Scarecrow

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by Andy70903

by Andy70903

FULL NAME
Jonathan Crane

OCCUPATION
Professional Criminal/Terrorist
University Professor (Formerly) Psychologist (Formerly)
Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum (Formerly)

BASE OF OPERATIONS
Blackgate, Arkham Asylum, Gotham City

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

HAIR
Brown

EYES
Blue

HEIGHT
6'0

WEIGHT
140lbs.

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

When The Joker took over Arkham Island, Crane was released to cause as much death and chaos as possible. Using this to his advantage, the Scarecrow tried breaking the mind of Batman again and again, only to fail. When attempting to poison Gotham City's water with his toxin, Crane was brutally mauled by the mutated criminal, Killer Croc.

Seething with rage, Scarecrow exacted revenge on Batman and Gotham with his allies, the mysterious Arkham Knight and former assassin, Deathstroke. However, in the end, Crane's plan to break Batman's will failed, and he was forced to endure a dose of his own improved toxin. Reduced to a harmless shell, Scarecrow was left to suffer visions of bats.

Born Jonathan Crane, he was the meek but intelligent child of a normal Gotham family. Unfortunately, he suffered years of bullying, which caused him to be in a constant state of terror. Deciding to overcome his phobias, Jonathan dedicated his life to studying fear. Jonathan became a professor of psychology and psychiatry to overcome his fears of being teased by his classmates for his obsession with his studies.

Eventually, he decided to get a job at Blackgate Prison to research fear and nightmares. Crane then made a gas that induced fear in his patients, believing that criminals were the perfect subject for his tests as they were effectively the embodiment of his childhood bullies. Crane ran his tests on the prisoners at the prison to improve his toxin.

Eventually, Crane was found out and fired. Seeking revenge, he adopted the identity of the super villain Scarecrow to get back at his former employers via his Fear Gas. This brought Crane into conflict with Gotham's protector, Batman. To Crane's amazement, Batman wasn't visually affected by his Fear Gas, and subjected to a dose of his own "medicine" before being arrested. Once recovered, Crane became intrigued with the idea of a man who had no fears, deciding to focus on breaking the Batman along with the rest of Gotham. To this end, Crane researched relentlessly to create a batch of Fear Gas that could even break the Dark Knight.

Over the years, Crane repeatedly broke out of Arkham Asylum, hoping with each chance to infect the citizens of Gotham with his Fear Gas to study their fears; as an added bonus, this would lure in Batman so Crane could douse him with his Fear Gas. However, he was repeatedly bested by Batman and subjected to his Fear Gas again and again over the years. This had an unintended side-effect on his self-preservation cortex (the part of the brain that controls the survival instinct/fear). Crane was gradually beginning to lose his own sense of fear, increasing the instability of his mind; however, due to Batman being what he saw when infected by Fear Gas, Crane retained a fear of bats no matter how much his own immunity to the toxin increased.

Even though Scarecrow was returned to Arkham, he continued his plans from a secret loft that was hidden at the Intensive Treatment Center, and plotted his next move with some stolen blueprints of the Asylum. In secret, Scarecrow managed to hide three canisters worth of his Fear Toxin in Arkham West.

While incarcerated, Crane was assigned to Dr. Murphy for treatment, but was later sent to Dr. Combs. Managing to sneak in some of his Fear Gas, Crane broke Combs. As Combs saw horrifying visions of the deaths of his family, security arrived and captured Crane, who noted that it was impossible to continue his research with the Arkham staff impeding him at every step.

Three weeks later, Crane was referred to Dr. Stephen Kellerman. Despite Kellerman's attempts to treat him, Crane acted as though he were conducting the sessions, even dictating notes, and was simply patronizing him. Crane toyed with Kellerman during each session, shared his philosophy on fear as the driving force behind the human condition, and even used everyday examples from the therapist's supposedly fulfilling life as evidence.

These meetings rattled Kellerman, who came to believe that Crane was simply sadistic rather than insane (with there not being much difference). Crane's mind games were actually having even more of an effect on Kellerman due to the Fear Toxin chemicals he had incorporated into his cologne, and was also exposed to the guards who brought him to each session. This was part of a plan to further Scarecrow's research, who rigged the Medical Facility's air conditioning system to flood the building with the rest of his latest Fear Toxin formula. Everyone exposed to both components began to hallucinate their worst nightmares.

Before Crane could continue, Batman crashed into the room. Kellerman had realized what his patient was up to, and provided the Dark Knight with a sample of the toxin to create an antidote, which he gave to Arkham Asylum Guard Aaron Cash to disperse through the rigged air conditioning system. Scarecrow was amazed that Batman seemed to be unaffected by the gas, then gleeful when he implied that he was being affected as much as anyone else. Despite his pleas to learn what kind of vision his nemesis had seen, Crane was defeated, arrested, and returned to his cell, and lost once again to the Dark Knight's willpower.