Jonathan Crane

Dr. **Jonathan Crane** (ジョナサン・クレイン, *Jonasan Kurein*), also better well-known by his moniker as **Scarecrow** (スケアクロウ, *Sukeakurō*), is both a fictional character and antagonist of the *DC* series. He was a man of true intellect, doctor at Arkham Asylum and expert in the psychology of fear, who fell from grace when he became absorbed by his own obsession with fear, its causes, and the experiments dwelling into fear and the incredible effects it can have on a person's psychological condition. Bullied and tortured throughout his youth, Jonathan seemed to conquer his own fears by becoming a master at such a natural and primal feeling through his research. After he conducted experiments on inmates, he have developed an incredible gas agent that amplifies a person's worst fears and brings it to life in a horrifying fashion in his or her mental state, Jonathan guised himself into the terrifying image by using an identity of his own and become one of Gotham City's most feared and nightmarish villains.

With his research the only motivating factor in his life, Scarecrow is a psychologist turned psychopath who feels nothing but delight when he often leaving to sees his countless terrorize victims' minds permanently crippled in his bid to "torture the bullies of the world" or break into insanity and death from his weaponized, hallucinogenic, fear toxin gas. Having been recruited by Joker for one of his more brutal plans, Jonathan uses the opportunity to perfect an even more lethal dose of his signature fear gas. He hoped that not even the The Dark Knight would be able to withstand its effects and planned to unleash it into Gotham City to break the soul of every citizen forever.

"*I am fear incarnate. I am the terror of Gotham. I am Scarecrow!*"

—Scarecrow.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice actor*: Jeff Bennett (English), Kousuke Takaguchi (Japanese), Not Known (French), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (German), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Danish), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Turkish)

### Biography

Taunted and bullied in his youth, Jonathan Crane vowed to overcome his fears through the study of psychology and biochemistry. Kicked out of his university for experimenting on human subjects, Jonathan adopted the identity of the Scarecrow and armed himself with a specialized fear-inducing gas that makes a person's deepest fears become frighteningly real. His ongoing criminal reign of terror makes him one of Batman's most psychologically dangerous foes.

### Appearance

#### As Scarecrow

* Hair Color: Brown
* Skin Color: Not Known
* Eye Color: Blue
* Age: Not Known
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 6 ft.
* Weight: 140 lb.

### **Attributes**

* Master of psychology and chemistry.
* Creator of fear-inducing gas.
* Motivated by an obsessive need to create fear in others.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* His Henchmen
* Roman
* League of Assassins
	+ Ra's al Ghul
* Joker's Thugs
	+ Joker
	+ Harley Quinn
* Victor Zsasz
* Bane
* Poison Ivy
* Two-Face
* Penguin
* Simon Stagg

### Neutral

* Killer Croc
* Deathstroke
* Hugo Strange
* Arkham Knight

### Enemies

* Bat Family
	+ Batman
	+ Robin
* Teen Titans
	+ Nightwing
* Gotham City Police
	+ James Gordon
* Rachel Dawes
* Phillip Stryver

## Powers and Abilities

### Abilities

* **Genius Level Intellect**: Jonathan is a master strategist and manipulator. He has planned out several contingency plans and hideouts for future crimes.
	+ **Psychiatry**: Jonathan is a gifted psychiatrist in the study of anxiety disorders, specifically phobias. He is able to unnerve people by making them see everyday things as a product of fear, such as going to a doctor (fear of death), marriage (dying alone), having children (leaving nothing worthwhile behind).
	+ **Chemistry**: He is a brilliant chemist as he concocted his ingenious fear-toxin.
		- **Toxicology**: Jonathan is an expert on poisons as well, specifically ones that affect the mind more than the body.
* **Intimidation'**: Jonathan is able to scare people even without the use of his toxin, due to either his reputation, mask and (later) his disfigured face.
* **Equestrianism**:

### Strength level

* **Below Strentgh Average**: Jonathan depends on his fear toxins as his primary attack. If his targets somehow manage to fight the toxin and beat it, he is left almost defenseless for a physical attack.

### Weaknesses

* **Lack of Fear**: Due to regularly being exposed to his Fear Toxin, Jonathan gradually began to lose his ability to feel fear. As a result, he became increasingly reckless with how he went about his fights with Batman, resulting in their final confrontation.
* **Fear Toxin**: Though Jonathan does possess a great deal of resistance to his normal Fear Toxin, he is not immune to the batch he uses in *Arkham Knight*. Once injected with it, it broke Scarecrow's mind, leaving him a fearful, blubbering mess.

### Equipment

* **Scarecrow's Fear Toxin**: A chemical concoction of his own design, which causes those infected with it to see their worst fears; in the worst case scenario, the victim would die. Simon Stagg noted that it could be used to cure depression and turn enemy armies against themselves.
* **Injection Needles**: As his gas has a hit and miss effect as it can be evaded, Scarecrow wears a modified hand-brace that holds four syringes of Fear Toxin on his fingers. The syringes are linked to three stores of Fear Toxin on the brace.
	+ After the events at the asylum, Jonathan designed a new brace, which had the syringes on four claws he could trigger by clenching his fist.
* **Trench-coat**: Scarecrow wears a coat to hold extra vials of his Fear Toxin.
* **Leg-brace**: After Croc grabbed his leg, the bone in it broke. As a result, Scarecrow now has to walk with a leg-brace.

### Weapons

* **Scythe**: Scarecrow at times wields a scythe which he uses in addition to his "violent dancing".
* **Gun**: Crane does keep a gun on him if he needs to kill someone without wishing to waste his fear toxin.

### Transportation

* **Militia Helicopter**: As the client who hired them, Crane is able to come and go via their transport.

## History

### Past

Unloved by his mother and abandoned by his father, Jonathan Crane lived mostly with his Great-Grandmother who was a religious zealot who tormented the boy in her care. Punishing Crane for the slightest misdemeanour, she would lock him in a church where he would be attacked by crows.

At school, he was also bullied by other students both for his awkward, lanky gait and for his uncanny resemblance to the character Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The bullies, who dubbed him "Scarecrow", frightened Crane but he refused to give in to his tormentors and vowed to turn the tables on his attackers and make them fear him.

One day, Crane secretly watched his great-grandmother and discovered that she laced his clothes with a substance to get the crows to attack. Finding a library, he learned all he could about all types of sciences, particularly chemistry and developed his own version of his great-grandmother's mixture; testing it out on one of the bullies at school.

Dwelving even further into the workings of the human mind, Crane discovered how to manipulate the fear response in his intended victims and took his revenge against the bully ringleader; dressing up as a scarecrow and armed with an array of chemically-tainted smoke bombs, caused the high schooler to crash his car while driving; resulting in him killing his girlfriend and paralyzing himself from the waist down.

As an adult, Crane became an expert psychologist; specializing in fear, and acquired knowledge of how certain combinations of chemicals could affect the human psyche. After becoming a professor at Gotham City University, he was dismissed for using unorthodox and dangerous teaching methods that resulted in the injury of one of his students. His fragile mind snapped and he again adopted the guise of the Scarecrow to exact his revenge against the university's faculty board; killing them through their fears.

## See also

* Scarecrow's Thugs
* Fear Gas

## External links

* Scarecrow *Wikipedia*
* Scarecrow *DC Database*
* Scarecrow *Arkham Wiki*

## Notes & Trivia

* Scarecrow first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 (1941)
* Scarecrow sometimes appears with a trained magpie named "Craw" and other times with a trained crow named "Nightmare".
* Due to his excessive use of psychological chemicals, Crane has become unable to feel fear and claims that Batman is the only one capable of scaring him.
* Crane is capable of mutating into an over fourteen-foot-tall monster known as "the Scarebeast" due to some genetic manipulation done to him secretly under the instruction of the Penguin.
* Although Scarecrow doesn't have real mental powers, he uses a gas to scare and reveal secrets of his enemies minds.