BTAS - When "noir" became "pitch black"

[icon_uk]

Batman Adventures Annual #1 features five short stories by Paul Dini, about various Batman villains trying to go straight and how and why they fail (mostly)

One of the beauties of Batman: The Animated Series, was that it could handle the light and it could handle the dark.

Now the series, in the early years, was limited by what was permitted to be shown in cartoons at the time (Which is why, for example, the Joker never killed anyone in the early episodes). The comics, however were not. They didn't go to the "grim" often, which made the times it did all the more powerful.

Please be warned, this post contains material that may be triggering for rape or sexual assault.


Batman is pondering how even some of his villains feel the need for some normalcy in their lives, to retire and withdraw from the insanity of supervillainy, but don't always choose the best method of trying it...




In full Scarecrow gear, Crane promises to make the course as interesting as possible for Mr Bromley, a captive audience and the only one in attendance at this unplanned night class.

Fear can be triggered by many things, and the Scarecrow has specialised in developing chemicals which trigger hyper-specific results... And he wants Bromley to know absolute fear, so is prepared to run the gamut, starting with an obvious one...



But why has the Scarecrow picked on this guy?

The Scarecrow had been in Arkham, pondering the dead-end future that being a supervillain was. What would happen when he got too old to challenge Batman regularly, or if he won sometime, what would he do then? He'd been a teacher once, and often thought about returning to that life (Remember that this Scarecrow is a scrawny little weed of a man, a book-loving former professor, not the seven foot tall corpselike thing he was redesigned to be later in the series (a redesign I never liked I might add))

So, escaping from Arkham, he created a new identity for himself as Irving Deidrich, a professor of English Literature, and gained a job as a lecturer at a small college near Gotham. His students were, in his mind, a bunch of slack jawed, mouth-breathing illiterates, but he found he was enjoying the work, it was what he had trained for his whole life though, and there was one exception to the rule that made it worthwhile...




Please note there's no suggestion that Crane's interest was anything other than that of a professor for a student, he genuinely liked this girl in as close to a normal manner as he probably knows how.

She taught herself to play Bach, because she loved his music so much. But Crane notes that Bromley never took the time to know the REAL Molly, he simply saw her as another pretty face, another evening's entertainment... (He says, whilst dousing Bromley in a drug which induces arachnaphobia, with no real effect, but Crane is determined to see that look of fear...)

And Molly came to see her counselor after her "date" with Bromley. (Klaus Janson really captures this next moment well I think)



That look of appalled horror, moving to the single eye panel and then the shadows falling across Cranes face speak volumes. You know EXACTLY what he's thinking because, let's be honest here, a lot of us would be thinking exactly the same thing in this situation, though we would never go to Crane's lengths. The darkness is coming, and he's going to embrace it willingly.

Next fear-triggering compound out is not an obvious one, but as it turns out, an effective (and apt) one...





At this point, Batman appears, he's been aware of Crane's new identity all along, and at first thought it was part of some scheme, but since his reform seemed genuine, he was prepared to cut him some slack as long as he stayed being a teacher and never became the Scarecrow again. That option no longer exists. We don't know how long Batman has been observing the situation, and it's perhaps better not to ask, but he won't allow Crane to murder anyone.

The end of the fight is inevitable of course, but as the story ends, Batman ponders Crane's motivations..



I like the fact that some villains have their own moral codes, even in the midst of their own madness.

Joker reacting like this wouldn't work, but with Scarecrow it does work, and at a certain visceral level, we might, even for a moment, agree with his plan... up to a point.

Comments

[stubbleupdate]

That's a good last line

[icon_uk]

It's pretty damn awesome, yes.

[biod]

Batman may have let Scarecrow terrorize the bastard, because let's be honest, that's what he does too. He uses it against the superstitious and cowardly lot, sure, but the moment Bromley forced himself on that girl he became one of them.
Killing however, shall not stand.

[cypherfdp]

Hell, if Scarecrow stopped when he got to the leeches and left him there, Batman would probably have let him off with a warning.

You don't know me very well...

[blue_bolt]

You say that "We might agree with his plan... up to a point."
And that "we would never go to Crane's lengths." But you've never been in that situation, trust me - you don't know whether you'd use a scythe for "commencement" or not until you've been there. My dad once joked that the appropriate punishment for sexist pigs is to give them a sex change, I think perhaps that life as a woman in the Middle East would give Bromley a better perspective.

Re: You don't know me very well...

[biod]

Up to the point of a scythe, perhaps?
http://instantrimshot.com/

Re: You don't know me very well...

[icon_uk]

Oh I am fully aware that I don't know how I would react to such a situation (God forbid I ever have to) and, like most of us, worry about how far I might find myself going in the name of revenge.

However, in the context of this post, I thought it best not to be seen condoning murder.

Re: You don't know me very well...

[pervymax]

Please don't insult the men, women, and children of the middle east in such a casual and generalized manner. It's unkind, and inaccurate, and perpetuates stereotyping.

Mod Note

[salinea]

Besides the insult to people in the Middle-east which we thank you for retracting, it is problematic to treat the process of a sex change as an example of deserved punishment. That's objectifying and demeaning to trans people in the community and elsewhere. Please, be more careful about the implications of your words.

[espanolbot]

Agh, the sad thing is that from what I've read, depending on the campus the Scarecrow's course of action might have as close to a form of punishment the guy would have gotten. :(

Batman's comparision between the two is accurate though, both the Scarecrow and the rapist get a kick out of inducing fear in their victims and by getting into their personal boundaries. Crane does it by finding out what people's personal traumas are and exploiting them for his own amusement, the rapist appeared to get off on physically violating her as opposed to mentally doing it like the Scarecrow.

Considering Crane's personal history involving his being victimised by arrogant, sporty types when he was in high school, his reaction here to the distress of someone who on the outside has a lot of simularities with him a teenager isn't really suprising.

Though Molly sounds perfectly nice, while Crane's reaction to a cheerleader and her boyfriend making him look like an idiot in front of the school was to cause them to have a major car accident, which left one student dead and the other paralysed.

[icon_uk]

I did find myself wondering about that first point you raise. Bromley has just been exposed to a number of extremely potent psychoactive chemicals, any criminal case would be severely compromised by that. One has to hope that there is STRONG forensic evidence supporting Molly's case.

I don't see Batman allowing such a case to slide, and the campus be damned.

Both Bromley and Crane subsist on their own varieties of power game.

And BTAS Scarecrow should not be confused with the modern era comic. Though I did like the Detective Comics story where he gives up using the chemicals and subsonic fear modulators and proves that, as a master psychologist with no scruples, he can command absolute terror with a few well chosen words whispered in his targets ear. THAT made him creepy again

[aaron_bourque]

Batman appears, he's been aware of Crane's new identity all along, and at first thought it was part of some scheme, but since his reform seemed genuine, he was prepared to cut him some slack as long as he stayed being a teacher and never became the Scarecrow again.

And that's why B:TAS Batman is the best Batman.

[espanolbot]

The funny thing is that Harley actually managed to do this (and SUCCEED) in her own comic, where the GCPD even referred people to her. She seemed to genuinely help them though, even dating one of her patients after their time together as doctor and patient finished.

It lead to an interesting issue actually, where Harley went on a date with the cop, only for the Joker to keep interupting every couple of minutes as he couldn't understand that she might be interested in someone else, so he assumed that the cop was dirty and that he and Harley were planning a heist, which Mr J felt he deserved a slice of the "loot".

[crinos]

I actually own the comic this story it is. It is probably one of my favorite "Even evil has standards" moments (My favorite is Dracula taking out Nazi's in the Night Gallery episode "The devil is not mocked.")

[icon_uk]

I have a liking for the scene in Byrne's "Batman/Captain America" one shot, where the Joker is outraged to discover that the "Mr Big" he's been getting assistance from is really the Red Skull/

"I may be a lunatic, but I'm an AMERICAN lunatic!" may be one of my favourite Joker lines in a long time.

[althechi]

Wow, Klaus Janson doesn't mesh all that well with the BTAS house style, does he?

[icon_uk]

His Scarecrow sort of does, and it was only after I finished trimming the scans I realised I'd removed all but two small panels of Batman, who also looks good.

[sindra]

Prrrr...why can't all Batman comics be this good anymore?

[blackruzsa]

The hug was touching, in every way the attempted murder for the sake of a girl was touching.... although I'm glad it was only attempted.

I'm hoping that Crane got enough fear into the guy to haunt him for the rest of his life, because that's at least half what he deserves.

[an_idol_mind]

Batman's villains work best when they really are insane. They need to be less supervillain and more identifiable people who are driven to the edge. The difference between Batman and his villains is that Bruce Wayne stopped short of going over that edge, while his villains tumbled into the abyss.

Even the Joker has moments like this, like his possible backstory in The Killing Joke. And it always bugs me when DC decides to take Batman's rogues gallery and reduce them to one-note bad guys when almost every single one of them has greater potential, such as the Scarecrow's use here.

[thehefner]

The problem is that so many writers don't seem to understand insanity and mental illness. They mistake randomness with madness. That's why we have so many stories where the Joker is just insane for the sake of insanity, the Scarecrow is all FEAR FEAR HARROOO HRAAA and Two-Face is "2" puns all day long.

In so many ways, Dini and the writers of TAS really understood what makes this characters better than many writers of the actual DC Comics. A damn shame that few have learned from the show, as evidenced by the fact that few have written any worthwhile stories with TAS greats like Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter.

[ar_feiniel]

I never fail to be amazed at how great these comics (along with the show) are. The Gold Standard of Batman right there.

[thehefner]

It's true. Having recently acquired all of the issues, I'm amazed at how excellent they are. Pound for pound, they are among the (unheralded) greatest Batman comics of the past twenty-five years.

[thehefner]

This might just be my favorite published Scarecrow story ever.

Having grown up reading the character from the 90's (particularly Grant's prancing bully and Moench's bullied revenge-killer), I was never fond of him until I read my girlfriend's epic fanfic series about the character ("Squishy" as we call him), which is rooted in the best parts of canon, particularly the idea of Crane as the consummate scientist and professor. This story is very much THAT version of Squishy, with just a subtle dash of Moench's if one wishes--as one commenter mentioned above--to see the character as the same one who was tormented by bullies as a child.

What's more, Dini emphasizes a wonderful theme about the Batman villains in TAS: they're not monsters, but broken and fucked-up people driven to extremes by the actions of the real monsters, the everyday and human-sized monsters of Gotham. For Mr. Freeze, there was Ferris Boyle. For Harvey Dent, Rupert Thorne. For Clayface, Roland Daggett. For the Riddler, Daniel Mockridge. To a lesser extent, you also have the Mad Hatter's jerkish boss and Veronica Vreeland's manipulation of the Penguin. The stories make it clear that the villains are threats that must be put down, but sympathy is invariably on their side.

How frustrating, then, that the actual DC comics pretty much just make them monsters, period. They're far more interesting as the broken, fucked-up people that they were in TAS, especially if they come with their own "moral codes," as you put it, to separate them from the ruthless, conniving people who helped to create the villains in the first place.

[thehefner]

Oh, and since I was too distracted to actually reply to your post about my baby, the answer is yes, he's our first! :D

[pyrotwilight]

You know. It's a nice touch that Scarecrow's not struggling with the officers. You can practically tell he feels he's done a good job tonight.

[icon_uk]

I recall a fanfic from many, many years ago which had the notion that any form of organised child abuse was uncommon in Gotham, not because of Batman, but because Two-Face took a very, VERY dim view of it, and his methods of retribution were a hell of a lot more preventative than a prison sentence.

[eyz]

Amazing!
And from the BTAS comic book series nonetheless??

:D

[wizardru]

Nonetheless, nothing. The BTAS comics were in many ways, like the TV show, the truest, best Batman. The stories were simple but effective and can swing into the darkness and then back into the light.

They were Batman comics informed by the greatest runs, but not slavishly devoted to them. Most of the BTAS villains were at least somewhat tragic...often pushed over the edge due to mankind's casual cruelty. BTAS Batman was very fallible and human, so his villains didn't all have to be superhuman to be a threat.