#540 is a hallucination by scarecrow

[fancyhandsbakery]

Like father (and mother), like son

Detective Comics #540 and Detective Comics #526

[whothefuckisjasonpetertodd]

Detective Comics Vol 1 (1937) 540

We begin where „Batman“ left off, with Jason wrestling Scarecrow off his back and successfully smashing his fear transmitter, causing Scarecrow to retreat to his house, which is like a giant carnival haunted house full of cheap jump scares. Unfortunately, he does eventually run into Scarecrow with his fear skull and hallucinates falling into a dark room full of axe-wielding Scarecrows. He quickly realizes that they are dummies. All Kinds Of Smart: 10

Meanwhile, Batman realizes that the “dead Robin” he’s seen is just a hallucination. He smashes the fear skull and calls first GCPD, where Bullock informs him that Robin is not there before narrowly escaping an assassination attempt, then Alfred, who tells him Jason is not at the manor either. He deduces that Jason is at Scarecrow’s house and finds him just as Jason is starting to look for Scarecrow. His initial attempts to counteract the frequency of Scarecrow’s transmitter using the tech he found at the zoo are unsuccessful, but Jason assures him he’s already feeling better now that Bruce is here. Good Batdad: 13

On the fifth attempt, Batman finally manages to counteract the frequency and the confronts Scarecrow, who flees in fear upon seeing that his gadget is not working. Too bad he runs right into Robin, who has appropriated one of Scarecrow’s haunted house gimmicks for himself and knocks him out. He then calls out Batman on the fact that, if the jammers worked on individual brain frequencies and Scarecrow’s was attuned to him and Batman’s was attuned to Jason, then that meant Batman was not actually cured of his fear. Bruce assures him that the fact that Jason was alive and well was enough to gave him courage to power through. And so the two return to the manor together. All Kinds Of Smart: 11 Good Batdad: 14