Batman: Scarecrow Has Mastered the Dark Knight's Greatest Tactic - CBR - Comic Book Resources

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Batman #107 by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.

Ever since the beginning of "Infinite Frontier," the Scarecrow has been upping his game when striking terror into the heart's of Gotham's citizens. But lately he has been leaning more into his background in psychology rather than chemistry to elicit horror from the city.

Scarecrow's latest fear tactic is actually far more effective than the methods Batman utilizes against criminals. The Dark Knight himself even admitted that it was a clever ploy, even if he can't understand Scarecrow's motives at the moment.

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Recently, Scarecrow left a literal scarecrow in the mayor's house. Beyond that though, there was no form of violence or even a trace of the usual chemical weapons that the villain is known for using. But it was the aftermath that revealed the full effect of a simple stuffed scarecrow. The city was thrown into a panic. The scarecrow itself was taken as an omen of a future attack and that sent the city's people into a near frenzy. Gas mask sales increased to an incredible rate and violence even broke out in grocery stores over supplies as Gotham city residents prepared for a perceived attack.

While investigating, Batman admitted to himself that the Scarecrow's tactic was clever. The villain had found a simple but effective way to frighten the citizens into doing what he wanted. He simply took advantage of the tension most of Gotham was already feeling and gave it a little push. And in many ways, it is a twisted inversion of what Batman does to criminals. However, this fear tactic is much easier for the Scarecrow to utilize for one simple reason: there are no limits to what the Scarecrow is willing to do to achieve his goals.

Batman is at his most effective when Gotham's criminals fear him and its ordinary citizens trust him. Take away those factors and a climate is produced that is similar to the paranoia seen recently in "Future State". Batman is now on the run from police, many criminals seem to be ten steps ahead, and the city is divided on whether its heroes are helping or hurting them. Scarecrow used this to his advantage, taking a tense situation and making it worse. In a lot of ways, Scarecrow learned how to do this from Batman, deciding that if the Dark Knight could make criminals fear just the threat of his presence, then the same method could be more easily applied to Gotham's residents who have already been through so much horror that it would be child's play to make them believe that there is more to come.

In that regard, Scarecrow has become a dark reflection of Bruce Wayne, much like many of his rogues. Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, Bane shares the sheer force of will that Batman possesses and the Scarecrow is a manifestation of the fear that Batman instills in criminals, now turned upon the masses. But the Scarecrow has become more effective with it than the Caped Crusader, who has arguably lost his touch with making his enemies fear him. Night after night the city grows more dangerous and unstable, and for someone like the Scarecrow, it is the perfect field to let the seeds of fear grow until Gotham is ready to tear itself apart.

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Amer Sawan (294 Articles Published)

Amer Sawan is a reader, writer, and gamer and lover of all things nerdy based in Windermere, Florida. He is a recent graduate from the University of Florida with a B.A. in Liberal Arts. He has been a dishwasher, a Front of House server at the Magic Kingdom, and now works for Valnet Inc. as a freelance comic book features writer. In his free time Amer enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, both as a Dungeon Master and as a player.