Hey guys!
Welcome back to Top 10 Nerd, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey.
Scarecrow is a really cool villain; anyone who has the ability to take on the appearance
of a person’s greatest fear is destined to be one scary dude.
But there’s a lot that some people don’t know about the guy, so I’m here to remedy
that.
Now, gas masks on everyone, it’s time for the Top 10 Shocking Facts about Scarecrow!
Number 10: As usual, I’ll start with a brief summary of Scarecrow’s origin so that everyone’s
on the same page.
Jonathan Crane was subjected to illegal experiments by his father, who intended to understand
and control fear.
When his father died unexpectedly while Jonathan was inside the test chamber with fear toxins,
the boy was left for days, slowly turning to madness.
However, with this madness came a mastery of fear, which he used, along with the fear
toxin, to aid in his future as a psychologist slash supervillain.
Number 9: Scarecrow is based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Both Scarecrow’s name and looks are based on those of the main character of Sleepy Hollow,
Ichabod Crane.
Obviously, Jonathan Crane’s last name is a reference, but his thin, wiry appearance,
is also based on the book, since Ichabod was described as “A goofy old scarecrow who
has escaped the cornfield”.
He kind of seems like what would happen if Ichabod saw the Headless Horseman, went insane,
then wanted everyone else to feel the same fear he did, while taking advantage of his
natural scarecrow look.
Number 8: He was one of Batman’s first villains.
When most people think Batman, they usually think of villains like Joker, or Penguin,
or Riddler.
But Scarecrow was actually one of the first of Batman’s rogues gallery to be introduced.
Scarecrow was first seen in World’s Finest #3: The Riddle of the Human Scarecrow, 3 months
before Penguin and a whopping 7 years before we saw Riddler.
It’s pretty crazy that he’s been around for so long, although the original version
of the Scarecrow was quite different from the one we know and love today, which brings
me to my next point!
Number 7: When he was first introduced, he didn’t have any powers.
Nowadays, we all know that his main weapon is his weaponized fear chemicals.
But when we first saw Scarecrow, he was just a dude dressed as a Scarecrow who shot people.
Which sounds pretty lame, but if you think about it, a lot of scary things sound lame
in the light of day.
If there was a guy going around shooting people, I’d be scared of him even if he had a cute
bunny rabbit mask on.
He didn’t actually start using his fear chemicals until 1983, in Brave and the Bold
#197, meaning Scarecrow was around for 40 years before they decided to actually make
him interesting.
Weird.
Number 6: Fear chemicals were introduced before Scarecrow.
Despite the fear gas basically being synonymous with Scarecrow at this point, he was actually
introduced after we got our first glimpse at the idea of chemical-induced fear.
In Detective Comics #46, Huge Strange used “Fear Dust” to turn the police in to shivering
scaredy-cats, and allow criminals to steal things without punishment.
It didn’t work out, because it was the 40’s and holy crap were villains ever stupid in
the 40’s, but it’s pretty cool that this concept has survived so long.
Strangely, this didn’t become a weapon of Scarecrow’s until 1983, but since then it
has become a staple of the villain.
Number 5: He’s had a bunch of different toxins over the years.
Scarecrow tends to depend most on his patented hallucinogenic gas, but that doesn’t mean
that’s the only weapon in his arsenal!
He helped Bane to create a new Bane Venom that increased strength while making the user
fearless.
There’s the Super Toxin 451-A made by his father that used, wait for it, the sweat of
frightened children, to make it more potent, so it hits harder and can last for months.
There’s even the trauma toxin, that replicates the effects of intense traumatic events on
subjects.
This is probably the worst one, since it scars the brain and tears the mind, turning the
victim into a mindless zombie of a person.
It’s so severe that Scarecrow himself doesn’t use it, because he can’t manipulate people
if they’re basically an empty shell.
Number 4: Gas isn’t his only weapon.
While most people know Scarecrow as being gassier than my dog after she eats cheese,
he does have one weapon he can use that doesn’t require the fear gas.
This High-Frequency Emmitter Fear Device attacked the victim’s nervous system, creating a
fear response in them to incapacitate them.
This Is based on a real-world tactic of using these kinds of sounds to scare birds, but
was used instead to bring about intense fear in humans.
If he altered the frequency, he could change the visions they saw.
This will sound messed up, but I think it would be totally fun to have one of those.
I wouldn’t become a villain, but it’d be pretty funny to mess with my friends.
Am I a monster?
Number 3: He goes both ways.
It’s true that Scarecrow spends most of the time making people scared for profit,
but he’s actually pretty versatile with his gas.
For instance, in 1987’s Detective Comics #571, he used the gas to actually ELIMINATE
fear, selling it to athletes.
But then the athletes realize that without fear they’re way too reckless and get injured
a lot, so he charges them even more to reverse it.
This plan is kind of along the lines of Joker’s plan to copyright his Joker fish, or like
Tony Stark’s Extremis app but worse.
This was a really neat Scarecrow story since it was a departure from the usual “Hey look
how scared these people are now!”
Number 2: He can turn into the Scarebeast.
While usually, Scarecrow looks normal, and depends on his gas to get all scary, when
he becomes particularly angry he’s able to change into the Scarebeast, an enormous,
super-strong creature that emits its own fear toxin.
Scarebeast was first seen after Penguin caused Crane to change in order to punish his disloyal
followers.
But later in the comics Crane transformed again due to extreme rage, meaning he has
the ability to change without Penguin’s aid.
This is certainly an intimidating version of Scarecrow, and it’s pretty wicked to
see him looking as scary to us as he would to his victims.
Number 1: Scarecrow was almost played by Coolio.
If you were unfortunate enough to have seen Batman and Robin back in the day (Which I
should say I loved as a kid but later learned to hate) you may have noticed that the rapper
Coolio played Banker, the organizer of motorcycle street races.
It seemed like a weird part, but it turns out he took it because he was offered the
role of Scarecrow in the next planned film.
Thankfully, the film fell through because Batman and Robin did so badly, and we were
saved from seeing that would-be train wreck.
I’m definitely happy to have waited for Cillian Murphy to absolutely nail the part
in Batman Begins (although he was introduced in The Dark Knight).
Also as a side note, Coolio is 53 now!!
When did that happen?
My goodness.
That’s it for today!
Hope you guys enjoyed, if you did please smack that thumbs up button and subscribe to Top
10 Nerd for more videos!
Are there any other supervillains you’d like to learn more about?
Let me know in the comments down below and I can try to get them onto future lists!
Until next time, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey with Top 10 nerd.
Later nerds!