The Scarecrow (DC animated universe)

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The Scarecrow
Played by Henry Polic II Jeffrey Combs Appeared in Batman: The Animated Series First appearance Nothing to Fear No. of appearances 8 episodes Current status Apprehended Adapted from The Scarecrow
Characteristics
Alter ego Jonathan Crane
Created by
Bob Kane Bill Finger

The Scarecrow (Dr. Jonathan Crane), a DC Comics supervillain and enemy of Batman, consistently appeared in Batman: The Animated Series. This version was first played by Henry Polic II. When the series was revamped and shown together with Superman: The Animated Series, the character was voiced by Jeffrey Combs.

As he reveals to his henchmen in Nothing to Fear, this version of the Scarecrow is similar to the comic version as he was a former psychology professor seeking revenge against Gotham University for his termination, but in the series frar from being bullied as a child, he is the bully always trying to scare people since his childhood. For the first time outside comics, he employs his trademark fear gas in most of his schemes, which started revolving around scientific experiments on people and getting money to keep doing those.

Contents 1 Appearances 1.1 Cameos 2 DCAU Biography 3 Design 4 Action figure 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Appearances

1. Nothing to Fear
2. Fear of Victory
3. Dreams In Darkness
4. Trial
5. Harley's Holiday
6. Lock-Up
7. Never Fear
8. Over the Edge

[edit] Cameos

1. Joker's Wild

[edit] DCAU Biography

Since his childhood the Scarecrow has an insane obsession with fear and its power, often trying to experiment with his peers both for the sadistic pleasure of it and for the knowledge that comes from the testing, as he grows older and becomes a psychology professor of the Gotham University, he takes his experiments to a higher level by experimenting with his own students. As the administrative board takes notice of the incidents, they decide to fire him. He also runs an industrial chemical plant known as Chemicals Crane, which eventually provides the clothes and toxic substances that he uses as the Scarecrow.

In Nothing to Fear, he starts a series of crimes to damage and take founds from the Gotham University, as a vengeance against the administration. In the process he affects Batman with the fear gas he uses to keep away people in the crime scenes, but he manages to overcome his inner fears and delivers the villain to the Commissioner Gordon.

After his apprehension and locking up in Arkham Asylum, he manages to pay his warder to pretend he is still there. Once free, with a new costume and his secret identity made public knowledge, and no power over Chemicals Crane, in Fear of Victory, in order to make enough money to afford the chemicals he needs for his insane agenda, the Scarecrow starts putting fear powder in items used by several sportsmen of Gotham City and betting against them. The operation is successful until it comes to the attention of Dick Grayson, who gets accidentally affected but eventually manages to save the Gotham Knights stadium from being intoxicated.

In Dreams In Darkness he starts getting more ambitious and threatens the entire city for the first time by attempting to pollute the water reserves with fear gas. This time he has a large crowd of henchmen / technicians to back him up, all the technology necessary and an oddly perfect place for the operation: caves under the Arkham Asylum, where the sub terrain water pass through before going to the water reserves of Gotham City. He organizes the crime from the location while pretending to be imprisoned and escapes the day of the operation. Batman would have stopped it before that critical moment, but he is once again intoxicated with fear gas and when he crashes near Arkham the staff believes he is just a paranoid insane vigilante and decides to lock him up. However, after the delays Batman managed to stop the Scarecrow.

After Dreams in Darkness, for the rest of the first season and the entire The Adventures of Batman & Robin season, the Scarecrow only made cameos in Arkham Asylum, among other inmates with whom he seems to get along fine. In Joker's Wild he is featured in the TV room first playing chess with the Mad Hatter and then watching TV with him, Poison Ivy and the Joker. In Trial, his first appearance in The Adventures of Batman & Robin, he is with the crowd of inmates that kidnaps Batman and D. A. Janet Van Dorn to put him on trial. Although he's in the jury that decides he is not guilty of ruining their lives, when they decide to execute him anyway and he escapes, he fights him and loses once again.

In Harley's Holiday he has his first voiced cameo, as he is delivered to the Asylum by Batman and Robin while screaming insanely he is the "God of Fear" (a term coined by Alan Grant in the current continuity comics) he sees Harley Quinn, stops and swings mood 180° to greet her with joy and pleasure. They both appear together with Scarface and the Ventriloquist to denounce the abusive treatment they get from Lyle Bolton, the security head of the asylum. As the episode begins, Batman and Robin are once again delivering the Scarecrow to the asylum, only this time he is impressively scared of getting in because of Bolton. When the administrative board of the asylum interrogates the trio of inmates about the warden's behavior, he is the one that breaks the silence and gets him fired.

In The New Batman Adventures, as most of the popular characters, he appear with a new look (his third redesign), once again playing more serious and threatening roles. In Never Fear, he publicly threatens the city for money with the opposite of his previous schemes: releasing a gas that takes fear away, causing riot and chaos among the Gotham citizens. An intoxicated Batman and the new Robin stop him again.

In Over The Edge, the Scarecrow takes the Gotham City Hall hostage, and when Batman, Robin and Batgirl arrive to stop him, he apparently throws Batgirl from the building and kills. When Commissioner Gordon approaches the body he finds out that his daughter, Barbara Gordon is the masked heroine, and after some minutes in her computer, the identities of the Batman family. Enraged that they keep this secret from him, he blames Batman for Barbara's death and leads an all out assault on Batman, Tim Drake, Alfred Penniworth and Dick Grayson. In the end, after all of them die, it is revealed that all the events after Batgirl fights the Scarecrow are a a nightmare induced by the fear gas while she is in coma.

In the Batman Beyond comic, this story was brought back. In the future, Barbara Gordon keeps getting relapses of the hallucination, and has to sleep it off for a few days.

Scarecrow does not appear in Batman Beyond, though Jokerz member Ghoul dresses in a costume with a similar appearance.

As part of the original 13 members of the Legion of Doom, the Scarecrow was originally slated to appear again in the DC Animated Universe in the third season of Justice League Unlimited, but apparently due to a "Bat-Embargo" enforced by Warner Bros, this did not occur.

[edit] Design

Scarecrow notably underwent the most changes in appearance and design of all villains in the series. The character's appearance changed after his first episode, in which his masked face was thin with no straw hair, and was drawn about half as large as his unmasked head. By his second appearance, Scarecrow was wearing a wider mask with visible eyes, a deranged grin, and straw hair.

When Bruce Timm revamped the series as The New Batman Adventures, the Scarecrow received the most extensive redesign of any character. A nightmarish makeover which resembled a western preacher with long black hair, with a death mask and hangman's noose around his neck. Timm also commented he was not sure werther the mask is a mask or not. Of all the design changes of the series, the Scarecrow's was probably the most disturbing and terrifying.

[edit] Action figure

The Scarecrow was the seventh villain of the series to be featured as a Kenner action figure. Although the package art look like the first design of the character only with rag doll orange hair, the figure is clearly modeled after the second design of the series. It comes with a crow and a sickle it can use as a weapon with its arm spinning movement. The sickle was later featured in Trial, an episode aired after the toy release.

[edit] See also

• The Scarecrow, the original comics version.
• The Scarecrow (Super Friends), the version from Super Friens.
• The Scarecrow (Batman Begins), the version from Batman Begins.

Batman: The Animated Series characters
Heroes:	Batman | Alfred | Robin / Dick Grayson | Batgirl | Robin / Tim Drake
Villains:	The Joker | Harley Quinn | The Penguin | Catwoman | Two-face | Poison Ivy | Rupert Thorne | The Scarecrow | Ra's Al Ghul | Talia | The Mad Hatter | The Ventriloquist and Scarface | Clayface | Killer Croc | Mr. Freeze | The Riddler | The Phantasm | Bane | Man-bat | Firefly | The Ninja | The Clock King | Baby Doll | Roxy Rocket | Hugo Strange | Doctor Milo | Maxie Zeus | The Terrible Trio | Calendar Girl | H.A.R.D.A.C. | Red Claw | Roland Daggett
Supporting Characters:	James Gordon | Harvey Bullock | Summer Gleeson | Leslie Thompkins | Lucius Fox | Renee Montoya | Earl Cooper | Hamilton Hill | Andrea Beaumont | Carl Beaumont | Matthew Thorne | Thomas and Martha Wayne
Other heroes:	The Creeper | Etrigan the Demon | Jonah Hex | Zatanna | Supergirl | Batwoman | The Gray Ghost

[edit] External links

• The World's Finest, a site with a complete guide to the DC animated universe. It's the source of a great deal of the related images in Pop-Cult Guides.
  • The Scarecrow Batman: The Animated Series bio
  • The Scarecrow The New Batman Adventures bio
• DCAUResource.com a site with very well documented fictional biographies.
  • The Scarecrow at DCAUResource.com
• The Animated Batman, an Unofficial Guide, a site with a complete guide to Bruce Timm's Batman. It's the source of a great deal of the related images in Pop-Cult Guides.