10 Insane Supervillain Schemes You Won't Believe

5. Scarecrow Makes Gotham Illiterate

In terms of destroying civilised society through crippling fear, Scarecrow's plot in this comic is perhaps not his best work, mainly because making people illiterate is about as useful to creating fear as Kite Man is to high fashion.

However, as strange as the plan of generating illiteracy may sound, the craziest part of Scarecrow's whole scheme is just how well it works, as society basically crumbles because of this. Better yet, for almost the entire comic Batman and team have literally no idea that it's the work of Scarecrow, as it's only halfway through the second issue of this plot they discover he's behind it.

Even weirder than this is that Scarecrow's underlings are apparently working for free. They're working under the pretence that ransom from the mayor will be paid to them, sure, but it still seems like a weirdly generous gesture to be willing to wait that long for pay, especially given how the odds for a Bat-themed beatdown must be grating on them at this point.

The metaphor of the illiteracy-causing devices being in electronics might be a little heavy-handed, but it is something a villain like the Scarecrow would think to do.