#49: Cress & Clay, Pt 3 (Bowers / Paisley)

You’re probably wondering who I am.

I wanted to be a supervillain when I grew up, but that’s a hard line to break into, especially in Metropolis where the opposing hero is just so darn super. That’s why I decided to hitch a ride to Gotham, where the normal heroes live, but, still outmatched, I guessed I needed an apprenticeship, so I lowered my career aspirations to sidekick. Unfortunately the bad guys don’t tend to be in the phonebook and you can’t just send in your résumé, so I started visiting them all in Arkham, one by one, claiming I’d found out they were my father - or in Ivy’s case, mother - with suitable histrionics. That’s where I got talking to them. First, there was Clayface, who told me he didn’t want to return to crime, then the Mad Hatter who despite my multitude of costume designs and nom de plumes only wanted me to be Alice, and finally the Scarecrow who told me to look him up when he got out and he’d see what he could do for me.

Or maybe I was a student, trying to finish her latest essay, who’d had enough of the banging and screaming coming from the next door apartment and went round to complain to Dr. Crane about the noise.

Or maybe I was a thrillseeker, wanting only the extreme rush of danger that the Scarecrow’s drugs could bring me.

I guess it doesn’t matter who I was, I’m just a nobody, a statistic, a person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. All that really matters is that I was Emily Reese and The Scarecrow killed me with his fear toxin, then played Pop-Up Pirate with my corpse to try and hide his involvement and dumped my body on a Gotham street where I was found by two investigators, some jerk called Coleman Clay and the super-intelligent Hugo Cress aka Edward Nigma..

Maybe you’re wondering how I can be telling you all this while I’m dead? Or maybe you wonder why I can’t remember my past? The answer’s simple, I’m just a figment of Edward Nigma’s drug-addled imagination. Ten seconds ago he was arriving at The Scarecrow’s apartment, but turns out the entrance was booby-trapped and now poor Eddie’s got fear-toxin pulsing through his veins while I’m standing here in this open grave of mine, dragging him back in, where he belongs, back to the land of death.

Of course, being dead isn’t his biggest fear. Sure, he’s scared of it, but it’s not as if he hasn’t done it before. He’s also scared of going crazy again, but it seems too late for that concern, judging by the riddles he keeps coming out with...

No, he knows it’s all a chemically-induced illusion, that’s it all in his mind, but try as he might he can’t get back to reality... Now, that’s the scary part.



Once upon a time, he was known as Clayface, but now he was trying to atone, calling himself Coleman Clay, trying to bring a girl’s murderer to justice. Her name was Emily Reese and her murderer was-

“What’s the Scarecrow’s favorite candy?” yelled Hugo Cress next to him, interrupting Clay’s train of thought. “Reese’s Pieces.”

That was right, the Scarecrow had murdered Emily and they’d come to apprehend him, but it looked like they’d walked into an ambush. Looked like their informant Sonny Rios had tipped off the Scarecrow about their visit.

The minute they’d gotten there, the gas grenades had gone off. His new associate Hugo had been expecting an attack, and brought along some breathing apparatus, but it had all happened before he even had time to wear it. Hugo had felt the full force of it, hallucinating and screaming and frothing at the mouth and ranting and raving and telling bad jokes. Fortunately the Scarecrow’s gas was mainly designed to act upon people that breathe, so it hardly affected Clay, apart from the monsters from Basil Karlo’s movies who occasionally leapt out at him, but as he kicked the door open and faced the Scarecrow, he knew there was only one monster of any import.

The Scarecrow was standing there, and thanks to his fear gas he looked like a one-hundred foot giant with fiery eyes and razor-sharp talons, but to Clay that still made him a two-bit punk in a tatty outfit.

“Fear, gentlemen, fear...” began the Scarecrow, but Clay’s fist flew at him, sending the giant figure across the room.

“I’m not scared,” said Clay.

“You should be,” said the Scarecrow, getting to his feet.

“I was just about to tell you the same thing.” Clay cracked his knuckles and approached the villain.



The Riddler watched the corpse of Emily Reese as she continued to comment on events, while her boney white hands clutched onto his ankles and dragged him deeper into the grave,

“And so, once again, The Riddler will return to the afterlife,” she said, melodramatically, as vultures and pterodactyls swarmed overhead in the deep green sky of his imagination.

“Won’t you shut up?” he said, pleased he’d finally torn himself out of the grasp of the riddles in his head. “How do you gag Reese?” he added. “With a spoon.”

“You’re crazy, Riddler,” she said, and he knew she was right. Back to being obsessed with riddles. He thought he’d put that behind him, becoming Hugo Cress, a man dressed in black, but now he was back in his familiar green question-marked garb, an E Nigma wrapped in The Riddler wrapped in her tight grip.. “They’ll take you back to Arkham, that’s where you belong,” she taunted. “Or do you belong here in the ground with me?”

“But this isn’t real, this isn’t happening,” he shouted, though he knew no-one would listen. His brilliant subconscious had concocted a trap for himself that he’d never break out of. Where was the Caped Crusader when you needed him?

“How do you wake up from a nightmare?” The Riddler riddled himself, and then he realized the answer was “Screaming”, but no matter how long he screamed for he didn’t wake up.



The Scarecrow’s lanky frame flopped around the room like a ragdoll, propelled by the fists of Clay, as Hugo Cress’s screams filled the room. Still, Clay didn’t have time to help his comrade, assuming he even could be helped. No, Clay had to keep a clear head, ignore the madness, and break every bone of the Scarecrow’s body. He needed vengeance, the kind of vengeance only his fists could deal out. The Scarecrow would pay for what he did to Emily Reese, and that payment would be in blood.



Emily Reese’s decaying hands pulled the Scarecrow, now silent, into the deep soft Earth.

“Good decision, Riddler, coming quietly.”

“The Scarecrow’s fear gas exaggerates your fears,” explained The Riddler, “drives you insane.”

“So, staying safe inside insanity?”

“Nope, just succumbing to my fears, getting them over with. I’ve been insane before, just want to get it over with so I can get out the other side.”

“But you’ll never wake up, the fear gas knows that’s your biggest fear.”

And with that she yanked him down into the grave, and as he lay there, her foot pushed down on his face, propelling it beneath the dirt, and then he heard the earth being shoveled on top of him. And so it ended, being buried alive. It was enough to drive anyone insa-

And then he was back in Arkham, laughing and screaming and shaking and strapped into a straitjacket. It was the Arkham he remembered, the vivid colors, the twisting walls, the floating question marks, the voices screaming riddles at him - not the white cold tiled walls and antiseptic smell that sane people experienced, no, not that, but the day-glo distorted Arkham he remembered. In the corner, an old turntable played Patsy Cline’s Crazy, while a white-faced man with green hair and a smile looked down at him and laughed.

“You’re crazy!” said The Joker.

“Crazy like a fox,” Edward replied, throwing back his head and laughing, almost wiping the smile off The Joker’s face. “Fear toxin drives people insane... kills them... because death’s their biggest fear... but not me, no, not me... been to Hell and back.”

“So, big deal, you’ll live,” said The Joker with a shrug and a smile and a kick to Edward’s head, “but you’ll still be insane.”

“Yep, and riddle me this, what do insane people fear the most?”

The Joker’s face lit up as the answer dawned on him. “Reality,” he said as the color faded from him, and the bright fairground attraction that was Arkham turned drab and bleak around him.

The Riddler nodded, as he prepared to face his greatest fear.



Edward didn’t know how long his madness had lasted, but when he finally opened his eyes, he found a crumpled figure beside him, straw leaking out of it.

Clay was standing there, looking in his direction, cracking his knuckles. “You’re using Cress as a hostage? But I want to punch him even more than you.”

“Snap out of it, Clay,” said Edward. “This is just a scarecrow.”.

“Yep, and the scumbag must pay for his crimes,” Clay said, walking toward him.

“No, not the Scarecrow, just a scarecrow. The fear toxin’s making you hallucinate.”

Clay looked at Edward in confusion. “But he’s The Scarecrow, I’ve been fighting him all this time you’ve been rolling around embarrassing yourself.”

“I’ve been embarrassing myself? You’re the one who’s been fighting a straw man!” Edward said, as he got to his feet, brandishing the dummy.

“Watch your lip, Cress,” Clay said, shaking his fist.

“You can call me Riddler,” said Edward, looking down at his black garb and wishing it was green.

“But I thought The Riddler was dead.”

“Yep, and now I’m making my comeback. And I guess I can call you-”

“Clay, Coleman Clay,” replied Clay,

“Sure, Clay, whatever makes you happy.”

“Wait a minute,” Clay said, “if that scarecrow isn’t The Scarecrow, where is he?”

Edward just put his index finger to his lips, signaling for Clay to be quiet, and then pointed to a closed door leading to an adjacent room.



The Scarecrow looked at the woman screaming in the chair and smiled. Time to check on his visitors now; he’d heard some banging in the room next door, but now he couldn’t hear anything over the woman’s screams. Now they’d have succumbed to his fear toxin, be gibbering wrecks, if not dead ones.

He opened the door, and pushed it open, only to see a big guy in a trenchcoat and hat, and another dressed all in black, wearing some makeshift breathing gizmo. The big guy’s fist was coming straight toward him.

“If you only had a brain,” said the big guy just before everything went black.



Coleman Clay was standing in a dark alley, looking up at where The Scarecrow’s lair had been. He’d left The Riddler there, entertaining The Scarecrow, now all hung up like his namesake. Seemed that The Riddler still hadn’t fully overcome the fear toxin and still had riddles to get out of his system, so he appreciated the captive audience. Meanwhile, Clay had been taking care of the dame, gotten her down to Gotham General, where fortunately they had an anti-toxin that Batman had once supplied them. Speaking of Batman, wasn’t it about time the guy showed up, tidied up the mess. What they really needed now was a bat-signal.

Then he looked up once again and saw a green light - looked like The Riddler had improvised.



Batman was back in Gotham, where he belonged. Sure, traveling around the globe building Batman Inc. was important work, but it was always nice to get home. As he swung from rooftop to rooftop, he saw a green question mark projected onto the side of a building. Swinging down to investigate, he tracked the light back to an adjacent apartment, where he found it emanating from a flashlight covered in green cellophane, and there in the darkness, The Scarecrow was hanging with a note pinned to his chest.

Batman grabbed the note. Looked like there were some new good guys in town, Cress and Clay. He grimaced, not because he was afraid of the competition, but because after signing their names, they’d put “The World’s Greatest Detectives”.

He took the piece of paper, ready to analyze it later, and then let The Scarecrow down and led him to the Batmobile.

“Want to know who those men were, Batman?” asked The Scarecrow.

“I’ll find out. I hate riddles.”

“Tell me about it.”.



It had been a long day for Cress and Clay and now it was time for them to part company.

“I’ll be seeing you around, I guess,” said Cress.

“Doesn’t have to be like that,” Clay replied. “We make a good partnership, what with the brain and the brawn... and whatever you bring to the table.”

“Thanks, but I don’t know if I want to go back to that kind of life.”

“Had enough of solving riddles?” Clay said.

Cress stared at him. “Maybe there’s more to life. Plus despite this dour dress sense, I’m still The Riddler underneath. Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of it, maybe I’m meant to be a villain. Maybe I just can’t handle reality.” For a second, his mind went back to the dead body of Emily Reese. He still didn’t know who she was, but now he didn’t want to know. Knowing who she’d been, who she could have been, might just make it worse. It was amazing how much the death of an unknown girl had affected him, but could a death change someone’s life, set them on a course to do good, to right wrongs, it just seemed too simplistic.

“So, we’re just a couple of villains,” said Clay.

“We could be heroes,” The Riddler suggested, unable to believe what he was saying, “or is that just for one day?”

“But who’s heard of a hero made of clay?”

“Great, so there’s a gap in the market,” said The Riddler, “plus Cress and Clay sounds a great name for a detective agency.

“I prefer Clay and Cress,”

“We’ll hammer it out tomorrow. Maybe pay Sonny Rios a visit too.”

The two of them walked off into the darkness.

“I always got top billing in the past,” grumbled Clay.

“Okay, okay, Clay and Cress, providing our logo can be green and maybe have some question marks.”

Clay laughed. “Eddie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”



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