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 SPOTLIGHT ON
DETECTIVE COMICS #836
(NOVEMBER
2007)
"Absolute Terror"
(Part 2 of 2;
22 pages)
Cover pencils & inks - Simone Bianchi
Story - John Rozum
Art - Tom Mandrake
Inks - Tom Mandrake
Colours - Nathan Eyring
Lettering - Phil Balsman
Editor - Mike Marts
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SYNOPSIS
! SPOILER , ALERT !
Continued
from Detective Comics #835 - in which
Jonathan Crane a.k.a. the Scarecrow escapes from
Arkham but doesn't follow his usual routine of
gathering ingredients for his fear gas; this
time, it seems, he relies more on the
psychological roots of fear, accompanied by
random violence...
As
a growing number of bloody murder victims made to
look like scarecrows are discovered, Gotham
descends ever deeper into the grip of fear.
People are starting to avoid the streets, and
businesses are closing amidst a slowly collapsing
economy.
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Detective
Comics #835
(October 2007)
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With no real clues to be
found at the crime scenes, Batman is left
to ponder Crane's next move as he
realizes that everything is different
this time. The Scarecrow, usually a
creature of habit, is not relying on his
infamous hallucinogenic gas at all - this
time, he is bringing out fear for real in
people. Once the Darknight
Detective starts to see this more
clearly, he does have a few hunches, and
in order to cover more ground in less
time, he and Robin split up - only for
the latter to come face to face with the
Scarecrow and almost succumb to the
villain's fear and torture trappings.
In the end, Batman
arrives at the scene just in time, and
having understood Crane's completely
changed modus operandi he is
able to take the Scarecrow out - after
all, it is he who uses the menace of the
bat to strike terror in the hearts of
evildoers...
REVIEW & ANALYSIS
Detective Comics #836
(together with the preceding issue) is
one of those rare cases where a very
traditional portrayal of the Batman meets
a rather unconventional portrayal of one
of his classic villains.
Because the Scarecrow
completely changes his tactics and drops
all of his habitual traits in his
activities, the Darknight Detective has
to resolve to his qualities of being just
that - an accomplished sleuth - in order
to actually solve this case by deduction
and by outsmarting a smart opponent.
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| It is all set in what feels very
much like a classic tale from the 1970s, but then John
Rozum zooms in on the villain and it doesn't feel like
the 1970s any more at all. And while the past fifteen
years or so have, of course, seen more than just their
fair share of attempts by numerous writers to a make
"changes" to characters within the Batman
Universe, this one here - from 2007 - not only works but
is actually also interesting. In fact, very much so. Dr
Jonathan Crane aka "The Scarecrow" was an early
Golden Age introduction to the ranks of Batman villains,
created by Bill Finger and Bob
Kane, making his first appearance in World's
Finest Comics #3 in the Fall of 1941 - and displaying
a decidedly different modus operandi than what
we come to expect from the Scarecrow today. The
association with and extensive use of "fear
gas" only reaches back to February 1967 and Batman
#189, when Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff (both DC
Golden Age veterans) reintroduced the "Master of
Fear" after an absence of 24 years and felt they
needed to provide him with an update.
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Detective
Comics #73 (March 1943)
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The Scarecrow of the
1940s, however, relied entirely on his
expertise in the psychology of fear. And
while a gas that induces fear is
certainly imaginable, the raw usage of
knowing how to induce fear by
psychological means made Jonathan Crane
seem very close to the real world -
making the Scarecrow one of the most
dangerous and, in spite of his
appearance, possibly most plausible and
credible villains the Batman could
possibly face. And even though writer
Don Cameron portrayed a markedly less
sinister villain in Detective Comics #73
(March 1943) than Finger did in
his original introduction of the
character, the splash page still conveyed
that very credible threat that the
Scarecrow played upon.
WHAT DO MEN FEAR
MOST?
THINGS THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND ---
CUNNING TRICKS THAT SEEMINGLY DO NOT
"MAKE SENSE"
AND SO CANNOT BE WARDED OFF BY ORDINARY
INTELLIGENCE!
AND IN ALL THE WORLD
NONE KNOWS THIS BETTER THAN THE
SCARECROW,
RENEGADE COLLEGE PROFESSOR AND AUTHORITY
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TERROR!
Although Crane acts like
a mad scientist, he actually might just
be sane enough to pose a real and
terrifying threat to society as the
Scarecrow.
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It is this Scarecrow that John Rozum and Tom Mandrake return to in Detective
Comics #835/836. Crane doesn't need chemical or
technological means to weave his net of fear - he simply
plays the mind games he has studied for so long, and his
expertise and mastery make him something akin to a
hypnotist. This way, he is actually far more powerful,
and he also throws Batman off to start with, who was
fully expecting Crane to gather the components and seek
the hideout needed for the production of another batch of
fear gas. It's an entirely different game for the
Darknight Detective.
Rozum is really on top of this story,
which becomes more complex as it unfolds with Batman and
Robin having to do some detective thinking and footwork.
Naturally, they get tangled up in the Scarecrow's
psychological web of fear too, but the power of Crane's
manipulations of the mind are such that they can be
turned against him, and that is what the Batman
ultimately does in order to bring the Scarecrow down -
after all, the Batman's appearance was conceived to
"strike terror into the heart" of criminals.
It ends up being scary all around, and
Tom Mandrake does more than an excellent job here - his
shadowy and dark artwork really generates and sustains an
atmosphere which just makes the story pop and the menace
of fear become tangible in every panel.
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