Fear the Scarecrow

A character runs full circle.

Scarecrow got his start as a contortionist name the amazing Umberto and was first introduced in Tales of Suspense with the invincible Iron Man.  He helped Iron Man catch a petty thief and thought to himself, maybe he could do that full time.  Instead he went on to be a criminal and tried to rob Tony Stark.





After a few B & Es he started hanging out with the Porcupine, Eel, Unicorn, and Plantman, and they managed to capture the X-Men for Count Nefaria.  Then went solo again and started feuding with Captain America.  Slowly his mind started to dwindle and some of his past was starting to be revealed.  It was unsure what exactly was true.  He even had a chauffeur...who was his brother.  That was odd.











At this point he didn’t have any special powers.  He was naturally flexible and used trained birds.  Yes, he was quite gifted.


Things started to take a darker turn for Scarecrow when he was featured in the Captain America/Ghost Rider graphic novel.  It seemed like he was being positioned to transfer into Ghost Rider’s cadre of villains, which was what happened.  Now Scarecrow was starting to take a supernatural turn.

He kinda died a few times, but rebuilt and given the power to emit fear pheromones which in turn gave him strength.

He fought Ghost Rider pretty steadily and was beaten and battered pretty regularly.  Even had all his bones broken and healed in crooked form, but he got better.  He then showed up in Hell and hung out with Blackheart.  Here his spirit returned to Earth and he started body jumping until he got control of Dan Ketch’s body.  He also had control of Dan’s sister’s dead body (Barbara) as well.  (It was a very traumatic time for the Ketch’s matron.)  Eventually that plan was foiled when the Ghost Rider took over Barbara’s dead body and saved the day. Blackheart was a little disappointed in Scarecrow and left him to rot in the pits.


Then the next thing you know Scarecrow is back, depowered.  Not sure if it was ever explained.  Now that he was back doing “regular” crime you would expect him to battle Captain America, but nope, he first runs into Falcon.  Close enough