To He Who is in Fear, Everything Rustles
The Scarecrow was created in 1941 and appeared in World's Finest Comics #3. Another character created by the Bob Kane/Bill Finger combo that brought us many of the early Batman characters, Scarecrow makes two appearances in the '40s but is almost unrecognizable from the character used later. This original Jonathan Crane is a university professor with a case of bibliomania, and has obvious parallels to the Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. This professor dresses up as a scarecrow to commit crimes to earn money to afford more books. He also apparently has a hat fetish, and leaves clues like the Riddler . In 1967 Gardner Fox reimagined the character as a psychology professor. This Dr Crane specialized in anxiety and phobias. He becomes obsessed with fear and mass hysteria and often conducts unethical studies and experiments. The character and his origin, like most older comics characters, have been amended and tweaked to include a history of abuse and ridicule, job expe...