Scarecrow

Professor Jonathan Crane was a psychologist with an obsessive fascination with fear who turned to crime, adopting the unsettling guise of the Scarecrow to terrorize Gotham City and becoming one of Batman's earliest recurring foes. Armed with a fear-inducing gas and a ghoulish straw-man costume, he weaponized the science of phobia itself against his victims.

Few villains can claim a Golden Age pedigree as distinguished as Scarecrow's — this DC terror made his debut way back in 1941, conjured by artist Creig Flessel in the pages of World's Finest Comics #3, and has been haunting readers ever since. With over 230 catalogued appearances spanning an astonishing 85 years, he's one of Gotham's most enduring presences, appearing most frequently in Batman, Detective Comics, and Batman: Gotham Knights — the holy trinity of Bat-titles. Seven of those appearances carry key-issue status, a testament to how often this character lands at the center of genuinely significant comics moments. He keeps rarefied company too, sharing pages with Robin, Green Lantern, Two-Face, Dick Grayson, and Harvey Dent — a rogues' gallery and hero roster that underscores just how deep into DC's mythology this Golden Age original reaches.