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Fear State: Scarecrow To Help Gotham Like Joe Chill Helped Batman?

Published Tue, 10 Aug 2021 11:40:12 -0500

He may be leaving Batman, but James Tynion IV is going out with a bang with Fear State. All it takes is one bad day, that was The Joker's theory, to take a normal person, break them and turn them into a monster. Bruce Wayne's parents, The Joker's wife and unborn child, though he failed with Jim Gordon in The Killing Joke, harming his daughter Barbara. Well, The Scarecrow likes that theory. And in the upcoming Fear State Alpha, he intends to put that into practice with funding and support from Simon Saint and Saint Industries. In the Batman Free Comic Book Day 2021 issue, James Tynion IV states;

"This isn't an attack on Batman. This is an attack on Gotham City… Scarecrow believes that through fear, Gotham City can evolve into something more than it is. There's a part of him that wants Batman to agree with this core mission. Scarecrow has intuited that Batman faced a great fear, and evolved because of it. He's saying, `I'm going to do to Gotham City what Gotham City did to you.' He's telling Batman, 'Stand back, let this happen. The world is going to be better for it.' Batman disagrees…"

"Scarecrow is a character that I have felt for a long time has deserved a real A-List Batman story. He is such a fascinating character, and he cuts right to the heart of what Bruce is, and Bruce's relationship with fear—and overcoming fear. I wanted to create a massive attack on Gotham City, organized by the Scarecrow, where he doesn't use a single drop of fear toxin on the people of Gotham City. We're seeing how he manipulates the media, how he manipulates the Magistrate, how he manipulates Batman, the Unsanity Collective—he's taking all of these pieces and putting them together to make the people of Gotham City more frightened than they have ever been."

Here's what the other creators have to say about their own tie-in titles across the Batman range.

I AM BATMAN Jace begins his adventures during the heart of Fear State, which is going to be the comic event of the fall. And next year, we have one more surprise that's going to change the Fox family—and maybe the DC Universe—forever," —John Ridley.
HARLEY QUINN "Fear State offers Harley a chance to take a giant step forward and prove herself as a hero despite the many people believing she will fail. It's tough to be a hero when so much is stacked against you, but we get to see how Harley rises to the occasion in her own very Harley kind of way, rekindling some old relationships with familiar faces along the way…" —Stephanie Phillips.
NIGHTWING "With the Magistrate on the streets and in the air, Gotham is on a knife's edge, and there are no shadows for Nightwing to operate in any longer. The Dynamic Duo will fight side by side again as Batman and Nightwing. And Nightwing and Oracle will team up with other members of the Bat-family to wrestle control of Gotham back from the mysterious anti-Oracle." —Tom Taylor.
CATWOMAN "I've always been fascinated by geographical, cultural, and class divides within cities. We label places and people as 'good' or bad'— Alleytown is a 'bad' place that is about to become very important to the events that play out in Fear State. And that reflects very well on Catwoman, who defies all the labels that have been put on her over the years." —Ram V.
DETECTIVE COMICS "To me, a huge part of working in this world is digging into different levels of fear. For this storyline, we're going deep and creepy. We're taking Batman and Nakano to a place that is falling apart and lined with rows of tiny sharp teeth." —Mariko Tamaki.

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