Jonathan Crane (Gotham)

The Scarecrow
Gotham‎ and Pennyworth
Gallery
Real Name	Jonathan Crane
Main Alias	The Scarecrow
Other Aliases	The Fear Reaper
Relatives	Dr. Gerald Crane (father, deceased) · Karen Crane (mother, deceased)
Affiliation	formerly Legion of Horribles
Base Of Operations	Gotham City
Status
Alignment	Bad
Identity	Public Identity
Citizenship	American
Marital Status	Single
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Eyes	Blue · Brown
Hair	Brown
Origin
Universe	Gotham (TV Series)
Creators	Bill Finger · Bob Kane
First Appearance	"The Fearsome Dr. Crane" (February 2, 2015)
Last Appearance	"The Trial of Jim Gordon" (March 7, 2019)

YOU AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION!! I. Cured. Myself. You see, I feared the Scarecrow... And now we are one.

— Jonathan Crane

History

Jonathan Crane is the son of Dr. Gerald Crane, a biology teacher who, after being too afraid to save his wife from dying in a fire, began to murder people for their adrenaline glands in an effort to concoct a fear toxin he hoped would cure him of his fears.

Testing an experimental version of the drug on his son Jonathan, the boy was rushed to the hospital after his father was shot dead by police, presumed by doctors to never be able to recover from his living nightmare.

After spending years in Gotham Asylum, Jonathan was handed over to a group of outlaws by corrupt Warden Reed, as they wanted to use his father's fear toxin for their heists. At this point Jonathan continued to hallucinate the Scarecrow figure as a bogeyman type figure, which the gang exploited to force Jonathan to replicate the formula. After being locked in a room with the Scarecrow, he hallucinated it attacking him. Jonathan eventually embraced his fear of the Scarecrow, and took it on as his identity and began donning it as a costume. When one of the thugs returned wanting more of the formula, Jonathan sprayed the man in the face with the toxin and strung him outside like a Scarecrow.

Jonathan returned to the asylum and attacked Warden Reed with the fear toxin, causing the man to hallucinate his fear: clowns. Jonathan took over the asylum and sprayed the patients with the toxin, and forced them to work for him and allowed them to run amok in the institute. When detective James Gordon infiltrated the asylum in order to arrest Jonathan, Jonathan recognised him as one of the cops who killed his father. Jonathan attacked Gordon with the fear toxin, causing Gordon to hallucinate his worst fear: his ex-girlfriend Leslie Thompkins committing suicide in sorrow. Jonathan attempted to use this to convince Gordon to commit suicide, however Gordon overcame the fear toxin and continued to pursue Jonathan. After a battle with the inmates, Gordon managed to set off the sprinklers which managed to kill off the effects of the fear toxin and stop the rabid inmates. But during this chaos, Jonathan managed to escape.

Soon afterward, Crane was apprehended and imprisoned at Arkham Asylum, where he met Jerome Valeska and the Mad Hatter. Together, the three villains came up with an escape plan and managed to break out of the asylum, which additionally freed dozens of other dangerous inmates, among them Daedalus Boch, Ephram Snow and Erasmus Rayne. While Tetch distracted the GCPD and Jerome carried out his plan, Jonathan created a new Scarecrow costume and started brewing his fear toxin once again. When the Mad Hatter was captured by the police, Jerome and Crane raided the prison transporter to free him.

After the destruction of Gotham's main bridges, Scarecrow was among the many villains who started claiming territory in the fallen city. Crane founded his own gang and began spreading fear in No Man's Land by tying people to wooden crosses. The Scarecrow and his followers later attacked the GCPD sector in order to steal food supplies. While his men took the food, Crane decided to face Captain Gordon in order to finally kill him. However, Jim was able to defeat the costumed villain, whereon Scarecrow managed to vanish into the night.

The Scarecrow later appeared in a nightmare of Jim Gordon, who was having a near-death experience after getting shot by Victor Zsasz. Scarecrow, Kathryn Monroe and Professor Pyg were among Gordon's greatest adversaries who attended his funeral at the GCPD Headquarters.

By day 391 into No Man's Land, Scarecrow's territory and all the other villain sectors had been taken over by the GCPD.

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

• Chemistry: While not a Scientist like his father, Jonathan is able to recreate the Fear Toxin his father created. He also seems knowledgeable in some other aspects of Chemistry as he states he will need to rework the formula and create a new batch of Fear Toxin after Jim Gordon is able to overcome the version of the Toxin used on him. He was also able to develop Jerome's laughing gas.

Weaknesses

• Phobia: Jonathan has a fear of the scarecrow that hangs on his family's property. However, once he became the Scarecrow he seems to have overcome this fear.
  • Mental Disorder: After being doused with his father's fear toxin, Jonathan is mentally unstable, unable to shake the hallucination of an animated scarecrow.
    

Paraphernalia

Weapons

• Scarecrow's Fear Toxin
• Scythe

Notes

• This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the television series Gotham, Pennyworth and its tie-in webseries and shorts, Gotham Stories and Gotham: A City Gone Mad. It is an adaptation of Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow. The original character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane and first appeared in World's Finest #3.
• Scarecrow was portrayed by Charlie Tahan, being replaced by David W. Thompson after the first half of the fourth season. An unknown actor portrayed Scarecrow in the episode The Trial of Jim Gordon, in which the character made a cameo appearance during a dream sequence.

Related

• 11 Appearances of Jonathan Crane (Gotham)
• 8 Images featuring Jonathan Crane (Gotham)
• 2 Quotations by or about Jonathan Crane (Gotham)
• Character Gallery: Jonathan Crane (Gotham)