution that he used as a staging ground for his inhumane experiments, he realized that the hero had proved to be the only individual who was capable of inflicting fear on him. With his research the only motivating factor in his life, Scarecrow felt nothing but delight when he saw his countless victims' minds break into insanity and death from his weaponized fear toxin, and reveled in the sense of control that his experiments empowered him with. After he was recruited by the Joker for one of his more brutal plans, Crane used the opportunity to perfect an even more lethal dose of his signature fear gas. He hoped that not even Batman would be able to withstand its effects and planned to unleash it into Gotham City to break the soul of every citizen forever.

Despite the enhanced toxin, Batman managed to overcome his fears once again and put an end to Crane's plans. Mauled by Killer Croc after he attempted to poison Gotham's water supply (and Croc's current sewer lair in the process) with his fear toxin, Scarecrow disappeared for two years. Preparing the most deadly strains of his toxin imaginable, Crane bided his time as he planned a massive operation with the help of the Arkham Knight and Deathstroke, to tear Gotham to shreds with fear and condemn the rest of the world into oblivion. Consolidating most of the villains and their gangs under his leadership, Scarecrow initiated his plans to destroy the legend of Batman once and for all on Halloween Night.

Scarecrow is one of the recurring antagonists of the World Protection Security Agency stories.

## Appearance

In the comic "Road to Arkham", which led into the events of Arkham Asylum, Scarecrow was wearing his classic outfit with his typical hat and mask, which is known from the regular comic series. In Arkham Asylum, however, his outfit has changed. Instead of a hat, he chose a hood combined with a gas mask. Being shirtless and wearing no shoes, his clothes appear as he had made them out of his regular prison clothing. After the vicious attack of Killer Croc, his appearance changed drastically. His Arkham Knight outfit seems to be a combination of his old comic book look and his Arkham Asylum cloths.

He suffered from severe injuries due to the attack by Croc, serving as one of the reasons for his long absence from Gotham. Using his injuries to his advantage in order to truly become one with his alter ego, Crane reconstructed his face by sewing his mask into his skin, making it his true face. It should also be noted, that in the entire Arkham series Scarecrow's real face was never fully shown.

## Personality

Once a highly respected doctor in his successful fields of biochemistry and psychology, Scarecrow was in reality, obsessed with fear which caused him to have a low sanity and morality meter in adulthood, as he was determined in overcoming the worst fears of mankind and used that knowledge to control fear itself to gain power. Crane had the mentality of a scientist and believed the only way to achieve results was through experimentation, though his methods were unscrupulous, he showed little remorse over submitting living subjects to a literal nightmare, if he believed that their deaths were for a greater benefit, he would do so without batting an eye. Being afraid for most of his childhood due to being bullied into submission had destroyed Crane's psyche entirely as he vowed to never feel afraid again; he was willing to illegally experiment on humans by exposing others to their worst nightmares to advance his research further and achieve that.

Despite his sadistic nature, Scarecrow did seem to genuinely believe that his work was for the good of humanity. Or perhaps, he believed that initially, but as displayed on the night that Joker took control of Arkham Asylum, as shown by the way that he laughed joyfully to exposing orderlies, patients and multiple innocent civilians to his fear toxin and reveled in their madness, Scarecrow seemed to have shredded that (false) ideal to comfort humanity entirely and proved his nature as that of an evil psychopath in its fullest. Crane also seemed to genuinely believe that he was still a doctor, and ignored that his accomplishments and decorations as one have officially reneged ever since he unlawfully experimented on living human subjects. Crane treated his interrogation with Oracle as a therapy session, recorded it and stated her as his patient. That was the same situation during his therapy sessions at Arkham Asylum with Dr. Kellerman and acted as if he was in charge of the session until he poisoned him.

The radical personality shift that was seen in Scarecrow's character after the events of Arkham Asylum, that was displayed after he took control of Gotham could be attributed to his traumatizing encounter with Croc. Whilst Crane was initially depicted as a maniacal and sadistic villain and was accompanied by a loud, over-dramatic tone in a high bravado and highly outspoken towards his sadism upon inflicting worst fears upon people. The encounter with Croc had shattered that entire aspect of his personality and two years later, he returned as a calm, calculating, apathetic, and diabolical mastermind. Other than his cruel humor accompanied by a deep chuckle, Crane displayed a completely calm persona with little emotion and even less scrupled than earlier. Though he was initially depicted as an assisting factor of the Joker's plans, Scarecrow evolved even more grandiose in his designs, became in charge of his own operation and expanded his desire to release his fear toxin, which showed a degree of ambition in a Machiavellian sense.

Scarecrow's opinions on fear, and simultaneously highlighting the depths of his own insanity were not explored fully until his Interview Tapes from Arkham Asylum. Though initially, it was thought that Crane had viewed fear as a weapon in his arsenal for him to use against everything, while in reality, he treated the concept of terror as a religion. He governed it as an omnipotent force that controlled every action of life and everybody within life was dictated on how they acted due to an impractical phobia of sorts. That only appeared to have gotten worse as he claimed that fear was a fundamental factor of life, and that life itself was meaningless without fear. He declared a low opinion of hope, understood it as the catalyst of fear, had shown a multitude of times to be against its concepts, and was willing to rip hope from Gotham by destroying the myth of Batman and plunging the city into a reign of terror.

Matching his expansive brilliance in his field of biochemistry and the ability to turn one's fear against an individual, Scarecrow was also highly knowledgeable of other people's pressure points. As stated above, he was able to use fear to garner control over others and manipulating them based on their own worst fears coming true. Crane does that with Edward Nigma, by persuading him to join forces with the rest of the super-criminals by silently lulling his ego and the idea that Riddler's worst fear: being defeated and humiliated yet again may become a reality if he did not join forces with Scarecrow. Crane kidnapped Barbara Gordon and used her against Commissioner Gordon, and realized that Gordon's worst fear was his personal guilt over her paraplegia and his inability to save her, which he used to control him.

Crane was also glinted at having an obsessive mind and due to his damaged psyche, went to psychopathic lengths to achieve them into a reality. Scarecrow's obsession with fear became intensely warped as he described a desire to Batman to cover the entire world, beginning with the Eastern Seaboard, namely Gotham, in fear toxin. Noticeably, that was seen with his lingering obsession with enacting revenge on Batman. A large part of that resentment while due to what Scarecrow perceived as Batman assisting Croc into mauling him, it was also because how witnessing a man who was by all means fearless was an almost blasphemous shattering to Scarecrow's views on life. Thus, Crane refused several opportunities to immediately kill Batman, as he would simply by martyred as a legend and had no fear of death, which made killing him redundant to his full objective. By unmaking Batman, rebuff the claims that he was anything more than a man, and inject him with a concentrated dose of fear toxin, he would die afraid, like any man.

## Powers and Abilities

**Genius Intellect**: Scarecrow’s psychiatric and chemical genius renders him the most intellectually clever and terrifying criminal mastermind that can dive into the minds of his opponents through nightmarish tactics.

**Psychiatry**: He is even considered to be Arkham’s most prominent psychiatrist with a tremendous specialization in anxiety disorders, psychoactive drugs, and a clever form of exposure therapy he created known as phobic substitution (replacing the chronically frightening stimulus with a much less fearful stimulus). A phobia whiz since adolescence, Scarecrow is highly adept in reciting the name and description of nearly every known phobia. He is also an extremely intelligent manipulator as he managed to trick the asylum doctors into thinking he wasn't insane, especially Dr. Young who even believed in his charade.
**Toxicology**: Crane’s chemical and toxicological expertise led him to develop his ingenious panicogenic fear-gas, a true weapon of terror atomized with powerful synthetic adrenocortical secretions and other potent hallucinogens; when inhaled or injected into the bloodstream, the victim will embrace nightmarish psychological manifestations of their worst fears. Scarecrow’s latest fear-toxin contained insect hormonal secretions that possessed similar chemicals that activate a stronger fear response in the brain. It’s almost inevitable to overcome the nuclear fallout of chronic terror-induced psychological trauma because the toxin’s effects are so strong, it could so easily break the minds of those with a sheer iron will and absorb through anything such as the skin, eyes, clothing, and gas-masks.
**Leadership**: Scarecrow took complete control over the entire criminal underworld and the Arkham Knight’s militia.

**Intimidation**: As the self-proclaimed Master of Fear, Scarecrow is a creature of the shadows, like the Dark Knight himself, who realizes the value in waiting for the right moment to strike fear in all who see him. He has weaponized fear itself with psychological tactics and psychoactive toxins that cause his victims to suffer hallucinations of their darkest fears.