Jonathan Crane

The Scarecrow

Jonathan Crane

## Biography

### Early Life

Jonathan Crane was born from an affair between scientist Howard Crane and a young woman named Karen Keeny. After he was born, his father revoked all parental rights from Keeny, and she disappeared - later attempting suicide.

Jon was raised by his father and his grandmother, Marion. His household was not a loving one, as Howard was a workaholic, and Marion was an old-fashioned woman and a religious fanatic. He suffered physical and emotional abuse at her hands. When she caught him sinning, she would force him to atone by locking him in an abandoned steeple on the Crane’s plot of land. In the steeple, there was a nesting of crows that Jonathan grew to become terrified of.

He was sent to private school at the insistence of his father, where Jon was picked on for his pale skin, slender frame, and thick glasses. One of his nicknames was "Scarecrow". Jon eventually grew tired of the bullying and convinced his father to let him take Kung Fu lessons. This resulted in Jon breaking one of the bullies’ noses, making him a further target. He also grew to love the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe.

Jon became fascinated with psychology in high school, and began researching a chemical cocktail that would amplify feelings of fear and paranoia, planning to use it on his tormentors. He donned a ghoulish scarecrow costume and attacked his bullies while they drank in a graveyard one night. The cocktail proved too powerful, sending them into a hallucinatory state that eventually killed them. Jon ran from the scene, and the boys’ deaths were left unsolved.

Jon graduated high school and enrolled at Gotham University. While at University, he began doing a work study with fellow classmate Abigail O’Shay, where they experimented with the study of phobias. Their relationship turned sexual and their studies advanced. While in his doctorate program, she volunteered to be a test subject on his latest batch of the chemical cocktail.

The effects of the cocktail were extreme and she was sent into a horrible hallucinatory state. While she survived, she was put in Arkham Asylum. Crane was saved from expulsion by a handful of professors who convinced the Dean not to expel him. Crane finished out his studies and got his PhD. He became an intern psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, allowing him to be close to Abigail.

### The Scarecrow

After a year at Arkham, he was promoted to assistant psychiatrist, and Abigail was released, where she disappeared from his life. Noticing the decrepit and careless state of the asylum, Crane began experimenting with the cocktail on some of the prisoners - most of which already suffered from mental illness, so increases in their symptoms went unnoticed by most of the staff.

Crane became fascinated by the criminal element that the emergence of Batman wrought upon Gotham. He decided to do his own test, using the so-called “Fear Toxin” on inmates to see if they developed a phobia for bats. When one prisoner threatened to speak up about it, Crane dosed him with a lethal dose of the toxin, killing him.

This attracted the attention of the GCPD and Batman, who began monitoring the prison more closely. Not wanting to cease his studies, but under the watchful eye of the Dark Knight, Crane began taking to the streets, waging chemical warfare on Gotham’s lower class, using them as his guinea pigs.

He eventually decided to make all of Gotham his target, spiking the water supply with a dose of the Fear Toxin in an attempt to enslave the city to their fear. While a good portion of the population was affected, it was discovered - and Batman and Robin tracked down Crane and brought him to justice.

He was able to escape captivity, getting out of a prison convoy with the help of Oswald Cobblepot, of whom he'd made the acquaintance. Crane became one of Oswald's lieutenants on "Team Penguin", and helped orchestrate robberies for him and became his head negotiator and interrogator, using his knowledge of chemicals to get information out of unwitting participants.

When the League of Assassins took over Gotham, he helped Penguin keep his territory in the city. But, when the city was finally liberated by the Justice League, the Bat-Family brought him in. Crane was arrested, and he stood trial for his career of crime. Even Abigail was a character witness against him. The court deemed that he was insane and so he was committed to Arkham Asylum, stuck in with the prisoners he used to torment.

Their hatred for him and violence against him triggered his childhood trauma. The pain grew to be too much for Jon, and one morning, Aaron Cash found Jon hanging in his prison cell, dead. This, however, would not be the end of Jonathan Crane.

### Resurrection

As it turns out, the demon Neron had continued observing Earth, even after his defeat in Star City. He had developed an interest in Crane. He saved Crane’s soul from damnation and bargained a deal with him. Crane sold his soul to him, and then clawed his way out of his grave, the flesh falling from his bones and leaving a skeletal frame of a man behind.

He murdered the graveyard attendant and stole his clothes, making off into the night. He returned to his family home, where an ill Marion would see him pass by her window every night for months. Howard believed her to be senile, as he went into the woods wielding a shotgun at night, and found nothing. But, one night, Jon entered Marion’s room and stood at the foot of the bed. And when she woke to scream, he split her open with his scythe. Howard rushed to the room, only to find his mother mysteriously dead, and the room otherwise undisturbed.

Crane has since flown mostly under the radar. There was one plot in which he captured Batman and locked him in a nightmare that he barely escaped from, and he later attempted to do the same to Stephanie Brown, but failed. In addition, the Shadowpact and Mystery Inc have run across him once-or-twice.