Character Profiles - Villains - Scarecrow
Real Name: Brian Durlin
Occupation: Criminal
Marital Status: Single
Base of Operations: Gotham
Height: 6ft 3in
Weight: 217 lbs
Eyes: Blue-Gray
Hair: Blonde
First Appearance: Birds of Prey #57 (July, 2003)
Created By: Gail Simone, Ed Benes
Pre-Crisis
Jonathan Crane grew up a solitary child in the late 1920's, wiry and full of mischief. Even as a boy, Crane exhibited the characteristics that would determine the course of his life: cruelty and an obsession with fear. As he grew older, Crane developed a bookish personality and an interest in psychology. His pursuit of this interest eventually landed him in a teaching position at Gotham University in 1941. While this position afforded him opportunities undreamed of in his youth, he found himself ostracized by his colleagues. While Crane spent every dime he made on books and scholarly pursuits, he ignored the trappings expected of his rank in society. His colleagues ridiculed him privately for his clothes, his mannerisms and his reclusive lifestyle. Stung by their censure, Crane determined that to have both books and affluence, he needed far more money than his university income would allow.
To meet his aims, Crane turned to crime. His modus operandi was based on his own obsessions with the psychology and an insulting description used by his colleagues: Jonathan Crane became The Scarecrow. In his first foray into crime, Crane used a tactic of personal terrorism. Preceding his arrival with a few wisps of straw, Crane appeared to his victims late in the evening and blackmailed them with certain death if they failed to meet his demands. His first client was Frank Kendrick, a businessman being sued by his partner, Paul Herold. The Scarecrow offered to kill Herold unless he dropped the suit. After a single visit the Herold, in which the partner was wounded with a gun shot, the Scarecrow became a news phenomenon. When Herold refused to co-operate, the Scarecrow sealed his reputation by killing him.
In the meantime, Bruce Wayne, a patron of Gotham University discussed the case with a member of Crane's department with whom he was acquainted. Crane's name came up, along with his odd habits and the revelation that he had been recently dismissed for his fanatical teachings on the subject of fear. Wayne, in his guise as Batman, pursued the case.
In his second outing, the Scarecrow approach the manager of a failing department store, Richard Dodge and offered to rob rival stores to improve business as Dodge's. After his first theft, he was tracked back to his home by Batman. After a visit from the disguised hero, Crane witnessed Batman and Robin plotting to take their case back to Dodge. Enraged, Crane donned his guise as the Scarecrow, determined to kill Dodge before he could be questioned. En route, he was intercepted by Batman and Robin, who carted him off to prison after a melee in the city playground.
Crane spent two years in Gotham State Penitentiary. In 1943, he emerged to wage crime in Gotham again, this time using a more pedestrian format. Organizing a gang of thugs as his assistants, he based a series of crimes on bookish lesson of rhymes, stealing some expensive hats and following up with crimes based on words rhyming with hat. In his final foray to a dealer in Chinese antiquities named "Yat", he and his gang were rounded up by Batman and Robin and returned to prison (Detective #73).
The events of in Crane's life between 1943 and 1955 remain shrouded in mystery. It is known, however, that when he emerged again in 1955 he had developed an impressive arsenal of hallucinogenic chemical designed to cause fear. During a crime spree, he caused Batman to imagine that he friends and colleagues had vanished into thin air as a particularly aggressive form of autophobia (fear of isolation). Losing his friends, Batman turned to an enemy, Selina Kyle, to help track down the Scarecrow. The case brought the two close together and when it was completed, they had determined to wed (Brave and the Bold #197).
The final fate of Jonathan Crane was never revealed. It is possible that some day, in an eddy of Hypertime, we will learn of his ultimate end. In the meantime, he remains a figure locked in the history of Earth-2.
Post-Crisis
Jonathan Crane was a strange boy. He delighted in frightening the birds that he saw around his neighborhood, and he preferred the company of books to his peers. He was an odd looking boy, tall and frighteningly thin, and was the constant butt of the jokes of the more popular kids in school. He was teased about his appearance, with jibes made at his similarity in name and appearance to Ichabod Crane, the protagonist of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Crane grew up to study psychology and chemistry, and eventually received his Ph.D. in these fields. He became a teacher at Gotham University, and wrote numerous papers on his preferred subject within his field: fear. He performed many questionable experiments, and was finally dismissed from the University for pulling a gun in class to gauge the fear reaction of the class.
Crane was driven mad by this final rejection, and he began combining his two passions, fear and chemistry, into a plot for vengeance. Devising a chemical that created a fear reaction in those that were exposed to it, he began killing the regents of the University that had dismissed him, as well as members of the high school football team that had harassed him in his youth. These murders drew the attention of Gotham City’s new vigilante hero, the Batman, who hunted down Crane and beat his Fear Gas, turning Crane over to the authorities at Arkham Asylum.
Crane and Batman began a long rivalry with this encounter. Crane would now seek money to fund his experiments in fear, and victims to test them on. Scarecrow would devise new and more potent fear toxins, and Batman would have to find ways to counter them. He also began working with many of Gotham’s other criminals. In these early days, he worked with Hugo Strange and the Mad Hatter at times. He also was one of the other of Gotham’s “freak” community to work with Two-Face in his war against Carmine “The Roman” Falcone and his mob, to take the Gotham Underworld as their own.
When Jason Todd was Robin, Scarecrow devised a new chemical, one that inhibited all fear reaction in those exposed to it. He captured the new Robin, and exposed Batman to the chemical. Batman fought off its effects and defeated Scarecrow, but not before Batman had to face the one fear he could not beat, that Robin would die because of him, a fear that would soon be realized. Scarecrow’s interaction with Robin’s would not end there, as he became the villain that the next Robin, Tim Drake would save Batman from to prove his readiness to become Robin.
When Bane broke Arkham open, Scarecrow escaped and teamed with the Joker to spread fear throughout the ravaged Gotham. They kidnapped Mayor Armand Krol, and used him to hold the city hostage. Batman eventually found them and saved Krol, but was too exhausted to capture the two villains. Their partnership ended, Scarecrow left Joker to prepare his new campaign, to make himself the God of Fear. He manipulated members of the faculty and student body of his old employer, Gotham U, and began spreading his fear toxin around the city. Unfortunately for him, he ran afoul of the new Batman, Jean-Paul Valley, who defeated him and beat him savagely.
Crane would confront Batman next when Bruce Wayne returned to the role, and would again attempt to take revenge on those who wronged him. During this battle, Scarecrow had his own toxins turned on him, and he discovered that he was not without fear; he had learned to fear Batman. He also came into conflict with Catwoman, who he exposed to his fear toxins, a dose that would lead to the splintering of her psyche for a time. When Gotham was declared a No Man’s Land, Crane would attempt to manipulate the faith of a small group of people who had gathered in a church. Batman stepped in, and their faith proved too great for Scarecrow. He was taken away and locked in Blakgate Penitentiary for the remainder of the NML.
Recently, when Hush and the Riddler began their campaign to destroy Batman, they had Crane create psychological profiles of many of Batman’s rogues and allies, to figure out how to use them against him. His part in the scheme was revealed, and he was forced into hiding. The Penguin took him in and had Crane devise a new fear toxin to help keep Penguin’s capos in line. But Penguin had another, more insidious plan. He gave Crane an assistant, another chemist, who used Crane’s research to create a new chemical that would change Crane into a mad Scarebeast, hugely strong and vicious, that would project an aura of fear. Fright, the assistant, was more successful than she assumed, and Crane has since begun to change into the Scarebeast at moments of stress. After escaping custody in this form, Crane’s whereabouts remain unknown.
As Scarecrow, Jonathan Crane is one of Batman’s most intelligent adversaries. He is an expert at knowing the psychology of his enemies and how to use that against them. His fear toxins come in many varieties, from ones that create specific fears to ones that simply heighten the victim’s worst fear. When transformed into the Scarebeast, Crane is a more physical threat, gaining huge size and monstrous strength. He also gives off the fear toxin naturally in that form in the claws that form. Whether this transformation is something that will haunt him for the rest of his life, or will wear off after a time, is not currently known.
Scarecrow rejoined the new Secret Society of Super Villains, and is part of the assault on the Secret Six. He is caught in the explosion caused by Parademon. He is later seen alive and well.
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