2015's Batman: Arkham Knight was Rocksteady's final bow with the Arkham series. Not only did the game go out with a bang, but it also gave a spotlight to one of Batman's deadliest villains, the Scarecrow. In fact, over the course of the game, the villain proves to be even deadlier than the Joker before even coming face to face with the Dark Knight. The game begins the Scarecrow testing his latest strain of fear toxin at a local diner in Gotham City on Halloween night. The gas turns people mad and sets up the Scarecrow's grand reappearance after years of laying low.
The Arkham version of Johnathan Crane first appears as a side antagonist in Batman: Arkham Asylum, constantly poisoning Batman and forcing him to take part in sadistic mazes. His rampage ended when Killer Croc took him into Gotham harbor later in the game. However, there is a boat in that same harbor in Batman: Arkham City housing hay, fear toxin and other paraphernalia belonging to Crane, teasing his return.
Reemerging in Arkham Knight, Crane is more unhinged than ever before and hideously scarred from surviving his run-in with Croc. With years to develop his plan and his new toxin, the Scarecrow caught the entire city and Batman by surprise. Throughout the game, the Scarecrow targets Batman to break his will and unmask him in front of the people of Gotham. He does so by obtaining a militia led by the Arkham Knight and locking down the city and its people.
Working with billionaire Simon Stagg, the Scarecrow utilized a weapon called the Cloudburst to bathe Gotham City in fear gas. With a city in chaos, Crane continues to taunt Batman as all hope seems lost. However, Batman is pushed to his limits and leans on an unlikely ally in the villainous Poison Ivy to help save the city. Sacrificing her life, she helps clean the city of the Scarecrow's attack. But even though his plan failed, the Scarecrow managed to unleash a chemical weapon on a city of thousands -- something the Joker failed to do with his poisoned blood in Arkham City.
In the end, the Scarecrow forces Batman to unmask in front of the people of Gotham or risk the deaths of his closest allies. He hopes that the city seeing that the Batman is just a normal human will cause people will lose faith in him. However, he quickly learns that (with or without a cowl) Bruce Wayne will always be Batman. He injects Crane with a dose of his own toxin, fully breaking his mind and leaving him a fearful shell of a man. Even though the heroes still came out on top, no other villain in the series accomplished as much as the Scarecrow did -- let alone in one night.
He may not have broken Batman's will or destroyed Gotham, but Crane's actions took the city and the Caped Crusader to their limits, nearly destroying them. He may have been taken into custody after being driven to insanity and stuck with his fears, but the Scarecrow's plans and actions -- which involve poisoning Gotham City, mentally terrorizing Batman and setting Bruce on the path towards to hanging up the cowl for good -- prove that he is deadlier than the Joker.
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