Gotham Season 1 Spoilers, Plot Rumors: Enter The Scarecrow - Series Introduces Another Villain

Batman wouldn't be Batman without his gallery of rogues. After all, the more villains that he fights, the more his heroism stands out. Besides, having an assortment of baddies to confront keeps the entertainment value high.

That's why even with only seven episodes into Season 1, there's now another iconic villain being added to "Gotham"—the Scarecrow.

As villains go, the Scarecrow is creepiness personified. After all, even in real life, the ordinary scarecrows that are stuck in the fields often succeed not just in scaring off random hungry birds, but also children and adults who happen to pass by, especially at dusk.

That scare factor is multiplied thousands of times over with Batman's Scarecrow. In the comic book version, the Scarecrow is ex-Arkham Asylum psychiatrist Jonathan Crane, whose world is all about fear: thinking about it, feeling it, living it. Crane in the comics used to teach at Gotham University but his lessons about fear put his students in danger.

This resulted in his getting fired, something that drove him criminally insane, striking terror into the hearts of Gotham's residents through his fear gas.

For the TV version of the Scarecrow, his history and origin have been somewhat modified. "Gotham" executive producer and episodic director Danny Cannon explained that the Scarecrow inherited his title and identity from his father. This sets him up not only to be an enemy of Batman in the future (since neither cape nor cowl of Batman has yet made its impact in the first season's seven episodes), but also as an enemy of James Gordon (Ben McKenzie).

The move to inject new and fiercer villains into "Gotham" is being seen as a strategy to counter the downward trend of the show's ratings. Hopefully, when the Scarecrow does appear, his presence will be enough to shock and terrify audiences to the point that they'll push the ratings up, once more.