History Recap / TheNewBatmanAdventuresE6NeverFear

Back at Wayne Manor, Tim and Alfred discuss Bruce's absence when he suddenly bursts in angrily and tells Tim to suit up. As they fly through Gotham in the Batwing, Batman explains that Scarecrow has developed a new toxin that, rather than causing fear, takes it away completely, leaving people reckless daredevils. As he pilots through dangerous turns and a near miss with a plane, Robin ask him if he breathed the gas. Batman says yes but claims he can handle it. Robin is not convinced.

* WrestlerOfBeasts: Batman infiltrates a seminar run by the Scarecrow which teaches attendees not to fear anything. When Batman, still undercover, gets captured, he's kept at bay with some crocodiles in a moat. Scarecrow hits him with a dose of his new gas, which does the opposite of his fear toxin and makes the afflicted [[FearlessFool lose fear of anything]]. Batman climbs into the moat and gets attacked by the crocodiles. After Scarecrow walks away, Batman climbs out of the moat, soaked but unharmed, while the crocodiles are floating belly up.

* ForcefulKiss: Seymour Gray, the quiet mousey guy who has not spoken up in his eighteen years at Wayne Enterprises, grabs and kisses Sarah, Bruce Wayne's secretary, after barging into Bruce's office, shouting out his ideas and then loudly quitting the company.

* TruthSerums: while Scarecrow's gas doesn't exactly ''force'' people to tell the truth, it certainly removes very nearly every reason they have for keeping less socially convenient truths to themselves, as demonstrated with Seymour Gray's BrutalHonesty toward his boss and his coworker.

* AdaptationalBadass:
** Robin in the comic version of the story, Jason Todd, got easily captured by Scarecrow when trying to protect an injured racecar driver from him, thanks to a dose of fear gas. Tim Drake in this episode holds up much better and keeps Batman in line.
** Inverted with Bruce, who was constantly fighting the fear toxin to save Robin and to overcome his lack of inhibitions.

The episode's central conceit is [[https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1138117.html based on a comic from 1987]], though almost none of the specific story-beats are adapted.

* FearIsNormal: This is a subtle but recurring {{Aesop}} throughout the episode, as the Scarecrow's new fear-''removing'' toxin inflicts significantly more disturbing effects on Gotham than his usual tricks, even bringing Batman to the cusp of breaking ThouShaltNotKill. It's Robin, who remains unafflicted, who ultimately has to pull his mentor back from the brink

* LighterAndSofter: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in regards to the comic it was loosely based on - largely because the writer of said comic, Mike W. Barr, was a master of MoodWhiplash. The comic's ''overall'' tone is much airier (the opening splash is even a deliberate recreation of the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age style]]) and features things like Batman waltzing with killer tractors, but it also features Scarecrow casually talking a man into suicide, a pretty horrific image of Batman burning alive, and the grim vision of Jason's tombstone closing out the final page.

** Inverted with Bruce, who was constantly fighting the fear toxin to save Robin, invoking AdultFear to overcome his lack of inhibitions.