Two-Face
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- This article is about the DC comics supervillain. For the Nigerian musician, see 2face Idibia. And also for the American music producer, see Dave Jonsen (alias Harvey Dent).
Two-Face (Harvey Dent) is a DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of Batman. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, he first appeared in Detective Comics 66 (1941). He was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Two-Face was once Harvey Dent, District Attorney of Gotham City and close ally of Batman. After criminal "Boss" Maroni disfigured half of his face by throwing acid at him, he became the insane crime boss Two-Face. 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 more recent years, more serious-minded writers have portrayed his obsession with duality and his criminal behaviour as the result of multiple personality disorder.
Although too gruesome for the 1960s television show that popularized Batman and much of his rogues gallery, Two-Face has been a prominent Batman foe and was played by Tommy Lee Jones in the 1995 film Batman Forever. In the comics, Two-Face often formed temporary alliances with Gotham City's other criminals, in particular The Joker and The Penguin.
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. His left hand matches in some interpretations, while it is undamaged in others. The Long Halloween, however, featured the left half of his face as acid-burned, the skin burned away from his eye and mouth, and with no hair.
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Full history and analysis
Originally, the character's name was Harvey Kent, but his name was changed to avoid unnecessary association with Clark Kent/Superman. He was nicknamed "Apollo" Kent by the media for his good looks. Dent, Commissioner James Gordon, and Batman once forged an alliance to rid Gotham City of crime. This alliance ended tragically when a crime boss whom Dent was prosecuting threw acid in his face, horribly scarring the left half while leaving the other half undamaged. The post-Crisis version of these events are recounted in the comic book miniseries, Batman: The Long Halloween. In this book, Mafia chieftain Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni was the criminal who disfigured Dent.
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 things like wearing clothes with dramatically different materials on each side.
Another trademark was that Two-Face was not consistently evil; every time he contemplated committing a crime, he flipped a two-headed coin, one side of which was scratched. (The coin was originally the evidence the D.A. Dent used to prove that Maroni was the person who committed the murder for which he was being tried. The coin was a known lucky piece that Maroni always had with him; it placed him at the crime scene. Dent blamed the coin for his disfigurement and, with a dagger, scarred one side to reflect his own disfigurement) 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.
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 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 (the second Robin) father for failing him in some way. 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 nineties with Tim Drake substituting for Jason Todd.
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 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. In what is arguably one of the most powerful sequences of the storyline, Harvey Dent cross-examined Two-Face and won an acquittal of Gordon.
It was also during this time that Two-Face met the detective Renee Montoya. Montoya was able to reach the Harvey persona in Two-Face, and was kind to him. He fell in love with her, though the romance was one-sided. After the earthquake, 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 Asylum.
In the story line 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 Hush (Thomas Elliot), but managing to manipulate 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, it was revealed that Harvey Dent had become a vigilante protector of Gotham City in Batman's absence. His methods are more extreme, however, as he threw the KGBeast off a roof and seemingly shot him twice in the head. The villains Magpie and The Ventriloquist (comics) also appear to be among his victims. His motives are unknown at this time, although Dent appears to be suffering hallucinations where he is both seeing and hearing the 'Two-Face' side of his persona again, suggesting a possible return.
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.
Two-Face in other media
Two-Face was not 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. The character of Two-Face, however, was labeled by producers as too violent for the "kid-friendly" attitude that surrounded the show.
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 became Two-Face in further installments of the franchise. He wrote his contract so that, should the character appear in a sequel, Williams was to play it or he would receive an amount of money. However, when Two-Face was to became 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.
The post-disfigurement Two-Face was played by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995) as 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 played up the "two" gimmick, to the point that Two-Face even referred to himself in plural. In Forever, Two-Face is indirectly responsible for the origin of Robin/Dick Grayson, as he and his henchmen cause a freak accident which kills the rest of Grayson's family. Like the Joker and the Penguin in the previous movies, Two-Face is killed off at the end of the movie. This portrayal of Two-Face upset many fans, particularly in one scene where he is shown repeatedly flipping his coin to get the result he wants.
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, and so developed an alternate personality, known as "Big Bad Harv," who was as evil as his outer appearance was noble. This alternate 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: "That's absurd! I know Bruce Wayne. If he's Batman, I'm the King of England."
In later episodes, Dent's personality fragmented a third time, creating a superego personality called "The Judge", a violent court-themed viglante 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.
Two-Face never reappeared in any of the D.C. animated series (although he did appear in the comic spin-offs from these series). His only appearance in Batman Beyond was in the form of a mannequin in the Batcave. The ease in which an aged Bruce Wayne beheads this mannequin with a batarang, however, may suggest that in this reality Two-Face was never cured.
As in Batman Forever, this version of Two-Face is also directly connected to the origin of a Robin: Tim Drake, whose father was Two-Face's henchman. This was to combine the two Boy Wonders after Dick Grayson of Jason Todd and Tim Drake. 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.
Future incarnations
Reportedly, director Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer have expressed interest in utilizing the character in a possible sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. Although there has been no direct confirmation that Two-Face will appear in the sequels, it has been confirmed that the character of Harvey Dent will appear; it would seem logical to suggest that Dent will be scarred over the course of one of the movies (presumably the second), thus triggering his transformation into Two-Face. It has been suggested (although not directly confirmed) that Dent will be scarred by the Joker during the course of the second movie, leaving him as the main villain for the third movie.
As for actors proposed to play Dent / Two-Face, the fan favorite is Liev Schreiber [1] with Guy Pearce closely following (as Pearce starred in Nolan's breakthrough film Memento and was supposedly to appear in a camero role as Harvey Dent in Batman Begins, this would appear to increase his chances of appearing in the movie). Recently, Jake Gyllenhaal has been mentioned as the most likely during filming of The Prestige, but he is has proven to be a rather unpopular candidate among fans - mainly due to his role in Brokeback Mountain, where he played a homosexual cowboy. It should be stressed that no casting decisions have been confirmed or denied as of present.
Cultural references
- In a 1997 episode of the American situation comedy Seinfeld, Jerry and George 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 ...
- Captain Planet villain Doctor Blight has the left side of her face scarred in a similar manner, though keeps the scars covered with an overgrowth of long hair. Her hair is also a split color, blonde on the right and white on the left. She lacks the duality, though she appears to have already gone completely insane.
- Transformers Armada villain Sideways was named "Double Face" in Japan, a possible variation of "Two Face". The character had a dual nature, playing both Autobot and Decepticon.
Bibliography
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