4. Scarecrow (Batman Begins / The Dark Knight Rises)
Doctor Jonathan Crane, AKA The Scarecrow, stands as the only villain to appear in all three installments of the Dark Knight Trilogy. Charming, insidious and criminally insane, Cillian Murphy portrayed this rogue of Gotham City brilliantly...never going completely over the top (as Nolan's vision of Batman always strays from doing). After taking centre stage in the first film, he returned for two brilliant cameos in the sequels and it his appearance in
The Dark Knight Rises that puts him on this list. The Scarecrow, released from imprisonment as a result of Bane's mass breakout, became the ruling judge of the city, sending his guilty victims to their deaths on the perilous ice at the edge of Gotham. The ice was never solid enough to carry the weight of those judged guilty and they inevitably plunged into the icy waters beneath the breaking ice, meeting a cruel death. We never saw what happened after Batman rid the city of Bane and Talia...was the Scarecrow arrested? In a
recent article by fellow WhatCulture writer Toby McShane, he suggested that this was indeed the final fate of this memorable Batman rogue. As we didn't see this, let me put together another proposition. In the chaos of the final battle, the Scarecrow quietly sneaked away to wreak havoc elsewhere; ultimately getting away with causing the gas-induced carnage in the Narrows from
Batman Begins, and his actions in the third film. By default, we should consider the Joker too. I suspect he may have taken on the role of judge, jury and executioner had Heath Ledger been alive...that's assuming that the plot played out as it did. Knowing that he survived The Dark Knight, we're left with the possibility that he was let loose as the result of Bane's actions. Which means in the end, he got away, despite all the eye-pencil, hospital exploding, White-Knight scarring, hostage taking actions of the last film. Is he sipping mai tai's on a beach somewhere? Or better still, is he sitting in the same little café away from Gotham City? Somewhere next to Alfred Pennyworth and across from Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle? That's a brilliant image to end the trilogy on...