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forevercloudnine · 2 years

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What do you think about the moments Scarecrow goes out to fear attack abusers of others? Not sure if this is really a thing within his character in the other DC Universe comics and I can't find for the life of me the one BTAS comic that seems explore this side, where he stops crime because he feels he's getting too old and wants to enjoy teaching again because he likes teaching, one student sticks out for him for her "intelligence", but one day she appears distressed to him because of her abusive boyfriend and after he discovers what he did he goes after him not only to kill him but torture him, make him feel as helpless as his girlfriend felt.

Personally the comic made me remember a little bit of the Becky Albright situation with Scarecrow, where this Jonathan goes out of his way to revenge himself on his bullies and ends up feeling some kind of... kinship with Becky for him seeing a reflection of himself in her fears, and asks for her to join him as Queen of Fear so she could also revenge on her bullies but in this case as she denies... that, he goes out of his way to try kill her(like originally he was going to do in the comic anyway).

The BTAS comic situation tho is different feels more like although he's possibly seeing a reflection to the abuse he suffered(considering if that version has also suffered abuse, I don't think it was ever mentioned on the show), he takes at his own hands to seek out revenge for that specific student, although should be noted that he took a liking of her(different from Becky this was more of a teacher loving a brilliant pupil kind of situation as far I could see) and as far I can tell I do not really think he would do the same for others unless he could see himself in them?

Feels like an internalized need of some kind, but I'm not sure if it's something that repeats itself in many stories relating Scarecrow

The BTAS comic you're thinking of is “Study Hall” in The Batman Adventures Annual (1994) #1, which is Scarecrow’s chapter in an anthology story of several failed attempts at reformation from Batman's rogues gallery. Further discussion below the cut:

Interestingly, this BTAS comic actually predates the first Scarecrow origin story where he's portrayed with a history of being bullied (unless you count his being “an outcast amongst his colleagues” in his first appearance in 1941, but that was less bullying and more just him being a creepy poorly dressed recluse who no one wanted to see at faculty parties). The idea of Jonathan being bullied as a child originally came from the 1995 Batman Annual #19, “Masters of Fear.”

The Becky Albright story, Scarecrow: New Year’s Evil, came out three years later in 1998, at which point Jonathan’s “bullied into being evil” backstory had become well-saturated into the main continuity. Ten years later in 2008 we also get Joker’s Asylum: Scarecrow #1, where Jonathan fakes a license to practice therapy and identifies with a bullied teenage patient named Lindsay. Like with Becky, he tries to convince Lindsay to get revenge for herself (which she ultimately does), but it’s more of a mentor relationship a la Molly Randall (sooo not an erotic obsession that began and ended with the desire to kill her, like with Becky).

In this post-crisis continuity (and even non-canon au comics that were published while it was ongoing, like Crimson Rain), Jonathan’s adolescent experiences as a victim of bullying really subsumed his character. To the point that even in his appearances where he’s not actively hunting down his childhood bullies, he’s still thinking about the world in a dichotomy of tormentor/victim, going back and forth between delighting in tormenting others and resenting his continued “victimhood.”

In the current continuity, it’s very briefly mentioned that he was picked on growing up, but that’s not the trauma that made Jonathan into Scarecrow. That was 100% the abuse he suffered under his creepy mad scientist father, as well as his father dying of a heart attack in the middle of an experiment, leaving a young Jonathan trapped in the testing chamber for over a week, until someone was called to investigate Dr. Jonathan Crane Sr.’s lack of appearances at work.

However, he does have some moments of empathy for others who remind him of himself in this continuity as well. Most notably a little girl he had been experimenting on in his “Cycle of Violence” arc in Batman: The Dark Knight, as well as the orphan protagonist of in the “House of Gotham” back-up stories in Detective Comics.

So despite the fact that the BTAS comic predates Jonathan having any kind of tragic backstory, his having a kind of twisted empathy for young people with similar traits to him is arguably a reoccuring character trait, regardless of how his character has shifted over time. I like the way you phrased it, that it’s an “internalized need” that he wouldn’t indulge with anyone he couldn’t see himself in. It’s possible that he’s being the kind of adult mentor he wished he’d had at their age; it’s just that Jonathan is an extremely deranged person whose idea of “help” is only going to cause more problems in the long run.

#jonathan crane #scarecrow #molly randall #becky albright #considered adding tommy elliot to the compilation #but honestly that was less of an empathy moment #and more of a hannibal lector 'wow this kid is crazy'#'i'm going to give him a clean bill of health and see if he does any interesting murders'#anyway interesting question!!! thank you for giving me the opportunity to sift through panels and think about things

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