Scarecrow (DC Comics)

The Scarecrow is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane, the character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 (1941) as an adversary of the superhero Batman. Although the Scarecrow only made two appearances in the 1940s, he was revived by writer Gardner Fox and artist Sheldon Moldoff in Batman #189 (1967). The character has since become one of Batman's most enduring enemies belonging to the collective of adversaries that make up his rogues gallery.

In the DC Universe, the Scarecrow is the alias of Jonathan Crane, a professor of psychology turned criminal mastermind. Abused and bullied in his youth, he becomes obsessed with fear and develops a hallucinogenic drug—dubbed "fear toxin"—to terrorize Gotham City and exploit the phobias of its protector, Batman. As the self-proclaimed "Master of Fear", the Scarecrow's crimes do not stem from a common desire for wealth or power, but from a sadistic pleasure in subjecting others to his experiments on the manipulation of fear. An outfit symbolic of his namesake with a stitched burlap mask serves as the Scarecrow's visual motif.

The character has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in film by Cillian Murphy in The Dark Knight Trilogy, and in television by Charlie Tahan and David W. Thompson in Gotham, and Vincent Kartheiser in Titans. Henry Polic II, Jeffrey Combs, Dino Andrade, John Noble, and Robert Englund, among others, have provided the Scarecrow's voice in animation and video games.

Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane introduced the Scarecrow as a new villain in World's Finest Comics #3 (September 1941) during the Golden Age of Comic Books, in which he made only two appearances. Ichabod Crane, the protagonist of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was used as an inspiration for the character's lanky appearance as well as his alter ego, Jonathan Crane.

Scarecrow was revived during the Silver Age of Comic Books by writer Gardner Fox and artist Sheldon Moldoff in Batman #189 (February 1967), which featured the debut of the character's signature fear-inducing hallucinogen or "fear toxin". The character remained relatively unchanged throughout the Bronze Age of Comic Books.

Following the 1986 multi-title event Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, the character's origin story is expanded on in Batman Annual #19 and the miniseries Batman/Scarecrow: Year One, with this narrative also revealing that Crane has a fear of bats. In 2011, as a result of The New 52 reboot, Scarecrow's origin (as well as that of various other DC characters) is once again altered, incorporating several elements that differ from the original.

Born in Georgia, Jonathan Crane is abused by his great-grandmother, and is bullied at school for his resemblance to Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", sparking his lifelong obsession with fear and using it as a weapon against others, before they can use it to defeat him like his literary namesake. In his senior year, Crane is humiliated by school bully Bo Griggs and rejected by cheerleader Sherry Squires. He takes revenge during the senior prom by donning his trademark scarecrow costume and wielding a water pistol resembling a real gun in the school parking lot. In the ensuing chaos, Griggs gets into a car accident, paralyzing himself and killing Squires.

Crane's obsession with fear leads him to become a psychiatrist, taking a position at Arkham Asylum and performing fear-inducing experiments on his patients. He is also a professor of psychology at Gotham University, specializing in the study of phobias. He loses his job after he fires a gun inside a packed classroom, accidentally wounding a student; he takes revenge by killing the professors responsible for his termination and becomes a career criminal.