Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman #115
In DC's Batman, Jonathan Crane's Scarecrow is planning to use a bigger and better version of the "fear bomb" he used in Batman Begins. The first film of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins saw Christian Bale's Batman going up against the combined forces of Liam Neeson's Ra's al Ghul and Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow as they planned to terrify Gotham into tearing itself apart using Crane's fear toxins. However, DC's current Fear State event sees Crane upping the ante with a much more efficient means that Batman might not be able to stop as easily (or at all).
In 2005's Batman Begins, Jonathan Crane develops his fear toxin while working for Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. Dumping the compound in Gotham's water supply, the plan is to use a stolen military-grade microwave emitter to vaporize the water when the time is right, essentially acting as the trigger that will set the fear toxin loose upon the citizens of Gotham. However, Batman is able to stop Ra's and the League of Shadows before they can get the emitter to the primary hub in Gotham, which would doom the city to its fears.
However, Crane's new attack on Gotham in the comics event known as Fear State sees Scarecrow attempting to push Gotham into greater levels of terror. While he's already taken great strides to make Gotham extremely fearful, he's now preparing to use the Mind Machine in Batman #115 from writer James Tynion IV and artist Jorge Jimenez, a massive mind-control device that had been used by the Unsanity Collective to free its members from their past traumas. Because the Mind Machine records and saves those traumas in its data banks, Scarecrow can use the device in reverse, unleashing the trauma and fear of a few hundred people on the entire city. It also looks as though Sean Mahoney's deeply disturbed Peacekeeper-01 will be the final upload before Crane triggers his new and better fear bomb to make Gotham experience a massive wave of fear unlike anything that's ever been felt before from his toxins.
The concept of Scarecrow attacking the mind directly rather than deploying his traditional fear toxins seen in prior comics and the movies has been an interesting one to say the least. It's certainly made his previously seen tactics during Fear State more realistic than most threats Batman has faced. That being said, the use of the Mind Machine to induce a city-wide mental breakdown of fear and trauma definitely kicks things up a notch. It's also possible that Batman will be too late and will be forced to find a way to correct the fears Scarecrow will unleash, rather than the Caped Crusader being able to stop Crane before he sets off his new bomb.
Either way, Scarecrow's plans for the Mind Machine and Peacekeeper-01 look to be much less complicated than the fear bomb used in Batman Begins. Furthermore, it does seem like Fear State is setting Crane up for more of an initial success with the Mind Machine, an indication that things are going to get a lot darker and more terrifying for Batman and Gotham City before they get better.