Gerald Crane

Gerald Crane
Full name	Gerald Crane
Alias	Todd
Family	Karen Crane (wife; deceased) Jonathan Crane (son)
Occupation	Biology teacher
Status	Deceased
First	"The Fearsome Dr. Crane"
Appeared in	2 episodes (see below)
Portrayed by	Julian Sands

Gerald Crane was a biology teacher, and the innovator of a fear forumla.

Biography

Death of his wife

Crane had suffered from a severe form of pyrophobia for most of his life, going so far as to not be able to be anywhere near it. One night, his house caught fire. The entire second floor was engulfed in flames. Gerald grabbed his son, Jonathan, and ran outside. He tried to go upstairs to save his wife, Karen, but his pyrophobia prevented him from doing so. He took his wife's body and crashed a car to make it seem that she died in a car crash, as opposed to having to tell everyone that he let his wife burn to death. It was then that he resolved to create a cure for fear.

Curing himself of fear

One year later, he began masquerading as Todd, a member of the phobia support group run by Scottie Mullen, Gerald used the revelations of group members to stage their greatest terrors and kill them in that manner. He then quickly harvested the adrenal glands from their fresh corpses, in order to acquire the elevated levels of cortisol their utter panic had created.

Gerald then injected himself with the distilled cortisol so that he might face his own greatest fear - his failure to save his wife from death by burning. Not wanting his son to be afraid like him, Gerald injected his son, Jonathan Crane, with the fear to in. While Jonathan struggled, Gerald got into a shootout with detective Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock, where he was fatally shot.

His formula was somehow attained by Hugo Strange and used on Oswald Cobblepot to rehabilitate him at Arkham Asylum.

Personality

Gerald was a man who was dedicated to overcoming his fears and in these pursuits he was quite ruthless, becoming a serial killer who showed people their greatest terrors, then killed and harvested them. After his wife's death and his neglect to save her for being too afraid, Crane became insane and racked with guilt however he did love his son Jonathan whom he wanted to overcome his own nightmares but after injecting him with a fear toxin, Jonathan was haunted by his worst fear, scarecrows.

Appearances

Season 1

• "The Fearsome Dr. Crane"
• "The Scarecrow"

Note

• In the comics Gerald first appeared in Year One: Batman/Scarecrow #2 but wasn't a villain and was absent from Jonathan's life. Jonathan as Scarecrow, later attempted to murder his father, however, he was stopped by Batman. In Batman Vol 2 #1 which was part of the New 52 reboot continuity Jonathan's father Dr. Crane was portrayed as a villain who experimented on his son and locked him in a small dark room. Mr. Crane suffered a heart attack and died, which left his son trapped inside the dark test chamber and wasn't discovered until days later by the cops when Dr. Crane's disappearance was reported.
• The first live-action incarnation of Gerald Crane.