Dr. Jonathan Crane

The Bat and the Cat.

Talia has proven time and time again where her loyalties really lie ... with her power-mad genocidal father. Besides, I just don't like the character of Talia. She's always seemed .. subservient to me. I mean, she's fine bossing around goons, but when good ol' Ra's or even Batman enter into the picture, she fades into the background. She's completely overshadowed by her father and by her ex-lover. Her character doesn't seem to matter on its own ... it's never "Talia al Ghul" but "Ra's daughter" or "Batman's lover". She's completely defined by her relationship to other characters. Plus, I just can't stand the way she always calls Batman "Beloved". And she just says it so much, like the end of every sentence has to be, "... beloved". Now I know Talia has probably had her share of good stories, and I'm sure she could be a strong, interesting character. But personally? I don't like her. I even tend to avoid any storyline that features her as an important character. I still can't decide which is worse ... Talia or that little monster Damian?

Now, Catwoman on the other hand ... there's no denying she's a criminal, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. She's fiercely independent and she has style that Talia just doesn't have. She's sarcastic (which I always love). Heck, she's even has her own independent series (multiple, in fact). Can you really imagine an ongoing title featuring Talia? Not really. Catwoman goes beyond her relationship to Batman. She works as a character on her own, which is great. She's not defined by others.

So, yeah. Go Catwoman!

For sure, Batman and the GCPD have known Black Mask's identity since the character's introduction in Batman #386, Detctive Comics #553, and Batman #387. Batman and the police pretty quickly deduced Black Mask's identity. Heck, Sionis didn't even go to much effort to hide his identity. His first base of operations, and the location of his first membership drive for the False Facers was the old Sionis family crypt. So yeah, most everyone knew that Roman Sionis was Black Mask since the very beginning.

By the time of War Crimes (the epilogue to War Games), Sionis' identity was certainly public knowledge. A news report refers to the Black Mask him as Roman Sionis.

For sure, Batman and the GCPD have known Black Mask's identity since the character's introduction in Batman #386, Detctive Comics #553, and Batman #387. Batman and the police pretty quickly deduced Black Mask's identity. Heck, Sionis didn't even go to much effort to hide his identity. His first base of operations, and the location of his first membership drive for the False Facers was the old Sionis family crypt. So yeah, most everyone knew that Roman Sionis was Black Mask since the very beginning.

By the time of War Crimes (the epilogue to War Games), Sionis' identity was certainly public knowledge. A news report refers to the Black Mask him as Roman Sionis.

Fright appeared in the "As the Crow Flies" story arc. In it, Penguin is making a move on the Gotham underworld, and he's hired Scarecrow to keep his people in line. Dr. Friitawa is a sweet, young albino geneticist who has been stripped of her liscence. She ends up working as Scarecrow's lab assistant, and Scarecrow becomes infatuated with her. However, Dr. Friitawa is actually hired by Penguin to engineer Scarecrow to turn into the monstrous Scarebeast, so that he would kill off the independent crime bosses that Penguin had brought into the fold without Penguin getting his hands dirty (and thus maintaining the loyalty of the dead bosses' organizations). She meanwhile uses Scarecrow's research to turn herself into the villainess Fright and proceeds to disappear until she resurfaces working for the new Black Mask.

Scarecrow has turned into the Scarebeast a couple times since then (once during War Games, and another time during Infinite Crisis), but most writers have ignored this story and returned Scarecrow to his origins.

The picture is from a late 1980's television show. The lady, obviously, is Mrs. King, a divorced housewife. The guy is a secret agent codenamed "Scarecrow" and the two eventually form a romantic relationship after a chance meeting in a train station. This has absolutely nothing to do with Scarecrow, the DC Comics supervillain.

@Gambit1024

Remember, though, that Scarecrow is fairly often defeated by being gassed with his own fear toxin. It happens less often in the comics than it does in film and TV shows, but it happens and he is affected. If he would be immune to any toxin, it would be his own, and he's not immune to that.

@AquaDCman

We haven't seen Joker gas Scarecrow recently, at least not since Scarecrow became deadened to all emotion (although I agree with most people here that Joker's toxin isn't usually portrayed as actually affecting emotion).

However, there was a short-lived Joker comics series in 1975 and '76. It only lasted nine issues, but in #8, Joker and Scarecrow were fighting and it ended with Joker gassing him with a non-lethal variant of his trademark toxin as he thought Scarecrow was being too much of a fuddy-duddy. This gas did affect Scarecrow, who was left giggling foolishly for law enforcement to pick up.

But keep in mind that the idea that Scarecrow doesn't experience any emotion is a fairly recent development. What's more, we haven't seen if it applies any more in the new DC reboot universe.

Well, I sorta like War Games. Black Mask plays a pretty big role in that, and that ends up rolling into the Under the Hood story arc. Also, Catwoman: Relentless (which is actually set a while before War Games) is a really good TPB for Black Mask. It displays just how twisted and evil this guy really is.

I've also got the Catwoman issues that end with Roman Sionis' death. Personally I think these are sorta nifty, and a pretty good way to end the Black Mask character, but ultimately aren't as important as War Games and Relentless.

If you're going to pick up War Games though, you should also pick up War Drums and War Crimes. War Drums is the lead-in to War Games, and is sorta important in understanding what's going on even if it doesn't include Black Mask (you can figure it out for yourself easy enough I suppose, but War Drums really does add to the story). War Crimes is the aftermath of War Games, and I feel spotlights Black Mask a little more than Under the Hood. Chronologically, I think War Crimes happens about the same time as Under the Hood. Red Hood is active and messing up Mask's operations, but there's other stuff going on that would make it seem like the Red Hood story arc hasn't been resolved yet.

So yeah, I'd definitely pick up Catwoman: Relentless, War Drums, War Games (Part 1, 2 & 3), and War Crimes. That should keep you pretty busy with lots of Black Mask-y goodness for a while. The aftermath of War Games also have some affect in other Bat-related titles, but they're not that important to the overarching story and Black Mask doesn't play that big a role in those.

City of Crime?  I remember him being pretty badass in Broken City, but not City of Crime.  City of Crime had Penguin, Mr. Freeze, the missing girl, and the weird "Friends".  Broken City has the corpse of the half-eaten woman in the city garbage dump, Batman chasing down her brother, and the Ventriloquist turning out to have a pretty big connection.  Croc appeared a lot in Broken City, and he WAS pretty badass there.  I didn't really like the way he was dressed, but I definitely liked how he was portrayed.

 
Anyways, I've always had a soft spot for Croc.  As far as Batman: Arkham Asylum goes, I personally loved that he was a bigger, badder boss than Bane.  Bane has always annoyed me and I think he's overrated.  Still, compared to Killer Corc, Bane was a pushover!  I mean, Bane was just as vulnerable to punches and kicks as a generic thug.  Sure he could take more, but still.  Killer Croc, on the other hand, was darn near unstoppable and more than a little scary.   
 
ANYWAYS, the point of all this is: GO CROC!!!  He doesn't hold a candle to Scarecrow, but he is still pretty cool.

Of course Sinestro was right.  People are, by nature, treacherous, self-serving, ignoble beings.  Fear is just about the only way to keep them in line, make them do what they need to do, obey the rules.  Love, charity, hope ... in the end, these are pretty things that don't really exist in society.  Would it be nice if society could base itself on these emotions?  Yes.  But it can't.  Self-interest is the only motivating factor in human beings.  Carrot and stick, greed and fear.  Greed motivates someone because they want to gain something, fear motivates someone because they want to avoid something.  It's the founding principle of society.  For example, why do people obey the law?  Is it because it's the right and honorable thing to do?  No.  It's because they fear what will happen to them if they get caught.  You take away the fear, they have no reason to obey the law and every reason to break it.
 
So, yes.  Sinestro was right.  Fear is the glue that holds society together.  Like it or not, that's the way of the world and there's no chnaging it.