Before I go any further, let’s give credit where it’s due. I first found out about the Straw Man from a YouTube video posted by Mr. Rogues. Mr. Rogues’s channel is dedicated to comic book characters, often villains, but also the occasional obscure heroes. He’ll probably cover a bit more detail than I will, so click the link to see what he had to say.
But if you’d rather read mine…thanks! and read on. Here’s the all-powerful Straw Man…
..as long as you don’t light a match.
The Straw Man originally went by the name Scarecrow, and he first appeared in the pages of a Marvel anthology series called Dead of Night, specifically the 11th issue from August of 1975. There were plans to spin the character off to his own solo series after that, or at least to make him a reoccurring character in future issues of Dead of Night, but Dead of Night was canceled and the solo series never happened. Straw Man/Scarecrow would have two more appearances in the 70s and one big one in the 90s, and that’s about all there is to it.
At any rate, the Straw Man was a scarecrow-like entity that appeared to reside in a painting of itself. It had all kinds of magical, lethal powers, but aside from a frightening laugh, it didn’t seem capable of speech. After a robbery of the painting went wrong, the Cult of Kalumai tried to actually buy the painting at an auction. It was instead bought by some innocent folks who would have been the Straw Man’s supporting cast if he’d come back more often. See, the Cult worshipped Kalumai (obviously), one of those evil demon things that never do anyone any good. You know, the kind where you have to wonder how things like that ever get any followers at all.
Regardless, the Cult would try something, the Scarecrow would emerge from the painting, dispense some justice in a manner that reminds me of the Spectre, and then he’s just go back into the painting. He was flammable, so you could slow him down by setting him on fire. See, the bodies he attacked with were more like avatars, and destroying one just meant he had to form a new one, and that took time. Apparently, the painting was actually of Kalumai, but someone painted the Scarecrow over it since the Scarecrow’s job is to protect the Earth from Kalumai.
That particular storyline would come to a conclusion in, of all things, an issue of Marvel Two-in-One where the Scarecrow joined forces with Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing, to stop the Cult one last time.
That might have been the end of it, but in the 90s, someone decided to bring him back for a storyline in the pages of Dr. Strange’s book. There, it came out the Scarecrow was one of the mysterious Fear Lords, a group of supernatural heavyweights that usually cause nothing but trouble.
However, unlike the others, Scarecrow was one of the good guys and he was looking to defend the Earth, not frighten everyone on it for more power. As such, he went to Earth to warn the Sorcerer Supreme, officially changing his name to “Straw Man” since there was some third-rate Daredevil villain that went by “Scarecrow” and he didn’t want to confuse anyone.
Right. The all-powerful fear entity decided to change his name to accommodate some C-list villain…and not because Batman had a much better-known enemy by that name at another company.
By this point, it also came out the Straw Man could talk telepathically, which certainly made explaining things to Dr. Strange easier, and when the case was over, he set up his own TV news network under a human avatar in order to make scary supernatural stuff better known and, as a result, less scary. You know, to rob the other Fear Lords of power by making the horrifying mundane.
That…may be the nastiest tactic a guy like him could use actually.
So, that’s the Straw Man. He runs a cable network now.
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