Batman is one of the world’s most popular superheroes, and a large part of that is because of his incredible lineup of villains. Batman’s rogues gallery is arguably the strongest in comics, and it inarguably is home to the largest collection of best-known villains. Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, and so many more classic Gotham-based crooks are household names. Each has a unique gimmick that they take to a beautiful, chaotic extreme that pushes Batman in different, but equally entertaining ways. Scarecrow is the perfect example of this. He takes the basic idea of his strawman motif and uses its original intent, to inspire fear, as a weapon with his Fear Gas, which forces the usually stoic Batman to face and conquer his fears to win.
Now, the Absolute Universe has offered us a brand-new take on Batman’s most fear-inducing villain. The Absolute Scarecrow has already been making major waves with his terrifying redesign, sporting a sewn shut mouth and button eyes. Now, Absolute Batman #20 gave us a glimpse into how his twisted mind works, and left us with enough clues to begin to piece together how this new villain weaponizes fear. Of course, the biggest change of all is that this villain doesn’t induce normal old fear. Oh no, he’s much more interested in a very specific type of fear: dread.
The issues started with Batman reeling from the realization that, according to the files that Gordon gave him just before his death, his entire Batman identity was crafted by Scarecrow and the Joker. He was desperate to prove this wrong, so he broke into Blackgate to interrogate the one man who would know for sure. He found Joe Chill’s cell and demanded that he confess that everything the files said was a lie, but he never planned to find Scarecrow in the cell. Mostly because it seems like he wasn’t there, but appeared in the middle of the conversation.
Chill refused to talk, but Scarecrow was happy to explain everything. He confessed that he and Joker created Batman to get revenge against Bruce’s mom. She was a loyal member of the Court of Owls, so turning her son into a bat, owls’ natural prey, was a joke. All of Batman’s trauma and tribulations were for a joke. While Bruce was trying to recover, Scarecrow had Chill prepare to hang himself. Scarecrow explained that he weaponized dread, the dark, twisted, and hopeless feeling of knowing something terrible is coming, but being unable to understand or stop it. The world was filled with dread, and he loved it. Chill died, and Batman was forced to flee, but this was a great insight into Scarecrow’s mind.
Scarerow has always based his identity around fear. In his very first appearance in World’s Finest Comics #3, he wore his costume to intimidate people into paying him, though they were probably more afraid of the gun he brandished. Either way, this new Scarecrow takes that measure to the extreme. Instead of a costume, his face has become like a scarecrow’s. This isn’t a trick he uses to intimidate, but something he legitimately believes in and revels in. General fear is very different from dread, but it perfectly captures the reinvention of the Absolute Universe.
Scarecrow has always been about fear, and instead of rejecting that or trying to change it, this version homed in on that. This Scarecrow uses a specific type of fear to influence people to his own ends, modernizing the original idea while never throwing away the intent. All too often, modernizing characters means losing some essential part of what made them who they are, but the Absolute Scarecrow instead focuses on emphasizing that to a hyper degree. The entire Absolute Universe is built on a lack of hope, which is what drives dread. This Scarecrow takes the original conceit of the character and perfectly translates it into a new, far scarier form that I cannot wait to see more of.
Absolute Batman #20 is on sale now!
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