It’s October — the scary season!
By PETER STONE
“From the Pages of Batman: Scarecrow!” This nearly 30-year-old story — part of DC’s New Year’s Evil, a skip-week event from December 1997 — features a writer and artist who were exceptional even then: Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo.
DC Comics, as it does now, was pushing hard to create Batman stories that were not specifically based on the Dark Knight himself: Nightwing, Huntress, Robin, and even villains were sometimes the focus of series, miniseries or single issues. One of the best I remember was this Scarecrow one-shot (which, like most such issues, carries a #1 designation).
Written by Milligan, who was in the midst of some of his most interesting and unique stories, and drawn by Fegredo, who is probably best known for his exceptional run on Hellboy, Scarecrow is complex and entertaining, an excellent way to pass 15 or 20 minutes.
Fegredo, who has a powerful knowledge of anatomy and expressions, uses crazy perspectives and stylistic characterizations. His Scarecrow is terrifying and the protagonist, Becky Albright, is pretty and distinct. When the erstwhile Professor Jonathan Crane uses his fear gas on people, their visions are over the top. Few others in comics can create these images because Fegredo thinks in a completely different way. The Scarecrow himself barely looks human.
When you pick up a Jim Lee comic or even a Neal Adams comic, you know generally what you’re going to get. Not so with Fegredo. Every panel is something so strange yet amazing that he shot right to the top four or five artists I’d want to work with. I could never guess what I would get. Like working with Michael Golden or Alex Nino.
Milligan ‘s heartfelt story, “Mistress of Fear,” is about an undergrad who witnessed the Scarecrow torturing an entire neighborhood and was more than willing to testify against him. Crane decides to terrify poor Becky into saying that Batman forced her to lie. He throws everything at her – spiders, snakes, germs, drowning, loss, dying, and even claustrophobia. He offers to make her into his sidekick, like the Scarecrow’s Harley Quinn.
But Becky is too strong. She faces her worst fears and says, emphatically, no!
Batman — SPOILER ALERT FOR A 28-YEAR-OLD COMIC — finally arrives to save her and nabs the Scarecrow, but it’s clear who the real hero is. The Masked Manhunter, with perhaps the best line of the comic, tells Crane: “She is everything you fear.”
The book boasts an appropriately creepy Jason Pearson cover, and is available through third-party sellers online for less than $10, including shipping. It’s more than worth the price.
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MORE
— BURIED TREASURE: THE GAUNTLET May Be the Best ROBIN Story Ever. Click here.
— BURIED TREASURE: Superboy and Robin in SUPER SONS. Click here.
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Peter Stone is a writer and son-in-law of the late Neal Adams. Be sure to check out the family’s online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com.
