Two-Face
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- This article is about the DC comics villain. For the Nigerian musician, see 2face Idibia. For the American music producer, see Dave Jonsen (alias Harvey Dent).
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Two-Face is a fictional character in the DC Comics Universe, a villain and enemy of Batman. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger he first appeared in Detective Comics #66 (August 1942).
Bob Kane was inspired by a movie poster advertising the Spencer Tracy film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and conceived the idea of a villain with a dual personality. Two-Face was once Harvey Dent, District Attorney of Gotham City and close ally of Batman. After a criminal disfigured half of his face with acid, Dent became the insane crime boss Two-Face who would choose to do either good or evil depending upon the results of flipping a coin — a device which was taken from the 1932 version of Scarface.
Originally, he was one of many gimmick-focused comic book villains, plotting crimes based around the number two, such as robbing Gotham Second National Bank at 2:00 on February 2. In recent years, writers have portrayed his obsession with duality and his criminal behavior as the result of multiple personality disorder and a history of child abuse. He obsessively makes all important decisions by flipping a two-headed coin, one side of which is scratched. While Dent claims his Two-Face persona is a result of his disfigurement, his face has been restored several times, only to be damaged once again by his own doing.
Although too gruesome for the 1960s television show that popularized Batman and much of his rogues gallery, Two-Face has been a prominent foe of the Dark Knight and was played by Tommy Lee Jones in the 1995 film Batman Forever. The Harvey Dent character will also play a part in the upcoming film The Dark Knight, portrayed by Aaron Eckhart.
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[edit] Origin
When he first appeared in Detective Comics #66, the character's name was Harvey Kent, but his name was changed to Harvey Dent in order to avoid unnecessary association with Clark Kent/Superman. The media nicknamed the young district attorney "Apollo" for his good looks. At 26, he was the youngest district attorney ever to serve Gotham City. He was elected about six months before Batman, then returning home from travels abroad, began his war on crime, as depicted in the events of Batman: Year One.
His campaign against crime ended tragically when Sal "Boss" Maroni, a crime boss whom Dent was prosecuting, threw sulfuric acid in Dent's face, horribly scarring his left hand and the left half of his face while leaving the other half undamaged. Tormented by his hideous reflection, Dent scarred one side of Maroni's two-headed coin and let tosses of the coin decide whether he acted for good or evil in any situation.
The comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween elaborated on these events, with some changes. In it, Dent, Commissioner James Gordon, and Batman forged an alliance to rid Gotham of crime. Mafia chieftain Sal "The Boss" Maroni was still the criminal who disfigured Dent. Dent gets his trademark coin from his abusive father, who is referred to as being in some form of mental institution (his relationship with his father was earlier introduced in Batman Annual #14). Gilda Dent, who had been Dent's fiancée back in Detective Comics #66 and 68 (1942), was instead his wife in The Long Halloween (1998). By the end, Two-Face is incarcerated in Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
[edit] History and analysis
The scarring of half his face brought out his latent multiple personality disorder and transformed him into the villainous Two-Face. Obsessed with duality and opposites, Two-Face's trademark was crimes involving the number two. Furthermore, his related obsession with opposites reveals itself in such "quirks" as wearing clothes with dramatically different materials on each side.
Another of Two-Face's trademarks was that he did not consistently go through with his evil deeds; every time he contemplated committing a crime, he flipped a two-headed coin, one side of which was scratched. Only if the coin came up scratched-side did Two-Face go ahead and commit the crime, never questioning the result of the toss. Recent interpretations portray this compulsion as a struggle between Dent's evil "Two-Face" personality and his former, law-abiding self. It is also, as Two-Face himself implies in The Long Halloween as well as other stories, a mockery of the law that he lived by and fought for prior to his disfigurement.
[edit] Publication history
The character only made three appearances in the 1940s, and appeared twice in the 1950s (not counting the impostors mentioned below). By this time, he was dropped in favor of more "kid friendly" villains, though he did appear in a 1968 issue of World's Finest Comics (number 173), in which Batman declared him to be the villain he most fears. In 1971, writer Dennis O'Neil brought Two-Face back, and it was then that he became one of Batman's arch-enemies.
In the 1980s, Frank Miller rewrote Two-Face's origin, making him a victim of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Miller also introduced a much stronger aspect to the dual nature, using Two-Face as a metaphor for the charitable and hostile sides of human nature. In this incarnation, Two-Face/Dent was reimagined as a tragic character, with a back story that included an abusive, alcoholic father and struggling through law school. Miller further expanded on the character by making the pre-accident Dent a major heroic figure in Batman: Year One. Dent's past actions and ties to both Batman and Commissioner Gordon make him an unsettling and personal foe for both men.
During the same period, Two-Face was revealed to have murdered Jason Todd's father, who had been one of his henchmen. Todd later had Dent at his mercy and chose not to kill him, embracing the ideals of Batman. This storyline was later mirrored in the animated series of the late 1990s with Tim Drake substituting for Jason Todd.
During the Batman weekday comic strips published during the 1980s, the origin-story was given a slight adjustment. In this version, Harvey Dent was scarred by a vial of acid intended for the Joker, thrown by an unnamed bystander.
In 1989, writer Grant Morrison portrayed Dent's dependence on his coin in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. The doctors in the asylum attempted to destroy his evil personality by taking away his coin and replacing it with a die and eventually a tarot deck. Effectively giving him 78 options, Dent could no longer decide on what to do. At the end of the graphic novel, Batman gives Dent his coin back, telling him to decide his (Batman’s) fate with the flip of the coin. Harvey Dent lets Batman go, despite the scarred side of the coin being face up.
Throughout the history of the Batman franchise, attempts have been made to repair his facial scars, but they have not yet cured his insanity; he simply destroys the one side of his face and becomes Two-Face once again.
During the aftermath of the earthquake that left Gotham City in shambles, Two-Face carved out a sizable portion of ruined city for himself. He took up residence in Gotham City Hall, maintaining a relatively sophisticated lifestyle. His empire was eventually brought down by Bane, who, in the employ of Lex Luthor, devastated Two-Face's gang during his destruction of the city's Hall of Records. Two-Face kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and put him on trial for his activities after Gotham City was declared a No Man's Land, with Two-Face as both judge and prosecutor. Gordon played upon Two-Face's split psyche to demand Harvey Dent as his defense attorney. Dent cross-examined Two-Face and won an acquittal for Gordon, determining that Two-Face had effectively blackmailed Gordon by implying that he had committed murders to aid the Commissioner.
It was also during this time that Two-Face met detective Renee Montoya. Montoya was able to reach the Dent persona in Two-Face, and she was kind to him. He fell in love with her, though the romance was one-sided. Later, in the series Gotham Central, he outed her as a lesbian and framed her for murder, hoping that if he took everything from her, she would be left with no choice but to be with him. She was furious, and the two fought for control of his gun until Batman intervened, putting Two-Face back in Arkham.
In the Two-Face one shot book, Two-Face leads a crusade against Gotham City, culminating in the capturing of his own father to humiliate and kill on live television for the years of abuse he suffered. This story revealed that, despite his apparent hatred for his abusive father, Dent still loved him, paying for an expensive home for him rather than allowing him to live in a slum. At the end of the book, Dent and Two-Face argue in thought, Two-Face calling Dent "spineless." Dent proves Two-Face wrong, however, choosing to jump off a building and end his life just to put a stop to Two-Face. Two-Face was surprised when the coin flip came up scarred, but abided by the decision and jumped. Batman caught Dent, but the shock of the fall seemed to (at least temporarily) destroy the Two-Face side of his psyche.
Two-Face is also at odds with his ex-wife Gilda, as Two-Face believes their marriage failed as he was unable to give her children. She later married Paul Janus (the events of Two-Face Strikes Twice), whom Two-Face had attempted to frame as a criminal by kidnapping him and replacing him with a stand-in, whom Two-Face "disfigured" with makeup to make it look as if Janus had gone insane just as Two-Face had. Eventually caught by Batman, Two-Face was sent away and Gilda and Janus reunited. Some time later (the time frame is never specified, though a young Dick Grayson is Robin in the first part, and Tim Drake is Robin in the second part, so several years are likely), Gilda gave birth to twins, prompting Two-Face to escape once more and take the twins hostage, as he had believed them to be conceived by Janus using an experimental fertility drug. They were not, however, to the disappointment of Dr. Moon, the black market doctor with whom he was working. The end of the book reveals a surprise twist; Batman learns from Gilda that Janus is not the father of Gilda's twins - Dent is. Some of Harvey's sperm had been frozen after a death threat had been made against him, and was used to give birth to the twins. Batman is able to use this information to convince Dent to free the twins and turn himself in.
In the storyline Batman: Hush, Dent's face was repaired once more via plastic surgery. This time around, only the Harvey Dent persona exists. However, he ended up taking the law into his own hands twice: once by using his ability to manipulate the legal system to free the Joker, and then again by shooting the serial killer Hush, but manipulates the courts into setting him free, as Gotham's prosecutors wouldn't attempt to charge him without a body.
In Detective Comics #817, as part of DC's One Year Later storyline, it was revealed that, at Batman's request and with training, Dent had become a vigilante protector of Gotham City in most of Batman's absence of nearly a year. He was reluctant to take the job, but Batman assured him doing good would atone him of his past crimes. After a month of training, they fought Firebug and Mr. Freeze, before Batman left for a year. Soon, Dent found himself enjoying his new role, but his methods were seemingly more extreme and less refined than Batman's. Upon Batman's return, Dent began to feel unnecessary and unappreciated, which prompted the return of the "Two-Face" persona (seen and heard by Dent through hallucinations). His feelings of uselessness were compounded by a series of mysterious killings that seemed to have been committed by Two-Face; the villains KGBeast, Magpie, The Ventriloquist, and Orca were all shot twice in the head with a double-barrelled pistol, implying that Dent was the perpetrator. When Batman confronted Dent about these deaths, asking Dent to confirm that he was not responsible, Dent refused to give a definite answer regarding his involvement in these deaths. He then detonated a bomb in his apartment and left Batman dazed as he fled.
Despite escaping the explosion physically unscathed to a motel, Dent suffered a crisis of conscience and a mental battle with his "Two-Face" personality. Although evidence was later uncovered by Batman that exonerated Harvey Dent for the murders, it was too late to do anything to save him. Prompted by resentment and a paranoid reaction to Batman's questioning of him, Dent scarred half his face with nitric acid and a scalpel, becoming Two-Face once again. Blaming Batman for his return (despite Batman's having consistently defended him to the authorities), Two-Face immediately went on a rampage, threatening to destroy the Gotham Zoo (having retained two of every animal - including two humans) before escaping to fight Batman another day. He is currently at large, and his whereabouts and motives are unknown.
[edit] Physical appearance
Two-Face is generally depicted with the left side of his face a twisted, discolored mess, with his lips and eyelids pulled back and his hair discolored or burned off. His left hand matches in some interpretations, while it is undamaged in others. The coloration of his deformity also seems to be at the whim of the colorist at the time, though green or purple seem to be the most common.
The severity of the disformations also vary. Most early versions of Two-Face depict his hair, ear and lips as mutilated, but intact. Long Halloween and Dark Victory, however, depict Dent's scarred side with no hair, and the skin burned so badly that he no longer has his ear lobe, eye lid, or lips. What remains is colored pink. This look has also been adopted somewhat for his current disfigurement as part of One Year Later: although he retains his eye lids and lips, his ear lobe and hair are gone. His skin is also a dark red. His left hand may or may not be scarred to match his face, depending on the artist. There is also some question as to whether he retains vision in his left eye or is partially blind due to the acid strike.
[edit] Other comic book appearances
As one of Batman's most recognizable and popular opponents, Two-Face has appeared in numerous comics which are not considered part of the regular DC continuity, including:
- In the alternate future setting of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Dent's face was returned to normal, but at the unforeseen cost of permanently destroying the good-hearted Harvey Dent personality, leaving the monstrous Two-Face in control forever. As he put it when Batman captured him, "At least both sides match."
- Two-Face also appeared in the Elseworlds Batman/Daredevil crossover book, partnered with Marvel villain Mr. Hyde for the purpose of using Hyde as an "incubator" to grow an organic microchip, giving Hyde drugs to speed up this process (regardless of the fact that this would kill him). It was also revealed in this book that Harvey Dent had once been friends with Matt Murdock, the secret identity of Daredevil. In earlier times, Dent had believed in giving criminals a chance at rehabilitation, while Murdock believed in final justice - having reversed his outlook to what Dent had once believed, Murdock managed to talk Two-Face out of killing Hyde without Two-Face using his coin to decide. Two-Face, however, insisted that act was merely "the last of Harvey Dent."
- In the Elseworlds comic Batman: Masque, a pastiche of The Phantom of the Opera, Harvey Dent takes the role of the hideously scarred musical genius.
- In Amalgam Comics, Two-Face is combined with Spiderman's foe Green Goblin to create Two-Faced Goblin. He appears in Speed Demon #1 and Dark Claw Adventures #1.
[edit] Other Two-Faces
During Two-Face's third appearance in the 1940s, his face and sanity were restored. Although there was a demand to use him again, the writers did not want to retcon his last story, so they had other characters assume the role. The first imposter was Wilkins, Dent's butler. The second of the impostors was Paul Sloane, an actor who was set to star in a biography of Harvey Dent. However, an accident on the set caused him to be disfigured in a manner similar to Dent. Sloane's mind snapped, and he began to think he was Two-Face. The third and final impostor was a thug named George Blake, who was easily identified as an impostor because the wrong side of his face was scarred. Also noteworthy is a 1968 story where Batman himself is turned into Two-Face. Aside from a 1962 reprint of the Sloane storyline, this was Two-Face's only appearance in the 1960s. [1]
There was another Two-Face who appeared in the Batman Sunday strips. Actor Harvey Apollo was scarred with acid when testifying against a mobster in court. He only made a few appearances before accidentally hanging himself after slipping on the silver dollar piece he used as Two-Face.
As mentioned above, Harvey Dent did return as Two-Face in the 1970s, however with the establishment of the DC Comics multiverse, the Two-Face of Earth-Two (i.e. the character seen in the original Golden Age stories) was said to be Harvey Kent, who had not relapsed following his cure, and went on to attend Batman's wedding.
Paul Sloane was eventually introduced into post-Crisis continuity as Paul Sloan, the Charlatan, in Detective Comics #777 (Feb 2003). In this incarnation the actor had been hired by Gotham's costumed criminals to take Two Face's place in a scheme to kill Batman, Harvey's coin having come up unscarred. When the real Two-Face learnt about this he captured Sloan, and gave him the same acid burns he had. At the same time Scarecrow experimented on him with fear toxins. Now completely insane, the Charlatan became obsessed with both getting revenge on the criminals who hired him, and completing his mission to kill Batman.
[edit] Two-Face in other media
Two-Face was never depicted in the 1960s Batman movie or television series, although prior to the series' demise in 1968, Clint Eastwood was proposed for the role, reimagined as a news anchor who was disfigured when a television exploded in his face.
[edit] Movies
[edit] Batman (1989 film)
In the 1989 - 1997 Batman film franchise, Billy Dee Williams appeared as a pre-disfigurement Dent in Batman (1989). Apparently, Williams signed for this role knowing that D.A. Dent was to become Two-Face in further installments of the franchise. To ensure that he would be given the role, Williams negotiated a "pay or play" contract guaranteeing that Warner Brothers would have to cast him as Two-Face or buy him out. However, when Two-Face was to become the main villain in the third movie, director Tim Burton had abdicated to Joel Schumacher, who decided to hire Tommy Lee Jones, and agreed to pay Williams for his cooperation allowing them to use the character.
[edit] Batman Forever
The post-disfigurement Two-Face (and pre- in a brief scene showing the acid attack responsible on a TV) was played by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995) portraying the villainous equal to Jim Carrey's Riddler. This "Harvey Two-Face" was a campier character, with no trace of the inner emotional struggle between his good and evil personalities that the post-Miller comics had emphasized. The movie instead had him cod-philosophizing on the unfairness of fate, and played up the "two" gimmick to the point where Two-Face even referred to himself in the plural. In Forever, Two-Face is responsible for the origin of Robin, as he kills the rest of Dick Grayson's family. Like the Joker and the Penguin in the previous movies, Two-Face appears to get killed off at the end of the movie: he flips a coin to decide if he will shoot Batman, and Batman tosses a handful of identical coins into the air. Two-Face panics and tries to find his coin, stumbling and falling to a spikey and watery death. In the movie, he learned that Batman is Bruce Wayne after being told that he has two minds about everything in his life. This portrayal of Two-Face upset many fans, particularly in one scene where he is shown repeatedly flipping his coin to achieve a result he wants rather than accepting whatever fate the coin dictates.
In Batman & Robin, when Bane breaks into Arkham Asylum's storage room to get Mr. Freeze's cryogenic suit, both Two-Face and Riddler's costumes are visible in the background as a cameo.
[edit] The Dark Knight
In a June 2005 interview with Premiere magazine, screenwriter David S. Goyer said that in the sequel, Harvey Dent would help Batman and policeman James Gordon bring down the Joker, whose presence was hinted at the end of Batman Begins. Goyer went on to say that in the third film, the Joker would go on trial and scar Dent in the process.[2]. In October 2006, director Christopher Nolan confirmed that Harvey Dent would be introduced in the sequel, but a casting decision had not been made yet.[3] In February 2007, Aaron Eckhart was confirmed to play Harvey Dent. [4]Eckhart has stated that the Two-Face persona will make an appearance in the film. [5]
[edit] DC Animated Universe
The Two-Face of the DC Animated Universe was praised by many fans. Some were upset that his scarring took place in a chemical plant instead of being scarred by a crime boss in court, but according to Timm, this was changed to fit the storyline. Timm has stated that he wanted Two-Face/Harvey Dent to have a Sicilian accent; Al Pacino was actually offered to voice the character at one point, but declined.[citation needed]
[edit] Batman: The Animated Series
In Batman: The Animated Series, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, voiced by Richard Moll, suffered from deep-seated psychological trauma resulting from years of repressing anger. As a result, he developed an alternate personality, "Big Bad Harv", who was as evil as his outer appearance was noble. "Big Bad Harv" would sometimes come out in the form of violent bursts of anger. Eventually, Gotham City crime boss Rupert Thorne got his hands on Dent's psychological records and threatened to blackmail him with it. During an encounter with Thorne in a chemical plant, Dent lost his temper, putting his "Big Bad Harv" personality in control, and went on a violent rampage, which eventually resulted in a massive explosion in the plant. The explosion severely damaged the left side of his face (with damage quickly spreading to the entire left side of his body), and the stress of the events left "Big Bad Harv" in largely permanent control of Dent's personality. Batman, who as Bruce Wayne was Dent's best friend, was tormented by having to apprehend him again and again, gradually losing hope that he could ever be cured. Ironically, however, Two-Face once unknowingly protected Batman's secret identity after Hugo Strange discovered it and attempted to auction it off to Gotham's top criminals. ("I know Bruce Wayne! If he's Batman, I'm the King of England!")
Prior to his disfigurement, Harvey Dent was only featured twice. In "On Leather Wings", he plans to prosecute Batman if the police can apprehend him; and in "Pretty Poison", Poison Ivy woos her way into Dent's life as a possible fiancee in an attempt to kill him, for what she believed to be a horrific act Dent had committed - nearly killing off an endangered breed of flower by breaking ground on the construction site for Stonegate Penitentiary, where the flower grew. (Some time after this he became engaged to a woman named Grace, as revealed shortly before his disfigurement in the episode "Two-Face Part 1")
[edit] The New Batman Adventures and other DC animated appearances
In the final episode of The New Batman Adventures, Dent's personality fragmented a third time, creating a superego personality called "The Judge", a violent court-themed vigilante that attempted to crush the id that was Two-Face. Dent, looking to eradicate this new threat to him, had no idea that he himself was The Judge. A similar storyline appeared in the comic books - however, in the books, Dent's third persona was called Janus, a reference to the Roman god of doors who had two faces, one facing forward, the other backward.
As in Batman Forever, this animated version of Two-Face is also directly connected to the origin of a Robin: Tim Drake, whose father was Two-Face's henchman. This combined the origin and personality of the Post-Crisis Jason Todd with the name of Tim Drake, Todd's comic book successor. Tim's father was trying to hide the binary components of a toxic chemical Two-Face planned on using to hold the city hostage. Suspecting that Drake knew where the chemicals were hidden, Two-Face scoured the city looking for him. Fleeing for his life, Tim eventually crossed paths with Batman and helped him bring Two-Face to justice, paving the way for his transformation into Robin.
In Batman Beyond, Two-Face only appeared in a training simulator used by Terry McGinnis, and again as a mannequin in the Batcave. In the beginning of the unedited version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Bruce Wayne decapitated the Two-Face mannequin with a batarang.
The final appearance of this version of Two-Face was a cameo in Justice League. In the episode A Better World, Part 2, an alternate-reality Two-Face appeared as the janitor of Arkham Asylum. He had been lobotomized by that world's Fascist Superman.
[edit] The Batman
Neither Two-Face or Harvey Dent have appeared in the animated series The Batman, although elements of the character, including the concept of a law-enforcing friend of Bruce Wayne being turned into a horribly defaced villain, are present in the show's original interpretation of Clayface.
[edit] Video games
Two-Face has also appeared in several Batman-related video games. A pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent appeared as a hostage of Poison Ivy in the video game Batman: The Animated Series (which carried Ivy's vendetta against Harvey for being indirectly responsible for the destruction of an endangered plant in the episode Pretty Poison). As Two-Face he was a boss in The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Super NES, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega Genesis, the video game adaptations of Batman Forever and Batman: Chaos in Gotham (in which he is the final boss).
[edit] Trivia
- Duela Dent was originally intended to be the daughter of Two-Face. Creator Bob Rozakis stated, "It didn't take too long to decide whose daughter she would turn out to be. After all, the only married villain was Two-Face. I convinced Julie (and associate editor E. Nelson Bridwell, the acknowledged keeper of DC's historical consistency) that Harvey and Gilda Dent had a daughter, that Harvey had been disappointed because she wasn't twins, and that they'd named her Duela." [6]
[edit] Cultural references
- In a 1997 episode of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza have the following exchange about a woman Jerry is dating:
- GEORGE: So, attractive one day - not attractive the next?
- JERRY: Have you come across this?
- GEORGE: Yes, I am familiar with this syndrome -- she's a two-face.
- JERRY: Like the Batman villain?
- GEORGE: If that helps you.
- Bat Thumb features a villain named No-Face, a parody of Two-Face.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] See also
| Batman | |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Bob Kane • Bill Finger • Other writers and artists |
| Supporting Characters: | Robin (Tim Drake) • Nightwing (Dick Grayson) • Batgirl • Batwoman • Alfred Pennyworth • Lucius Fox • Barbara Gordon • Commissioner Gordon • Harvey Bullock |
| Villains: | Bane • Catwoman • Clayface • Harley Quinn • Joker • Killer Croc • Mr. Freeze • Penguin • Poison Ivy • Ra's al Ghul • Red Hood (Jason Todd) • Riddler • Scarecrow • Two-Face • Other villains |
| Locations: | Arkham Asylum • Batcave • Gotham City • Wayne Enterprises • Wayne Manor |
| Miscellanea: | Batarang • Batmobile • Batsuit • Popular media • Publications • Storylines • Alternate versions of Batman |
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Fictional gangsters | Fictional Americans in DC Comics | Fictional characters with multiple personalities | Fictional lawyers | Fictional murderers | 1942 introductions | DC Comics supervillains | Golden Age supervillains | Fictional child abuse victims
